The Giant Among Us (17 page)

“I reckon we got time to fix it,” the sergeant continued, “providing you let us alone.” Without awaiting the queen’s leave, he turned back to his work.

Brianna felt someone brush past her, then Arlien had his hand on the man’s shoulder. “The queen did not dismiss you!” the prince snapped. “Show her the proper respect!”

Cuthbert stepped forward and pried Arlien’s hand off the sergeant’s shoulder, then placed himself between the two men. “Blane has not slept since the giants appeared,” the earl said. “I’m certain he intended no disrespect.”

“That’s no excuse,” countered Arlien. “When a man is tired, discipline is more important than ever. In Gilthwit, we-“

“This is not Gilthwit,” interjected the earl. “I will not have my men bullied about by a stranger.”

“Then teach them to honor their queen,” the prince replied.

Brianna drifted down the rampart, absentmindedly fingering her ice diamonds and leaving the men to their quarrel. Arlien was right, of course. The sergeant and his men had failed to show the respect due a queen, but she thought it was probably Cuthbert’s place to discipline them instead of the prince’s-not that the earl would do such a thing. He was soft for an earl, perhaps too soft. Arlien was right about that, too.

Brianna glanced back at the ballista, where the two men were continuing their argument. Behind them stood Selwyn, captain of her own Company of the Winter Wolf. He was resplendent in his iridescent chain mail and purple tabard, looking anywhere but at the two men hissing venom at each other. If the disagreement bothered him so much, the queen wondered why he didn’t take one side or the other and put an end to it. Probably because he was a sycophant, just as Arlien said. He cut a dashing enough figure in battle, with a war fever burning in his eyes and his silver axe flinging gore, but bring the man into a castle court, and his courage vanished as fast as a marmot down a hole.

Brianna suspected she should go back and put an end to the quarrel, but feared it would appear she was taking sides. That would be as damaging to morale as the argument itself. She had placed Arlien in charge of the fortifications because he seemed so knowledgeable about the art of war, and she did not want to do anything to undermine that credibility. However, Selwyn had also reported that most of Cuthbert’s soldiers were grumbling about serving a foreign prince, so she could not afford to say anything that might further that impression. The whole issue of command had become such a muddle that she feared the confusion would do more than the giants’ boulders to bring down Cuthbert Castle.

Once, not long ago, Brianna would have known how to solve the problem. But these days it seemed that the queen’s thoughts swam through a fog, drifting aimlessly about her mind with no apparent purpose. And Avner’s disappearance had made matters worse. She could not help worrying about the boy, and whenever his name crossed her mind, whatever she had been thinking vanished into the cold whorl where her heart had been.

Arlien said her nerves were causing the confusion, but the queen knew better. It was the wine in that damned libation. Brianna had told him not to put any more spirits in his concoctions, and she was going to stop drinking the stuff entirely-just as soon as she felt strong enough to do without the extra fortification.

Unable to watch the argument any longer, Brianna stepped over to an empty embrasure. The hills across the lake were bare, all the trees that had once covered them now lashed together and floating in the shallows, where more than a hundred giants were piling boulders onto their primitive rafts. Each craft appeared large enough to hold four giants, with a simple rudder on the stern and a single lateen-rigged mast. Although the patchwork sails were presently furled, the queen knew that once they were unfurled, the clumsy vessels would approach all too fast. Even if every ballista on the ramparts had time to sink two rafts, close to fifty giants would still reach the castle. That would be more than enough to storm the outer curtain. The inner curtain would not last long after that, and the attackers would tear the keep apart within minutes.

Brianna thought Cuthbert Castle’s best chance lay in hoping that a favorable breeze did not rise before her army arrived, but that was a distant prospect at best. On two out of the last three days, a stiff wind had risen on the giants’ shore about midmorning, then blown across the lake until well into the afternoon. If the same thing happened tomorrow, the giants would be ready.

Behind her Brianna heard boot heels clicking on stone. “You mustn’t let the men see you staring,” said Arlien. “It looks as though you’re frightened.”

“I am frightened,” the queen said. She turned around and saw that all three of her escorts had come over to join her at the embrasure. “And I doubt that my showing fear will hurt morale. It seems clear enough the men have lost their respect for me.”

Arlien stepped to her side and took her elbow. “The sergeant’s reaction is of no importance,” he said. “He’s one of Cuthbert’s men.”

“What do you mean by that?” the earl demanded. He positioned himself on Brianna’s other side and glared at Arlien. “I assure you, my men will fight as valiantly as Selwyn’s.”

“They will try,” Arlien interrupted. “But you’ve dampened their spirit by displaying your anger with me.”

“I have done nothing of the sort!” the earl snapped. “I have kept our discussions strictly to myself. If the men are in poor spirits, it’s because of you.”

Brianna looked down the rampart and saw that Blane and his crew still had not returned to work. They were watching the argument in open disgust, whispering among themselves and shaking their heads at everything Arlien said.

“Quiet!” the queen hissed. “You’re both to blame.”

Arlien’s jaw fell. “Pardon me?” He glared at Brianna as though she were a defiant vassal. “I couldn’t have heard you correctly.”

The words sent a chill down Brianna’s spine, and she felt an inexplicable knot of apprehension in her stomach. Surprised that the prince’s sharp retort caused her such anxiety, the queen clenched her jaw and forced herself to meet his stare. If the possibility of losing Arlien’s support caused her such dread, then clearly she had come to depend on him too much.

“You heard me, Prince.” She shifted her gaze to Earl Cuthbert, relieved to look away from Arlien’s angry eyes. “You will both do me the favor of bringing your bickering to an end.”

Cuthbert’s face reddened. “Of course, Majesty.” The earl looked to Arlien and said, “I apologize.”

Arlien glanced at Brianna’s stern face, then returned his gaze to Cuthbert. “Apology accepted,” the prince muttered. “I’m sure your men will fight well enough.”

“They’ll do better than that,” Brianna said. “Their spears will ravage our enemy’s fleet so badly that the giants will turn back before reaching the walls.”

Brianna glanced toward Blane and his ballista crew. The sergeant’s only reaction was to roll his eyes and yell at his men. All five soldiers returned to their task with weary, resigned expressions.

“What will it take to encourage you men?” Brianna demanded.

Without waiting for a reply, the queen spun on her heels and started for the corner tower. She felt tears welling in her eyes, and she had no wish for her subjects to see them trickling down her face.

Basil sat beside his shuttered windows, his eyes pinched shut against the cramped dinginess of his prison. Every time he opened them, an unwelcome image kept returning to his mind, the same image he always saw in the murky confines of a close space: a young verbeeg hiding in the cramped tunnel of a long-abandoned dwarf hole, staring out into the sunlight while dozens of sooty black legs flashed past the entrance. Even through the rock, the muffled screams of his parents, siblings, and cousins came to him, and also the crackling laughter of the fire giants boasting that any verbeeg who stole their iron would learn to swim in fire. Then a great red eye appeared at the end of the tunnel, and soon after the glowing white tip of a long spear. The hole was too small for Basil to crawl deeper. So he was trapped, and before it was over, he was begging his tormentors to shove the spear through him and be done with it. But of course they had not, and he has hated fire giants ever since-but not as badly as he hated confined places.

Basil’s eyes popped open, no longer able to shut the terrible memory from his mind. He stood and flung his shutters open, and they banged against the keep wall with a thunderlike clap, drawing startled shrieks and cries from the ward below. The verbeeg pressed his large face against his window bars and took several long, deep breaths before noticing the nervous soldiers of Selwyn’s Company of the Winter Wolf craning their necks to stare up at him.

“I beg your pardon,” he called. “I didn’t mean to unnerve you.”

The men slowly returned to their war preparations, sharpening lances and lighting fires under oil cauldrons. Basil ran his eyes over their number, searching for Avner’s familiar face. The shutters had been closed for more than three hours-an interminable length of time for the verbeeg-and still the boy had not come. The young thief was much too wise to volunteer for a job, but Basil was beginning to fear the youth had been pressed into duty.

Perhaps someone would even come for Basil, realizing that a verbeeg’s strength could be put to good use in the castle’s defenses. If it got him out of this room, the runecaster would even do as they asked, at least for a while. As refreshing as a little physical labor might be, he could not allow it to interfere with his research-not considering what he had discovered, and what it might mean to the queen’s chances of winning this battle.

A fanfare of trumpets sounded from the inner curtain’s gatehouse, then Brianna came sweeping through the arch with her trio of sycophants in tow. Even from the keep window, Basil could see that her eyes were swollen and red. The runecaster knew the queen well enough to realize that only terrible news could make her cry.

“What’s wrong, Milady?” the verbeeg yelled. “Has something happened to Tavis?”

Brianna stopped and looked toward Basil’s window, a confused and blank expression on her face.

“To Avner?” Basil gasped. That would explain why the boy had not answered his summons.

The queen’s lip began to tremble, then she covered her face and started across the ward at a run.

Basil stumbled back from the window. “Oh, Avner!” he cried.

The verbeeg slumped to the floor, too stunned to think, yet knowing he must. If his research was right, the hill giants were the least of Brianna’s problems. There was something foul inside the castle, a scion of an evil as ancient as Toril itself, come to reclaim a treasure lost long before the first human kingdom had arisen in the valley of Hartsvale.

The first thing Basil had to do was be certain of his facts. The folios were instruments of subtle nuance, as full of allegory and myth as of history. It was possible that he had misunderstood a key phrase, or interpreted as reality a parable meant only as symbol. The verbeeg dragged himself across the floor and laid a finger on the mica. The ancient letters came to life, glowing red and yellow and blue, and he read:

So it was that Othea gave birth to Twilight from her own dying shadow, thus imprisoning forever the faithless ones who had poisoned her. And when the winds of life whistled no more inside her breast, Annam’s final son crawled at last from her womb. Great was his hunger, for Othea had held him captive a century of centuries and fed him not, and so he chased down a hart and ate it from the antlers to the hooves, and thereafter he called himself Hartkiller.

Now it was that Hartkiller remembered that mighty Annam had conceived him as immortal King of the Giants, and so he went to search out his rightful lands. He came first to the hill giants, and to them he said, “I am Hartkiller, your rightful king, and you shall bow down before me and make me a silver crown to set upon my head.”

But the hill giants laughed, for Hartkiller seemed no king to them. Though his voice boomed like thunder and his mighty fist could shatter stone, his eternal fast had made of him the puniest of all Annam’s sons, so that he stood barely the height of a firbolg and wore his skin upon a frame more haggard than a verbeeg. So the hill giants would not bow, and they called him Othea’s bastard and drove him from their lodge with stones and filth.

Hartkiller went next to the grotto of the fire giants, and to them he said, “I am Hartkiller, your rightful king, and you shall bow down before me and make me a golden crown to set upon my head.” But the fire giants said they would not have a king who stood as high as their knees, so they roared their mirth and set a crown of cinders upon his head, and they drove him from their cave with lashing tongues of flame.

Hartkiller climbed last to the windy eyrie of the storm giants, and to them he said, “I am Hartkiller, your rightful king, and you shall bow down before me and make me a crown of diamonds to set upon my head.”

The storm giants asked if the hill giants had given him a crown of silver, and Hartkiller said they had driven him from their lodge with stones and filth. The storm giants asked if the fire giants had given him a crown of gold, and Hartkiller brandished the crown of cinders they had set upon his head. Then the storm giants said they would not have an oaf and a runt for a king, and they blasted him from their mountain with icy gales of wind.

When he saw that the giants would not have him, Hartkiller turned his back on the empire of Ostoria and went into the lands of the humans, and to them he said, “I am Hartkiller, and if you will have me as your king, I will drive the giants from this valley and make your farms safe from their pillage.”

And the humans bowed down before Hartkiller. They made him a crown of steel to set on his head and gave him a wife to bear his sons, and also warriors to lead into battle. Hartkiller went first to the hill giants. With his great axe, he cleaved their chief down the center and smashed their lodge asunder, and he told them to flee the hills of his valley and go live in the mountains, or live not at all.

Next, Hartkiller poured a tarn into the grotto of the fire giants, and when the flood drove them from their holes he pierced the heart of their dark khan with a lance as long as a tree, and he told them to leave the caves of his valley and go to live among the dwarves of the south, or live not at all.