The Giant Among Us (13 page)

Tavis felt a jolt and thought his knees had buckled, then realized it was only Gavorial’s heavy steps shaking the ground. The scout stooped over to grab the runearrow and saw the shadow of a huge foot fall over it. He pulled his hand back, empty, and leaped away. The stone giant’s foot came down hard, sending a shudder through the entire meadow.

“Basil is wise!” Tavis yelled.

The scout felt the explosion in the pit of his stomach, a terrible impact that seemed to arise from somewhere deep inside his own being. He found himself hurling through the air amidst a crimson spray laden with smoking flesh and pulverized bone. He did not hear the boom until much later, after the shockwave had slammed him to the ground fifty paces from where it had picked him up. The cool mountain breeze carried the sickening smell of charred meat to his nostrils.

A harsh, anguished moan filled Tavis’s ears. At first he thought he might be making the horrid sound, reacting to some injury he had not yet sensed. But the scout had at least a vague awareness of his body, and while he ached all over, he felt no stabbing pains or unexplained numbness. He rose to his knees and looked in Gavorial’s direction.

The stone giant was not making the noise, either. He lay propped on his elbows, watching the stumps of his legs pour blood into a smoking crater. His gray skin had turned white, and he held his jaw clenched against the pain, but his black eyes seemed more interested in the process of dying than fearful of it.

The moaning ended in a single cry of despair, and Tavis looked toward the bluff to see Odion’s grief-stricken face peering down at his mentor. “My father!”

Gavorial looked up, then motioned to Odion. “Come, my son. The time has come for us to say our farewells.”

Dragging his injured leg behind him, Odion clambered over the bluff and slipped down to sit at his father’s side. “You have not left me yet.” The giant pulled off his tunic and began to rip it into tourniquet strips. “I can drag you back to Stonehome.”

Gavorial laid a hand on his son’s arm. “How can I continue to walk the warrior’s path without legs?” The stone giant began to shiver, and his voice grew weak. “Let me depart proudly the life I have chosen.”

Odion’s big shoulders fell into a slump. He slipped an arm around Gavorial’s neck and cradled his father’s head in the crook of his elbow. “It shall be written that you died with pride and grace, my father.”

Gavorial managed a weak smile. “Let it also be written that I was felled by the dauntless firbolg Tavis Burdun,” he said. “And that we both fought well, in causes as legitimate as they are ancient.”

Odion nodded. “I shall inscribe the record myself.”

Tavis rose and started forward to say his own farewells, but before he had taken three steps, a deep groan slipped from Gavorial’s mouth. The giant’s black eyes went gray and vacant, and the purple shadow of death crept down his face.

Odion let Gavorial’s head slip from his lap, then stood and looked to the eastern horizon. “I shall see you in Twilight, my father.”

The stone giant turned and limped away, leaving Gavorial’s body behind as though it were no longer of consequence.

The shepherd boy clambered down the bluff and ran to Tavis, panting heavily from his long sprint “You won!”

The scout shook his head. “I prevailed,” he corrected. “Gavorial was not evil, and in killing him I also lost.”

The youth shrugged. “You survived. I’m glad of that.”

Tavis nodded. “We can be thankful for that.” He looked down at the youth. “What is your name?”

“Eamon Drake at your service.” The youth bowed. “And you would be Tavis Burdun, am I right?”

“You are,” Tavis answered. He looked toward the ledge on Wyvern’s Eyrie, where the boy’s mother and sisters still stood, nervously eyeing the injured giant limping toward them. “Can you get back onto the ledge with your family?”

“They have a rope they can lower.”

“Good.” Tavis pulled one of his regular arrows from his quiver and handed it to the youth. The shaft was only an inch shy of being as tall as the boy. “Take this to Earl Wendel. He’ll recognize it by its length and know you speak in my name. Tell him the giants have trapped Queen Brianna in Cuthbert Castle.”

The boy’s eyes went wide.

“Earl Wendel is to send a rider to summon the Queen’s Guard from Castle Hartwick, and he is also to gather as many warriors from his own fief and those of his neighbors as he can,” Tavis said. “When the Queen’s Guard reaches Wendel Manor, you are to lead the entire army back over this pass. Do you understand?”

Eamon managed to close his gaping mouth, then nodded. “You can trust in me.”

Tavis clapped the boy’s shoulder. “I know I can.”

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you going to do?” the youth inquired. “You’ve seen how narrow the canyon is. You’ll never get past all those frost giants.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Tavis said. He pulled Basil’s runemask from his satchel and turned toward Gavorial’s corpse. “They won’t even try to stop me.”

7
Dangerous Ford

Sitting in the sun, with the smell of pine thick in the air and the sound of water gurgling off the gorge walls, Tavis could have fallen asleep. With a cool breeze wafting down the canyon and a pair of white-winged dippers sweeping low over the stream, it was the kind of day that called out to his firbolg blood, enticing him to rest and enjoy the most valuable of all the treasures the mountains had to offer: an afternoon of blissful, unsullied tranquility.

But even if his duty had permitted such a thing, the scout felt sure the frost giants coming up the canyon would bring the respite to a premature end. From his hiding place behind a boulder he could see fifteen of them filing through the gorge below, their pale, bushy beards and milky skin visible even from a distance of several hundred paces. They were just beyond the crest of a silvery waterfall, preparing to cross the stream at a narrow ford. The first warrior was climbing down to the water alone, while his fellows waited on the trail more than a dozen paces above.

Tavis cursed the giants’ caution. The ford was perfect for an ambush, located in one the narrowest places in the canyon and flanked on both sides by high, sheer walls of granite. There was even a large beaver pond less than two hundred paces above the waterfall. If the giants had been foolish enough to cross the stream en masse, the scout could have fired a runearrow into the dam and unleashed a flood that would have washed them all down the gorge.

Tavis did not understand why the frost giants were being so careful today. In a race notorious for its bluster, such caution seemed out of place, almost as though they were expecting trouble. The scout hoped the brutes had not somehow learned of his triumph over Gavorial.

Tavis slid down from his hiding place and retreated up the trail to a small clearing. He sat down next to a pool of still water and took Basil’s runemask out of his satchel. It now resembled Gavorial’s death mask rather than a smiling human face. The open mouth had tightened into the indifferent grimace of a stone giant, silver lids had descended to cover the gaping eyes, and the magical runes in its surface had rearranged themselves into crow’s feet and worry lines.

Tavis set Bear Driller on the ground next to him, then took off his sword belt and placed the mask over his face. A biting chill seeped from the cold silver into his flesh. His skin went numb, though he felt the muscles below being tugged and stretched as the runecaster’s magic folded his visage into the deeply lined image of a stone giant. He did not feel as though he were growing to giant size, but he did sense a dull ache in the bones of his skull and face. His jaw dropped and lengthened into a drooping chin, while his nasal septum descended to form an arrow-shaped nose. A pair of deep, permanent furrows etched themselves into his brow, then his bronze hair began to fall out, and he saw it floating away on the breeze.

Tavis found the whole process more uncomfortable than painful, thanks in large part to the mask’s icy numbness. When the stretching and tugging at last seemed to stop, he leaned over the still pond. The reflection he saw sent a cold chill creeping down his spine, for he felt as though he were looking at a small version of Gavorial’s ghost.

A painful lump formed in the scout’s throat as his Adam’s apple began to swell. He found himself first gasping for air, then unable to draw breath at all. His pulse started to pound in his ears, and he could feel his black eyes bulging from their sockets. A distant ringing echoed in his ears. The canyon started to spin, a black fog formed at the edges of his vision, and Tavis knew Basil had made some horrible mistake.

The dark fog grew thicker, until the firbolg could barely see Gavorial’s black eyes staring back out of the pond. The scout braced his hands on the pool’s marshy bank, fighting against his creeping lethargy. If he fell unconscious, he would choke on his own Adam’s apple, and then there would be no one to stop the spy from betraying Brianna.

Tavis’s arms trembled, and a terrible thought crossed his mind. Basil could be the spy! The runecaster himself had once admitted that verbeeg nobles prided themselves on treachery, and what if he were a noble? Nothing could be more perfidious than to earn the queen’s confidence, only to slay her bodyguard and betray her to the giants. It would make him a legend among his fellows!

The scout fell back onto his haunches and reached up to tear the mask away. To his horror, he discovered it melded so completely with his own skin that he could not grasp the edge. He flailed about blindly and found his sword belt, then drew his dagger from its scabbard. He had trouble holding the handle, for he did not seem able to close his fingers around the hilt. He took it between his thumb and forefinger like a needle, then pressed the tip behind his ear.

That was when the scout heard a whistling wind and felt the air being drawn into his lungs. His Adam’s apple remained painfully swollen, but it no longer prevented him from breathing. As his foggy vision began to clear, he rolled his dagger between his fingers. It felt more like a thorn than a dirk. The weapon had shrunk-or rather, he had grown larger.

*****

Avner pushed the end of a sturdy tree limb under the enormous stone, then laid the middle of his makeshift lever on a fir trunk fulcrum. Holding the setup in place with one foot, he peered around the boulder into the gorge below. He was standing on the canyon rim directly above the beaver dam, just high enough so he could see over the waterfall to where the frost giants were fording the stream. The first two had already waded across and started climbing the steep slope on the other side. The leader and most of the others remained out of sight, hidden behind a bulge in the canyon wall.

Avner sighed in disappointment. He had hoped all the giants would cross the ford at the same time, but they had grown too wary to make such mistakes. The youth had been pushing boulders down on them all morning, and once he had even sent a log jam down the stream, nearly catching them as they waded across a stretch of churning rapids. His exertions were taking a heavy toll on his strength, and he feared this might be the last ambush he had the energy to prepare.

Avner slipped behind his boulder and peered over the top, checking the details of his plan one last time. On the other side of the stone, a steep slope descended twenty paces to the gorge rim. Forty feet below that, no more than ten paces from the canyon wall, lay the beaver dam. If everything went as intended, the rock would smash the stick barricade apart. He had hoped the resulting flood would sweep the entire giant party away, but he would be happy enough if it delayed them for a few minutes.

The youth was about to put his plan into action when he noticed the gray figure of a stone giant slipping out of the trees. The fellow was on the other side of the pond, coming down the canyon toward the frost giants. Avner could not make out the face, but after hearing Gavorial’s name at the farm, he knew who he was seeing.

The youth decided to delay his ambush and see what came of the meeting. Besides, if he attacked before Gavorial passed the beaver dam, it would be a simple matter for the stone giant to cross the stream and capture him.

Soon Avner could see the giant well enough to recognize Gavorial’s arrow-shaped nose and slender jaw. The youth continued to watch as the giant passed the beaver pond. Instead of descending the steep gully to meet the frost giants, Gavorial climbed into the narrow channel below the dam and crossed the stream. He walked to the edge of the waterfall and braced himself on the gorge wall, then leaned over to peer down at the frost giants below, where a third warrior was crossing the ford.

“Go back!” Gavorial yelled, speaking in Common. The stone giant’s rough voice easily overwhelmed the rumbling waterfall. “I have no need of you here!”

“That is not for you to say, Sharpnose!” The frost giant’s throaty words were less distinct than Gavorial’s, but still understandable. “Julien and Arno bade you wait in the pass. Why have you defied them?”

“I have done battle,” Gavorial answered. “And now Tavis Burdun will not cross Shepherd’s Nightmare.”

“You lolled him?”

“All that he owned is mine,” the stone giant confirmed.

Gavorial’s words struck Avner like a warhammer, filling his breast with a dull, crushing pain. He stumbled back and barely noticed as he tripped over his fulcrum.

“No!” Avner gasped. “Nobody can kill Tavis Burdun, not even Gavorial!”

The youth remained where he was, trying to understand the impossible things he was hearing.

“Tavis was to be ours!” The frost giant’s words echoed up from the gorge. “You robbed us!”

“You were too slow,” Gavorial replied. “The battle started before you arrived.”

“Through no fault of our own, Sharpnose!” the leader growled. “You left a traell on the farm. He slowed us.”

“A human?” Gavorial’s voice sound doubtful. “A single human stopped so many frost giants?”

“A single human you could not kill,” the frost giant countered. “Perhaps because you wanted him to slow us down, so you could present the body of Tavis Burdun to Julien and Arno!”