"Yes," Brianna replied. Although her tone was calm enough, thoughts were racing through her mind with the speed of swooping falcons. It was apparent that Noote's queen was the real power behind the throne, and the princess was hardly prepared for that. She did not even know the giantess's name! Forcing herself to keep her eyes on Noote, the princess continued, "And now I need an escort back to Castle Hartwick."
Noote furrowed his brow and turned to consult with his queen. They exchanged a few whispered comments, then the chief looked over Brianna's head to Sart.
"Where they come from?" he demanded, gesturing at Brianna and her companions.
"From High Gate." The sentry looked at Noote as though the chief had lost his mind. "Where you think?"
Noote hurled a charred boar's head at Sart, then growled, "Who chasing them? Ogres?"
Sart nodded. "Yeah. Lots of ogres. Ogres kill Rog, but I fight 'em back and close gate." The giant glanced down at Brianna with a hopeful expression. "Right?"
Brianna gave Sart a reassuring smile, but she was thinking to herself that the giant would have been much better off if he had taken them directly to Castle Hartwick. The princess glanced at Morten and nodded for him to put Tavis down. Once she saw that the bodyguard understood her instructions, she looked back to Noote.
"That's not what happened at all."
"Lying girl!" The giant stomped forward to silence the princess.
Morten hurled himself at Sart's knees, knocking the astonished sentry to the floor. The two figures grappled, a thick cloud of dust billowing up to hide the combat.
"Stop!" Noote yelled, rising. "Not time for fighting!"
"Sit down, Noote!" Brianna motioned for the chieftain to resume his seat, then, in a more gentle voice, added, "Morten's not going to hurt your guard."
As the princess had hoped, her comment drew a raised brow from the queen, who grabbed her husband's arm and pulled Noote roughly back to the ground. The struggle continued for only a few moments more before it abruptly ceased. When the dust cleared, Morten was sitting astride Sart's throat with the giant's own dagger pressed against his throbbing jugular vein.
"I wouldn't take a deep breath," the firbolg warned. "This blade's kind of heavy, and it might slip."
Sart pressed his lips together and held his breath.
Brianna looked back to her hosts. "Now, as I was saying, Sart's version of what happened at the High Gate isn't quite accurate." She motioned to Morten and Tavis, then added, "Actually. Rog and Kol were killed in an argument over some horses I promised to send to Rog."
Noote's eyes opened wide. "Kol dead too?" he thundered, glaring at Sart. "Who at High Gate?"
Sart swallowed nervously. "No one," he admitted.
The chief snatched his bone dagger from his belt, but managed to keep himself from hurling it at Sart's helpless form. "Go back!" he thundered. He pointed the tip of his knife at two more giants. "You, too!"
The two new sentries jumped from their seats and lifted Morten off Sart, then the three sentries could not scramble from the lodge quickly enough. After watching the trio leave, Brianna turned back to Noote with a bemused smile.
"There's no need for such concern. The ogres won't be bothering you." Brianna motioned at her two companions. "Morten and Tavis stopped them."
At the mention of the scout's name, an astonished buzz rustled through the chamber. Tavis Burdun was as famous among Noote's tribe as he was among humans- perhaps more so, since he'd often been called upon to track down and slay their rogues. A crowd of curious hill giants began to gather, and Morten quickly pushed his way between them to protect the unconscious scout. As he did so. Brianna noticed the wart-covered face of the dancing slave peering down at Tavis from between two burly shoulders. The princess was surprised by the adoration on the slave's face, for she knew Tavis's arrows had also thinned the ranks of many fomorian tribes.
Brianna's attention was drawn back to Noote and his queen when, after a lengthy consultation with his wife, the chieftain asked, "Them firbolgs kill all ogres?"
The sneer on Noote's lip made it clear that he did not believe they had.
Brianna shook her head. "No, just one," she said. "Goboka."
She smirked hugely, deliberately twisting her face into an expression the hill giants would find difficult to read. In spite of her words, the princess was painfully aware that the shaman had only been driven away, not killed. She avoided lying when possible, but had learned on her father's knee that diplomatic necessity sometimes dictated saying things that were not strictly true.
In this case, convincing Noote and his queen that her firbolgs had actually killed Goboka served two very important goals. First, if they thought the ogre was dead, they would not be tempted to return her to him. Second, if they knew how powerful the shaman was, they might well think it wisest not to anger those who had killed him.
Much to Brianna's relief, her strategy seemed to be working. Noote and his queen had pressed their faces cheek to cheek and were whispering furiously into each other's ears. So intense was their conversation that the princess could hear certain words flying back and forth, among them "spirit," "ogre," and her father's name. Finally, after a particularly sharp exchange, the queen shoved her husband away.
"Tell me, if Goboka is dead, why do you need an escort from us?" asked the queen.
The princess's jaw dropped. It was a rare giant who could speak so articulately, and for a hill giant to express herself so fluently was unheard of. Brianna could see that she had badly underestimated the queen. By the standards of her race, at least, the giantess was a genius. Even among the earls of Hartwick, she would have to be considered shrewd-and therefore dangerous.
"Perhaps the reason you can't answer my question is that Goboka isn't dead."
The queen was probing, trying to convince Brianna that she knew more than she really did. It was a trick the princess had seen her father use often. "Goboka is dead," she replied. "Unless having his head severed and his heart pulled from his chest does not kill an ogre shaman."
Brianna added this last part in an innocent voice, as though she were really afraid that such treatment might not have killed her enemy.
The queen smiled at Brianna's response. "No, I'm quite sure you killed him if you did that," she replied. "But I'm afraid we won't be returning you to your father."
A cold ball of dread formed in tile princess's stomach. "I warn you, the king will be angry if you don't help me."
The queen's smile turned into a sneer. "I think not, my dear," she said, glancing at the raven on her shoulder. "You see, he said we could take you to the Twilight Vale ourselves."
Avner could remember exactly when he had last been this cold-inside the Needle Peak glacier, wading up the icy stream to rescue Brianna. He had almost died.
He felt certain he was about to die now, as the wind howled along the cliff face, spraying the stone-which was already slick-with freezing sleet, coating the hoisting chain with clear ice, and stealing the warmth from his body with each clatter of his teeth. The thief could hardly bend the frozen fingers on his good hand, but that really did not matter, since it was trembling so hard that he would not trust it to support his weight anyway.
Avner was two links from the bottom of the hoisting chain, his body wedged through the loop and swinging in the freezing wind. He had no concept of how long he had been hanging there, for the last thing he remembered was his stomach rising toward his throat as Kol stepped off the end of the platform.