Tavis removed his tinderbox from his satchel and knelt on the floor, spreading a mound of tinder before him. He found his flint and steel and fumbled with them until his numb fingers struck a fire. As the flames flickered to life, the high scout was surprised to see that the floor was covered not by sticks, but by a yellow tangle of bones.
“It appears we’re not Snad’s first victims,” Orisino said.
“We’re not victims yet.”
Tavis touched the torch to the tinder, which was already burning out, and blew gently on the flames until the oil-soaked head caught fire. The brand’s broader circle of light revealed thousands of bones. A few were fresh enough to have bits of withered hide clinging to their surfaces, but most were naked and almost petrified with age. A few were so gray and soft that they would powder at the slightest touch. They came in all sizes and shapes, from tibias no thicker than arrows to ribs as long as the floor planks of Keep Hartwick. Giants and ’kin were represented in equal proportions among the skulls scattered through the tangle, as were humans, elves, and other small races.
Tavis led them away from the bones, following the well-worn trail along a contorted route of corners and doglegs that took them ever downward. They heard no more of Snad until his splintered voice echoed through the stones above their heads.
“Snad the One! Not you, stupid thieves!” The giant’s voice sounded more imploring than angry. “Come back now, or Snad-”
The rest was too garbled to make out.
“The giant’s moving!” Orisino whispered.
“True, but at least he seems to be behind us.” Tavis passed the torch to Orisino, then pulled Mountain Crusher off his shoulder. “Assuming you’ll lead for a while, I’ll be ready when he catches up.”
Orisino looked dubious, but turned down the path. Tavis kept pace easily, even with his bow in hand, and stopped often to study the murky passages around them. Once a warm draft wafted out of a side passage. The high scout fired an arrow into the breeze on the off chance Snad had caused it; the shaft clattered against an unseen rock. Their pursuer remained a mere voice in the dark.
They continued to descend, slipping and sliding over the frosty stones, until at last they traversed the face of a long monolith and came to a fork in the trail. One route turned sharply to the right, while the other zigzagged down a small shaft. The ruts descending the shaft looked about twice as deep as those in the horizontal passage.
Orisino passed the torch to Tavis and sat on the edge of the pit. “I’m going to need both hands for this climb.” He glanced at the scout, then added, “That is, unless you’re so mad that you really are looking for a shortcut.”
When Tavis did not reply, a crafty smile crossed Orisino’s lips. “I thought as much.”
The chieftain climbed down to the limit of the torchlight, where he sat upon a huge, well-worn step to wait for Tavis. The high scout dropped the brand to the verbeeg, then slipped his bow over his shoulder and climbed down to the same place. They had to repeat the process only twice more before Orisino reached the bottom of the shaft.
“I think we’re almost there.” The verbeeg turned to peer down a dark, diamond-shaped passage. “The floor in there is solid bedrock, and I can see-”
A large stone flew out of the side passage and struck a glancing blow off Orisino’s brow. The chieftain’s head snapped back, flinging blood across the walls, and he collapsed in a crumpled heap. His eyes remained open and vacant, focused somewhere in the darkness high above Tavis’s head.
“Snad warn stupid thief!” rumbled the giant’s quavering voice. “Snad the One!”
Tavis dropped the torch into the pit, then descended to a ledge above the diamond-shaped passage. He pulled Mountain Crusher from his shoulder and started to nock his last runearrow, then thought better and selected a normal one. He had killed plenty of hill giants with regular arrows, and it would be wiser to save his magic for a more desperate situation.
“Go back, stupid firbolg thief!” cried Snad. “Snad keeper of Great Axe, not Tavis Burdun!”
“How do you know my name?” Tavis slipped out of his cloak.
“Snad know,” Snad replied. “Axe have Snad.”
Tavis raised his brow at the choice of words, then nocked his arrow. He tossed his dark cloak into the pit.
A large rock sailed out of the passage. The stone caught the cape in midair and carried it across the shaft, where it bounced off the wall and came down on Orisino’s arm. The verbeeg’s fingers flinched, but Tavis had no time to consider what that meant. He dropped onto the pit floor with his bowstring drawn and his arrow pointed into the diamond-shaped tunnel.
Tavis could not quite grasp what he saw. At the end of the corridor, the darkness changed from soot-black to a silvery hue that was neither glow nor gloom. Standing before this strange ether was the shadowy skeleton of a hill giant. It was as though Tavis and Orisino had descended through the talus boulders into the realm of the dead.
“Stupid tricks not fool Snad!”
The dark skeleton twisted toward the wall, stretching his arms out to grab another stone. Tavis drew Mountain Crusher and aimed at Snad’s midsection. Normally, he would have tried for the heart, but he doubted that strategy would kill a skeleton. His only chance of a swift victory was to shatter the spine.
Snad pulled his boulder from the wall. Tavis forced himself to wait, struggling to keep his arms from trembling. Once, he could hold a true aim and a taut bow for minutes, but now he was too weak for that. As Munairoe had warned, his strength was failing.
The skeleton turned, exposing the dark line of his spine. Tavis let the arrow fly, but he could feel by his trembling hands that his aim was not true. He stepped away from the passage mouth, already reaching for his last runearrow-then Snad bellowed. A muffled bang echoed down the corridor as the giant dropped his boulder.
Tavis peered around the corner, half-expecting to be knocked as senseless as Orisino. Instead, he saw his foe turning away, hunched over and holding the bones of one hand to his midsection. The arrow hung in the emptiness where Snad’s stomach should have been, a foot short of the spine.
Tavis’s jaw fell. He was looking not at a living skeleton, but at the skeleton inside a living giant.
He traded his runearrow for a normal one, then nocked and fired again. The shaft caught its target between the shoulder blades. Snad roared and tumbled into the room beyond. If his body crashed to the ground, there were no shuddering stones or thunderous booms to betray that fact. The giant simply dropped into the eerie gray murk and vanished.
A pair of flat feet slapped the shaft floor behind Tavis. He spun and saw Orisino already upon him. The verbeeg’s eyes were mad with battle lust, and he held the torch in his upraised hand. Tavis brought his bow up to block, at the same time reaching for his sword.
Orisino brushed past without attacking. “What’s wrong with you?” he shouted, racing down the corridor. “Hurry up, or we’ll be on the wrong end of our axe!”
The scout started down the passage, feeling rather foolish. From the verbeeg’s perspective, there was no reason to argue over the axe. After they recovered it, the weapon would belong to him as much as it did to Tavis.
A loud wail broke from the far end of the passage, then a fierce gale tore through the narrow corridor, extinguishing Orisino’s torch and hurling him back into Tavis. Both ’kin lost their footing and went tumbling down the corridor, bouncing from one jagged wall to the other.
Tavis covered his head with his free hand and used the other to keep a firm grasp on his bow. He lost contact with Orisino, then his arm was nearly jerked from its socket as Mountain Crusher caught on something. He held fast and dragged himself out of the scouring wind into a small cranny alongside the passage.
“Tavis?” Orisino’s voice was barely audible over the wind, but it came from someplace ahead. “What’s happening?”