Another messenger, one from Heredon, brought astonishing information: Gaborn had offered aid in putting down the reaver horde that had arisen there. But the Iron King sent back a curt missive declining his offer. The courier himself had heard news that the Iron King had easily defeated the reaver horde.
The reavers had surfaced on the northern coast and marched south along the seashore. A lucky ballista shot from a ship slew the fell mage that led the horde. Her followers immediately retreated.
Now Gaborn was ready to ride for Carris.
Gaborn and Iome mounted their chargers, rode out of the stable. Six young heralds, all dressed in the blue of House Orden with the symbol of the green man upon their surcoats, rode before the entourage. All six heralds had long blond hair, and bore golden trumpets.
Following them, a seventh young man would bear the king’s standard.
A wain had pulled up outside, and the knights in Gaborn’s retinue each took a long white lance from it, and held it high, so that the lances bristled overhead like spines.
The knights themselves were a mixed bunch, wearing colors from half a dozen kingdoms, to signify that Gaborn was not the lord of one land only, but of the whole Earth.
Jureem, Binnesman, the wylde, and now young Averan would ride with the king’s counselors near the van of the troop. Near the end of the train followed an inconspicuous wagon that bore Gaborn’s forcibles.
As Gaborn rode out of the stables, his men gave a cheer. Binnesman spurred his mount forward and handed Gaborn the branch of an oak tree to bear, as if it were a scepter, though a bit of ivy still clung to it.
So Gaborn began his ride to Carris looking like an Earth King out of the old tales.
Yet to Iome he seemed preoccupied.
They had ridden six miles down the road when the heralds in the vanguard topped a woody knoll, turned their mounts, and shouted, “Milord, there are giants ahead!”
They needn’t have yelled the warning, for at that very moment, a Frowth giant topped the hill and stood peering at Gaborn.
A huge red stallion, hanging limp with a broken neck, was clearly visible upon the giant’s hunched back. The giant’s golden fur looked dirty and matted in the morning light. He was an old Frowth, with streaks of white in his hair, and his silver eyes were as huge as bowls. He had iron studs in his ears, and one through his nose. Lockets of hair beneath his long snout were braided in warrior’s knots.
“Wahoot!” the giant cried, raising his snout in the air. Pigeons in the nearby oaks flew up in alarm and began to circle. Iome knew nothing of the tongue of Frowth giants, and had no idea what the creature had said, although he’d sounded victorious. Soon other giants came running uphill, their thick mail rattling like the chains to a drawbridge.
The first giant reached up with one hand, hurled the dead horse into the road. Other giants came and did the same—twenty-two giants in all. They left a grisly pile of dead horses before Gaborn’s retinue.
They’re like cats that way, Iome realized, leaving headless mice on their master’s doorstep. The leader of the giants bowed his head and closed his eyes, his enormous front arms extended before him and crossed at the wrists. “Wahoot!” the Frowth shouted again.
Gaborn sat in his saddle, looking perplexed. Most of his men were gaping in awe at the monsters.
It was an eerie moment. Until a hundred and twenty years ago, no one had ever seen a Frowth. Then, during a brutal winter, a tribe of four hundred of the huge creatures migrated over the northern ice. Many of them were wounded and scarred, and apparently fled some unknown enemy.
The Frowth could not communicate well in any human tongue, had never been able tell what fearful creatures hounded them across the ice. Yet with a few gestures and words, some giants had learned to work beside men—lugging huge boulders in quarries or trees for foresters, or fighting as mercenaries.
But the Frowth rarely frequented Rofehavan. They lived in the wilds along the mountain ranges.
These giants had come in company with Raj Ahten’s army, and had eaten people in Iome’s kingdom. They were the first that Iome had ever seen. She was simultaneously terrified of the creatures and fascinated.
“Can anyone talk to them?” Gaborn asked among his retinue. “What do they want?”
“Wahoot!” the giant cried again and began nodding his head up and down rapidly. He pointed at Gaborn. “Wahoot!”
“He speak Indhopalese,” one knight said, a handsome Invincible out of Indhopal with dark skin and a Dharmadish accent. He rode up to Gaborn’s side. “He say you mahout, an elephant rider. Very grand. Very powerful.”
“Wahoot!” the giant shouted again, pointing at the dead horses.
“I think he likes you!” one lord jested to Gaborn.
“No,” the translator said. “He cross hands. He give self. He serve.”
The giant opened his mouth and rapidly made hissing and clicking noises with the back of his tongue. He raised his snout in the air and sniffed. He was no longer trying to speak in his pidgin dialect of Indhopalese. Instead, he was speaking in pure Frowth now.
“What’s he saying?” Gaborn asked.
But no man had ever deciphered the tongue of Frowth giants well. Not even the translator from Indhopal ventured a guess.
“Will you fight for me?” Gaborn asked the creature. The giants had fought well in Carris yesterday.
The giant grunted, making a deep sound from his belly. He raised up his huge iron-bound staff, which was still stained dark from reavers’ gore.
“Maybe,” the translator said. “He is offering to work.”
Gaborn looked quizzically at his men. “Does anyone have a good use for a giant?”
“I do,” one knight shouted jovially. “His hide would make a fair rug!”
The other knights laughed uproariously, but Gaborn studied the creature. He raised his staff to the sky, and roared, “Wahoot?” then spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the whole world.
“He say, you great mahout,” the Indhopalese Invincible offered. “Great rider of the world.”
But Iome wondered. “No,” she realized. “He’s asking a question. He wants to know...if Gaborn is the Earth King!”
Before anyone else could move, Iome pointed at Gaborn, and shouted, “Yes. He’s the great rider. Rajah mahout.”
The giant gazed at her, as if contemplating. His silver eyes were wide and knowing.
The other giants began to grumble rapidly. Each of the Frowth peered at Gaborn and blinked their eyes nearly closed. They began stooping and letting their jaws go slack as they did, so that they displayed their teeth in a nonthreatening way. They held the pose for several long seconds, then a dozen of them began to lope off to the west, toward the Hest Mountains.
“Hey, where are they going?” Gaborn asked.
Iome could think of only one answer. It was said that wild Frowth roamed the Hest. Perhaps these Frowth were going home. The other ten merely stood and watched Gaborn attentively, the way that a dog watches its master as he leaves the room. It was clear that they intended to follow him.
Gaborn asked his men, “All of Carris is waiting. Do we dare let these giants come with us?”
Binnesman said, “Well, since we have no dancing bears in our retinue, I suppose they’ll have to do.”
The men all laughed at his jest, and the troops rode on, skirting the pile of dead horses. The ten giants that were left fell in line at the end of the retinue, behind the wagonload of forcibles.
Gaborn rode on in silence for a few minutes, Iome saw the worry lines in his brow.
“You did me no favor to lie,” Gaborn whispered, “even if it was only to a Frowth giant.”
“Lie?” Iome asked in surprise.
“Whatever I am, I am no Earth King anymore. I’ll not betray their hopes, their trust.”
She saw how his failures haunted him. She realized how hard he was trying now to hold up under the rigors of this day. She loved Gaborn for his virtue, for his sense of decency and honor.