Tavis pushed himself down behind the hill crest, pulling his bow off his shoulder as he slid.
The vultures reached the bottom of the slope and beat their wings, one turning toward the verbeegs and the other toward the fomorians. By the time Tavis had nocked his first arrow, both birds were rounding the corners of the hill. Most of the warriors below showed no sign of noticing the creatures, and none made any move to down them.
Tavis returned his unfired arrow to his quiver and scrambled back to the summit. The vultures were racing across the field toward the queen’s tower. They flew straight to the giant kneeling there and landed on his shoulder, then began cackling and groaning into his cavernous ear.
“I think we’ve been spotted,” Tavis growled. “Damn birds!”
“To your tribes!” Raeyadfourne rose to his feet. “We’ll follow Tavis’s plan.”
Ror shook his head emphatically. “Ror like ambush better-”
“Do it, Ror!” snapped Orisino. “There’s no time to argue.”
Orisino stood and bounded down the slope. Ror scowled after the verbeeg a moment, then reluctantly hefted his great bulk and waddled toward his own tribe. Tavis fixed his attention on the queen’s tower and remained on the hilltop, aching to the bone with weariness and cold. The battle was off to a bad start. Without the confusion of a surprise attack, it would be difficult to sneak past the giants to the tower, much less steal away with Brianna and her child.
After listening to the vulture’s report, the storm giant rose to his full height, two full heads taller than the queen’s tower, and peered up the rocky scarp toward Tavis’s hiding place. The birds cackled into his ears again, and the giant looked toward the west end of the hill. He raised a hand and pointed in the verbeegs’ direction.
“Nikol and Ramos, there are verbeegs there.” The storm giant’s voice blustered across the field like a howling wind. “See to them.”
The two cooks looked first toward their leader, then toward the hill. They abandoned the spitted moose to the condors and started forward, drawing their enormous two-handed swords. The weapons were twenty feet long, with hawk-sized nicks on the blade edges and blemishes of orange rust on the flats.
The vultures continued to cackle in the leader’s ears. He turned to the other side of the field, where the two searchers had stopped their explorations. He gestured at the eastern end of the hill.
“Fomorians are gathering there,” he rumbled. “Call Eusebius from the wood. They are for him.”
One of the searchers took an owl off his shoulder and sent it into the forest. The other called, “What of us, Anastes?”
Anastes pointed toward the center of the hill. “Firbolgs for you, Sebastion, and for Patma as well.”
Sebastion and Patma nodded grimly, then drew their swords and angled across the field toward the center of the hill. Anastes pulled his own weapon and positioned himself squarely between the queen’s tower and the giant-kin, precluding any possibility of anyone slipping past his fellows during the confusion.
Tavis cursed the giant’s wisdom. It addition to protecting the tower, the storm giant was shielding Lanaxis from the firbolgs. The high scout shifted his gaze to the titan’s slumbering form, wondering how much of a factor the ancient colossus would play in the coming battle. The mere fact that he had stopped suggested his power was diminished in daylight, but there was no way for Tavis to guess to what extent. It seemed too much to hope the titan would be rendered completely helpless.
The high scout glanced over his shoulder and saw his ’kin allies still struggling to organize their warriors.
“Q-Quickly! The giants are c-coming after us! ” Tavis began to shiver, more with cold, he thought, than fear. “Two for the v-verbeegs, two for the firbolgs, and one f-for the fomorians.”
The chieftains boomed their commands even louder. The verbeegs slipped around the corner and the firbolgs started up the slope at a trot, but the fomorians continued to mull about with no sense of direction.
A cacophony of bird calls erupted over the field, and stinging pellets of graupel began to pelt Tavis. The high scout looked back toward the heath and saw the first four giants already moving into attack positions. The fifth, Eusebius, was just emerging from the forest and starting toward the fomorians. Anastes remained in front of the queen’s tower. All six giants were hidden from the thighs down by a curtain of blowing snow, and they had thick clouds of birds whirling over their heads.
Tavis reluctantly pulled a runearrow from his quiver. By drawing attention to himself early in the battle, he was making it more difficult to reach Brianna. But he could not allow the storm giants to carry the fight to the hill’s back. Unless the combat occurred in the meadow below, he would have no chance at all of reaching the queen’s tower.
Tavis nocked his runearrow and rose, aiming at the giant who had been addressed as Sebastion. The high scout had to take a moment to steady his arms, for the icy wind had chilled him to the point of trembling. Peals of thunder rumbled across the sky, so loud that his ears throbbed and his knees ached to buckle.
Sebastion stepped onto the hill, with Patma close behind. Tavis had to angle his arrow only slightly downward to set the tip on his target’s breast. He emptied his lungs, then drew his bowstring and loosed the shaft.
A flurry of screeching falcons streaked down from the sky and struck at the arrow as though it were a lark. One of the birds snatched the missile from the air, then banked away over the field. Sebastion climbed a step higher, and Tavis had to crane his neck to look into the giant’s eyes.
“Damn birds!” The high scout’s cold-numbed fingers fumbled for another runearrow.
Sebastion raised his sword to strike. Tavis found a shaft and pulled it from his quiver, nocking and firing in one smooth motion. This time, the target was so close that there was no chance for the falcons to snatch the arrow. It flashed through the whirling birds and lodged itself deep in the giant’s breast.
Sebastion did not even wince. He simply squinted at Tavis and started to bring his sword down.
“esiwsilisaB!” Tavis cried.
A ray of sapphire light lanced from the wound. Sebastion’s chin dropped, and the strength left his swing. The giant’s chest opened across its entire width. His arms flew out to the sides and sent his great sword spinning through the sky, and his body folded around his mangled torso. He pitched over backward and disappeared into the blowing snow at the bottom of the scarp. A tremendous boom rolled across the meadow, and the hill bucked so hard that it bounced Tavis into the air.
The high scout came down on his side and felt the air rush from his lungs. Blowing snow blocked his view of everything around him, save for the whirling birds above and Patma’s head rising over the crest of the knoll. Tavis did not wait for his breath to return, or even for the pain of his fall to register. He pushed off with all fours and leapt to his feet, facing the back of the hill.
Raeyadfourne’s tribe was rushing up the gentle slope, concealed from the waist down by a blustering white curtain. Bolts of lightning skipped through their midst like dancers, hurling firbolgs and shattered stone in all directions. The air smelled of charred earth, seared flesh, and rain, and not even the howling wind could cover the cries of the wounded.
Tavis spun around to find Patma’s face glaring at him. The giant’s thin lips twisted into an angry snarl, his silver eyes flashed like lightning, and his sword came arcing down out of the sky. The high scout dived away.
A terrible screech sounded behind him; then the entire hill shuddered beneath the impact of the giant’s huge weapon. Tavis hit the cold ground rolling and came up on his feet. In his freezing fingers he held a runearrow he did not remember drawing. He turned around and found himself standing beside an enormous steel blade buried deep in the knoll’s stony summit. The birds were as thick as fog around him, and their angry cries drowned out even the rumbling of the thunder.