The princess turned around to check on her companions. Earl Dobbin and Avner were almost upon her. By the steady rumble of rolling rocks, she could tell that Morten and Tavis remained at their posts, still hurling boulders down at the ogres. Meanwhile, down at timber-line, a steady line of Goboka's warriors were sneaking through the spruce forest toward the gorge.
"Tavis!" Even as she yelled the name, Brianna found herself wondering why her first instinct had been to call the scout's name instead of her bodyguard's. "You too, Morten! Come now-or you'll be cut off!"
The princess heard one more set of boulders crash down the hill, then the rumbling began to quiet. Confident that the firbolgs had heeded her warning, Brianna faced the gorge again. She found Rog standing at the base of the cliff, his arms raised toward her.
"Jump," he called. "Rog catch good. Better than most hill giants."
Though the hill giant's words hardly inspired faith, Brianna had no time to indulge her reservations. She simply stepped off the cliff and hoped for the best, fairly certain that at least Rog intended to catch her. The princess dropped through the air for a single queasy instant. The back of her shoulders slapped the edge of the giant's leathery palm, but the rest of her body missed entirely. The momentum of her fall whipped her forward. Her head flashed past four massive fingers that were slowly curling inward in a futile effort to grasp her before she tumbled away, and she found herself pitching face first toward the rocky talus slope below.
The hill giant's second hand rose from his side and appeared beneath her. She slammed facedown into the palm, coming to a stop with a loud and painful grunt. A moment later, Rog's thick fingers curled around her body, almost crushing her ribs as they locked her in his grip.
"See? Rog's hands good." The hill giant set her on the ground near his feet.
"They got the job done," Brianna allowed, still gasping from her impact. "But hold your hands like this for my friends."
She cupped her palms together to show the hill giant what she meant. He stooped over-way over-and squinted at her hands with a single red-veined eye. Most giants suffered from farsightedness, but Rog's condition was worse than most. He barely seemed able to separate her from the rocky slope.
"But what if Rog miss with first hand?" the giant asked, cupping his palms together.
"Hold still." Brianna advised. "They'll jump into your palms."
The hill giant looked doubtful, but put his hands together as she had instructed and raised them toward the cliff top. "Your friends, not mine," he said, shrugging.
As Earl Dobbin leaped from the cliff, Brianna heard a soft growl, then felt a cold nose nuzzling her neck. She turned around and found herself staring up into the yellow eyes of the leader of Rog's wolf pack. When she had seen the beast from atop the cliff, she had not realized how huge it was. The thing was almost as large as Blizzard, its thick fur matted so densely that a dagger could not have pierced it. The creature's muzzle was slender and pointed, with slavering black lips and fangs as long as daggers. Bounding up the hill behind the beast were its eight fellows, all close to their leader's size and just as wicked-looking.
As the creature glared at her, the princess realized that she had been mistaken about its species. The thing was not a wolf, but its cousin, a dire wolf-twice as large, nasty tempered, and not nearly as smart.
When the dire wolf began to snarl. Brianna quickly lowered her eyes so it would know she wasn't challenging it, then raised her hand to Hiatea's amulet. Me little no threat, she thought, using her goddess's magic to project the message to the beast. Big wolf leader wolf. Don't hurt.
The message seemed to satisfy the wolf. It merely snapped at her face a couple of times, then quickly retreated before Rog noticed what was happening. Brianna breathed a sigh of relief, then repeated the message as the hill giant lowered her two human companions beside her.
Rog was just raising his arms again when Tavis's panicked voice drifted down. "Here we come!"
In the next instant, both Tavis and Morten came soaring over the top of the cliff, followed instantly by a flight of dark arrows. As the shafts sailed across the gorge, rattling harmlessly off the far wall, Rog's eyes opened wide as bucklers. He tried to position his cupped palms first under the scout, then under the bodyguard. Finally, he gave up and threw a hand out toward each one. The firbolgs hit the giant with a mighty crash, then all three figures went tumbling down the slope amidst a cloud of dust. The dire wolves bounded after them howling in glee, trying in vain to catch up and join the fun.
Taking her lead from the beasts, Brianna grabbed her human companions by the wrists and started down the slope. "The ogres can't be far behind."
"They aren't," Earl Dobbin assured her.
The three humans approached the bottom of the hill just as the dire wolves caught up with Rog and the two firbolgs, who were still rolling across the rocks toward the small stream. The beasts leaped into the fray with snapping jaws and wagging tails.
"Off, Anouk!" commanded Rog. "Back, Elke!"
If anything, the hill giant's orders only made the wolves more determined to continue the tussle-until one of the beasts suddenly sprouted a dark shaft in its flank. The creature yelped in pain and limped from the jumble, collapsing less than ten steps away. The other dire wolves scattered instantly, breaking for the nearest stand of woods. Brianna and the other two humans followed their lead.
"Firbolgs!" Rog yelled, finally getting a look at his companions. The hill giant scrambled to his knees, then began squinting at the ground in search of his club. "Hate firbolgs!"
"We don't think much of giants, either!" Morten yelled back.
The bodyguard pushed Rog over, then reached for the battle-axe tucked into his belt. Tavis simply rolled away, content to have the hill giant's immense bulk off his body.
"Morten! Rog!" Brianna yelled. "Leave that till later. We have real problems!"
The princess pointed up the slope, to where a pack of Goboka's warriors were drawing their bowstrings. Rog and the firbolgs hurled themselves in three different directions. In the same instant, a chorus of strums sounded from the ogre bows, then a flurry of arrows clattered to the ground where the trio had been wrestling a moment before.
"Go!" Tavis yelled. As he rose, the scout grabbed a handful of black arrows from the ground. "Take cover!"
Neither Morten nor Rog needed to be told twice. Morten scrambled away on his hands and knees, then found protection by slipping over the bank of the small stream. Rog launched himself toward the nearest stand of spruce, crashing into the trees at Brianna's side.
"Ogres!" he gasped. His face was as pale as snow. "Now Rog want a hundred horses!" * 12* Rog's Gate
Crouched behind a boulder barely large enough to conceal him, Tavis nocked one of the black arrows. The shaft was too short for Bear Driller's draw, so it would not have as much power as one of his own arrows. But, having lost his quiver to the river, it was the best the scout had. He could still generate enough force to pierce his enemy's thick hide, and, thanks to the poisoned tip, nothing more was required.
Tavis poked his head up, heard the expected chord of humming bowstrings, then ducked back down. A host of black shafts scraped over the top of the boulder and rattled to the rocky ground behind him. The scout jumped up and raised his pilfered arrow toward the gorge rim, where a pack of ogre warriors stood clustered three-deep. He aimed at one of the brutes in the second rank and released his bowstring.
The shaft sailed toward the cliff top at an agonizingly slow pace. It seemed to float more than fly, allowing the target and the two warriors in front of him plenty of time to see that it was coming for them. They tried to dodge, but the pack stood so tightly crammed they could hardly move. The arrow nicked the shoulder of one of the ogres in the front, then sliced across the chest of the original target as he tried to twist away, and finally lodged in the arm of an astonished warrior in the third rank. None of the injured ogres fell, and the rest of the pack were already pulling arrows from their quivers to counterattack.