“Avner, come on!”
The boy looked up and nodded, then swam away. The mammoth bugled its good riddance and dived.
The giants on the raft hurled their boulders. The stones hit on each side of her bodyguard and shattered against the castle wall. Brianna pulled harder, yanking the rope up so fast that it grew hot in her hands. The hill giants turned to reach for more rocks.
The bow of the raft suddenly rose, pitching both giants into the lake, then the mammoth’s head appeared beneath the logs. The beast drove one corner of the vessel high into the air and flipped it aside with an angry snort. Though the craft did not capsize, the two passengers slipped off its deck into the churning waters. The mammoth let out a blood-curdling bugle and paused long enough to gore a giant before turning toward the far end of the lake and diving out of sight.
“That’s quite a mammoth you’ve got there, Avner!” As she called to the youth, Brianna was hauling her bodyguard into the embrasure. “Do you know where we can get a dozen for the royal stables?”
“The same place I got that one!” The youth was treading water at the base of the wall. “From the frost giants-and they should be here any time!”
The youth’s comment sent a concerned murmur rustling down the wall. Brianna lowered her bodyguard onto the rampart at her feet. He was in bad shape: burned, cut, battered, and blistered from frostbite, not to mention half drowned. A pang of remorse shot through her breast, though she could not say why. She had seen many of her soldiers injured more severely than this, and while she was concerned for them, she had never felt anything like guilt because of their injuries.
As Brianna struggled to untie the wet rope around the scout’s torso, Cuthbert scurried over to her. The earl’s eye went straight to the scout’s face.
“Is that your…?” He let the question trail off, his jowls trembling. “It is! Tavis! Have all the gods deserted us?”
Brianna gave up on the knot and pulled the earl’s dagger from its sheathe. “What are you talking about, Cuthbert?”
“The hill giants are attacking!” he cried. “That’s what I came to tell you. They just launched their entire fleet”
Brianna looked up. “That is interesting.”
A hill giant boulder crashed off the castle wall and was immediately answered by both catapults. The queen returned her attention to her bodyguard and cut the rope just above the knot. “Avner’s reported that the frost giants are coming, too.”
“Then we’re doomed,” Cuthbert uttered. “If Tavis is here, no reinforcements will be coming.”
“We don’t know that, Earl.” Brianna turned back to the embrasure. “And even if it’s true, haven’t I spoken to you about demoralizing the men?”
Cuthbert mumbled an apology, then stooped over to pull the unconscious scout away from the embrasure. Out on the lake Brianna saw that the catapults had claimed another raft. The remaining hill giants had given up the chase and were slowly paddling toward the other side of the castle, presumably to join their fellows in the main attack. Brianna dropped the rope to Avner. The youth tied a loop into the end and slipped his foot into the eyelet, then allowed himself to be hoisted up.
Brianna grabbed the youth’s wet arm and pulled him over the embrasure. “What’s all this about frost giants?” she demanded. The boy looked almost as bad as her bodyguard, with his face and hands blistered and dark from the effects of frostbite. “And where have you been?”
The youth gestured toward the castle gate, sweeping his hand across the hills beyond the bridge. “The frost giants are hiding behind those ridges. That’s why we had to swim instead of using the gate.” Avner looked down at the scout’s unconscious form, then added, “As for where I’ve been, that should be obvious. The real question is, what are you going to do about Tavis?”
Brianna regarded the battered firbolg at her feet. “What do you mean?”
“Heal him!” Avner demanded. “You are a priestess-or have you forgotten?”
Brianna’s insides turned cold and queasy. “I remember,” she said. “But I haven’t been feeling well. I–I can’t do it.”
The boy’s mouth gaped open. “Then it’s true!” he cried. “You don’t love him!”
“Love him?” Brianna echoed. The haze was starting to gather in her mind again. “Love my bodyguard?”
“Is that all Tavis is to you?” Avner retorted. “Someone to save you from ogres, or to fight stone giants and spy on frost giants while you make love to Prince Arlien?”
Cuthbert interposed himself between Brianna and the youth. “See here, young man! You will show the queen the proper respect, or you can share a dungeon cell with your thieving verbeeg friend!”
“The dungeon?” Avner gasped. “You put Basil down there?”
“The earl had no choice.” The queen swept Cuthbert aside and scowled at the youth, then found herself struggling to keep hold of her slippery thoughts. “And what I do… or don’t do… with Prince Arlien-that should not concern you, young man. But your imagination… your imagination seems to have gotten out of hand.” Brianna was trying to sound indignant, but found the task difficult, her thoughts flitting off in all directions.
“So you don’t love the prince?” Avner asked.
“What did I… didn’t I just say that?”
“Prove it,” the youth demanded. “Heal Tavis.”
Cuthbert was at Avner’s side again, taking him by the arm. “Can’t you hear, boy?” he demanded. “The queen said she hasn’t been feeling well.”
Avner jerked away from the earl and stepped forward until he stood almost on Brianna’s feet. “She looks well enough to me. Besides, the queen I remember would’ve crawled off her deathbed to heal Tavis Burdun.” The youth glared up at her as he spoke. “But maybe that was my imagination, too.”
The youth’s accusatory tone should have angered Brianna, but it did not. Instead, the queen found herself filled with emotions she did not understand, her stomach churning with guilt and her heart aching with shame. She did not understand why, but the feelings were so intense that she almost could not hide them.
“Get me some water,” Brianna said. “I’ll try.”
Avner rushed down the rampart. The queen went over and kneeled at her bodyguard’s side. During the past year, Brianna’s goddess had blessed her with many new healing powers, but the firbolg was such a mess that even if she could call on them, he would still be far from whole. The burns, which had begun to ooze and peel, were the most grotesque of his many injuries, but the queen worried more about the tremendous lump she found on his skull. The head injury was undoubtedly the cause of his unconsciousness, and also the most likely to prove fatal. She would try mending it first.
Avner returned and set a sloshing bucket at the scout’s side. Brianna unclasped her silver necklace, from which hung the flaming spear symbol of her goddess. She placed this talisman inside the bucket, then turned her eyes toward the sky.
“Valorous Hiatea, bless this water with your magic, so that it may purify this warrior’s spirit and make him worthy of your healing magic.”
A gentle gurgle arose as the water began to bubble and churn, spewing a cloud of white vapor into the air.
“You can still heal him,” Avner said.
“Blessing the water is not the same as healing the patient,” countered Brianna. “It merely shows that Hiatea looks favorably on my entreaty, not that I will succeed.”
The queen took her talisman from the bucket, then dumped the steaming contents over her patient’s injuries. Dark bubbles frothed up from his many wounds, covering his singed body with a thick, brown-streaked foam that would cleanse his spirit of wicked thoughts and emotions.
While Brianna waited for the blessed water to do its work, alarmed cries and yells began to ring out from ramparts at the front of the castle. The clamor was followed by the resounding clatter of a dozen firing catapults.
“That would be the frost giants coming into view,” said Brianna.