The Giant Among Us (29 page)

Avner stretched forward and tugged his mount’s ear, intending to go around the wall. Graytusk had other ideas. The mammoth pulled his ear from the youth’s hand, then walked up to the wall and dug his tusks into the snow. He twisted his head about for a short time and wrapped his long trunk around a broken spruce. With a loud snort, the beast slowly backed away, filling the copse with sharp bangs and cracks as he tore a hole in the snowy barrier. Avner cringed at the loud sounds, fearing the frost giants might hear it, but allowed his mount to finish the job. If Hagamil’s warriors were still within earshot, the damage was already done.

Graytusk repeated the procedure a dozen more times before the painful radiance of sunlight on snow came pouring through the breach. Avner and his mount both turned their heads aside, allowing their eyes to adjust to the brilliance. The boy took the opportunity to rub the bony dome atop the mammoth’s head. Even that gentle contact sent waves of searing pain hissing up the youth’s arm. Last night’s blizzard had left his hand, as well as his face and other extremities, badly frostbitten. When Tavis’s fire had warmed him enough for the circulation to return, the pain had been so bad that he had nearly left his shelter and crawled back into the storm.

Avner pulled his aching hand away. “Good job, Graytusk,” he said. “I hope you figure out the rest of my plan that easily.”

The mammoth snorted impatiently, then turned and climbed into the gorgelike breach. On the slope above Avner could see a huge triangle of rocky outcroppings and grass exposed by last night’s avalanche. The apex was located directly beneath a narrow chute cutting through a high cliff of blond granite.

The youth knew Tavis had started the avalanche. He had heard the muffled booms of two exploding runearrows. The entire copse had begun to tremble, then there had been a tremendous crashing and banging as tons of snow slammed into the spruce stand. Avner had gone outside to see what was happening, but a scouring torrent of snow had driven him back into his den. Now, with the sun hanging in a cloudless blue sky and the temperature hovering a little below freezing, he found it difficult to remember how terrible last night’s blizzard had been.

Once they reached the other side of the gorge Graytusk had opened, the mammoth had little trouble climbing onto the avalanche fan. The snow here was well packed. Five frost giants had spent the early part of the morning trampling it down, haphazardly thrusting long spears into the snow in an attempt to locate Tavis’s buried body. Finally, as the sun climbed toward its zenith, they had given up and left, complaining bitterly about all the time they had wasted when they were supposed to be on their way to catch Brianna..

Because Avner had been watching them the entire time, he knew that a random search was unlikely to uncover the scout. Nor could he hope to make a methodic search of the avalanche. It was too large and too deep for him to succeed, especially considering the condition of his feet and hands. If the youth intended to find Tavis, he would need a better method.

That was where Graytusk’s sensitive nose would prove useful.

Avner guided the mammoth toward the center of the avalanche fan, more or less directly beneath the chute. Tavis had taught him that it was important to work quickly when searching for people buried in snow, since most victims suffocated within an hour of being buried. Thankfully, that applied more to wet, heavy snow than this fluffy stuff. A firbolg could probably last longer in this powder-exactly how much longer, the youth could not say-and there were things a victim could do to help himself, like crossing his arms in front of his face. Avner remembered Tavis drilling that into him time after time, saying it would double or even triple the amount of time before the air ran out So, if he assumed the scout would last twice as long in light snow as the heavy wet stuff, that would be two hours, and tripling that for knowing what to do would give him six hours.

By the youth’s best guess, Tavis had now been buried for twelve hours.

Avner shoved the thought aside. The boy intended to keep looking until he found his friend, and it wouldn’t matter if a week had passed. The youth turned his mount toward the chute. The frost giants had been in enough of a hurry that they hadn’t wasted time searching near the top of the avalanche, which was the least likely place for a victim to be buried.

Nevertheless, after watching the warriors search all morning, Avner had come to the conclusion that the top of the fan was the best place to start looking. If Tavis had been swept into the tangled mess at the copse’s edge, his body would hardly be worth finding, and the giants had already explored all the obvious accumulation zones in the middle part of the avalanche.

Besides, Avner thought it most likely that Tavis lay buried high up the slope. In last night’s blizzard, visibility on the open hillside would have been a mere foot or two, rendering a bow and arrows useless. But the scout would have been able to see much farther in the shelter of the gutty, so he had almost certainly been in the chute when he fired the arrows. And if he had been at the top of the avalanche when it started, it seemed likely that he lay near the top now.

Graytusk left the trampled snow that the giants had already searched and waded into the deep powder higher up the slope. Avner stopped the beast here. From his satchel the youth withdrew one of the thistle roots Tavis had given him to eat earlier. He tossed it into the snow a few feet in front of the mammoth’s trunk.

The root sank out of sight. Graytusk plunged his nose into the snow and sniffed the root out, then slipped the morsel into his mouth. Avner dropped a rock he had collected in the spruce copse. Again, the mammoth dipped his nose into the snow and sniffed around. The youth pulled himself to the top of his mount’s head and watched the beast’s face intently. He had no idea what Graytusk would do if he caught a whiff of Tavis, but Avner felt certain the mammoth would react in some way.

After several moments of not finding the root, Graytusk pulled his trunk from the avalanche and sprayed his passenger with snow.

“Sorry, but you’ve got to work for your treats,” Avner said.

The youth guided his mount up the slope, stopping every dozen paces or so to repeat the process. He soon learned to vary the order and number of thistle roots he tossed into the snow, since Graytusk would not sniff around if he thought Avner had dropped a rock.

They were about twenty paces from the top when the mammoth’s ears swung forward. A series of muffled squeals rose from the beast’s submerged trunk, then Graytusk followed his probing nose across the avalanche. A short distance later, he stopped and lowered his tusks into the snow, angrily swinging his head from side-to-side.

Avner grabbed both woolly ears. “No, Graytusk!” The boy’s heart was beating like a drum. “Gently.”

The youth allowed Graytusk to lower his head again, but did not release the beast’s ears. The mammoth dug more carefully, and within a few minutes he had excavated a hollow ten feet deep. The beast stopped digging, then snorted and tilted his head to gore something beneath the snow.

Avner yanked on the trunk rope, forcing Graytusk to raise his head. The youth peered around his mount’s ear. In the bottom of the hole, he saw a scrap of frozen tunic showing through a patch of icy red snow. His heart started to pound so hard he thought it would burst.

Keeping the trunk rope taut, Avner climbed down his mount’s woolly flank. He dropped the rest of the thistle roots in the snow. “You’ve done your part, Graytusk,” he said. “Good boy.”

The mammoth cast a suspicious glance into the hole, then diffidently looked away and began to eat the delicacies. Avner tied the trunk rope around his waist-whatever happened, he did not want Graytusk to leave-and waded toward the scrap of tunic. Even this far beneath the surface of the avalanche, the snow remained so fluffy that he sank to his hips with each step.

The youth stopped and knelt in the blood-soaked snow. He placed a hand on the tunic. Under the frozen cloth, he felt a shoulder blade.

“Tavis!”

No response.

Avner dug through the crimson snow and located Tavis’s head. The scout lay facedown, curled into a fetal position, with his arms crossed in front of his face and his knees tucked to his elbows. The resulting air pocket looked quite large, but the heat of the firbolg’s breath had lined much of it with a glassy layer of ice, sealing the cavity like a tomb.

Avner yelled, “Can you hear me?”

Again, no response.

The youth reached into the hole and laid his fingers over Tavis’s nose and mouth. With his hand still stinging from his frostbite, he could not feel much, but the scout’s skin did seem to feel a little warmer than the snow. Avner withdrew his arm and saw tiny beads of water on his fingers. It could only be condensation from the scout’s breath.

Avner’s stomach somersaulted.

Working frantically, the youth cleared the snow away so he could inspect Tavis’s injuries. A weblike tangle of jagged, ugly gashes covered die scout’s back and limbs, while a fiery blast had scorched the front of his body from his head to his knees. Both arms and one leg had nasty-looking lumps that might indicate cracked bones, but there were no unusual bends or kinks to suggest a severe break. A large, egg-shaped lump had risen on the side of his head.

Satisfied that Tavis would suffer no further injury by being moved, Avner went back to Graytusk. The youth turned the mammoth so that the beast was standing on the scout’s downhill side, then forced him to kneel. The creature sank so deeply that he almost disappeared in the snow.

Avner dragged his patient to the mammoth and mounted, pulling the heavy firbolg up in front of him. Graytusk stood without command. As the beast started to turn away, Avner caught a glimpse of familiar brown leather lying in the bottom of the hole.

“Not so fast, Graytusk!”

The youth stretched over Tavis’s inert form to grab his mount’s ears and stop the beast. He cut four short lengths of line off Graytusk’s trunk rope and tied the scout’s limbs into the mammoth’s shaggy fur. Avner turned the creature back toward the hole. Still holding the trunk rope, he slipped down Graytusk’s flank, then waded over to the familiar brown leather. He brushed the snow away and pulled Tavis’s quiver from where it had lain half-buried. The case still contained thirteen arrows, twelve of wood and one of gold.

15
Lake Monster

Before each embrasure swarmed a band of soldiers, standing on their toes and shoving each other aside to see what was coming down the lake. Brianna did not even try to push through the throng. She stepped over to a merlon and put her height to good use by peering over the top. The queen saw a small flotilla of hill giant rafts angling past the far corner of Cuthbert Castle’s outer curtain. By the tiny, toylike appearance of the crude vessels, she estimated their distance to be five hundred yards, just beyond catapult range.

At first, Brianna did not understand where the giants were going. Then, a little beyond the raft flotilla, she spied the arrow-shaped wake of something swimming toward the castle. At the tip of the rippling triangle appeared to be a tangled mass of brown lake weeds, about half as large as the hill giant rafts. It was coming straight toward the castle at a steady rate. The queen watched for several moments, until she thought she could make out the form of a needlelike snout, the crown of a pear-shaped head, and the broad oval of a back. The rest of the creature’s body remained submerged.

From a short distance down the rampart resounded the clack of a catapult spoon slamming its crossbar. The dark blotch of a small boulder arced over the lake and seemed to hang in the sky forever, then finally splashed down short of the creature.

The beast’s slender snout rose out of the water, dancing like a snake about to strike. An uncanny trill trumpeted across the lake, at once as shrill as a wyvern’s cry and as full as a dragon’s roar.

“They’ve got the lake monster on their side!” cried a warrior.

“Cover your ears!” yelled another. “His voice kills!”

A murmur of fear filled the air, and soldiers began cupping their hands over their ears. Other men, wise enough to realize they’d already be dead if the beast’s voice was fatal, assailed anyone who would listen with frightening anecdotes about the lake monster, many of them undoubtedly made up on the spot.

Above it all rang the voice of Blane, Sergeant of the Engines. “Crank her down again, boys! By the time you’re ready, that monster’ll be close enough to hit!”

A second catapult crew arrived, wheeling their weapon along the back of the rampart, and tried to push their way to an embrasure near Brianna. The queen stepped over to help, pulling panicked soldiers away from the wall.

“Stand aside!” she commanded. “Give these men room to work!”

The crowd’s attention remained on the lake monster, the men moving aside only when she shoved them away. She shook her head in dismay, knowing such confusion boded ill for the coming battle.

“Return to your posts!” she yelled. “This could be why the giants have been waiting!”

A few soldiers scowled and slipped off to another embrasure, but most simply ignored their queen. Brianna restrained the impulse to start hurling men over the wall and contented herself with keeping the area clear for the catapult crew. Although it had been nearly three days since die incident in the temple, her thoughts remained cloudy enough that she did not trust herself to chastise the troops. When Selwyn and Cuthbert arrived, they could restore order, and she would make it clear that she expected better discipline than this.

Blane’s catapult clacked again. Brianna stepped over to a merlon and watched the boulder splash down alongside the monster. It took several moments for the first ring of waves to ripple over the beast’s back.

“Don’t worry boys,” counseled Blane, “There’s plenty of time to sink that thing. Just pull your spoon down and load up.”

The beast let out another bugle. The tips of two white fangs broke the surface below its upraised snout. This sent another wave of hysterical speculation along the ramparts, and the confusion grew even worse as some men tried to retreat while others pressed forward to get a better look.