Several giants lowered their heads and eyed the digit raised toward them. Their breaths washed over Tithian like a stale-smelling wind, but they made no move to attack.
The king smiled. “That’s better,” he said. “Now-”
He was interrupted by a rumbling voice from the far end of the table. “Let Sachem Mag’r go, or I’ll sweep your friends off the Table of Chiefs.”
Tithian glanced over his shoulder to see that a giant had laid his massive arm across the width of the table, and was ready to sweep Kester’s cowering slave crew over the edge into the Sea of Silt.
“I don’t care what you do with them,” the king said, looking back to Mag’r. The sachem’s face color had deepened from red to purple, and his eyes were bulging from his head. “They’re no friends of mine.”
“But they’re me crew!” Kester growled, stepping toward the king. “I need ’em to sail the Shadow Viper.”
“Crews can be replaced.”
“Not out here,” observed Nymos, standing several paces away. “If this is your idea of saving us, you’re a fool.”
“The crew is a liability,” Tithian retorted. “If we let the giants think they’re important to us, Mag’r will use them against us.”
“I won’t allow you to sacrifice them,” Agis warned. “They’re living beings, just like any citizen of Tyr.”
The noble’s hand dropped to his side, where his sword still hung in its scabbard. The giants, no more concerned with human-sized blades than a mul gladiator would have been with a child’s wooden dagger, had not even bothered to take their weapons away.
“You’ve always placed too high a value on other people’s lives, Agis,” Tithian said, loosening the string on his finger. “But if that’s what you want.”
As the circlet loosened, Mag’r slipped a finger behind the boughs and ripped the crown off his neck. He flung the broken garland into the mountainside, then grabbed his throat, wheezing and hacking. With each cough, he sprayed gusts of gale force wind down the canyon.
At the other end of the table, the giant withdrew the arm with which he had threatened to sweep Kester’s crew away, drawing a relieved murmur from the slaves. Sparing them no more than a glance, Tithian drew a live firefly from his satchel and crushed it over the blade of his dagger, then quickly summoned the energy to cast another spell.
By the time he finished, Mag’r’s face had returned to its normal color, and the giant had recovered his breath. The sachem looked down at Tithian. “I’ll pluck your arms and legs off-one each day!” he growled, his eyes flashing yellow in his anger. “You’ll wish you had died fast, like your friends!”
The giant reached out, and the king tossed his dagger into the air, at the same time uttering his incantation. The knife intercepted Mag’r’s hand, burying itself in a finger and causing the sachem to jerk his hand back to his chest. A greenish yellow glow rushed outward from the wound, drawing a rumble of astonished comments from all along the Table of Chiefs.
Mag’r tried to pluck the dagger from his finger, but Tithian flicked his wrist and the blade withdrew itself. It hovered in the air a few feet from the sachem, ready to strike again.
“My dagger is like the sunwasp,” Tithian lied. He kept his gaze fixed on Mag’r, who was staring at his glowing finger in stunned silence. “The first bite causes no true harm, but the second makes you sick for weeks.” He paused to let Mag’r consider the words, then added, “And the third-well, let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Mag’r moved his finger to the side, holding it far away from his body. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why do you come to Mytilene?”
Before Tithian could answer, the titan to Mag’r’s left growled, “Them beasthead spies!” He was what passed for a venerated elder among the giants, with ribbons of gray hair tangled in his snarled braids, heavy folds of skin hanging over his milky eyes, and a few ivory-colored nubs where he’d once had teeth. On his head was an amorphous tattoo that might have been a lizard, an eagle, or even a snake. The giant swept his wrinkled hand over the captives. “Them come to Mytilene to spy on our army.”
The giant to Mag’r’s right peered down at the trio and said, “They’re spies all right.” He was much larger than the others at the table, with a hooked nose as big as a kank saddle and a black shawl draped over one eye. “What do we do with them, Chief Nuta?” he asked, looking back up. “Smash their arms and legs?”
Mag’r slammed his fist down on the table so hard that Agis and Kester were knocked off their feet. “No, Patch!” he thundered, his worried eyes fixed on Tithian’s floating dagger. “We won’t torture or kill them. I have a better idea.”
The giants fell silent and looked to their sachem, waiting for him to explain. When Mag’r said nothing and began to appear uncomfortable, Chief Nuta narrowed his eyes and asked, “What idea?”
Deciding the time had come to do the giant a good turn, Tithian said, “As I’m sure Sachem Mag’r realizes, we are not beasthead spies.”
Mag’r smiled and nodded. “That’s right,” he said, sneering at Nuta. “They’re Balican spies.”
An excited murmur rolled through the canyon, and Mag’r smiled triumphantly.
“So what now?” demanded Patch. “Do we skin the spies alive, then level Balic?”
“No!” boomed Nuta. He slammed his great hands down on the edge of the table, sending a terrific shock wave through Tithian’s feet. He pushed himself to his feet and leaned over to press his face closer to Patch’s. “Balic don’t have our Oracle. It’s the beastheads who want to keep our Oracle from coming back to us.” Nuta gestured at Tithian and his companions, then said, “We kill them spies, then we attack Lybdos.”
Patch recoiled from the older giant’s sudden anger, then recovered his wits and scowled at Nuta. Slamming his own hands down on the slate surface, he rose and also leaned over the table, pressing his face to Nuta’s. For the first time since being placed on the table that morning, Tithian and his friends were shaded from the harsh rays of the crimson sun-though, judging by the angry expressions on the monumental faces overhead, they were in the shadow of a storm.
“The Balicans aren’t supposed to take sides,” growled Patch, his one good eye burning with anger. From his peevish tone, it seemed to Tithian that Patch was more interested in arguing with Nuta than presenting his own point of view. “We’ll cut the feet and hands off these spies, then attack Balic.” A wicked smile crossed his lips, and he looked down the table at the other chiefs gathered there. “We’ll sack Balic and steal all the good stuff there,” he said, drawing a chorus of agreement from the other giants.
“No!” Nuta snarled.
Tithian glimpsed an enormous fist rising from Nuta’s side. Only after crouching safely out of the way did he think to warn his companions, and by then he was too late. Chief Nuta’s fist brushed past Agis and Kester, sending them sprawling, and caught Patch squarely under the jaw. The younger giant’s teeth clapped together with the crack of a firing catapult, and his chin snapped back. He tottered on the brink of falling backward, then his head slumped forward. Boulder-sized teeth and bucketfuls of blood spilled from his mouth to shower down on the king and his companions.
“Look out!” Tithian yelled.
He grabbed Nymos by the arm and threw himself toward Mag’r’s end of the table, glimpsing Agis and Kester as they rolled in the opposite direction. Patch’s immense head slammed into the table with a deafening crash. Tithian and the jozhal were bounced several feet into the air, and when they came down, the slate was still reverberating.
“You saved me!” Nymos gasped, his tone more surprised than thankful. “Why?”
“Because I had nothing to gain by letting you die,” the king answered curtly. He returned to his feet, adding, “Besides, it serves my purposes to keep you alive. I can’t reach Lybdos alone any more than Agis can.”
Without further comment, Tithian turned around and saw Patch’s unconscious form sprawled across the table. The shawl across his bad eye had shifted down to cover the good one, and the only thing visible beneath the giant’s hairy brow was the scarred pit where his missing eye had once been. His cracked lips gaped open more than a foot, revealing a mouthful of broken teeth and allowing frothy blood to stream down the side of his mouth.