The Giant Among Us

7

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 killed 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!”

Noting that this was the second time the giant had referred to Julien and Arno, Avner repeated the names so he would not forget them before he saw Tavis. In spite of Gavorial’s words, he could not bring himself to believe the scout was dead.

“There is no corpse,” the stone giant called.

“No corpse?” the frost giant stormed. “Why not?”

“The battle was fierce,” Gavorial explained. “When it was over, a few drops of Tavis’s blood were all that lay on the tundra.”

“Hagamil will not believe that, and neither will I!” The frost giant sounded almost happy. “Without a body, how do we know you really killed him?”

“Perhaps this will persuade you.”

Avner peered over the boulder and saw Gavorial holding a hickory bow. Though the weapon looked almost tiny compared to the enormous stone giant, the youth instantly recognized it as Tavis’s Bear Driller.

A fiery red light blossomed inside Avner’s head, then a churning storm of rage and pain boiled up inside him. Tavis was the only father the orphan had ever known.

“Liar!” Avner yelled. “You could never kill Tavis!”

Gavorial twisted around, his mouth hanging agape. The frost giant leader reacted more forcefully, shouting a string of orders in his tribal language. The three warriors that had already crossed the stream glanced up to see where Avner’s voice had come from, then resumed climbing at double speed.

“This is for Tavis!” Avner yelled.

The youth scrambled up the slope and pushed down on his lever. The stone tipped forward and hung there. Avner yelled in frustration and threw all his weight onto the limb. The rock broke free with a soft grating, then rumbled down the slope.

Tavis was still wondering why Avner was in the canyon when the boulder came bouncing down the slope. The scout watched the stone sail off the cliff top and arc toward the beaver dam, and then he understood at least one thing: the youth was the traell who had been harassing the frost giants-and he was far from finished.

Tavis slipped Bear Driller into Gavorial’s mouth-the firbolg found it difficult to think of the enormous gray body as his own-and reached for a handhold on the canyon wall. Avner’s boulder smashed into the beaver dam with an ear-splitting crash. Shards of wet, broken stick flew down the canyon as far as the waterfall. Tavis dug his fingers into a small ledge and scraped his feet along the rocky face, searching in vain for knob or shelf on which to step.

A loud, gurgling roar rumbled down the gorge. Tavis looked upstream and saw a frothing wall of water and sticks boiling toward him. The pond was draining fast, ripping the dam apart in great hunks.

Tavis stopped searching for a foothold and pulled with his hands alone. Gavorial’s body rose off the ground, but the effort of lifting such an immense bulk was even more exhausting than Basil had warned. The scout’s fingers felt like they would rip from his hands, while his shoulders and forearms already burned with fatigue. He continued to drag himself up the cliff, knowing his pain would be worse if he allowed the flood to sweep him over the waterfall.

The scout’s chin had barely risen as far as the tiny ledge when the waters caught his feet Gavorial’s massive body slipped sideways. Tavis jerked his legs out of the water and pressed his bent knees against the wall, trembling from the strain of holding the awkward position.

The firbolg peered down. It seemed an immense distance from his head to the churning flood below. The raging waters were continuing to rise, scraping at his toes with sharp sticks torn loose from the dam. A snort of exhaustion shot from Tavis’s large nostrils, and his breath began to come in short, panicked spurts. He had to fight his own instincts to keep Bear Driller between his lips, for Gavorial’s oxygen-starved body demanded that he open his mouth and start gasping. The scout craned his neck, searching for a more secure position higher on the cliff.

Tavis’s eye fell on a broad crevice angling across the face ten feet above. A firbolg could have crawled inside the crack and rested, but not a giant. On the other hand, the fissure would have been well out of a firbolg’s reach. Not so for a giant. The scout pulled himself chest height to the ledge, then stretched a hand toward the crevice.

Gavorial’s long arm made the reach easily. Tavis slipped his hand into the crack and knotted it into a ball, twisting it sideways to wedge the fist in place. He tugged twice. The rough stone dug deep into the hard stone giant flesh, and the scout knew he would not slip. He braced the soles of his feet on the cliff and leaned back, anchoring himself in a secure tripod position. With his free hand, he took Bear Driller from his mouth and gasped for breath. The muscles of his arms and legs knotted into aching lumps, but he hardly cared. As long he kept his hand wedged in the crevice, he would not fall.

The scout glanced behind him to see three frost giants scrambling toward the ruined beaver dam, their eyes fixed on the rim of the canyon. Tavis followed their gazes and saw the angry youth glaring down at him, no doubt trying to think of some way to dislodge him. The firbolg waved Bear Driller in the boy’s direction, hoping Avner might remember Basil’s runemask.

The youth spat and yelled something, but Tavis could not hear it over the roaring floodwaters. The boy made no move to escape, and the scout began to fear he intended to give battle.

The three frost giants reached the half-drained beaver pond and crossed its muddy bed in three strides. Moving with calm deliberation, they went to the cliff and boosted one of their number high enough to reach the rim of the gorge. As the warrior slowly pulled himself over the top, Avner took his sling from beneath his cloak and loaded a stone.

“Don’t harm the child!” Tavis yelled in Gavorial’s booming voice. “That boy is like a son to Queen Brianna! Julien and Arno can make good use of him.”

Avner whirled his sling over his head, then whipped it in Tavis’s direction. The stone sailed straight at the scout, but he was powerless to dodge or twist away. The rock struck him squarely in the ribs, sending a surprisingly sharp pang through his chest. Tavis groaned, nearly falling into the floodwaters when his aching muscles twitched.

The three frost giants chuckled in delight. Avner grabbed another stone.

“Still want us to catch him alive, Sharpnose?” It was the warrior atop the canyon rim who cackled the question.

“That’s what Julien and Arno would want,” Tavis answered. Although he had never heard the names before, it seemed apparent that Julien and Arno were leading the assault against Brianna. “I’m sure you’ll be well rewarded if you capture him alive-and severely punished if you do not”

This silenced the laughter of the frost giants. The warrior on the canyon rim lay down and dangled an arm over the edge. One of his fellows boosted the other one up to grasp the proffered hand. Avner loosed another stone, striking the brute atop the cliff in the back of the head. The giant yelled in pain, nearly dropping his companion.

“Don’t let go, Egarl!” roared the dangling warrior. “Or, by Thrym, I’ll cleave your skull!”

“Don’t swear oaths you can’t keep, Bodvar,” advised Egarl. The frost giant glanced over his shoulder. “And you, traell! Stone me again and I’ll smash you flat as a pond.”

The youth yelled something Tavis could not hear, then flung another rock at Egarl. The frost giant cursed and pulled Bodvar up the cliff. Avner slipped his sling into his jerkin and grabbed the tree limb he had used to pry the boulder off the mountain.

“You’d do well to surrender, boy!” Tavis yelled. He glanced down and saw that the beaver pond had finally emptied itself. The floodwaters were subsiding. “No harm will come to you!”

The two frost giants started up the slope. Avner heaved his lever at them. The branch landed far short, then tumbled end-over-end toward its targets. Egarl caught the heavy limb in one hand, then tossed it into the gorge as though it were a stick.

Avner kicked his fulcrum loose. The fir trunk rolled down the hillside toward the frost giants’ ankles. Bodvar let the log roll into his hand, then snapped it in two and dropped the pieces at his feet He continued to climb.

Avner finally turned to flee. As he tried to scramble up the slope, Tavis saw that the youth was exhausted. The boy’s legs were barely moving at half speed, and he had to stop every third step to catch his breath.

Tavis climbed down the cliff, then lowered a trembling foot into the subsiding floodwaters. When the current did not threaten to sweep his leg from beneath him, he dropped the rest of the way and started toward the drained beaver pond.

By the time the scout reached the ruined dam, the frost giants had Avner flanked on both sides. The youth feinted toward Egarl, then darted between Bodvar’s legs. The giant uttered a cold curse and spun around, snatching Avner up easily.

“Don’t harm him!” Tavis yelled. He stepped across the beaver pond’s muddy bottom in two quick strides, then went to stand at the third frost giant’s side. He raised a hand toward the warrior holding Avner. “Hand him down to me.”

A milky hand clasped his arm and pushed it down. “You must think us stupid!” growled the third frost giant “We caught the traell.”

“I’ll see you get credit,” said Tavis. “But I should carry him. I knew the child when I served at Castle Hartwick.”

“Liar!” yelled Avner.

Tavis looked up to see the youth’s angry eyes glaring down at him. The boy was securely enclosed in Bodvar’s fist, with nothing but his head showing over the frost giant’s index finger.

“When you were at Castle Hartwick, I lived at Tavis’s inn with the other orphans,” he said. “The only time I ever saw you was after Tavis chased you off.”

The third frost giant narrowed his pale eyes and stared at Tavis in open suspicion. “What kind of trick you playing, Sharpnose?”

The scout silently cursed Avner’s irrepressible spirit. So far, Tavis had avoided the necessity of lying, allowing the frost giants to draw their own conclusions from what he said. The boy’s sharp tongue threatened to expose his ruse.

Tavis met the frost giant’s gaze evenly. “You wouldn’t know the traell’s value if I hadn’t told you who he was,” he said. Strictly speaking, Avner was not a traell. The name properly applied only to the semicivilized humans who wandered the frozen plains north of the Ice Spires, but frost giants seldom made the distinction. “All I ask is that you let me carry the traell.”

“No!”

The voice boomed out from the other side of the gorge, where Tavis saw a frost giant wearing a steel skullcap with ivory horns. The fellow looked large even for his race, with pale yellow eyes and snarling blue lips.

The frost giant started across the pond. “You have Tavis’s bow to give to Julien and Arno,” he said. “All we have is this miserable traell.”

“I don’t trust you to keep the boy alive, and he’ll be no good to Julien and Arno dead,” Tavis said. “I’ll trade you.”

The scout held Bear Driller out to the leader, who was already stepping out of the beaver pond.

“Trade him what?” called Avner. The boy remained gripped securely in Bodvar’s fist “That ol’ piece of hickory?”

“That is Bear Driller,” said the giant leader. He eyed the bow carefully, but made no move to take it. “I have heard the poets sing its praise often enough to recognize the weapon.”

“So?” Avner scoffed. “Just because Gavorial got the bow doesn’t mean he got Tavis. I’ve already caught him in one lie. How do you know he isn’t lying about the battle?”

The scout bit his tongue, restraining the urge to tell Avner to shut up. The youth was trying to incite trouble among his captors so he could slip away in the confusion, an art he had apparently cultivated during his years as a street thief. Tavis feared the technique would be the undoing of them both.

The frost giant leader shifted his gaze between Avner and Tavis. “The traell does have a point,” he said. “Perhaps Tavis dropped his bow while you were chasing him.”

“Would he have also dropped his cloak?” Tavis asked, reaching inside his tunic. “And his quiver, his sword belt, and his equipment satchel?”

The scout reached into his large tunic and withdrew each of the items he named, which he had been holding for use after his eventual return to firbolg form. All of the equipment was blood-soaked and tattered from his fight with Gavorial and Odion.

Tavis fixed what he hoped was a stony glare on Avner’s shocked face. “Do you still believe Tavis Burdun escaped?”

The youth’s eyes swelled to puffy red spheres, and he looked away. Tavis did not enjoy being so cruel, but at least he would no longer have to contend with the youth’s sharp tongue.

The frost giant leader lifted his gaze from the blood-soaked gear. “You have convinced me that Tavis is dead, and I think you will convince Hagamil as well,” he said. “As for Julien and Arno-who can tell what they will think?”

“Then you’ll make the trade?” Tavis asked.

The leader shook his head. “I’ve no idea why you want the traell, but I don’t like it, Sharpnose. We’ll keep the boy, and you keep your rags,” he said. “And don’t worry that we’ll kill him. Even if Julien and Arno have no use for him, this traell has a brave spirit. Hagamil will want to feast him before he dies.”

A wave of fatigue rolled through Tavis’s body. He slipped his equipment back into his tunic and tucked Bear Driller beneath his belt, trying to find the strength to keep his legs from trembling. He did not know if he had the stamina to continue impersonating Gavorial until he freed Avner, or whether Basil’s magic would last until he had the chance. Nor did he know what was happening at Cuthbert Castle, and that ignorance weighed more heavily on him than Gavorial’s immense weight.