The only thing Tavis did not understand was why.
The scout fixed his eyes across the valley, where a long file of dark forms was climbing the glacier north of Needle Peak. A cold wind was blowing from that direction, and on its breath Tavis caught faint whiffs of the rancid, sour-milk odor of ogre flesh. Sometimes, he thought there was a more fragrant scent, one he remembered from the princess's visits to the Weary Giant, but his imagination was only playing tricks on him. Brianna was certainly with the ogres, but her perfume would long since have worn off.
The scout's stomach burned with a hollow pain he had felt not too long ago, upon learning of the death of his adoptive mother, Isa Wirr. This time, he could not say for whom he was mourning. Was it for Brianna, hopelessly lost in the midst of a thousand foul-smelling ogres? Or was he grieving for Runolf, whose unfathomable betrayal had left him feeling even more lost than the princess?
Tavis forced himself to look down the couloir and met his mentor's gaze. Runolf's eyes were filled with shame and regret, two emotions Tavis had never before seen on the man's face. In life, Runolf had been one of those rare humans as confident in his own moral code as firbolgs were in their laws, a dedicated man who always upheld the strict codes of duty and honor to the letter. How the ogres had corrupted a man of such character, the scout could not imagine. Perhaps when he knew that, he would also know why they had taken Brianna.
"Runolf, I know you led the ogres into Hartsvale." Tavis called down. "The thing I don't understand is why. Tell me."
"That I cannot do." replied the head. "But I will say this: Remember what I taught you about three-toed tracks."
Tavis remembered. He had still been a young boy, standing barely a head higher than his mentor. Something was eating serfs off Earl Ateal's lands, and Runolf's patrol was assigned to hunt it down. They searched for days without finding any sign of the mysterious killer, until Tavis discovered a set of strange prints left by long, narrow feet with three toes and two claws. The tracks did not look large enough to be dangerous, and like all young firbolgs, his curiosity sometimes got the better of him. So he followed them.
The trail ended on top of a rocky cliff. Tavis spent almost an hour trying to pick it up again, even going so far as to climb partway down the cliff to see if the creature lived in a hidden crevice. It never occurred to him to look up, at least not until he heard the muffled flutter of a winged creature diving through the air.
Tavis pressed his face light against the rocks, expecting to feel the talons of some angry raptor digging into his flesh. Instead, the strum of several bowstrings, sounded above. A terrible, manlike cry echoed off the cliff, then a blast of bone-chilling cold washed over his back. A heavy body crashed into the rocks beside him, lashing him with a leathery wing, and fell away an instant later. When the young scout looked down, he saw a white dragon plunging along the cliff face, its body peppered with the arrows of Runolf's patrol.
Runolf came to the cliff edge and looked down at Tavis, who was frozen in place-whether from fright or the cold blast of the dragon's breath, the firbolg did not know.
"What did you learn from that?" Runolf asked.
"I thought I was the one doing the stalking, but I was wrong," Tavis replied. "The dragon was hunting me."
"True enough, but that's not what I mean," Runolf said. "I want you to think about what happens when you go off chasing things you don't understand. The mountains are as cruel as they are mysterious, and they won't suffer curious fools for long."
With that, Runolf backed away from cliff edge and led his patrol away. It had taken most of the day before Tavis could move his frozen body enough to climb up and follow.
After considering the disembodied head's warning, Tavis called down the slope, "Is that what happened to you, Runolf? Did you get involved in something you didn't understand?"
Runolf's mouth twisted into a bitter sneer. "I understood it-more than I wished. I understood so well I dared question my duty." He lowered his eyes, directing them toward the stump of his severed neck. "And this is my punishment."
"What could make you question your duty?" the scout asked, puzzled. "Why would you ever betray the princess?"
Runolf looked more ashamed than ever, but did not answer the question. "Leave Brianna to her fate," he said. "Interfering will only bring harm upon yourself."
Tavis could not believe what he heard. Over the years, he had fought all manner of beasts with Runolf, and never had his old friend warned him off. In fact, the sergeant had always recited his motto before each battle-Forget your fear and remember your duty.-and advised each man to keep it close to his heart.
"You were doing your duty, weren't you?" Tavis surmised. "You questioned it because you couldn't betray Brianna!"
"Go back," Runolf warned.
"Who commanded you to be the ogres' guide?" the scout demanded. Even as he asked the question, he realized his mentor would have taken such an order from only one person. Before Runolf could reply, Tavis gasped, "The king!"
"That must remain secret!" Wisps of golden light began to cloud Runolf's eyes. "I'm sorry to do this, but duty demands it."
The misty glow in Runolf's eyes began to spin, forming a pair of tiny yellow cyclones. The two whirlwinds began to lengthen, hissing like dragon's breath as they shot up the couloir.
Tavis turned and threw himself down the other side of the mountain, landing on a broad scree slope. Above him, Runolf's attack struck the notch with a thunderous crash, rocking the mountainside and filling the sky with a yellow flash. The scout began to roll, tumbling head over heels. Before he could stop himself, a muffled growl rumbled down the mountainside, then the entire scree slope broke free and began to slide.
No stranger to avalanches, the firbolg spread his arms and legs to stop his tumble. When he finally managed to stabilize himself, lie was lying on his back with his head pointed downhill, still being carried down the mountain with the sliding scree.
Tavis jerked his knees toward his chest. The action flipped him into the air, with the result that he landed facedown on the avalanche. Although small stones and gravel were now pelting his head, at least he was descending feetfirst in a more controlled position. He began rolling to the side, across the landslide, and soon found himself within reach of a rock outcropping. After a few painful instants of clawing and kicking, he caught hold of a crevice and dragged himself out of the slide.
"What happened?" called a familiar voice.
Tavis looked up and saw Basil clinging to a boulder above. The scout had slid so far that he was more than a dozen paces below the runecaster, who still had a considerable distance to climb before reaching the notch above Runolf's couloir. The verbeeg's breath came in gasps as loud as the wind rasping through the crags above, for the steep climb was rendered even more difficult by the mountain's thin air.
"The ogres left a sentry on the other side of the notch," Tavis explained. A bolt of alarm shot through his breast as he noted that Avner was not clinging to the cliff near the verbeeg. "Where's Avner?"
Basil pointed down the slope. "When the slide started. Avner was about there." he said. "I didn't have time to see what happened to him."
Tavis looked down and saw that the avalanche had scraped the hillside clean, leaving a sheer scarp of dusty schist in its wake. There were several large crags onto which the boy could have scrambled to safety, but the scout did not see Avner clinging to any of them.