The Giant Among Us

13

The gray snow clouds streamed across the ominous white sky like battle standards, which, to Tavis, they were. The storm had hung back all day long, licking at Graytusk’s wooly heels as he ambled across glacier and valley, his sauntering gait lapping up miles as briskly as the strides of a galloping horse. For a while, the scout had thought the beast would stay ahead of the blizzard. But now, with the sky darkening toward dusk and hoarfrost swirling in the wind, he saw that his forecast had been little more than a forlorn hope. The clouds were pouring over the mountains with a speed that warned of the storm’s power, and already the mammoth’s fur was covered with those tiny snow stars that meant the blizzard would be as cold as it was ferocious.

Tavis ran his gaze around the broad cirque into which they were descending. The basin was shaped like a human jaw, with dozens of jagged spires surrounding a flat, mottled vale of pale meadows and swarthy stands of spruce. To the scout’s dismay, low-hanging clouds with long skirts of swirling snow already capped most of the peaks. Any of those pinnacles could be Split Mountain and he would never see it.

Tavis glanced over his shoulder, where Avner and Olchak rode. Both the boy and old man sat sideways, for their legs were too short to straddle the mammoth’s broad back. They held themselves in place by clutching a makeshift harness that Avner had rigged from a frost giant rope.

“Are you sure this is the valley, Olchak?” the scout asked.

The old man looked around the cirque. By the vacant look in his eye, Tavis could tell the traell did not recognize the place.

“A shortcut doesn’t do much good if we don’t know where it comes out,” the scout grumbled.

“You say ‘take Split Mountain fast!’ ” Olchak replied. “Olchak do that Mountain here somewhere-if not this valley, next one.”

“It’d better be this one,” Tavis muttered. “By the time we reach the floor, we won’t be able to see Graytusk’s trunk, much less Split Mountain.”

“What if we don’t find it?” asked Avner. The youth turned toward Tavis, the hood of his borrowed bearskin parka pulled far forward to shelter his face from the cold. Despite the boy’s precautions, his nose and cheeks had turned pallid white. “I mean, what if we don’t find Split Mountain tonight?”

Tavis fixed an icy glare on the youth, then drew a heavy fur muffler from his satchel. “Tie this over your face, Avner.” He tossed the scarf at the boy. “You’re already frostbitten.”

Without saying another word, the scout turned around to guide Graytusk into the basin. The task was largely unnecessary. The mammoth knew his own limitations and was traversing the slope at a shallow angle, taking care to pick solid footing and keep his immense weight squarely over his legs. The beast’s only fault lay in his habit of brushing against the goblet pines that flecked the hillside, forcing his passengers to keep ducking or risk being swept off their mount by a face full of stiff boughs. Tavis did his best to guide the mammoth away from the trees, but the creature seemed to grow only more stubborn as the storm worsened.

By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, a gauzy veil of snow had fallen over the valley. The thickets of weeping spruce ahead seemed no more than drooping silhouettes. The lush meadows of alpine grass became patches of unblemished white against a streaky background of blue-tinted pearl. Even the craggy peaks were hidden behind an impenetrable curtain of white. Tavis knew he and his companions would be hard-pressed to reach any of the pinnacles, much less the correct one.

Graytusk seemed to know exactly where he was going. The beast ambled onto the basin floor and crashed into the nearest spruce thicket. Tavis pressed himself tightly against the mammoth’s skull to keep from being swept off and hauled back on both ears. Graytusk merely flapped his head, nearly throwing the scout off, and broke into a small meadow. He raised his trunk and gave an ear-piercing trumpet, then stepped across a gurgling stream in a single stride.

“Wait!” Olchak called. “That Dragon Rock! Stop!”

Tavis could not comply. Their mount had taken charge of the journey and was continuing toward the next copse at a determined lope. The scout knew little about mammoth habits and could not say what had triggered Graytusk’s excitement Perhaps the beast smelled something good to eat, or was simply anxious to find a sheltered place before the full force of the blizzard hit. Whatever the reason, he would not stop.

Graytusk crashed into the next copse with a lowered head, snapping branches as thick as Tavis’s wrist. The scout pressed himself close to the beast’s neck and stretched a hand back toward Avner.

“Give me your rope,” Tavis ordered. “You can hold onto the mammoth’s fur.”

Avner struggled with the knot, dodging spruce boughs as he untied the makeshift harness. Finally, he freed the coarse line and passed it to Tavis, who used a slip-knot to fashion a running noose. When the mammoth emerged from the trees, the scout sat upright. As before, Graytusk raised his hairy trunk to bugle.

The scout tossed the noose. The loop passed over the upturned trunk and slipped down toward Graytusk’s mouth. Tavis pulled the slip-knot tight, pinching the nasal passages shut. A coarse snarl rumbled up from the mammoth’s chest and blasted out his open jaw. He began to huff through his mouth, filling the air with the cloying smell of half-digested grass.

Graytusk lumbered to a stop, tossing his head wildly about in a vain effort to toss the noose. The scout held the line taut, one hand wrapped in the rope and the other entwined in the mammoth’s long hair. With each tug, the beast only tightened the slipknot more. He began to spin in circles, trying to reach the cord with his tusks and contorting his neck into all manner of positions.

Tavis passed the rope to Avner. “Hold that tight.”

Graytusk tossed his head again, almost flinging the youth off his back.

“I’ll trryyyy!” Avner yelled.

The scout stretched forward and grabbed both ears, then steadily pulled back. Graytusk slowly seemed to understand what was required and stopped struggling.

“Should I give him some slack?” Avner asked.

Tavis nodded. He continued to pull back on Graytusk’s ears, but stayed ready to grab the rope, half expecting the mammoth to resume its struggle the minute the pressure was released.

Graytusk was smarter than that. He flipped the tip of his trunk back and ran his sensitive nostrils over the line, then stood fast.

Tavis looked back at Olchak. “What’s this about Dragon Rock?”

“Back there!” The old man pointed toward the copse behind them. He began to lower himself down Graytusk’s flank, using thick tangles of hair as handholds. “Come, I show you.”

Olchak’s legs sank to midcalf in dry, powdery snow. Tavis cringed, remembering that the alpine grass had been visible from the top of the ridge. By the time they found Split Mountain and recovered Brianna, the likelihood of avalanches would make it too dangerous to climb any steep slope. The only safe escape route would be down the valley, which was a grim prospect. The frost giants would certainly realize the same thing.

Olchak waded through the deepening snow, following the mammoth’s footprints into the spruce copse. Tavis pulled on one of Graytusk’s ears, trying to swing the beast around to follow. The mammoth stubbornly turned his head in the other direction and would not budge. The scout grabbed the trunk rope and gave a cautionary jerk, then tugged the ear again. This time, the creature reluctantly allowed his head to be dragged around, spitting a series of angry bugles from his hairy nose.

By the time Tavis got their mount turned around and moving, Olchak had disappeared into the copse. The scout released Graytusk’s ears and took the trunk rope from Avner. The mammoth resentfully plodded forward, dragging his feet through the snow and casting yearnful glances over his shoulder. They did not catch Olchak until they reached the stream where he had first called for a halt. The old man was standing on the bank, peering into the blizzard with both hands cupped around his eyes. Although the current kept the main channel open, thin sheets of silvery ice were rapidly forming along the edges of the gurgling waters.

Tavis stopped Graytusk beside Olchak. In the meadow across the stream, the scout could barely make out the lumpy silhouette of a rocky outcropping. The snow was falling too hard for him to determine its shape.

“Is that Dragon Rock?” the scout asked. “Will it help us find Split Mountain?”

Olchak nodded. Before he could speak, Graytusk flicked his head, casually running a tusk through the old traell and tossing him into the air. The old man came down in the deep snow across the stream, too surprised to cry out. The mammoth gave a satisfied snort, then twisted around to glare at Tavis with a heavy-lidded eye.

Olchak raised both hands to his abdomen and screamed. Even from across the stream, Tavis could see a dark stain creeping from beneath the old man.

“By Stronmaus’s angry fist!” Tavis pulled Graytusk’s trunk rope until the noose bit deep into the mammoth’s nose. He passed the line to Avner. “Keep that taut. If he so much as flinches-”

“I’ll pull as hard as I can,” the youth finished. He wrapped the line around both wrists and braced his feet against Graytusk’s enormous shoulder blades. “But don’t expect me to win a tug-of-war with a mammoth.”

“It shouldn’t come to that,” Tavis said. “His nose seems pretty sensitive.”

The scout lowered himself to the ground, holding onto Graytusk’s ear so he would swing with the head if the mammoth tried to gore him. The beast allowed Tavis to climb down without attacking, then watched with a single, enigmatic eye as the firbolg limped out of tusk range.

The scout went to the stream and waded into the icy water. Normally, he would have tried to cross without soaking his boots, since wet feet would freeze quickly in these plummeting temperatures. Unfortunately, he lacked the time to look for a dry ford, and his injured toe made it impossible to dance across the snow-capped boulders jutting up from the brook.

As the scout climbed out of the stream, Olchak clamped his jaw shut and fixed a bewildered gaze on Tavis’s face. The scout kneeled at the traell’s side and opened the flap of the old man’s blood-soaked parka. The hole underneath was as big as around as a human wrist, and ran all the way through the abdomen. The firbolg needed to look only a moment to know he would not save Olchak. He could pack punctures and sew gashes, but rejoining severed intestines and pierced spleens were tasks far beyond his meager talents.

“How look?” asked Olchak. “Not bad, Olchak think. It not feel that bad.”

Tavis looked up to find the old man staring at him. Olchak’s face was full of trust and hope. Not for the first time in his life, the scout wished lying came to him as easily as to humans. He closed the traell’s parka.

Olchak’s black eyes flashed in alarm. “What you doing?” he demanded. “Fix wound!”

Tavis shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do for you, my friend,” he said. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to die.”

The color drained from Olchak’s face. “No,” he said. “Hole not hurt that bad.”

“You’re still shocked. The pain will come in a little while,” Tavis answered. “I’m sorry.”

Olchak looked away. Deciding it would be best to allow the old man a few moments to consider his fate, the scout stood and gazed toward the craggy outcropping the traell had called Dragon Rock. A whistling wind was blowing down from the ridge they had descended earlier, whipping the snow into an opaque white curtain. Tavis could not see the faintest hint of the crag’s silhouette, or even of the first spruce copse through which they had passed. Trying to look across the meadow was like trying to stare through the inside of his own eyelids, save that he saw a white blur instead of a dark one.

Behind Tavis, Avner’s voice rang out above the whistling wind. “Whoa! Stop!” the boy yelled. “Stand-”

The sentence ended with a splash.

Tavis whirled around. Through the blowing snow he saw Graytusk’s hazy back lying parallel to the stream. Avner was in the churning current, clinging to the trunk rope to keep himself from being swept downstream. The mammoth rolled to his knees, dragging the youth onto the icy shore.

“Hold that line!” Tavis yelled, leaping into the stream. “Don’t let go!”

“Who c-c-can let g-go?” Avner chattered. “My hands are f-f-frozen sssstiff!”

The scout splashed across the stream in three quick strides, arriving at the shore as Graytusk began to rise. He leaped over Avner’s half-frozen form, then dodged past a tusk and grabbed the rope close to the slip knot. The mammoth stood, lifting the firbolg into the air. Tavis braced his feet against the side of the beast’s head and cinched the noose down so tightly that blood oozed up through the long fur. The creature huffed in pain and tried to shake the scout off, but only tightened the knot.

After struggling a few more moments, Graytusk abruptly began to tremble. With a great sigh of resignation, the mammoth sank to his knees, then curled the tip of his trunk back to gently pat Tavis on the head. After that, the beast remained motionless, save for his body’s uncontrollable quivering.

“I th-think he’s g-g-given up,” Avner said. The youth was standing a pace behind Tavis, still holding the end of the rope.

The scout looked into Graytusk’s dark eye. When the mammoth lowered his gaze and looked away, Tavis stepped into the snow. He tied the slip knot in place and stepped away.

The mammoth continued to tremble and look at the ground.

“That’s right,” Tavis said. “If you want that knot loosened, you have to wait for me.”

When Graytusk did not move, the scout felt secure in attending to Avner. After being dumped in the stream, the youth’s clothes were thoroughly soaked. More importantly, his skin felt as cold as ice, and he was shivering uncontrollably.

Tavis pulled the end of the rope from Avner’s frozen hands and let it fall to the ground. He stripped the boy’s icy clothes off and replaced them with his own cloak. The bitter wind instantly bit through the scout’s tunic and breeches, but he ignored the stinging pain. Firbolgs could endure frigid temperatures with little more than discomfort, but wet humans froze to death with distressing frequency.

Once he had Avner swaddled in his cloak, the firbolg carried the youth over to Graytusk’s leeward side and nestled him in the woolly hollow between the mammoth’s front leg and chest. Tavis was concerned about leaving the boy there alone, but he suspected he had finally won the war of wills with the beast, and Avner needed the warmth.

“I’ll go and find a good place to start a fire,” the scout said. “You stay close to Graytusk until I get back.”

“Wh-what about B-Brianna?” the youth asked. “If we-we m-m-miss the r-rendezvous, we’ll n-n-never f-find her.”

“You’ll have to stay behind,” Tavis said. He didn’t like the thought of leaving the youth half-frozen in a blizzard, but he had no choice. His duty to the queen demanded that he continue to search for Split Mountain, no matter what the cost to himself or others. “I’ll leave you with plenty of wood. Once you’re warm, you know enough to take care of yourself.”

“No!” Avner shouted. “I’m g-going w-with you.”

Tavis shook his head. “You could freeze.”

“I’ll f-follow anyway,” the youth warned. “I will.”

Tavis sighed, knowing he would not win this argument. Later, after the cold wore down the boy’s willpower, he would try again. “You can come,” the scout said. “But the instant you start to feel sleepy-”

“I’ll l-let you know,” Avner promised. “You j-just worry about f-finding Split M-Mountain.”

Tavis crossed the stream again-his feet were already beginning to grow numb from the cold-and struggled through the blizzard to Olchak’s side. The old man was covered head to foot beneath a fleecy white mound. As the scout brushed the snow away, he saw that the traell’s eyes had glassed over.

“Olchak, I need to ask you something.”

The old man grasped Tavis’s arm and pulled the scout’s ear close to his quivering lips. “Now it hurt.”

Tavis nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need to know about the Dragon Rock.”

“Take Olchak home, Tavis,” Olchak pleaded. “ Traells got good shaman there.”

Tavis shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Even if you lived that long-which you wouldn’t-my duty is to the queen. I must find Split Mountain. Does Dragon Rock point toward it?”

“What good is queen to me?” asked the old man. “Take Olchak home before he die.”

“You’re going to die anyway,” Tavis answered. “Tell me about Dragon Rock.”

“Later.” The old man looked away and closed his eyes. “After shaman heals me.”

Tavis cursed Olchak for a coward, but slipped his arms under the old man and gently picked him up. He waded back across the stream, then removed the traell’s furry parka and folded it around Avner’s shoulders.

“You’re going to have to hold Olchak against your chest” As he spoke, the scout hoisted Avner onto Graytusk’s trembling back. “Are you strong enough to do that?”

“I th-think ssso,” Avner answered.

Tavis passed Olchak up to the youth. Avner pulled the old man close and closed the parka around them both. The scout cautiously slipped between the mammoth’s tusks and loosened the trunk noose, then climbed up the beast’s head. Graytusk’s body stopped quivering, but he kept his eyes averted and made no objection to the scout’s unusual method of mounting.

Once Tavis was securely seated, he gave the trunk rope a tug and Graytusk rose. With his eyes nearly pinched shut against the stinging barrage of snow, the scout guided their mount across the stream. The storm was blowing so ferociously that the firbolg could barely see the tip of the mammoth’s long trunk, and everything else-the sky, the ground, the horizon-was a white haze.

Tavis pointed the mammoth more or less in the direction Olchak had been looking before he was gored, and not long after a stony outcropping emerged from the white murk ahead. The bluff was only a little higher than the mammoth’s back. The scout circled the crag and soon understood why the traell had called it Dragon Rock. In the front was a long, serpentine protrusion similar to a dragon’s neck.

Tavis glanced over his shoulder. Olchak’s eyes were half-closed and unfocused. It seemed doubtful that the old man was even aware of where he was, but the scout saw no harm in asking for his help one more time.

“Olchak, we’ve reached the Dragon Rock,” Tavis said. “Does the head point toward Split Mountain?”

The old man raised his eyelids. “What-what will you sacrifice for queen, Tavis Burdun?” he gasped. “My life… your life… boy’s life, too?”

The scout did not need to ask to know what Olchak meant. Avner looked nearly as bad as the old man. The youth was shivering so hard that it appeared he would shake both himself and the traell off Graytusk’s back, and his lips had turned an alarming shade of blue. The boy desperately needed a fire and hot food, and soon.

Tavis shifted his gaze back to Olchak. “Does the head point toward Split Mountain?”

“Olchak… not die for queen,” the old man replied. “Duty, it mean nothing… to dead.”

“Y-You’re d-dying anyway,” Avner chattered. “T-Tavis c-can’t save you. At least l-let him s-save the w-woman he loves.”

“Love?” Olchak scoffed. “Olchak die… for someone else’s love? Hah!”

“Love has nothing to do with why I’m here,” Tavis said. “Even if I save Brianna, I can’t marry her.”

“What?” Avner screeched. “But I t-told you! Arlien used m-magic!”

“Perhaps, but his magic didn’t steal her away,” the scout answered. “She’s always belonged to Hartsvale. That means she can never be my wife.”

“That’s n-nonsense!”

“It is also the queen’s decree, and so I have buried my feelings for her,” Tavis said. “Saving her from the giants is strictly a matter of duty-yours as well as mine, Olchak.”

As the firbolg shifted his gaze back to the traell’s face, he saw that his appeal had been wasted. Tavis could see vapor condensing from the old man’s breath, but Olchak’s eyes had fallen closed. The scout doubted they would ever reopen.

Tavis turned Graytusk parallel to the dragon’s head, then took the lodestone from his satchel and suspended it by the steel chain running through its center. As it always did, the arrow-shaped rock promptly swung around to point northward, which was only a shallow angle from the direction they were currently facing. By maintaining the same relationship between the arrow’s tip and their direction of travel, the scout could be certain they were going the way the dragon’s head pointed.

As it turned out, Tavis hardly needed the lodestone. Graytusk proved an uncanny navigator, marching through the storm straight in the direction the scout had originally pointed him. Every so often, the mammoth would pause to wave his trunk in the air and let out a brief trumpet that his passengers could barely hear over the howling wind. Then the beast would continue on, his course never varying from the one indicated by Tavis’s lodestone.

The storm continued to worsen, the wind threatening to tear the scout and his companions from their mount’s back. The snow grew so deep that Graytusk had to plow through it, sending great plumes of the powdery stuff arcing high into the air. Tavis could no longer feel his feet, which meant they had become little more than ice blocks, and now and then he even caught himself shivering.

Avner had fallen into a lethargic slump. One hand was clutching Olchak’s unconscious body to his chest and the other was frozen into the mammoth’s long fur. The boy’s skin was beginning to take on the same blue tint as his lips, and he was staring into the blizzard as though he saw something more than white nothingness ahead.

After a while, it seemed to Tavis that they were no longer even moving-then, with a start, he realized they weren’t. Graytusk had stopped. The scout could not say whether they were in the center of a meadow, the bottom of a ravine, or even at the base of a mountain. Dusk was coming, and he could barely see the mammoth’s hairy trunk probing through the snow. The firbolg raised his lodestone. When he saw that they were still traveling in the right direction, he tugged on the trunk rope.

“Let’s go, Graytusk,” he growled.

The mammoth pulled his nose out of the snow and flung a snootful of brown mud at the scout. When the foul-smelling muck spattered him, Tavis was surprised to discover that it felt vaguely warm. He scraped some of the stuff off his face and saw tiny bits of half-digested twigs and grass. Manure.

Mammoth manure.

During the long journey from the glacier, the scout had certainly seen enough of Graytusk’s droppings to recognize the stuff. Of course, it was possible that a wild herd had drifted south from the Icy Plains and crossed the Ice Spires into this valley, but the firbolg could think of a more likely explanation: The frost giants had escaped from their ice cave and beat him into the valley.

Tavis put his lodestone away and took Bear Driller off his back, then swung his quiver around to where he could grab his arrows easily. He had only two runearrows left, one for Julien and one for Arno. The scout let the trunk rope fall slack, then slipped the end under his thigh.

“We’re g-getting c-close now, Avner,” Tavis said, shouting to make himself heard above the roaring wind. He was not happy to hear himself stammering. When a firbolg stammered, the weather was truly cold. “B-Be alert”

“Arrmphg augh?” The boy’s speech was so slurred the scout could not understand it.

Tavis glanced over his shoulder. The storm was growing dark now, but enough light remained to see that Avner’s pupils were almost as large as their irises. The youth’s breath came in quick, shallow gasps, and the scout knew the boy was the verge of falling unconscious.

“S-Stay with me,” Tavis said. Although he was speaking in a normal voice, even he couldn’t hear himself over the raging wind. “It can’t be much f-farther.”

Tavis turned and used the tip of his bow to tap Graytusk on the head. The mammoth rooted around under the snow for a moment longer, then turned slightly north and resumed his trek. Whenever the beast stopped to stick his nose under the snow, the scout tugged on the trunk rope until the mammoth hurled some more dung at him. The manure grew steadily warmer, and Tavis guessed they couldn’t be more than thirty minutes behind the main herd.

It was during one of those stops that Tavis caught a whiff of something more interesting than mammoth dung: the acrid smoke of burning spruce. The wind was swirling and howling from a hundred different directions, but the scout suspected that the smell came from someplace ahead. More importantly, he felt certain that he knew who had made the fire. Frost giants had little need for campfires, but Julien and Arno might, and Brianna certainly would.

A confident smile cracked across Tavis’s frozen face. Although the storm’s swirling winds would make it impossible to locate the fire by smell alone, smoke was not so different than anything else he had ever pursued. In the short run, it might dart here and there, laying a crazy path that only the gods could decipher. But over a longer distance, it would travel in a straight line, a line that a good tracker could calculate not by examining each individual sign, but by finding the underlying pattern.

The scout allowed Graytusk to guide them for a while longer, counting off the seconds before he caught the odor of smoke once more, and then the interval until he smelled it again. He repeated this process over and over, and the period between whiffs steadily grew shorter. At the same time, Tavis used his lodestone to determine that they were traveling almost due north. When the mammoth finally veered westward, still following the scent of his herd mates, the interval between smoke whiffs began to increase.

Tavis steered Graytusk northward again. The mammoth tried to jerk his head back westward, but a quick tug on the trunk rope returned the beast to good behavior. They continued north and soon entered a spruce copse. Here, the blizzard did not seem so bad. The trees acted as a windbreak, reducing the storm’s howl to a mere whistle. The thick boughs provided a dark contrast to the white haze, and trapped much of the blowing snow in their long needles. Even in the darkening dusk light, the scout could see the silhouettes of trees more than thirty paces ahead.

Tavis continued northward until the copse started to thin and, in the openings between the trees, he could see the raging white wall of the storm. The scout stopped Graytusk beside a particularly large spruce, then used Bear Driller to scrape the snow off the branches as highup as he could reach. Next, he dismounted into waist deep snow and forced the beast to kneel. He crawled into the cavelike den beneath the conifer’s dense boughs, where he tied the mammoth’s trunk line to the bole.

With the snow piled five feet high around the base of the tree and a canopy of dense boughs above, the weeping spruce offered a convenient shelter from the wind. There was even a ready supply of firewood, for dead branches ringed the lowest part of the trunk. Tavis crawled back outside and pulled Avner’s stuporous form off the mammoth’s back. Olchak’s frozen corpse slid into the snow beside the beast. The scout left it there and took the boy into the den.

Tavis pulled some dried moss tinder from his satchel then warmed his stiff fingers under his armpits until they were nimble enough to hold his flint and steel. He struck a few sparks into the tinder and created a flame. This he fed with twigs and sticks. When he had a small fire, he broke several branches off the tree and added them.

The campfire increased the likelihood of a frost giant stumbling across Avner, but only slightly. Hagamil’s warriors would likely attribute any smoke they smelled to Julien and Arno. Besides, the scout had little to lose. If Hagamil’s tribe found the youth again, they would probably kill him-but the boy would certainly die with out a fire.

Within a few minutes, the glow of orange flames lit the cave, and the air started to grow warm. The scout worked his way around the tree trunk, snapping off dried branches and stacking them near the fire. When he had removed all the limbs he could reach, he propped Avner’s lethargic form against the bole. The boy’s skin still had a blue tint, and his pupils remained far too large but at least his breathing seemed regular.

Tavis shook the boy’s shoulders. “Avner! P-Pay at-t-tention!” There it was again, a firbolg stuttering.

The youth’s glassy eyes wandered toward the scout’s face, but remained unfocused. “Tlaaaavis?” His speech was so slurred that the scout could hardly understand it. “Did we ressssscue Bleeeeanna?”

“You’ve g-got to feed the f-fire,” Tavis said. He pointed to the branches he had piled near the campfire. “I’ve left you s-some wood. C–Can you do that?”

Avner’s eyes wandered to the pile. “Wood.” He nodded.

“It’s imp-p-portant. If you forget, you’ll d-die.”

The youth leaned forward and slipped his frozen fingers under a branch, then carefully balanced the stick as he moved it He did not seem to notice the flames licking his hand as he dropped the limb into the fire.

“Good,” Tavis said. “I can’t s-stay, Avner. I’m s-s-sorry.”

The youth nodded. “Queen.”

Tavis clasped Avner’s shoulder, relieved to see that he seemed to be recovering his wits. “That’s right,” he said. “I’m p-proud of you, Avner.”

“T-Tell me late-later.” The boy reached for another stick.

Wondering if that would be possible, Tavis turned to go. He felt something wet roll down his cheek, and the tear made it as far as his jawline before freezing solid. The little den was warming up nicely.

Outside, the scout trudged through the snow to another spruce and cut two dozen long boughs off the tree. He cleared the snow off a fallen log, then sat down to fashion a pair of makeshift snowshoes. He bent the flexible limbs under his boot soles and threaded the ends through the lacing eyelets. It was delicate work for stiff fingers, and the scout had to stop several times to warm his frozen hands in his armpits. Certainly, he could have finished more quickly inside Avner’s cozy den, but then his feet would have thawed. He did not want that. He could walk miles on frozen feet, but after they started to warm, the excruciating pain would make it impossible to take more than a few steps.

Once he had threaded the boughs through the eyelets, the scout secured them in place by slipping the ends under the leather laces. He cinched his boots down on the icy lumps that had been his feet and started walking. The makeshift snowshoes were far from ideal, but they served to keep him from sinking past his knees in the deep powder.

When he reached the edge of the copse, a stinging, blinding wall of snow once more assailed Tavis. He pulled the lodestone from his satchel and waited for it to swing northward, then stepped into the blizzard. Although it was impossible to see any hint of sky through the raging storm, the dim gray light suggested that the hour was slipping past twilight. Once night fell, the basin would change from howling white to roaring black. The firbolg would no longer be able to see the lodestone in his hand. If he was going to find the campfire he smelled, he had to do it before dark.

Within ten steps of leaving the copse, the scout found himself panting for breath. He kept stumbling, and his shivering grew worse. A knot of fear formed in Tavis’s stomach, for he knew what the signs meant. People grew fatigued and clumsy before they froze to death. The safe thing would be to return to the fire with Avner, but he could not warm himself without also thawing his feet, and then he’d still be lying beneath the spruce when the frost giants carried Brianna into the Twilight Vale.

The scout continued forward, thrusting Bear Driller into the snow like a staff. He soon found himself raising his arm each time he planted the tip of his bow and suddenly realized he was traveling uphill. With all of his reference points lost in a white blur and four feet of snow concealing the terrain, he had not perceived it at first, but he was climbing a slope.

The discovery did little to make Tavis feel better. Confusion was also a symptom of freezing, and the firbolg felt nothing if not obtuse. More importantly, so much fresh snow made avalanches a real possibility on any steep grade-and judging by the height he had to raise his knees, the slope beneath him was anything but gentle. At least the fluffy snow would take longer to suffocate him if he got swept away and buried.

Tavis tried not to think about how long he might survive beneath tons of snow-one scout had lasted more than a week before a patrol noticed his boot-and continued to climb.

Sometime after his legs began to tremble and his lungs to ache, the scout smelled burning spruce-not the fleeting, acrid whiffs he had been sniffing up until now, but a steady, mordant stream of smoke. It was rolling down the hill, straight into his face, and now he could smell something else, as well: burned meat Tavis continued his climb, forcing himself to maintain the same soft tread.

Sometime later, the sound of the wind faded to a steady whistle and the scout found himself ascending a steep, narrow gorge flanked by cliffs of blond granite. The chute could have been a couloir high on the side of Split Mountain, or merely a gully cutting through a low hill; with the light fading to black and a torrent of swirling snow choking the passage, Tavis had no way to tell. But he did know two things: the passage was the ideal place for an avalanche, and the smell of roasting meat hung in the wind so thickly that his mouth had begun to water.

Tavis put his lodestone away, then stepped over to a cliff and found two secure handholds. He stomped on the snow several times, ready to transfer his weight to his arms if he dislodged the white mass. When it did not slide, he decided the chute was stable enough to climb and lowered himself back into the gully. He continued up the gulch a long time, stopping every twenty steps to repeat the test, until the last vestiges of light seeped from the storm. The odor of roasted meat-he thought it might be pork-was stronger than ever, and the scout felt warmer just smelling it. He blindly continued up the chute, sweeping Bear Driller back and forth to keep the walls located.

After a time, the scout heard voices-not words, just voices-mingled with the whistling of the wind. Then he saw a flickering orange light gleaming off the walls ahead, and what looked like the crest of the chute. Tavis stopped. He slipped his frozen hands into his armpits and concentrated on breathing in a slow, steady rhythm. Now that he knew where Julien and Arno had made their camp, the firbolg could picture the terrain above. They were probably camped in the shelter of a dry overflow gulch, at the bottom end of an alpine lake. He was climbing up what would be a waterfall when spring melt-water swelled the pond and sent it pouring over its shores. When he attacked, there would be little maneuvering room for his foes. He would kill them both simply and quickly. The most dangerous part of the rescue would be retreating down this avalanche gully with Brianna.

When Tavis’s cold fingers finally felt limber enough to draw a bowstring, he fumbled in his quiver until he found his last two runearrows. He put one shaft between his teeth and the other in his hand, then climbed to the top of the chute. He stopped behind the crest and knelt in the snow.

About thirty paces ahead, the flickering yellow light of a bonfire cut axelike through the blizzard, illuminating the entire width of the gully. On one side of the gulch sat a figure no larger than a hill giant, his back braced against the wall and a haunch of scorched meat in each hand. The scout could see only the profile of the giant’s face, but that was enough to determine that the fellow was a pale-skinned brute with a pug nose and a greasy double chin. The fine ermine cloak over his broad shoulders seemed a strange contrast to his slovenly visage.

In front of the giant, the bonfire’s flames licked at a spit holding the remains of a good-sized animal. Much of the creature was gone, so it took Tavis a moment to identify it-and when he did, he wished he had not. Knowing that his mouth had watered at the smell of roasting human sent a shiver down his spine.

On the other side of the bonfire, just at the edge of the bonfire’s light, sat Hagamil’s large form. One of the frost giant’s wrists ended in a bloody bandage, while his face looked as haggard and weary as the scout felt. The chieftain was gnawing hungrily on a human arm.

Tavis saw no sign of a third giant, Prince Arlien, or Brianna. He felt certain that the giants would not have roasted the queen after all they had gone through to capture her, but that knowledge did not prevent a terrible, cold ache from sinking into his bones. He spent a moment trying to eavesdrop on their conversation, but heard nothing more than a series of deep-throated murmurs. He slipped over the crest of the chute and crept forward, swimming through the snow more than crawling through it. As he moved, the scout kept a watchful eye on Hagamil, who was the most likely of the giants to notice him.

A short distance later, Tavis found he could understand the giants’ words. He stopped and stuck the runearrows in the snow beside him, then slipped his hands into his armpits and listened.

“… came as fast as we could, Arno.” It was Hagamil, sounding both apologetic and exhausted.

“But you haven’t got Tavis Burdun!” Arno shook one of his meat haunches-it was a human thigh-at the frost giant “We said bring him here!”

“Your plan didn’t work,” Hagamil countered. “I already told you what happened.”

“It would have worked if you weren’t such an idiot, Hagamil.” It was a third voice, deeper and smoother than either the frost giant’s or Arno’s. Something about it sounded vaguely familiar, but the whistling wind made it difficult for Tavis to say what. He concentrated his efforts on locating the face that went with the voice. “Even a hill giant wouldn’t mistake a firbolg for a stone giant. Not even a fomorian would make such an error.”

Hagamil narrowed his eyes and fixed them on Arno. “He had some sort of magic mask,” the frost giant said, his tone as cold as the snow. “I tried to tell you that, Julien.”

Tavis peered closer at the giant sitting by the fire. When the brute raised a haunch of meat and stuck it somewhere on the other side of Arno’s face, the scout realized where the extra voice was coming from. Arno had a second head. He was an ettin!

Tavis scowled, perplexed by this discovery. All the ettins he had seen were as stupid as they were cruel, hardly capable of speech. Yet, this one was conversing intelligently with not only itself, but Hagamil as well. Even more surprising, the chieftain acted as though he were the inferior. That made no sense. No giant would take orders from an ettin.

“I know what you told me!” Julien hissed at Hagamil. “I also know what your failure means. Tavis Burdun has sworn to kill Brianna rather than let us have her. As long as he’s alive, we can’t take her to Twilight”

As Julien spoke, Tavis realized why his voice sounded so familiar. It was a deeper, louder version of Prince Arlien’s! The ettin had been inside Cuthbert Castle all along, no doubt disguised by some magic similar to the runemask the scout himself had used to impersonate Gavorial.

“Why can’t we take her to Twilight?” Hagamil demanded. He nibbled at the arm in his hand, then added, “Tavis’ll never catch us in this blizzard. All we have to do is take her through Split Mountain, and we’ll be in the vale before the storm clears.”

The ettin’s far hand threw its haunch at the frost giant. “Stupid frost giant!” Arno growled. “Do you see Brianna here?”

Hagamil ran his eyes over the campsite. “But you said you’d have her tonight”

“What we have is a verbeeg problem,” Julien replied. “The runecaster’s made it impractical to slip her out quietly.”

The cold ache in Tavis’s bones began to fade. The “verbeeg problem” had to be Basil. The runecaster had seen through the ettin’s disguise.

“But we got another way to get her,” Arno added.

“How?” the frost giant asked.

“That’s what we’re up here to explain!” growled Arno. “You come down to the castle and attack.”

Hagamil frowned. “But Tavis-”

“You will have him by then,” Julien interrupted.

The frost giant’s face flushed to a pale shade of blue. “We’ll find him,” he promised. “But even then, battles are confusing. Brianna could be killed.”

“Not with her faithful prince there to protect her,” snickered Julien. “Besides, that fool Cuthbert’s a coward. Once the fighting starts, he’ll be quick enough to hand her over-especially after I whisper the idea in his ear.”

Hagamil looked doubtful, but asked, “When do you want us?”

“Soon,” Arno replied.

Hagamil nodded. “We’ll leave in the morning.” He chewed the last of the meat off the greasy bone in his hand and tossed it aside, then gestured at the cooking fire. “I’ll have that other arm, if you please.”

The ettin took the spit off the bonfire and ripped the second arm off the corpse. He tossed the limb to the frost giant, then his two heads began eating the rest of the charred flesh directly off the stick.

The scout nocked his first runearrow and aimed at Arno’s neck, but held his fire. Normally, he could hit such a large target easily at this distance, but his fingers remained stiff from the cold. More importantly, the winds in the gully were gusty, and the shot would be tricky enough with Basil’s heavy runearrow.

Tavis lowered his aim to the ettin’s shoulder. “Arno!”

“Huh? Who that?”

Arno scowled and turned toward the voice, exposing more than enough of his broad chest to give the scout a good shot. Tavis loosed his arrow, then heard a dull clank as it pierced the armor beneath the ettin’s cloak.

“Basil is wise!” he called.

The blast hurled the ettin against the gulch wall. Arno’s head slammed into the stone with a crack that Tavis heard even over the explosion. The brute’s churlish eyes went vacant with death. The scout felt the gully quiver as untold tons of snow shifted beneath his feet.

Hagamil leapt up, fumbling at his belt axe with his one good hand. “Tavis Burdun!” he yelled.

“That’s right.” Tavis grabbed his second runearrow. So far, everything was proceeding according to plan-except that Brianna was not here with him. She was back at Cuthbert Castle: safe, and likely to stay that way if he could kill Hagamil. “I thought I’d make myself easy for you to find.”

The scout nocked the shaft and swung the tip toward the frost giant, who wisely retreated out of the firelight with a single long step. Then, as Tavis drew his bowstring back to fire, the ettin groaned. He pushed himself away from the wall, Arno’s lifeless face dangling over the gaping hole in his chest.

Tavis cursed and swung his last runearrow around to finish the job the first had left undone. Julien turned his head toward the firbolg, revealing a much larger version of Prince Arlien’s handsome face. The scout aimed at the thick neck beneath the imposter’s cleft chin.

The ettin dived away, yelling, “Basil-”

Tavis loosed his arrow.

“-is wise,” Julien finished.

White light flashed three paces in front of Tavis, then he felt himself flying backward. His whole body exploded into searing, agonizing pain and Bear Driller disintegrated in his hands. The scout fell a long way, the sonorous growl of an avalanche rumbling somewhere beneath him, and he bounced off a rocky slope. He had hit somewhere behind the snowslide, he realized, and he wondered if that was good or bad.

Tavis slammed into the ground again. This time, he went ricocheting down the icy chute, bouncing from one jagged rock to another, opening long gashes all over his body. The scout caught the avalanche. He slipped into the powdery snow like a bird into the air, and the world went still.