Suddenly, Camden's voice seemed as gentle as a meadow breeze. Wendel found the abrupt mood change more frightening than he had the king's anger.
"They'll stay at Castle Hartwick until they recover," the king declared. He seemed to grow thoughtful, then added, "And I'll have to do something else about Tavis Burdun, won't I?"
Celia breathed a sigh of relief. She reached down and took Wendel's arm, helping him to his feet. "Please forgive him," she whispered. "The strain has affected his temper."
"It's affected more than his temper," Wendel replied, eyeing the king nervously.
"Ssshhh!" Celia hissed. "There's no telling what he'll do if he hears you."
But there was no danger of that, Wendel saw.
Camden had already turned to face his nervous chamberlain. "Bjordrek, do you think Noote is home by now?"
The chamberlain nodded. "M-most certainly," he said. "He left the day after Brianna's disappearance."
"Good. Needle Peak isn't far from Gray Wolf lands." Camden grabbed his chamberlain by the shoulders and shoved him toward the gate. "Go and tell Simon to prepare one of his message birds. I must ask Noote to do something for me." * 14* The FIR Palace
When Sart herded Brianna and her companions into the Fir Palace, as he insisted upon calling Noote's oversized lean-to, the princess felt like she had stepped into some vast, sour-smelling vault where the gods held wicked spirits in purgatory. The air was hazy and damp, filled with the stench of unwashed bodies and the acrid smoke of the distant cooking fire. A roaring din of brutal laughter, bellowing voices, and lewd, bestial groans reverberated through the entire place. Around the perimeter of the room lounged great mounds of flesh that could only be hill giants, their faces and features lost in the flickering shadows draped along the walls.
"Go," Sart urged. "Noote way down there."
The giant thrust his arm over their heads, pointing. The air was so murky that Brianna could see only a few paces beyond the hand, much less clear to the other end of the cavernous room. Nevertheless, she led the way forward, determined to find Noote and interrogate him. The chief was cunning for a hill giant but he was not a quick thinker. The princess felt confident it would not take long to learn everything he knew about her abduction.
Winning the hill giant's help could be more difficult. Because Tavis had been so willing to let her cast her true speaking spell on him, Brianna had decided to accept his warning about Noote and the Twilight Vale- though she still believed the scout was mistaken about her father's involvement. Now the princess was trying to think of some way to convince the chieftain to take her to Castle Hartwick instead of returning her to the ogres or taking her to the Twilight Vale himself.
The safest thing would have been to avoid Noote altogether, but the princess had spent all afternoon and most of the evening, the length of time it had taken to climb down from the gate, trying to persuade Sart to lead them through the valley. The giant had steadfastly refused, even when Brianna pointed out that Noote might demand some of his horses. Although he had not said as much, Brianna suspected Sart anticipated trouble explaining what had happened to his two fellows, so he wanted some captives handy to blame for the deaths.
As Brianna progressed through the room, curious hill giants loomed out of the shadows to peer down at her and her companions. The princess could not tell the males from the females, for their brutal faces were entirely androgynous, with uniformly heavy brows, flat noses, and blocky chins. Nor was facial hair any help. They all seemed to have a little on the upper lip and chin, though never enough to grow a beard or mustache. And their bodies were uniformly lumpy and bulky, lacking any of the customary curves or angles that suggested their sex.
A few of the giants snapped belittling comments at Sart. "Stupid Sart? Firbolgs not good slaves!" Others pointed at Tavis, who was being carried in Morten's arms, and cried, "That one no good? Can't walk, can't work?"
Others seemed more alarmed by Brianna's presence. "Hide girl!" they warned. "Noote says don't take humans, stupid!"
Occasionally, a hand would snatch out at the princess, but Sart would promptly slap it away, explaining she had come of her own will to see Noote. This invariably drew some ribald remark about "the rut" and caused a thunderous outbreak of laughter.
Brianna soon realized that the hill giants were not just visiting their chief. They all appeared to live in this one chamber. Some were eating-what, she could not tell- and others were sewing hides, repairing weapons, and tending to all the many chores of everyday life. Here and there some of the giants were even lying on their backs snoring-as often as not within ten paces of a bellowing argument or a thundering chorus of laughter.
Brianna was even more puzzled by their love of wrestling. Everywhere she looked, giants were rolling on the ground in groups of two and sometimes more, their arms locked around each other's torsos, their hands clawing at each other, growling and groaning, screaming and… Suddenly falling silent, two nearby giants rolled apart with stupid grins on their faces, and the princess saw that they hadn't been wrestling at all.
"The rut," Morten commented, his voice thoroughly disgusted. "Savages!"
Brianna had to agree.
Morten nudged her, and Brianna realized she had stopped moving and was simply staring at the two giants. With her cheeks burning, she quickly resumed her pace, taking care to keep her eyes fixed straight ahead-though she wasn't sure why. The hill giants certainly didn't seem to care if anyone watched. In fact some were being observed with all the rapt attention of an athletic contest, and she half expected to hear the spectators wagering on the outcome.
About halfway through the chamber, they came to an abhorrent mound of flesh standing about twice as tall as the princess. There was one overly long leg dragging on the ground behind him, one incredibly short leg dangling from his hip, and one that seemed just about the right size propped beneath his tailbone. He had a pale, hunched body, stooped shoulders, and no neck whatsoever. His head was bald and wart-covered, with floppy, pointed ears and red, bulging eyes lacking brows or lids.
Brianna's first impression was that a hill giant child had fallen into the fire and melted, then somehow survived to crawl back out. But once she recovered from her shock, she realized the figure was only a fomorian slave. Every member of this strange race of giant-kin was born hideously and uniquely deformed, though few quite as grotesquely as this fellow.
The fomorian, secured by a lengthy chain to a post, stood next to a large cooking fire. Over the roaring flames were suspended a dozen roasting spits, each skewering the charred remains of what might have been a deer. At the far end of the fire lay a tremendous pile of skinned animal carcasses, while at the closer end, where a huge black pot bubbled at the edge of the blaze, there was a much larger mound of pine cones.
As Brianna and her companions approached, the fomorian hopped along in front of the spits, using his single arm-which stuck out of the center of his chest- to crank each handle a quarter turn. When he reached the end of the line, he paused long enough to grab a shovel and throw a scoop of pine cones into the boiling pot. Then, before the princess realized what he was doing, the fomorian snatched her up in his slimy hand and hopped toward the carcass pile at the other end of the fire.
With both hands, Brianna grabbed the cook's huge thumb and pushed back against the joint. A garbled rasp of pain spewed from the fomorian's throat, then his hand opened, and the princess dropped to the dirt floor. The slave's lidless eyes glared down at her, clearly astonished by her unexpected strength, then he cautiously stooped down to pick her up again.
"Not her, Ig!"
Sart cuffed Ig in the back of the head. The fomorian whirled around and leered up at his tormentor. Brianna could not tell whether his twisted face was scowling or pouting, but Sart paid the ugly expression no attention.