The Ogre's Pact

14. The Fir Palace

When Sart herded Brianna and her companions into the Fir Palace, as he insisted upon calling Noote's oversized lean-to, the princess felt like she had stepped into some vast, sour-smelling vault where the gods held wicked spirits in purgatory. The air was hazy and damp, filled with the stench of unwashed bodies and the acrid smoke of the distant cooking fire. A roaring din of brutal laughter, bellowing voices, and lewd, bestial groans reverberated through the entire place. Around the perimeter of the room lounged great mounds of flesh that could only be hill giants, their faces and features lost in the flickering shadows draped along the walls.

"Go," Sart urged. "Noote way down there."

The giant thrust his arm over their heads, pointing. The air was so murky that Brianna could see only a few paces beyond the hand, much less clear to the other end of the cavernous room. Nevertheless, she led the way forward, determined to find Noote and interrogate him. The chief was cunning for a hill giant but he was not a quick thinker. The princess felt confident it would not take long to learn everything he knew about her abduction.

Winning the hill giant's help could be more difficult. Because Tavis had been so willing to let her cast her true speaking spell on him, Brianna had decided to accept his warning about Noote and the Twilight Vale- though she still believed the scout was mistaken about her father's involvement. Now the princess was trying to think of some way to convince the chieftain to take her to Castle Hartwick instead of returning her to the ogres or taking her to the Twilight Vale himself.

The safest thing would have been to avoid Noote altogether, but the princess had spent all afternoon and most of the evening, the length of time it had taken to climb down from the gate, trying to persuade Sart to lead them through the valley. The giant had steadfastly refused, even when Brianna pointed out that Noote might demand some of his horses. Although he had not said as much, Brianna suspected Sart anticipated trouble explaining what had happened to his two fellows, so he wanted some captives handy to blame for the deaths.

As Brianna progressed through the room, curious hill giants loomed out of the shadows to peer down at her and her companions. The princess could not tell the males from the females, for their brutal faces were entirely androgynous, with uniformly heavy brows, flat noses, and blocky chins. Nor was facial hair any help. They all seemed to have a little on the upper lip and chin, though never enough to grow a beard or mustache. And their bodies were uniformly lumpy and bulky, lacking any of the customary curves or angles that suggested their sex.

A few of the giants snapped belittling comments at Sart. "Stupid Sart? Firbolgs not good slaves!" Others pointed at Tavis, who was being carried in Morten's arms, and cried, "That one no good? Can't walk, can't work?"

Others seemed more alarmed by Brianna's presence. "Hide girl!" they warned. "Noote says don't take humans, stupid!"

Occasionally, a hand would snatch out at the princess, but Sart would promptly slap it away, explaining she had come of her own will to see Noote. This invariably drew some ribald remark about "the rut" and caused a thunderous outbreak of laughter.

Brianna soon realized that the hill giants were not just visiting their chief. They all appeared to live in this one chamber. Some were eating-what, she could not tell- and others were sewing hides, repairing weapons, and tending to all the many chores of everyday life. Here and there some of the giants were even lying on their backs snoring-as often as not within ten paces of a bellowing argument or a thundering chorus of laughter.

Brianna was even more puzzled by their love of wrestling. Everywhere she looked, giants were rolling on the ground in groups of two and sometimes more, their arms locked around each other's torsos, their hands clawing at each other, growling and groaning, screaming and… Suddenly falling silent, two nearby giants rolled apart with stupid grins on their faces, and the princess saw that they hadn't been wrestling at all.

"The rut," Morten commented, his voice thoroughly disgusted. "Savages!"

Brianna had to agree.

Morten nudged her, and Brianna realized she had stopped moving and was simply staring at the two giants. With her cheeks burning, she quickly resumed her pace, taking care to keep her eyes fixed straight ahead-though she wasn't sure why. The hill giants certainly didn't seem to care if anyone watched. In fact some were being observed with all the rapt attention of an athletic contest, and she half expected to hear the spectators wagering on the outcome.

About halfway through the chamber, they came to an abhorrent mound of flesh standing about twice as tall as the princess. There was one overly long leg dragging on the ground behind him, one incredibly short leg dangling from his hip, and one that seemed just about the right size propped beneath his tailbone. He had a pale, hunched body, stooped shoulders, and no neck whatsoever. His head was bald and wart-covered, with floppy, pointed ears and red, bulging eyes lacking brows or lids.

Brianna's first impression was that a hill giant child had fallen into the fire and melted, then somehow survived to crawl back out. But once she recovered from her shock, she realized the figure was only a fomorian slave. Every member of this strange race of giant-kin was born hideously and uniquely deformed, though few quite as grotesquely as this fellow.

The fomorian, secured by a lengthy chain to a post, stood next to a large cooking fire. Over the roaring flames were suspended a dozen roasting spits, each skewering the charred remains of what might have been a deer. At the far end of the fire lay a tremendous pile of skinned animal carcasses, while at the closer end, where a huge black pot bubbled at the edge of the blaze, there was a much larger mound of pine cones.

As Brianna and her companions approached, the fomorian hopped along in front of the spits, using his single arm-which stuck out of the center of his chest- to crank each handle a quarter turn. When he reached the end of the line, he paused long enough to grab a shovel and throw a scoop of pine cones into the boiling pot. Then, before the princess realized what he was doing, the fomorian snatched her up in his slimy hand and hopped toward the carcass pile at the other end of the fire.

With both hands, Brianna grabbed the cook's huge thumb and pushed back against the joint. A garbled rasp of pain spewed from the fomorian's throat, then his hand opened, and the princess dropped to the dirt floor. The slave's lidless eyes glared down at her, clearly astonished by her unexpected strength, then he cautiously stooped down to pick her up again.

"Not her, Ig!"

Sart cuffed Ig in the back of the head. The fomorian whirled around and leered up at his tormentor. Brianna could not tell whether his twisted face was scowling or pouting, but Sart paid the ugly expression no attention.

"Humans not for eating!" the hill giant said.

Ig shrugged his stooped shoulders, then hopped, rather reluctantly, toward Morten.

"Not us, either!" the bodyguard grunted.

Ig looked up to Sart for confirmation. When the hill giant nodded, the fomorian sighed, then hopped back to his duties at the cooking fire.

"Let's go-before we get mistaken for vermin and stomped," Morten growled.

The princess led the way to the other end of the lodge, where another fomorian was halfheartedly performing a dance of debauchery. Though just as bald and warty as the cook, her abnormalities were mostly monumental exaggerations of curves typical to the females of most giant races. In a morose attempt to beguile her audience, she was spinning in a little circle, shaking her chest and swiveling her hips, raising a choking cloud of dust by stomping the beat to an eerie song of dismay that rumbled from her lips.

If the hill giants fathomed the sad beauty of the fomorian's dance, they showed no sign. They lounged around, bellowing lewd comments, mocking her deformities, and rutting with each other. In the center of this crowd, sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor and tossing hunks of charred meat at the woman's cleavage, was the dull-eyed, corpulent giant who Brianna had once been foolish enough to believe would save her Noote.

Beside the chieftain sat an especially large and flaccid giant wearing a silver necklace that Brianna's father had once sent as a gift to Noote's wife. On the queen's shoulder-assuming she was the queen-sat one of the talking birds Simon had enchanted to serve as messengers, a raven with a silver band around its leg. It crossed Brianna's mind that her father may have sent the bird to ask the hill giants' help in rescuing her from the ogres. But if that were so, she certainly saw no sign that the chieftain had done anything to honor the request.

On the side opposite Noote's wife sat another female- at least the princess hoped the giant was female, considering where the chieftain's free hand was resting. If the queen disapproved of her husband's actions, she showed no sign, and was in fact engaged in her own dalliance with a fellow beside her.

Brianna had a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was not just a faint apprehension of trouble, but a pain more like a granite ball grinding its way through her digestive tract. During his visits to Hartwick Vale. Noote had always struck her as a rather noble savage, crude and primitive, but basically good at heart. Now, she saw that she had been as mistaken about his character as about Tavis's. Not only was the giant cruel and debauched, he was a slave-taker and a hypocrite as well. If her father knew what occurred inside the Fir Palace, the princess felt sure Noote would not have been such a frequent and welcome guest in Castle Hartwick.

Brianna closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, girding herself against her rising fear. Now more than ever she realized Tavis had been right about the hill giant. Not that it mattered. Even if they had wanted to, they could not have avoided both Rog and the ogres, or that was what the princess told herself. She could not allow herself to consider the possibility that the scout had been right to suggest climbing straight up the mountain. Even now, that plan seemed too crazy to have worked-but was it? If she had followed the scout's advice, perhaps they would be camping somewhere above Hartsvale tonight instead of trusting their lives to the unpredictable mercies of hill giants. Perhaps Avner and Earl Dobbin would still be alive-Brianna shook her head, trying to shut out the visions of their deaths. She could live with the guilt of causing the lord mayor's death, but not Avner's. That burden was too heavy to bear. If she allowed herself to think about it, she would not have the strength to negotiate for Noote's help- and, as slim as it was, that was the only hope for her or her companions.

The princess opened her eyes, then circled around the fomorian's gyrating mass, narrowly avoiding being knocked off her feet as an immense hip swung past her head. She led the way forward until she had cleared the dust cloud raised by the dancer's feet, then stopped in front of Noote's colossal bulk. Brianna craned her neck and found herself looking up into a pair of cavernous nostrils. The chieftain remained entirely oblivious to her presence, flinging an entire haunch of venison high over her head, then laughing uproariously when it became lodged between his slave's pendulous breasts.

"I'm glad you don't behave this way in Castle Hartwick!" Brianna deliberately allowed her anger to creep into her voice as she yelled. Their best hope lay in keeping Noote off-balance. If she could convince him that she was in control of the situation, that his only choice was to do as she ordered or face her father's wrath, he might not pause to consider that he was in charge in his own palace. "Perhaps next time you visit, we'll let you root for your food with the swine."

Noote's jaw dropped, and his gaze flickered around the room for a moment, then he finally realized where the sound was coming from and looked down at Brianna. His face was even more brutal than that of most hill giants, with narrow black eyes, a broad flat nose spreading from one cheek to the other, and a mouthful of jagged gray teeth that had been filed to sharp points.

"Princess!" he gasped. Noote's eyes flicked above Brianna's head to the fomorian dancer, then his face turned a deep shade of crimson. He grabbed another hunk of venison and threw it at the slave, bellowing, "Put skins on!"

The fomorian quickly trundled toward the wall to obey, her face betraying her relief at the interruption.

"Please, don't let me interrupt." Brianna cast a pointed glance at the hand still lying in the lap of the giant next to Noote. "It's apparent you weren't expecting me."

The chieftain pulled his hand back to his own lap and shoved his companion away. "Act nice!" he bellowed. He leaned across his queen and also pushed her friend away. "Joke over!"

"What joke, Noote?" the queen asked.

Noote's face deepened to a shade of maroon so dark it was almost black. "Rutting jokes," he hissed, nudging her in the ribs. "This Princess Brianna."

All around him, hill giants furrowed thick brows in confusion. Their murmurs filled the chamber like the drone of Camden's guards gathering in the courtyard for an unexpected assembly.

"Quiet!" Noote demanded.

A few nearby giants fell silent, but that only increased the curiosity of those farther away, and the clamor actually grew louder. Noote's wife glanced around, seeming more irritated at having her bacchanalia interrupted than at the noise, then glared down at Brianna. The queen was uglier than her husband, with sagging red bags under her eyes and a plump, oval-shaped mouth smeared with black soot-whether for decoration or by accident, Brianna could not tell.

"Who?" the queen demanded.

Noote leaned over and whispered in her great ear, fingering the silver necklace she had been sent by Brianna's father. The queen's eyes opened wide, and her expression changed from one of irritation to one of surprise.

"Quiet!" she thundered.

The lodge fell instantly silent. The queen whispered something to Noote. Brianna could not quite make out her words, but she could hear the breath of the giantess rustling in the chief's ear like wind in a box canyon.

Noote whispered something back to his wife. This time Brianna heard something about stealing and ogres, and the couple exchanged a few more whispers. Finally, Noote nodded, then fixed his attention on his unexpected guest.

"What doing here?"

"I escaped from my kidnappers. I should think that you'd have guessed that yourself." Brianna allowed her gaze to flick up to the raven sitting on the queen's shoulder. "My father did send a message telling you about it, didn't he?"

Noote glanced at the bird, then looked back to Brianna. "Just come tonight." He glanced over the princess's head and cast a thoughtful eye at her companions. "Him say two firbolgs trying to rescue you. That them?"

"Yes," Brianna replied. Although her tone was calm enough, thoughts were racing through her mind with the speed of swooping falcons. It was apparent that Noote's queen was the real power behind the throne, and the princess was hardly prepared for that. She did not even know the giantess's name! Forcing herself to keep her eyes on Noote, the princess continued, "And now I need an escort back to Castle Hartwick."

Noote furrowed his brow and turned to consult with his queen. They exchanged a few whispered comments, then the chief looked over Brianna's head to Sart.

"Where they come from?" he demanded, gesturing at Brianna and her companions.

"From High Gate." The sentry looked at Noote as though the chief had lost his mind. "Where you think?"

Noote hurled a charred boar's head at Sart, then growled, "Who chasing them? Ogres?"

Sart nodded. "Yeah. Lots of ogres. Ogres kill Rog, but I fight 'em back and close gate." The giant glanced down at Brianna with a hopeful expression. "Right?"

Brianna gave Sart a reassuring smile, but she was thinking to herself that the giant would have been much better off if he had taken them directly to Castle Hartwick. The princess glanced at Morten and nodded for him to put Tavis down. Once she saw that the bodyguard understood her instructions, she looked back to Noote.

"That's not what happened at all."

"Lying girl!" The giant stomped forward to silence the princess.

Morten hurled himself at Sart's knees, knocking the astonished sentry to the floor. The two figures grappled, a thick cloud of dust billowing up to hide the combat.

"Stop!" Noote yelled, rising. "Not time for fighting!"

"Sit down, Noote!" Brianna motioned for the chieftain to resume his seat, then, in a more gentle voice, added, "Morten's not going to hurt your guard."

As the princess had hoped, her comment drew a raised brow from the queen, who grabbed her husband's arm and pulled Noote roughly back to the ground. The struggle continued for only a few moments more before it abruptly ceased. When the dust cleared, Morten was sitting astride Sart's throat with the giant's own dagger pressed against his throbbing jugular vein.

"I wouldn't take a deep breath," the firbolg warned. "This blade's kind of heavy, and it might slip."

Sart pressed his lips together and held his breath.

Brianna looked back to her hosts. "Now, as I was saying, Sart's version of what happened at the High Gate isn't quite accurate." She motioned to Morten and Tavis, then added, "Actually. Rog and Kol were killed in an argument over some horses I promised to send to Rog."

Noote's eyes opened wide. "Kol dead too?" he thundered, glaring at Sart. "Who at High Gate?"

Sart swallowed nervously. "No one," he admitted.

The chief snatched his bone dagger from his belt, but managed to keep himself from hurling it at Sart's helpless form. "Go back!" he thundered. He pointed the tip of his knife at two more giants. "You, too!"

The two new sentries jumped from their seats and lifted Morten off Sart, then the three sentries could not scramble from the lodge quickly enough. After watching the trio leave, Brianna turned back to Noote with a bemused smile.

"There's no need for such concern. The ogres won't be bothering you." Brianna motioned at her two companions. "Morten and Tavis stopped them."

At the mention of the scout's name, an astonished buzz rustled through the chamber. Tavis Burdun was as famous among Noote's tribe as he was among humans- perhaps more so, since he'd often been called upon to track down and slay their rogues. A crowd of curious hill giants began to gather, and Morten quickly pushed his way between them to protect the unconscious scout. As he did so. Brianna noticed the wart-covered face of the dancing slave peering down at Tavis from between two burly shoulders. The princess was surprised by the adoration on the slave's face, for she knew Tavis's arrows had also thinned the ranks of many fomorian tribes.

Brianna's attention was drawn back to Noote and his queen when, after a lengthy consultation with his wife, the chieftain asked, "Them firbolgs kill all ogres?"

The sneer on Noote's lip made it clear that he did not believe they had.

Brianna shook her head. "No, just one," she said. "Goboka."

She smirked hugely, deliberately twisting her face into an expression the hill giants would find difficult to read. In spite of her words, the princess was painfully aware that the shaman had only been driven away, not killed. She avoided lying when possible, but had learned on her father's knee that diplomatic necessity sometimes dictated saying things that were not strictly true.

In this case, convincing Noote and his queen that her firbolgs had actually killed Goboka served two very important goals. First, if they thought the ogre was dead, they would not be tempted to return her to him. Second, if they knew how powerful the shaman was, they might well think it wisest not to anger those who had killed him.

Much to Brianna's relief, her strategy seemed to be working. Noote and his queen had pressed their faces cheek to cheek and were whispering furiously into each other's ears. So intense was their conversation that the princess could hear certain words flying back and forth, among them "spirit," "ogre," and her father's name. Finally, after a particularly sharp exchange, the queen shoved her husband away.

"Tell me, if Goboka is dead, why do you need an escort from us?" asked the queen.

The princess's jaw dropped. It was a rare giant who could speak so articulately, and for a hill giant to express herself so fluently was unheard of. Brianna could see that she had badly underestimated the queen. By the standards of her race, at least, the giantess was a genius. Even among the earls of Hartwick, she would have to be considered shrewd-and therefore dangerous.

"Perhaps the reason you can't answer my question is that Goboka isn't dead."

The queen was probing, trying to convince Brianna that she knew more than she really did. It was a trick the princess had seen her father use often. "Goboka is dead," she replied. "Unless having his head severed and his heart pulled from his chest does not kill an ogre shaman."

Brianna added this last part in an innocent voice, as though she were really afraid that such treatment might not have killed her enemy.

The queen smiled at Brianna's response. "No, I'm quite sure you killed him if you did that," she replied. "But I'm afraid we won't be returning you to your father."

A cold ball of dread formed in tile princess's stomach. "I warn you, the king will be angry if you don't help me."

The queen's smile turned into a sneer. "I think not, my dear," she said, glancing at the raven on her shoulder. "You see, he said we could take you to the Twilight Vale ourselves."

Avner could remember exactly when he had last been this cold-inside the Needle Peak glacier, wading up the icy stream to rescue Brianna. He had almost died.

He felt certain he was about to die now, as the wind howled along the cliff face, spraying the stone-which was already slick-with freezing sleet, coating the hoisting chain with clear ice, and stealing the warmth from his body with each clatter of his teeth. The thief could hardly bend the frozen fingers on his good hand, but that really did not matter, since it was trembling so hard that he would not trust it to support his weight anyway.

Avner was two links from the bottom of the hoisting chain, his body wedged through the loop and swinging in the freezing wind. He had no concept of how long he had been hanging there, for the last thing he remembered was his stomach rising toward his throat as Kol stepped off the end of the platform.

The sky had arced out of sight in a single flash, and he had found himself staring at the distant spires of the fir forest below. Then Kol's hand crashed into something hard and flew open. Avner felt rough iron scraping down his back and realized it was the chain. He twisted around, arms flaying madly, and nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket as he jammed his hand through a link.

The chain crashed into the cliff. Avner felt the bones in his wrist being mashed to powder as the chain ground his arm against the cliff. His entire body went limp; had his hand not been trapped, he would have plunged after Kol into the trees below. But his pain served him well, reminding him that he was still alive and might stay that way if he reacted quickly enough. With his good hand, the boy grabbed hold of the link and pulled himself up, wedging his body through the center as it twisted away from the wall. He banged into the granite several more times, less violently than before, then his pain washed over him like a dark, cold river, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, and the chain was still swinging. The wind was howling, Avner's teeth were chattering, and the boy did not know whether the laughter spilling from his throat was caused by joy or hysteria. But he did know that he had to get off this mountain, and fast. By morning, the only thing lodged in this link would be a hunk of frozen flesh.

Avner wrapped an arm around the outside of the icy loop, then pulled himself up until he could work a leg through the opening and straddle the bottom. The link was just tall enough that he could sit hunched inside it. He tried to examine his injured arm by moonlight, but the shadows under the platform were too thick to see clearly. All he could tell for certain was that it was horribly swollen, and he could not bend it from the elbow down.

"I sure hope Brianna's still alive," he whispered, not quite certain why he was afraid to speak out loud. If there had been any giants on the platform above, he would have heard their footsteps echoing through the timbers.

Avner drew his dagger and cut the sleeve away from his injured arm, then used the cloth to bind his arm to his side. Next, he took his rope off his shoulder and tied a series of loops. By the time he finished, he had a makeshift ladder of about a dozen feet, easily twice as long as he needed to reach from one link to the next.

The boy passed the rope through the link above, pushing the line through one of the loops he had tied to secure it in place. He slipped his good arm, still trembling from the cold, into another loop and began to climb. The young thief moved quickly and efficiently, for many times he had used similar techniques to climb the exterior of some tower that supposedly could not be scaled-though he had seldom found anything inside worth the trouble. Once he had even used the method to climb from Earl Dobbin's well, after he had been forced to jump down the pit to elude a company of murderous guards.

To his surprise. Avner felt sad about the fate of the lord mayor. He was not sorry the man was dead-the earl had certainly threatened to kill him enough times- but it seemed an era had passed. For as long as the boy could remember, he had been stealing from Dobbin Manor, and Earl Dobbin had been trying to catch him in the act. It had not been a game-the consequences of the king's law were too deadly for that-but the contest had been eminently fair. Now, with the lord mayor separated not only from his property but from his own limbs as well, there no longer seemed any point to stealing from Dobbin Manor. It was even possible the boy would be forced to rethink his ambitions-providing he didn't freeze to death on the side of this mountain first.

Fortunately, that was beginning to look less likely. Avner had only one link left before he climbed into the hoisting chain slot. He could see the iron plate that blocked the entrance to the fault cave, the moonlight glinting off the crossbar's white wood less than twenty feet above. Once he climbed through that hole and had solid timbers below his feet, he would march down the road as fast as he could. Even if it did not get him off the mountain quickly, it would at least warm him up enough to stop shivering.

Avner reached up to pass his makeshift ladder through the last link of the hoisting chain-then abruptly stopped and pulled the rope back down. Not far above, in the shadows beneath the crossbar, a pair of hands was emerging from the iron gate. They were gaunt and leathery, with knobby joints and long black talons the boy recognized as those of the ogre shaman. Even cold iron would not keep Goboka from his prize.