The scout hoisted the beast by its legs and could not help noticing that the thing was a male. "And that churl called me stupid," he muttered. "Greta indeed!"
Tavis hefted the wolf across his shoulders, then turned and ran toward his companions. Greta was a heavy load and slowed him considerably, but the broad grin on the giant's face left no doubt in the scout's mind that he had avoided a lengthy delay by picking up the beast.
"Go on!" Tavis yelled. He did not dare stop to look back down the valley, but knew that they had no time to waste. Goboka's magical copse was coming fast, perhaps faster than any of them could run. "I'll bring Greta!"
The hill giant plucked the three humans off the ground, then stepped into the stream and splashed up the valley. Although the big oaf was rather ungainly and awkward, his long strides covered the ground quickly. Even Morten could not quite keep pace, though he was scrambling along the bank at his best sprint. It was no wonder that Tavis, burdened by Greta's extra weight, quickly fell behind and lost sight of his companions in the rough terrain of the stream channel.
That was fine with Tavis. The hill giant was putting distance between Brianna and Goboka, which seemed a fair trade for bearing the wolf. But the scout could not keep his end of the bargain for much longer. Already his lungs burned with exhaustion, his thighs ached with weariness, and his head pounded from the exertion. He struggled on, determined to outrun the shaman's copse not for his own sake, but for that of the princess. Only he understood the true danger to Brianna-that posed by her treacherous father-and if he allowed himself to die she would never be safe.
The rush of falling water began to hiss through the cramped canyon. The scout looked up to see the slender ribbon of a waterfall spilling over the lip of a high granite wall. Although the tiny cascade was a mere trickle compared to the rumbling monster that had nearly claimed the party earlier, it rose more than a hundred feet high, and Tavis saw no way he could scale such a high cliff with a dire wolf on his back.
The scout stopped at the base of the waterfall, his legs quivering, his breath coming in burning gasps. No one had stayed to help him, but dropping Greta was out of the question. Not only was he afraid of angering the giant, he had said he would bring the beast, and a promise was a promise. A terrible, rancid odor began to thicken the mountain air, and, cringing at the thought of what he would see, Tavis turned to look down the gorge.
It was worse than he expected. Less than fifty paces down the stream loomed a wall of blue-green spruces, madly rocking from side to side as they waddled up the gorge on their gnarled roots. Many of the trees were leaning forward, stretching their spiny boughs out to seize Tavis, while others were spreading out to flank him and make sure he didn't escape.
Tavis dropped the dire wolf and reached for his sword.
"No, stupid firbolg!" The hill giant's voice came booming down from above. "Bring Greta."
A coil of greasy rope splashed into the stream. Tavis looked up to see the hill giant straddling the top of the waterfall. Morten and the humans were nowhere in sight. Snatching the wolf, the scout jumped into the water. Holding Greta under one arm, he barely managed to slip the line around his chest before the loop tightened and he was yanked off the ground, a steady spray of cold water crashing down on his head.
Several spruce trees lunged forward and scratched their prickly boughs across his legs. Tavis kicked so madly that he almost dropped Greta, but his efforts did not keep a limb from twining itself around his ankle. The scout's ascent ended with an abrupt jerk. His leg nearly popped from its socket, and the rope bore down so hard that his breath left his chest in a single huff of agony.
From the top of the waterfall, the hill giant let out a deep grunt and continued to pull. The loop around Tavis's chest tightened until he feared it would crush his ribs, and the joints in his leg felt as though they might burst apart. Greta began to slip out from beneath bis arm. He dug his fingers into the wolf's fur, knowing that if he dropped the beast, the giant would drop him.
Tavis looked down and could hardly believe what he saw. The hill giant had pulled him, with an entire spearhead spruce dangling from the limb wrapped around his ankle, more than halfway up the waterfall. The tree's roots were waving in mad circles, as though the thing were actually frightened, and it was reaching up with several other limbs to secure a better grip on the scout.
Screaming in anger, Tavis drew his sword and hacked at the branch around his ankle. His blade cleaved it in a single blow, slicing through with a sick pop that sounded more like he had cut bone and tendon than wood. The tree dropped away, its limbs and roots flailing madly, and splintered against the rocky streambed with a tremendous crash.
Then, as the hill giant tugged Tavis to the top of the waterfall, the spearhead's color changed from needle-green to flesh-gray. Its trunk flattened into the oblong form of a chest its roots twisted themselves into a pair of legs, and its branches withered into two gangling arms, one ending at the wrist The tree began to shrink, its tip coalescing into a brutish head with the jutting chin and squinting, purple eyes of a dead ogre.
Tavis looked at his own leg and saw that the branch clinging to his ankle had become the brute's severed hand. Before he could kick it away, the scout felt himself being swung over the cliff. He was gently lowered and placed on a granite bank beside the waterfall, then the hill giant took Greta from him and stroked the wolf's fur.
"Thank you, stupid firbolg."
"You're welcome," Tavis huffed. He pulled the ogre's hand off his ankle and flung it over the waterfall. "But call me Tavis, not stupid firbolg."
The giant smiled down at him, showing the stubs of a dozen brown teeth. "Rog." The finger he used to jab his burly chest was the size of short sword. "Friends?"
Tavis returned the grin, and not just out of politeness. Hill giants were not known for repaying debts of honor, but if Rog felt grateful enough to offer his friendship, perhaps be would make a good ally.
"Yes, friends." Tavis did not raise his arm to shake hands, for hill giants interpreted such gestures as an attempt to steal something. "May our fellowship endure as long as the mountains."
"Longer!" boomed the hill giant.
"Then may it last as long as there is sky above and ground below," Tavis corrected.
Glancing over the waterfall into the gorge, the scout saw that Goboka's magical copse was rapidly changing back to its true form. All of the spruces had shrunk to proper size for ogres. Each tree stood on two crooked legs instead of a tangle of roots. Half of them were rushing forward, their boughs twining together to form long gangling arms, while the rest seemed to be plucking bows and arrows from the midst of their brandies.
As Tavis watched, a huge crow stepped from behind an ogre-tree near the back of the stand and glared up at him with an eye as black as an abyss. It cackled angrily, then stretched its wings.
"Rog, we'd better run for your gate," Tavis said. "I have a feeling there's more ogre blood than crow blood running through that bird's veins."
Rog's eyes went blank. "Huh?"
The crow launched itself into the air.
"That bird's really an ogre shaman," Tavis explained,
He stepped away from the cliff edge. "And if we let him catch us in the open, neither one of us will live long enough to appreciate our new friendship."
"Tavis not worry," Rog said. "Gate here."
The scout turned around and saw the small pond from which the waterfall flowed. To all sides of the pool rose sheer walls of stone, their dark faces streaked with runnels of water trickling down from the shelves of blue ice hanging upon every ledge. There was no gate anywhere, at least that Tavis could see, nor any other passage out of the tarn valley.
Tavis was about to ask about the gate, and his companions, when he noticed the rest of Rog's wolf pack swimming near the base of a cliff. They were circling outside a black crevice that the scout had, at first, taken to be merely a streak of dark stone, but which he now realized was a fissure in the mountainside.