"Humans not for eating!" the hill giant said.
Ig shrugged his stooped shoulders, then hopped, rather reluctantly, toward Morten.
"Not us, either!" the bodyguard grunted.
Ig looked up to Sart for confirmation. When the hill giant nodded, the fomorian sighed, then hopped back to his duties at the cooking fire.
"Let's go-before we get mistaken for vermin and stomped," Morten growled.
The princess led the way to the other end of the lodge, where another fomorian was halfheartedly performing a dance of debauchery. Though just as bald and warty as the cook, her abnormalities were mostly monumental exaggerations of curves typical to the females of most giant races. In a morose attempt to beguile her audience, she was spinning in a little circle, shaking her chest and swiveling her hips, raising a choking cloud of dust by stomping the beat to an eerie song of dismay that rumbled from her lips.
If the hill giants fathomed the sad beauty of the fomorian's dance, they showed no sign. They lounged around, bellowing lewd comments, mocking her deformities, and rutting with each other. In the center of this crowd, sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor and tossing hunks of charred meat at the woman's cleavage, was the dull-eyed, corpulent giant who Brianna had once been foolish enough to believe would save her Noote.
Beside the chieftain sat an especially large and flaccid giant wearing a silver necklace that Brianna's father had once sent as a gift to Noote's wife. On the queen's shoulder-assuming she was the queen-sat one of the talking birds Simon had enchanted to serve as messengers, a raven with a silver band around its leg. It crossed Brianna's mind that her father may have sent the bird to ask the hill giants' help in rescuing her from the ogres. But if that were so, she certainly saw no sign that the chieftain had done anything to honor the request.
On the side opposite Noote's wife sat another female- at least the princess hoped the giant was female, considering where the chieftain's free hand was resting. If the queen disapproved of her husband's actions, she showed no sign, and was in fact engaged in her own dalliance with a fellow beside her.
Brianna had a sinking feeling in her stomach. It was not just a faint apprehension of trouble, but a pain more like a granite ball grinding its way through her digestive tract. During his visits to Hartwick Vale. Noote had always struck her as a rather noble savage, crude and primitive, but basically good at heart. Now, she saw that she had been as mistaken about his character as about Tavis's. Not only was the giant cruel and debauched, he was a slave-taker and a hypocrite as well. If her father knew what occurred inside the Fir Palace, the princess felt sure Noote would not have been such a frequent and welcome guest in Castle Hartwick.
Brianna closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, girding herself against her rising fear. Now more than ever she realized Tavis had been right about the hill giant. Not that it mattered. Even if they had wanted to, they could not have avoided both Rog and the ogres, or that was what the princess told herself. She could not allow herself to consider the possibility that the scout had been right to suggest climbing straight up the mountain. Even now, that plan seemed too crazy to have worked-but was it? If she had followed the scout's advice, perhaps they would be camping somewhere above Hartsvale tonight instead of trusting their lives to the unpredictable mercies of hill giants. Perhaps Avner and Earl Dobbin would still be alive-Brianna shook her head, trying to shut out the visions of their deaths. She could live with the guilt of causing the lord mayor's death, but not Avner's. That burden was too heavy to bear. If she allowed herself to think about it, she would not have the strength to negotiate for Noote's help- and, as slim as it was, that was the only hope for her or her companions.
The princess opened her eyes, then circled around the fomorian's gyrating mass, narrowly avoiding being knocked off her feet as an immense hip swung past her head. She led the way forward until she had cleared the dust cloud raised by the dancer's feet, then stopped in front of Noote's colossal bulk. Brianna craned her neck and found herself looking up into a pair of cavernous nostrils. The chieftain remained entirely oblivious to her presence, flinging an entire haunch of venison high over her head, then laughing uproariously when it became lodged between his slave's pendulous breasts.
"I'm glad you don't behave this way in Castle Hartwick!" Brianna deliberately allowed her anger to creep into her voice as she yelled. Their best hope lay in keeping Noote off-balance. If she could convince him that she was in control of the situation, that his only choice was to do as she ordered or face her father's wrath, he might not pause to consider that he was in charge in his own palace. "Perhaps next time you visit, we'll let you root for your food with the swine."
Noote's jaw dropped, and his gaze flickered around the room for a moment, then he finally realized where the sound was coming from and looked down at Brianna. His face was even more brutal than that of most hill giants, with narrow black eyes, a broad flat nose spreading from one cheek to the other, and a mouthful of jagged gray teeth that had been filed to sharp points.
"Princess!" he gasped. Noote's eyes flicked above Brianna's head to the fomorian dancer, then his face turned a deep shade of crimson. He grabbed another hunk of venison and threw it at the slave, bellowing, "Put skins on!"
The fomorian quickly trundled toward the wall to obey, her face betraying her relief at the interruption.
"Please, don't let me interrupt." Brianna cast a pointed glance at the hand still lying in the lap of the giant next to Noote. "It's apparent you weren't expecting me."
The chieftain pulled his hand back to his own lap and shoved his companion away. "Act nice!" he bellowed. He leaned across his queen and also pushed her friend away. "Joke over!"
"What joke, Noote?" the queen asked.
Noote's face deepened to a shade of maroon so dark it was almost black. "Rutting jokes," he hissed, nudging her in the ribs. "This Princess Brianna."
All around him, hill giants furrowed thick brows in confusion. Their murmurs filled the chamber like the drone of Camden's guards gathering in the courtyard for an unexpected assembly.
"Quiet!" Noote demanded.
A few nearby giants fell silent, but that only increased the curiosity of those farther away, and the clamor actually grew louder. Noote's wife glanced around, seeming more irritated at having her bacchanalia interrupted than at the noise, then glared down at Brianna. The queen was uglier than her husband, with sagging red bags under her eyes and a plump, oval-shaped mouth smeared with black soot-whether for decoration or by accident, Brianna could not tell.
"Who?" the queen demanded.
Noote leaned over and whispered in her great ear, fingering the silver necklace she had been sent by Brianna's father. The queen's eyes opened wide, and her expression changed from one of irritation to one of surprise.
"Quiet!" she thundered.
The lodge fell instantly silent. The queen whispered something to Noote. Brianna could not quite make out her words, but she could hear the breath of the giantess rustling in the chief's ear like wind in a box canyon.
Noote whispered something back to his wife. This time Brianna heard something about stealing and ogres, and the couple exchanged a few more whispers. Finally, Noote nodded, then fixed his attention on his unexpected guest.
"What doing here?"
"I escaped from my kidnappers. I should think that you'd have guessed that yourself." Brianna allowed her gaze to flick up to the raven sitting on the queen's shoulder. "My father did send a message telling you about it, didn't he?"
Noote glanced at the bird, then looked back to Brianna. "Just come tonight." He glanced over the princess's head and cast a thoughtful eye at her companions. "Him say two firbolgs trying to rescue you. That them?"