The Giant Among Us (10 page)

“Good,” Arlien said. He did not rise. “And you know what else I think, Brianna?”

The queen stopped and turned to look at the prince. He was so handsome-blurry, but handsome. “No, I don’t,” she said. “How could I know that?”

Arlien smiled, revealing a row of pearly white teeth. “I think you should put on my necklace,” he said. “I don’t see how there can be any harm in wearing it while we’re alone, do you?”

Brianna considered this for a moment, searching for the flaw in the prince’s logic. She could sense that there was something wrong in his assertion, but her mind was too clouded-damn wine-to identify what was bothering her. She went over to her trunk and reached inside to open the secret compartment.

*****

The gorge ahead was definitely the entrance to Shepherd’s Nightmare, and even from the distant edge of a spruce copse, Tavis could see that the giants had beaten him to it. The small farm at the mouth of the canyon, so carefully detailed on Earl Cuthbert’s map, lay in ruins. All three buildings had been pushed off their stone foundations and smashed beyond recognition. The livestock lay scattered across the trampled fields in bloody heaps of fur and bone, and the small stream that flowed out of the valley above now boiled over the remnants of a smashed dam.

This isn’t war, Tavis thought. It’s mayhem, brutal and vicious.

It was also the end of any hope that the siege against Cuthbert Castle would be quickly relieved. If the giants knew about Shepherd’s Nightmare, and it was apparent they did, they would certainly take pains to guard the pass. Tavis would never be able to bring an army back through, at least not without a difficult battle. Such a delay would give the giants plenty of time to storm the castle and capture Brianna.

Tavis slipped out of the pine copse and went forward to investigate the farm more thoroughly. The scout discovered the first human corpses in the pasture. The farmer and his three helpers had made their stand behind the wall, but stacked stones offered little protection from a giant’s incredible strength. The men had been knocked various distances across the bloody heath, and now lay twisted and broken beneath droning clouds of flies. Still, as the scout kneeled briefly beside each body, he could tell that all four had died bravely. They had fired every arrow in their quivers, and near each man lay a sword or farm axe he had probably been swinging as he had fallen.

In the soft pasture, Tavis also found the giants’ tracks. There were only two sets, both too large for hill giants, with a narrow span and long, graceful toes. The scout thought immediately of stone or fire giants, but ruled out both. Fire giants would have burned the farm, while stone giants took no pleasure in pointless cruelty. The only thing he could say for certain was that the tracks were too small for fog giants or-thankfully-storm and cloud giants.

Tavis took a few minutes to crisscross the pasture, looking for more tracks. He found none. If the raiding party had consisted of more than two giants, they had not approached through this field.

The scout went to the main yard, where he found the grain stores heaped in a pile and stinking of untold gallons of urine. Next to the stores lay the torso of an old woman, the limbs ripped off as a cruel child might tear the legs off an insect. The evil brutality made the scout think of an ettin, but that made no more sense than fire or stone giants. The tracks in the pasture were too large. More importantly, there had been two sets, and ettins, the most bestial of all giants, never traveled in pairs. The monsters had two ugly heads that could barely get along with each other, much less the two heads of another ettin.

Whoever the killers were, Tavis hoped he would find them somewhere nearby. For the first time in many years, he truly burned with the desire to kill.

The scout went over to the main house, which had been a large structure of mortar and rock. To his relief, no arms or legs protruded from the rubble, and he saw no vermin to suggest that bodies lay buried out of sight.

Near the corner of the house he found a large obsidian flake that seemed strangely out of place among the granite and diorite stones of the building. One side showed the conchoidal fractures typical of the glassy mineral, but a skilled hand had clearly worked the other side into a rounded edge.

Tavis held the flake between both hands. The shard could only have come off a stone giant’s club, but he could not believe stone giants would be responsible for this carnage. They were rather cold and distant, but hardly evil.

The scout considered the possibility that another giant had been wielding the club, perhaps having acquired it in trade. But that failed to explain the footprints. The tracks did resemble those of stone giants, especially the narrow insteps and long toes. Tavis could see only one reasonable conclusion: stone giants had razed this farm, and they had taken pains to do it brutally. They wanted to anger whoever discovered the carnage, to make him so furious that he became careless.

The murderers had succeeded with part of their plan, at least. Tavis could feel all manner of fiery passions burning in his breast. But the scout would not grow careless. He was too experienced at this sort of thing.

Tavis tossed the flake aside and pulled one of Basil’s runearrows from his quiver. Killing hill giants with regular arrows was one thing, but it would be quite another to down a stone giant with a wooden arrow. Their hides were so tough that even Bear Driller lacked the power to slay one of the brutes with a single shaft. For that, he needed magic.

Keeping the arrow ready to nock, Tavis crept around to the back of the farm, to the mouth of Shepherd’s Nightmare. The gorge was narrow and wet, with sheer walls of granite and a tangled mass of bog spruce rising from its swampy floor. A single goat trail led up the valley. In the soft mud the firbolg found many pairs of fresh footprints. Most were clearly those of humans, probably women and young adults, but the scout also found two sets of stone giant tracks.

The scout started up the canyon at a run. Maybe Brianna’s plan wasn’t lost after all. With a little luck, he could slay both stone giants and prevent them from telling any of their fellows about Shepherd’s Nightmare. Perhaps he could even save the refugees. Tavis just wished that he understood why the stone giants had taken such pains to annihilate this particular farm.

*****

One of the barrow wheels started to squeal again. Although Avner doubted anyone was awake at this late hour, he turned the cart down a side passage, then grabbed his oil flask and kneeled down to lubricate the axle. It wouldn’t do to have someone hear him-not with a biotite folio in his cart, and especially not on the second floor of the keep, where Arlien and several more of the earl’s uninvited guests were lodged.

To Avner’s grave disappointment, the barrow was working out poorly. The cart had been relatively quiet on the way up to Basil’s chamber, but he had been unable to keep the wheels from clunking on the steps as he had descended. It had developed the annoying habit of squealing at the most dangerous points of his journey. Still, the boy did not know what else to do. The folios were so heavy that last night he had been forced to drag the first volume up the stairs in his cloak, a procedure that had resulted in loud and unpredictable bangs. Nor could he ask Basil for magical help. The runecaster had already put off drawing the stink rune until after the third delivery. The youth did not want to give the sly verbeeg an excuse to delay longer.

Having slopped a liberal amount of oil on the axle, Avner put the flask away and started to back into the main corridor. A shrill squeal echoed off the stone walls. The youth cringed, then set the cart down and reached for the oil flask again.

The squeal continued, only this time it sounded more like a woman’s chortle. Avner continued to listen, for the way the chuckle erupted from deep in her throat seemed all too familiar. It took the youth only a moment longer to be certain that it was the queen’s voice. He stepped around his cart and went to Arlien’s door.

Inside the chamber, Brianna stifled her laughter long enough to say, “Fill it again, dear Prince.”

“Again?” Avner cried. He threw the door open.

Brianna sat on the bed in rather immodest night-clothes, with one hand looped through the crook of Arlien’s arm. Her low-plunging collar framed a necklace of gleaming blue jewels that could be only the ice diamonds Tavis had described to Avner. In her free hand the queen grasped a large mug, which the prince was filling from an earthenware flask.

Arlien’s only concession to the hour was that he had taken the cloak off his enchanted armor, revealing a smooth slit where the breastplate had been jaggedly ripped the day before. Even the prince’s terrible wound looked better, with the edges closed to form a long red scar.

Brianna squinted into the doorway, then suddenly jumped up. “Avner? What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to ask you the same thing, Majesty.” Avner stepped forward and found goosebumps rising on his arms. The chamber was freezing. “Is this the way you repay Tavis’s devotion?”

“My relationship with T-Ta-” Brianna stopped, her eyes growing vapid. “My relationship with my bodyguard is not your affair!”

Avner’s mouth fell open. “You can’t say his name!” The youth cast an accusing look at Arlien. “What have you done to the queen?”

The prince slipped off his bed, smiling patiently. “Done to her? I have no idea what you mean, I’m sure.” He took Brianna’s arm and looked up into her eyes. “Tavis is only a word. I’m sure the queen could say it if she wished.”

“Of course,” Brianna replied.

Arlien looked back to Avner, his smile growing less generous. “Now run along to bed, boy, and leave us to discuss the business of our kingdoms.”

“I doubt the business you’re discussing has anything to do with your kingdoms.” Avner stepped forward to glare into Arlien’s eyes. As he brushed past Brianna, he noticed that the air seemed to grow even colder. “I know what’s going on here.”

“Do you?” The prince seemed amused. “Pray tell.”

“You’re taking advantage of Tavis’s absence to-“

“Avner!” Brianna interrupted. “I will not put up with this!”

Arlien raised a hand. “Let him continue, please.” Avner was more than happy to oblige. “Why aren’t you out trying to get help, Prince? You’re well enough.”

The youth jabbed his fingers into the rent in Arlien’s armor, and the prince did not even grunt. “You see? But you’d rather stay here to discuss your ‘business’ than do something brave, like Tavis!”

Arlien’s eyes narrowed. “Let me tell you two things, boy,” he hissed. “First, if you ever touch my person again, I shall be forced to break your arm. Second, I volunteered to help Tavis however I could, and he asked me to protect Queen Brianna.”

“He didn’t ask you to seduce her.”

Arlien’s lips grew white. Avner was tempted to jab the prince’s wound again to see if the man had the courage to make good on his threat, but the youth decided he might have need of his arm in the near future.

At last, Arlien regained the power to speak. “Young man, you must have a low opinion of your queen if you think she could be seduced so easily,” he said. “She merely came down to look after my wound, and I offered her a warm drink. Now, I am done explaining myself. You may leave.”

Avner looked to Brianna. “Are you coming?”

“It’s hardly the place of young pages to order their queens about,” Arlien growled.

“It is when they’re under an enchantment!”

Avner grabbed the ice diamonds hanging from Brianna’s throat. A cold, stinging pain shot through his hand, and his arm went numb clear to the elbow. The youth cried out barely managing to open his stiff fingers and pull his arm back. His hand had gone white with frostbite.

“Avner!” Brianna clutched her chest where his hand had brushed her breast. “What in Hiatea’s name are doing?”

“The necklace.” Avner had to speak through clenched teeth. “It’s enchanted.”

“As a matter of fact it is,” Arlien said. “It will freeze the hand of any thief who touches it. And I can’t abide thieves!”

The prince shoved Avner out the door with such force that the youth bounced off the far wall of the corridor. Arlien followed close behind and caught the boy on the rebound, then turned to push him toward his own room.

Avner’s barrow stood at the end of the corridor, clearly silhouetted against the flickering torchlight in the main hall. Prince Arlien released his grip and marched over to the cart.

“Avner, is this yours?” the prince demanded. He reached into the barrow and tipped the folio up. “And what’s this inside? One of Earl Cuthbert’s folios?”

Brianna stepped into the hall. “Avner!”

“It’s not for me,” he began. “I’m just borrowing it for-“

“What you were doing is plain enough!” Arlien snapped.

Brianna locked her arms stiffly at her sides, as if restraining the urge to strike the youth. “You betrayed my trust!” she spat. “You’re as bad as Basil!”

“But-“

“Be quiet!” the queen snapped. “You just stand there while I figure out what to do with you.”

“If I may, I have a suggestion,” said Prince Arlien.

“Please tell me,” Brianna said. “I’m too angry to think.”

“Return the folio to the library before its absence is noticed,” suggested the prince. “Basil has already embarrassed you quite enough with the earl, and Cuthbert’s just the type to seize this as an excuse to turn us out.”

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating?” Brianna asked.

The prince shrugged. “Perhaps, but why take the chance?” he asked. “Even if I’m wrong, admitting that there’s a second thief in your party will only lead to more distrust and resentment on Cuthbert’s part. Wouldn’t it be better to take care of this problem ourselves, and limit our arguments with the earl to matters of strategy?”

Brianna considered this for a moment, then nodded. “You do have a point.” She turned to Avner. “Do as the good prince suggests, and put that folio back exactly where you found it.”

Arlien scowled as she issued the command. “The boy can’t be trusted,” he said. “I was thinking we would return the book ourselves.”

Brianna shook her head. “You’ll wake up the entire keep clanking about in the armor,” she said. “Besides, Avner wouldn’t dare disobey me again-would you?”