“Maybe this… will… teach Awn not to… eat the dead!” The acrid taste in Tavis’s mouth had so dried his tongue that the words seemed to stick to his teeth.
The high scout raised his club again. Before he could strike, Raeyadfourne came pounding around the flag tower and jerked it from his hand. Awn spun toward Tavis, his own hand raised.
“Now Awn mad!”
Raeyadfourne reached over Tavis’s head and pushed Awn into the wall, then quickly interposed himself between the two combatants.
“This is a firbolg prisoner,” the chieftain warned. “He’s under my protection.”
“Not when him hurt Awn, no.” The fomorian pointed to a red welt where Tavis had smashed the floor joist across his knees. “That hurt plenty-and him do it for fun!”
Raeyadfourne glared at Tavis. “You promised to behave as a prisoner of honor.”
“I am.” Tavis pointed at the mutilated remains in the corner. His vision faded, and the bloody scene appeared to him in shades of gray and black. “He was eating the dead.”
“So, what that matter?” The fomorian chieftain, Ror, stepped around the tower. He was nearly twice Tavis’s height, with slender, sticklike legs that hardly look capable of supporting the huge belly above them. “Awn gots to feed.”
“It’s cannibalism!” Tavis objected.
“To you, perhaps-but then, you are a traitor to your own race.” Orisino, the horse-faced chieftain of the verbeegs, followed Ror around the tower. His gray lips were curled into a sneer that showed two rows of vile yellow teeth filed to sharp points. “Who are you to say fomorians shouldn’t eat humans? The gods have seen fit to let wolves eat foxes.”
“It’s not the same thing.” Tavis kept his attention fixed on Raeyadfourne.
The chieftain did not meet Tavis’s gaze. “We have discussed the matter at length,” he sighed. “It’s not cannibalism, and there’s no law against foraging for food during time of war-however disgusting that food may be.”
“The spoils go to the victor,” added Orisino.
“You’re hardly victors,” Tavis snarled. “I opened the gate!”
“ After we hit it with our ram,” the verbeeg countered. “As I understand firbolg law, that means you surrendered the castle.”
Tavis stepped toward Orisino, his hands knotted into balls. “I surrendered noth-”
The high scout’s jaw clamped shut, preventing him from finishing, and the taste in his mouth grew so bitter he wanted to spit out his tongue. The ringing in his ears became a clanging, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he fell. When the back of his skull smashed into the ground, every muscle in his body clamped on his bones. He began not just to tremble, but to quake and buck as though he had been struck by lightning.
Tavis had no way to tell how long his paroxysm continued. His entire body ached from terrible exertion as though from feverish illness, and he could feel several sets of large hands gripping his arms and legs. Basil’s voice broke through the clamor in his ears, shouting for him to open his mouth, but the scout could not obey. Someone pushed a pair of fingers into his mouth and jerked his jaw down, then someone else thrust an axe handle between his teeth.
Slowly, Tavis’s muscles released their bone-crushing grip. The harsh taste in his mouth was replaced by the more familiar flavor of his own blood, and the deafening clamor in his head gave way to the concerned voices of Basil and the Meadowhome firbolgs. The back of his skull was resting on a huge, immensely sore lump. When he tried to turn his head, he found it was held securely in place by a firbolg hand.
“Let me go.” Tavis’s speech was thick and painful, for he had nearly bitten off the tip of his tongue. “I’m better.”
When the hands released him, the high scout turned his head off the painful lump. His vision cleared. He found himself surrounded by a ring of ’kin: Galgadayle, Raeyadfourne, Munairoe, Basil, Orisino, Ror, and even Awn. Tavis still saw their faces in tones of gray, and he heard a deep, low buzzing beneath the murmur of their concerned voices.
Munairoe knelt at Tavis’s side. “How are you feeling?” He began to remove the mud cast on the high scout’s arm. “I didn’t expect this. I was only trying to mend your broken bone.”
Tavis flexed his broken arm and discovered that it felt better. It was the only part of his body that didn’t hurt. “You succeeded in that much at least,” he said. “But what didn’t you expect? What happened to me?”
Munairoe ran his eyes over Tavis’s bruised and battered body. “Just how many times have you been healed since yesterday?”
Tavis shrugged. “I could have been dead three times over.”
Munairoe’s lips tightened. “No wonder you went into convulsions! All that magic-your system is in shock.”
“Is that why he’s gone gray?” Basil squinted at Tavis’s head.
The high scout ran his fingers through his hair, as though he could feel the color change. “My hair’s turned gray?”
“Don’t worry,” Basil replied. “It’s just a streak-really quite handsome, if you ask me.”
“Nobody has.” Munairoe frowned at the ancient runecaster, then looked back to Tavis. “How do you feel?”
“My ears are buzzing,” he said. “And I can’t see colors.”
The shaman pursed his lips. He exchanged knowing glances with Galgadayle and motioned the seer to Tavis’s other arm.
“I’m sorry, Tavis.” Galgadayle stooped over to slip a hand beneath the scout’s arm. “I had hoped Munairoe could repay the kindness you showed me in the Gorge of the Silver Wyrm. I didn’t expect this.”
A cold knot formed in Tavis’s stomach. Before he could ask what the seer meant, Basil pushed his way to Munairoe’s side.
“Expect what?” the runecaster demanded. “You haven’t killed him?”
“No, of course not,” replied the shaman. “But I’m afraid he won’t be going after the titan as he had planned.”
“How unfortunate,” sneered Orisino. “And I was so looking forward to seeing him flattened.”
Tavis pulled his arms free. “What trick is this?” he growled. Before he had opened the gates for the firbolgs, he had made Raeyadfourne swear that he and the other citizens of Hartsvale would be released when the ’kin army left the castle. Apparently, the shaman and seer had found a way to prevent the high scout from interfering with their plans. “The firbolgs of Meadowhome have spent too much time in the company of verbeegs and fomorians.”
“This is no trick,” said Munairoe. “Your injuries are too serious for travel, and I cannot use magic to heal them without causing permanent damage to you.”
Tavis listened carefully for any sign of a lie, but the shaman’s voice remained steady and true. “Could I still fight?”
Munairoe nodded reluctantly. “But the price would be years of your life. Your whole system would be weakened. It would be more difficult for you to heal naturally, and-”
“Heal me anyway.”
“You don’t understand,” the shaman objected. “This is not something that might happen-it would. Without a potion or spell, even small cuts would take weeks to mend, and one day your heart would simply stop beating-”
“If I leave Brianna to the titan, it will stop beating now,” Tavis said. “There’s nothing in our agreement that says you must heal me, but I am asking you to do this before you leave.”
Galgadayle nodded. “If that is what you wish.”
“ If you are willing to pay our price.” Orisino’s beady eyes were barely visible, peering around Munairoe’s broad shoulders. “There is always a price, you know.”
“That’s for me to decide,” growled Munairoe. “It is my magic-”
“But our quest.” Orisino looked to Raeyadfourne. “When we joined forces, we agreed that the Council of Three would make all the decisions, as long as those decisions did not violate the law-did we not?”
“Yes, but-”
“Then I say we place a price on our help, just as Tavis placed a price on his before opening the gate.” Orisino cocked an eyebrow at Ror. “What say you?”
The fomorian shrugged noncommittally.