“Not now,” Brianna said. She was dusting Tavis’s feet with powdered brimstone.
“But the giants have knocked a hole-”
“Quiet!”
As Brianna laid her goddess’s amulet on Tavis’s ankle, the scout looked over at the two soldiers. “Keep the giants away from the stairs. We’ll need them to get out of here,” he ordered. “Use the hole as an arrow loop.”
“As you command, Milord,” said the second Winter Wolf, older than his companion. “We’ll wait for you on the stairs.”
With that, the two soldiers clambered out of the room.
Brianna smiled at Tavis, then said, “This is going to hurt”
The scout winced, but nodded.
Brianna uttered the mystic syllables to her spell. The flames on her amulet began to dance and glow, first red, then orange and yellow. When they turned white, the brimstone powder ignited in a single brilliant flash. A golden fire danced over the scout’s feet, filling the air with wisps of black smoke. A long hiss of pain slipped from Tavis’s clenched teeth, but his frost-blackened flesh returned to its normal color and the swelling subsided. When Hiatea’s healing fires finally died, the firbolg’s feet looked more or less normal. The skin was still slightly gray and there was a little puffiness around the toes, but it looked as though he would be able to run.
The clack of firing crossbows echoed up the stairwell. A giant’s scream rolled through the temple window, then the veteran began yelling, “Reload, reload, reload!”
Brianna sprinkled more brimstone powder on the scout’s scorched flesh, covering him with a fine yellow coating from his ankles to his chin. She cast her next healing spell. As it had before, the powder ignited in a white flash, spreading yellow fire over Tavis’s body. The scout let out a long groan. When the golden flames died away, he looked as though he had suffered a bad sunburn, but the blisters and ugly patches of scorched hide had vanished.
A crash reverberated up of the stairwell, and the young soldier cried out. The floor joists crackled and groaned, dropping the corner of the room another two feet, and a long crack shot across the temple ceiling.
“I think we’re out of time.” Avner’s gaze was fixed on the widening gap over their heads.
“I have one more spell to cast.” Brianna motioned the boy toward Tavis’s head, then grabbed the arm of the scout’s dislocated shoulder. “Hold him steady.”
Avner kneeled beside the bench and wrapped his arms around Tavis’s collar.
The scout looked up at Brianna. “This is really going to hurt, isn’t it?”
Brianna smiled reassuringly. “What makes you say that?”
As she spoke, the queen gave a sharp tug on the scout’s arm. The shoulder slipped back into its socket with a sickening pop, and the scout yelled in pain. Brianna laid her amulet over the joint, but did not sprinkle any brimstone powder on it.
The queen uttered her incantation. Hiatea’s spear turned white, and its golden flames danced over the firbolg’s skin. The magical fire continued to flicker for several moments, its mending heat sinking deep into Tavis’s flesh to strengthen the weakened tendons and muscles. When the flames finally died away, Brianna took her amulet off the firbolg’s shoulder, leaving a spear-shaped brand where it had lain.
“Now can we go?” Avner demanded.
A thunderous boom shook the keep, and pieces of rock began to drop through the crack in the ceiling. The two soldiers in the stairwell remained ominously silent.
“I think we’d better.” Tavis rose and slipped his cloak over his shoulders, then swung his arm in a circle to test its mobility. He smiled and grabbed his bow and quiver, saying, “My thanks, Majesty. I’ll go first”
Stopping only to pick up her satchel of spell components, the queen followed Avner and Tavis out of the temple. They found the stairway half blocked by rubble. It sagged toward a large hole in the wall. There was no sign of what had happened to the older soldier, but the young one lay dead at the edge of the breach, one arm stretched into the void. Through the gap came a few wisps of acrid black smoke and the steady din of the giants pounding at the keep foundations. When Brianna looked out the hole, she could see two frost giants and several hill giants clambering over the rubble of the inner curtain.
Tavis started down the stairs, staying close to the interior wall. Avner followed close behind, with Brianna bringing up the rear. They were about halfway to the breach when the ivory-colored hand of a frost giant appeared in the hole, feeling around for a hand grip.
Tavis stopped and looked back at Brianna. “Let me have your hand-axe,” he whispered.
The queen slipped the silver-plated weapon off her belt and passed it over Avner’s head. As the scout descended the stairs, she took Hiatea’s amulet between her fingers, hoping she would not need to cast another healing spell soon.
The giant turned his hand sideways and wrapped his fingers over the edge of the gap. The jagged stub of a wrist came through the hole and pressed against the other side of the breach. A thin layer of red, delicate hide had already formed over the bone, with a series of crooked seams where a shaman had stitched the skin closed.
“Hagamil!” Tavis hissed.
The scout reached the breach and swung Brianna’s axe at the good hand. The blade bit deeply into the joint of the middle finger. The blow elicited a thunderous bellow of pain, but the giant did not lose his grip. He swung his other arm across, smashing the stub of his wrist against Tavis’s flank. The firbolg bounced off the wall and fell on the stairs.
The giant’s head rose into view. The brute had piercing blue eyes, with a full face, long yellow hair, and a thick beard. To Brianna’s astonishment, the end of an iron crossbow bolt protruded from one of his temples. There was no blood or any sign of an entrance wound. The dart was simply there, as though it were a part of his head.
As the scout scrambled to his feet, the frost giant squinted at him through the shattered wall. “Tavis Burdun!” he growled. Hagamil looked past the scout to Brianna, then turned to yell over his shoulder, “Hey, Julien! Here they are! Both of ’em!”
Tavis moved forward to attack again, but Hagamil quickly brought the stub of his wrist around. The scout stopped a few feet short of the giant’s reach.
A muffled crash rumbled up from somewhere lower down in the keep. The staircase trembled, then a series of hairline cracks appeared in the steps between Brianna and her bodyguard.
“Tavis, maybe Brianna ought to handle this,” said Avner, stepping back toward the queen. “You’re about to go down the fast way!”
As the youth spoke, Brianna extended her arm, pointing the tip of her spear amulet at the iron bolt protruding from the giant’s temple. Tavis looked down at the cracks widening beneath his feet, then turned and rushed up the stairs toward the queen.
Brianna spoke her incantation. Yelling in alarm, Hagamil turned to leap off the tower. He was too late. A bolt of lightning sizzled from the queen’s talisman straight to the iron quarrel in his temple. It struck with a thunderous crackle, then the giant fell out of sight, leaving only a puff of pink-tinged smoke where his head had been a moment before.
Brianna felt Tavis grab her arm and pull her up the stairs. She looked down and saw the step in front of her falling away. The lower half of the stairway was tumbling into the inner ward.
“Come on,” Tavis said. “That was Arlien that Hagamil called to. He’ll be coming any minute. We’ve got to get ready.”
“Ready?” Brianna asked, her stomach knotting with apprehension at the thought of facing the prince again. “Then you have a plan?”
“It’s a little rough, but I think it’ll work,” he said, starting up the stairway. “I’ll explain it to you as soon as we find a good place to make a stand.”
Brianna turned to follow, nearly falling as the step beneath her lower foot cracked loose. It dropped more than three stories into the rubble below.
“A good place to make a stand?” she gasped. “Where do you think we’re going to find that in all this havoc?”