Seeing that Avner's eyes had glazed over and his lips were the color of sapphires, Tavis realized the boy was also perilously close to collapse. The scout loosened his cloak, then instructed the youth to crawl under it to ride on his back. The firbolg doubted his body heat would restore the youth, but at least it might prevent him from collapsing until after they rescued Brianna.
Morten removed Earl Dobbin's frozen breastplate and started to cast it aside, but Basil took the armor from him and sat down in the water.
"You g-go on ahead," the verbeeg said. "Ill c-catch up later." It had grown so cold inside the cave that even giant-kin were beginning to stutter.
Tavis frowned, remembering that the runecaster had tried to slip away once or twice before. "If you've d-decided to wait this out, this isn't the p-place to do it," the scout advised. "Assuming an ogre pack is following us up the c-crevasse, it won't take them long to realize we didn't continue past the ice cave. They'll come looking for us in h-here."
"Don't w-worry, I'm still on your s-side," Basil replied. The runecaster opened his satchel and withdrew a steel stylus. When he touched it to the breastplate, the tip began to glow, illuminating Basil's homely features. "I j-just thought I'd leave a little p-present in the water."
Earl Dobbin cast an indignant glance toward his breastplate, but when he tried to protest, all that spilled from his frozen lips was an incoherent mumble.
"Don't be too l-long," Tavis said, starting up the stream again. "We won't have t-time to wait for you."
The scout's warning had more to do with their human companions than with his fear of the ogres. Avner's shivering form felt cool and wet against his back, and he knew the boy was starting to freeze to death. Although Tavis had not removed Avner's boots or gloves, he had no doubt that the youth's hands and feet were already white with frostbite. Soon, as the boy's body grew too weak to warm itself, the cold would creep up his limbs into his torso. When its icy fingers gripped his heart, he would give a deep sigh and the life would exit his body on one last steamy breath.
Soon, they came to a fork in the ice cave. From the smaller tunnel, running more or less straight up the glacier, came the muffled gurgle of water flowing over a field of stones. From the other passage came the distant roar of a small waterfall. Tavis pulled Brianna's amulet from inside his cloak and dangled the chain between his fingers. The silver spear spun around aimlessly, the tip unable to settle on a direction.
"You let the verbeeg t-trick you!" Morten accused.
"He didn't trick us," Tavis replied, examining Basil's rune. The scout took the amulet's chain off the bark, then turned the scrap so Morten could see the smeared symbol. The water washed away his magic."
The bodyguard snorted. "Now what?" he demanded. "This is a big g-glacier, and we d-don't have much time."
"It'd take a fairly large nunatak to make a hollow large enough to shelter Brianna," Tavis said. "It will be the biggest stream that leads us to her."
"And if you're wrong?" Morten growled.
"I'm not," Tavis answered.
Brianna's amulet had been pointing more or less in this direction before Basil's rune disappeared, so the scout felt every bit as confident as he sounded. He returned Brianna's amulet to his pocket, then used his dagger to make several large gouges in the icy wall to show Basil which way they had gone. He followed the largest branch of the stream toward the distant roar of the waterfall, occasionally stopping to listen or sniff at the wind. The passage forked several more times, and Tavis always chose the one with the largest stream flowing out of it. Eventually, the din of the waterfall became so loud he could no longer hear Morten sloshing along behind him. The stream grew so shallow that it barely covered the scout's hands, and the tunnel flattened out to the point where he had to crawl on his belly to keep from scraping Avner against the icy ceiling. He began to catch whiffs of a sour, rancid smell on the chilling breeze, and he knew they were near their destination.
Tavis stopped and slipped Basil's wand into his cloak. Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a halo of purple starlight streaming down around the black silhouette of an enormous rock outcropping. They had found their nunatak.
The scout pulled Avner off his back. Although he could not see the youth in the blackness of the tunnel, the boy's skin felt icy to the touch, and his breath came in shallow, weak sighs. They did not have time to wail for Basil before they attacked. If the two humans were to survive, they had to free Brianna-and quickly.
Pulling Avner along with one hand, he crawled through the icy stream on his belly. Morten followed his example, and by the time they stuck their heads out of the ice cave, both firbolgs were shivering from the cold. The scout felt sick to his stomach, and it took a supreme effort of will to wiggle his fingers.
Still, Tavis felt optimistic, for the air was thick with the rancid smell of ogre. An erratic curtain of meltwater was pouring off the ice wall over his head, and in the dim light he could make out the craggy features of a granite scarp less than a body's length away. The scout crawled into the small hollow between the nunatak and the glacier, pulling Avner's chill form behind him. He could feel a frail warmth radiating off the boulder, but he knew it would not be enough to save the humans.
Tavis climbed to his feet and looked up the narrow chasm. To one side loomed a wall of glacier ice, the creamy glimmer of moonlight shining through the silvery sheets of water that cascaded down its face. To the other side rose the shadowy scarp of the nunatak, as sleep and craggy as any precipice in the Ice Spires. Near the top of this gloomy cliff, about fifty feet above the scout's head, sat the loutish figures of two ogre warriors.
The brutes were squatting at the opposite ends of a long ledge, with the yellow glow of an oil lamp brightening the cliff at their backs. In the flickering fight. Tavis could barely make out a fur-swaddled form lying outstretched between the two ogres. From his angle, he could see little more than one flank of the tightly wrapped bundle, but that was enough to make his heart pound harder. The figure looked about seven feet long-just tall enough to be the princess.
Tavis pulled Bear Driller off his shoulder. "Morten, we've found Brianna," he whispered. "Just like I promised." * 9* Rescue
Keeping his eyes fixed on the ogres, Tavis pulled two arrows from his quiver. Before he could nock the first shaft, he felt a huge hand come down on his shoulder. The scout looked back to see Morten shaking his head.
"You m-might hit Brianna." The bodyguard whispered so softly Tavis could barely hear him.
"How else can we k-kill those g-guards before they realize we're here?" the scout asked, his teeth chattering. Although the nunatak hollow was not so cold as the ice caves, neither was it warm enough to counteract the effects of the freezing waters they had been in. "If you have a b-better idea, l-let me know."
Tavis tucked his hand into his armpit to warm it, allowing Morten a chance to study the figures above. The bodyguard seemed more occupied with shivering than thinking and did not suggest any alternatives, When the scout's fingers felt warm enough to control the bowstring, he nocked an arrow.
"No!" Morten hissed. "It's t-too dangerous."
"It's the safest choice we have," Tavis replied. He drew his bowstring back, then glanced at the massive hand on his shoulder. "I won't hit Brianna-unless you throw my aim off."
The bodyguard reluctantly took his hand away, then Tavis released the bowstring. The arrow shot toward the ogre on the far side of Brianna, the rustle of its flight muffled by the sound of the waterfall. The shot took its target under the jaw, slamming the brute's head against the rock wall. His limp body slipped off its perch and fell into the chasm below.