When the frost giant leader circled around the pile to answer the warrior’s summons, Avner quickly retreated through the grain and opened a new spy hole. He found the two giants squatting beside the limbless torso of an old woman. The leader nodded in approval and slapped the flat of his axe blade down on the corpse. He bared his blue teeth in a cruel smile and rose.
“I didn’t think stone giants had the stomach for this work.” In contrast to his subordinate, the leader spoke Common.
The warrior snickered an answer, again in tribal dialect. Avner had no idea what the fellow was saying, but he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out in surprise, for he did recognize one word: Gavorial.
Gavorial had served in the Giant Guard, which had once protected the monarchs of Hartsvale. When Brianna had forced her father to abdicate, it had been Gavorial who carried the addled king away, and who had warned Tavis that the giants would not rest until they delivered the queen to the Twilight Spirit. If the stone giant was a part of this, then Brianna was in greater danger than anyone knew.
As Avner watched, the frost giant leader reached into his belt purse and withdrew a rumpled parchment. He unfolded it and stretched it tight, then slowly scanned the surrounding area. After a moment’s study, the leader pointed toward the back of the farm, where the mouth of a narrow canyon led to Shepherd’s Nightmare.
A cold, sick dread welled up inside Avner. Somehow, the frost giants had learned about the secret pass, and that spelled disaster for Tavis.
When the youth considered what he could do to help his friend, his jaws began to ache as though he were going to retch. He had to cover his mouth and pinch his nostrils shut against the terrible odor of his hiding place, and even then he feared his gagging would draw the frost giants’ attention to the grain pile. His best hope of survival lay in staying hidden, but then the giants would be between him and Tavis, precluding any possibility of alerting the scout to his peril. Unfortunately, the boy’s other options, such as drawing the giants away or trying to sneak into the canyon first, seemed almost suicidal. Still, the youth had to do something. He could not sit by and let the frost giants tromp up the canyon to kill Tavis.
Avner crawled back through the grain heap, then pulled his sling from inside his tunic and peered into the yard. He saw only two frost giants on this side of the farm. They stood about a hundred paces away, peering into a tangled stand of scrub pine beyond the boundary wall. The youth slipped out of his hiding place and grabbed two rocks. A hundred yards was a long way for his sling to hurl a missile, but he didn’t need to be accurate.
Avner fit a stone into the pocket and whirled the cord over his head, then released the rock. The stone arced high into the air, sailing toward the wood, off to one side of the giants. As it passed over their heads, the youth was already placing his second stone in the sling.
The first missile dropped into the forest, bouncing off a tree trunk with a sharp crack. The heads of both giants swiveled toward the sound. Avner hurled his next stone, angling it slightly away from where the warriors were now looking. As the rock reached the top of its arc, he jumped back into the moldering grain.
Avner barely had himself covered before the two giants yelled for their companions. The youth retreated through the pile, amazed to discover that the odor no longer sickened him. Now that he was doing something, he felt better.
By the time Avner reached the other side of the heap, the frost giant leader and all his warriors were tromping off to investigate the pine stand. Avner crawled from his hiding place, then took a deep breath and sprinted for Shepherd’s Nightmare.
Gavorial waited a long time for an answer, and Tavis knew he would continue to wait. Stone giants were a people of infinite patience, given to careful deliberation and long pondering, so it would seem only natural to one that the scout would consider his response carefully. But Tavis had known the instant he heard the ultimatum what his answer would be. Now he was considering ways to reconcile his duty to the queen with his compulsion to save the shepherd youth’s life.
The boy himself was the first to break the lengthy silence. “Don’t surrender, Tavis.” The youth’s cracking voice was a fearful contrast to his brave words. “You’ve done right enough by my mother and my sisters. All I ask is that you kill that one while you can-just like he and his father killed my brothers and father!”
Strictly speaking, the relationship between the two giants did not parallel that of the youth to his father and brothers. Blood ties were not as important to stone giants as philosophical and spiritual heritage. Odion was more an apostle to Gavorial than a true son, but the boy’s thirst for vengeance did spark an idea in Tavis’s mind.
“Gavorial can still catch your family,” said the scout. “They won’t be safe until he and I come to an agreement.”
“Agreement?” scoffed the youth. “Did you not see what these monsters did to our farm? How can you think he’d honor his word?”
“Because he’s a stone giant.” Tavis locked gazes with Gavorial, searching in vain for some hint of the stone giant’s thoughts. “He won’t have it written in the Chronicles of Stone that he broke a pledge.”
“Just so,” agreed Gavorial. “And I pledge to release the boy and his family if you surrender without harming Odion.”
Tavis shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Gavorial,” he said. “My duty-”
“It is no longer possible for you to fulfill your duty,” the stone giant interrupted. “Even if you elude me, you cannot keep your promise to Brianna. As we speak, fifteen of my cousins from the snow are ascending the canyon.”
“Frost giants?” Tavis gasped. He almost allowed the tip of his sword to stray from Odion’s ribs.
Gavorial nodded. “We have lured you into a trap,” the giant said. “Accept your fate with grace. At least you will save this boy and what remains of his family.”
The scout felt his legs go icy and weak, though not because he feared the frost giants. To set their trap, the giants had to have known he was coming-and that meant they had a spy in the castle. Tavis’s thoughts leaped immediately to Cuthbert, but he also realized there was another possibility: Arlien. The prince seemed honest enough and brave, and he had even been wounded by a giant, but the mere fact that he was a stranger made him suspect Perhaps Gavorial could be maneuvered into revealing which of the men had betrayed Brianna.
“I had not thought Cuthbert’s loyalties to the old king ran so deep,” Tavis said. “Or that Camden would be fool enough to try taking his kingdom back.”
“Camden already believes he has recaptured Hartsvale,” Gavorial replied. “The old king sits in his grotto from dawn to dusk, wearing a granite crown and sending invisible messengers to phantom earls. He has no part in this.”
“Then why is Cuthbert helping you?” Tavis demanded. “To save his castle?”
“I have no knowledge of the earl or his motives,” Gavorial said. “Odion and I were called to this place and so we came.”
“Called by whom?”
“You know by whom,” Gavorial answered. “I warned you what would happen.”
“The Twilight Spirit planned this?” Tavis gasped. “He’s here?”
“So it is best for you to surrender,” Gavorial replied, dodging the question. “You cannot stop us, and now you are too far from Brianna to use your golden arrow.”
“That may be true,” Tavis said. “But I am no stone giant. For me, the only graceful death is a fighting one.”
Gavorial’s gaze flicked from Tavis down to Odion, his black eyes betraying his sadness.
“Do not despair, Father,” said Odion. “I am ready.”
Gavorial nodded and began to close his fingers.
“Wait!” Tavis called. “Your son and the boy can do nothing, and we must fight no matter what becomes of them.” He lifted his sword from Odion’s back. “Let us spare their lives and resolve this ourselves.”