"Fat firbolg next!" he declared.
At the edge of the platform, Kol began to open his fist one finger at a time. A wicked grin creased his mouth, then he teased, "Rog gonna be stupid, too!"
Avner's eyes were opened wide with fear and his lips were trembling uncontrollably, but the boy seemed far from resigned to his fate. Although he could move no more than his head, the youth's eyes were wildly searching for a means of saving himself.
"Rog, do you think I'll keep my promise if you let Kol kill that boy?" Brianna asked. She did not know whether the hill giant would consider ten horses worth the price of his wolf pack, but it was her last hope. "Do you think I'll send all those horses?"
Kol's fist closed instantly, once again holding Avner secure. "Horses?"
Sart scowled in Rog's direction. "You didn't tell us nothing about horses!"
Brianna stood, breathing a silent sigh of relief. "I promised to give Rog ten horses if he'd help me."
"With what?" demanded Kol, eyeing Rog suspiciously.
"To go see Noote," Rog growled. He scowled down at Brianna. "And Rog say a hundred horses!"
Kol pulled Avner back from the edge of the platform. "A hundred horses?"
"That's right," Brianna replied. "But there won't be any if we're hurt."
Sart and Kol nodded to Brianna. "We not let Rog hurt you."
"Them's Rog's horses!" The hill giant tossed Morten toward the wall.
The bodyguard hit with a loud thump, then dropped to the timber road at Tavis's side, gasping for air as he tried to recover his breath.
Rog stepped toward Kol. "Give boy!"
Kol backed away, placing Sart in front of himself and holding Avner out of reach. "Share!" he yelled.
"Rog lose wolves!" Rog thundered back, stopping in front of Sart. "Not Kol! Not Sart!"
With that, the hill giant loosed a vicious right hook that landed with a deafening boom. Sart slammed into the cliff, dropping with such force that the sound of splintering timbers echoed off the granite wall. Fearing the platform would collapse, Brianna, in a futile search for handholds, turned to clutch at the smooth cliff.
"Rog, I'll bring horses for everyone!" Brianna yelled.
Rog was too angry to pay her offer any more heed than he did the shaking platform. He stepped past Sart and tried to snatch Avner. Kol shoved him away, then stepped back. He was now standing directly in front of the fault cave gate, with less than a pace of platform left behind him.
"Leave Kol alone!"
"Give boy here!"
Rog lunged for the hand holding the boy, and Kol twisted away. For an instant it looked like Avner's captor would dodge aside and send his attacker plunging over the edge, then Rog caught himself by smashing an elbow into his foe's temple. Kol's eyes rolled back in his head, and his knees buckled. He collapsed backward, the hand clutching his prize still extended, and tumbled headfirst over the edge of the platform. Avner's muffled voice cried out in alarm, the hoisting chains rallied briefly, then Kol's echoing death scream drowned out both sounds.
"Avner!"
Brianna leaped to her feet and charged toward the end of the platform, but quickly found her way blocked by Sart's enormous form.
"Kol killer!" Sart threw himself forward, driving his shoulder squarely into the other giant's back.
Rog roared and stumbled forward, one enormous hand scraping at the sheer wall of the cliff as he tried to brace himself. "Stop! Stop!"
Sart's feet continued to pound the floor of the platform, driving Rog back, closer to the edge. Brianna was too horror-stricken to think. She didn't know what to do-didn't know what she could do-to stop the titanic struggle before her, or even whether she should after Avner's loss. Her companions seemed as horrified and dumbfounded as she. They were staring at the battle with gaping mouths and making no move to rise.
"Rog sorry!" Rog yelled. "Rog share!"
With a final, thunderous grunt, Sart shoved the other giant toward the edge. Rog's terrified voice rumbled through the entire platform, then, arms flailing wildly, he followed Kol into the valley below.
Sart stared after Rog only until a distant crash echoed up from the bottom of the cliff. Then, his breath coming in great gusts of foul-smelling wind, he turned back to Brianna and her companions.
"Now Sart take you to Noote," he said, a rapacious grin on his lips. "Get horses for himself."
As the peasant's wagon trundled across Earls Bridge, a chorus of trumpets echoed from the summit of Castle Hartwick's lofty ramparts. A sonorous thud sounded from inside the walls, then the gates began to creak open.
"Stop here and let me out," ordered Earl Wendel. The earl issued the command from the bed of the peasant's wagon, where he lay with two of his unconscious fellows. The other seven survivors of the ogre ambush waited in more carts back at the guardhouse, where the sentries had halted them for fear of overloading the bridge. "I won't meet my king in an oxcart."
The peasant halted the wagon as ordered. "You shouldn't be walking, milord," he protested. "Your wounds are too serious."
"I think I can make fifty paces." Wendel could not quite keep the sarcasm out of his voice, for his two arrow wounds, one in the shoulder and the other in the thigh, had not stopped him from dragging one of his fellows out of the mountains on a sledge of pine branches.
The earl climbed down from the wagon and limped toward the gate, where he saw Gavorial's enormous face glaring out at him.
"Where's Tavis?" demanded the stone giant.
"We don't have him," Wendel replied.
"Why not?" The muffled question came from behind Gavorial, but that did not stop Wendel from recognizing the voice as Camden's. "Did you kill him?"
"No, Your Highness."
Gavorial abruptly retreated from the gateway, then the king himself came storming onto the bridge, his chamberlain and young queen, Celia of Dunsany, trailing close behind. Wendel stopped a few paces in front of the oxcart to wait for his liege.
Upon reaching the earl, Camden demanded, "If you didn't kill Tavis Burdun, what are you doing here?" The circles beneath the king's eyes were as dark as charcoal, and his lower lip was bloody and chapped from constant biting. "Where is he?"
"Somewhere beyond the Needle Peak glacier by now," Wendel replied, alarmed by Camden's demeanor. Only a madman would be more worried about avenging his wounded pride than his kidnapped daughter. "He saved us from an ogre ambush, then promised to surrender on his own-after Morten helped him rescue Brianna."
An angry light flashed in the king's eyes. "You allowed that?"
"We had no choice." Wendel motioned to his wounded fellows in the oxcart. "None of us could stand at the time."
Camden glared at the wagon for several moments, his expression growing as dark as a mountain storm. Suddenly, he looked back to Wendel.
"You can stand now? " he yelled.
The king shoved Wendel hard, sending him crashing to the ground at the feet of the peasant's ox.
"Go back and do as I commanded!"
The queen, a golden-haired girl standing barely up to Camden's elbow, placed herself between Wendel and the king.
"Please, milord. Earl Wendel and these other men have already suffered much on your behalf." As Celia spoke, she kept her eyes fixed on Camden's feet, clearly frightened to look her own husband in the eye. "You're being unreasonable."
"Unreasonable!" Camden roared.
Celia grimaced, but nodded. "Aye," she said. "These men need to rest-and to see Simon."
The king scowled at her, then stepped past the quivering peasant to peer at the unconscious figures in the back of the wagon. "So they do."