By the time they did as the boy suggested, Tavis could see the source of all the clamor. The High Gate and its chains were sliding down the face of the cliff, trailing a long dark cord. Apparently, Basil had run the other end of the rope through one of the iron hooks set into the cliff above the fault cave, then tied it to the hoisting chains and cut them loose. Now the entire gate assembly was plunging groundward, serving as a counterweight to pull the immense bulk of Ooo and Morten up to the platform.
Realizing what would happen when the immense weight hit the ground, Tavis pulled Avner and Brianna behind a boulder. The gate and chains smashed down a second later. The resulting crash was so loud they didn't even hear it; their ears simply began to ache with terrible, ringing pain. They were bucked high into the air and came down sprawled atop each other. Sheets of red gore, all that remained of Rog and Kol's crushed bodies, sprayed over the top of boulder and coated the field for dozens of paces around.
Tavis looked up. Ooo and Morten, so distant that they appeared to be nothing more than blobby shadows with arms and legs, were scrambling over the edge of the platform. At the other end of the hanging road, the first ogre was just setting foot onto the timbers and starting up toward the fault cave.
The scout felt Avner tugging on his arm. When he looked down, he saw the boy's lips moving but heard nothing. The ringing in his ears was so loud he could hardly hear his own thoughts, much less someone's words. The youth gave up trying to talk and ran toward the gate, which lay smashed into a dozen pieces. Avner climbed up a hoisting chain to where the rope had been connected to the gate and began to untie it. Just above the knot he was working on, there was a series of loops similar to those in which Morten and Ooo had ridden up to the platform.
Tavis climbed up the hoisting chain before Brianna, taking the highest position on the rope himself. It appeared that Basil and the others would have to pull them up to the platform by hand. The scout didn't know how long that would take, but feared the ogres would be waiting at the top. He certainly did not want the princess to be the first one they plucked off the rope.
Once Avner and Brianna had secured themselves beneath him. Tavis jerked the line as Ooo had done earlier. The trio did not shoot into the sky as the fomorian and Morten had, but rose rapidly and steadily. At first, the ascent was rather painful, for the rope dragged them along the cliff face, scraping their skin raw. They soon learned to work together to keep the soles of their feet pressed against the stone, so that they found themselves more or less running up the granite wall.
Tavis spent most of the trip craning his neck in an effort to see what Goboka and his ogres were doing. He quickly lost sight of the warriors as the last one started up the timber road, but the shaman himself was simply standing on the ridge watching them. The scout would have preferred to see the brute waddling up the trail as fast as his stubby legs would carry him. If Goboka was not worried, then Tavis was.
As the underside of the platform grew larger, the ringing in the scout's ears grew fainter. By the time he glimpsed flashes of Basil's hands pulling the rope up through the chain slots, Tavis could hear-not quite normally, but well enough to communicate.
"Where are the ogres?" he yelled.
"Close, but we have time," came the response.
"Not enough," Tavis growled. "Without the gate, they'll catch us in the cave."
"No, they won't." Avner said proudly. "Once we're up, just start running. Leave the rest to Basil and me."
"If it's all the same to you, I think I'll have Bear Driller ready," Tavis replied.
The scout pulled his bow off his shoulder. As Basil raised him through the chain slot, he jumped onto the platform, already nocking a black shaft. He slipped past his three panting companions and took aim down the road. The ogres were less than fifty paces away, easily within arrow range, but their bows remained slung over their backs and they were carrying hand axes or warhammers instead. Tavis quickly realized the reason for their choice of weaponry. If they shot the people hauling the rope up, they would send Brianna plunging to her death-and that was the last thing Goboka wanted.
Tavis had no such concerns about the welfare of the ogres. He loosed his first shaft and dropped the leader of the pack. The others leaped over him and continued charging. As the scout nocked his second shaft, he heard Avner scrambling onto the platform. Taking his own advice, the youth rushed straight into the fault cave.
Tavis fired again, dropping another ogre. The next two brutes kept coming, their purple eyes gleaming with bloodlust.
Brianna jumped onto the platform and rushed into the cave after Avner, yelling. "I'll make us a light!"
Tavis nocked another arrow. The ogres were less than thirty steps away.
Before the scout could fire. Basil brushed past him. "You may as well save your arrow!"
The verbeeg kneeled at the edge of the platform where it joined the hanging road, then pulled his dagger and began to carve. Tavis peered over Basil's shoulder and saw that the runecaster had already cut an elaborate symbol into the wood and was just etching the last line.
"Go!" Basil urged.
Tavis started to back toward the cave, then thought better of it and glanced toward Goboka. The shaman remained where he had been standing all along, but was now stretching one arm toward the platform.
Morten started to scream, but the cry quickly changed to a choking gurgle. Tavis swung around to see an ogre's gnarled fingers shooting from the sore on the bodyguard's throat. An eerie blue aura of magical energy was dancing over the digits, crackling and snapping like lightning. In the next instant, the shaman's entire hand appeared, its black talons straining for Basil's back. Morten began to stumble forward against his will, as though Goboka were pulling him toward the runecaster.
The bodyguard dropped to his knees behind Basil. In words so garbled Tavis could barely understand them, he gurgled, "Throw me over!"
Goboka's arm stretched forward and ripped Basil away from his work.
"Do it!" Morten urged.
The scout glanced down the road and saw that the ogres were still twenty paces away. "No."
Tavis reached down and jerked the hand axe from Morten's makeshift bell, then brought the blade down on the ichor-covered appendage protruding from the bodyguard's throat. The blow severed the arm with a sort of wet crackle. The stump of the limb receded into the festering sore from which it had come, and a pained wail rang out from the ridge.
Tavis glanced toward the sound and saw Goboka clutching his shoulder. Even from so far away, the scout could see that nothing hung below the elbow.
"Give me that!" Morten growled.
Tavis felt the axe being ripped from his hand, then saw Morten charge down the road to meet the ogres.
"Come back, Morten!" Tavis yelled.
"I can't finish the rune with you down there!" Basil added. "You'll be killed."
"That what he wants, verbeeg," Ooo said. "Finish rune."
"No," Tavis replied. "We can cure-"
Ooo shoved her way past the scout, nearly knocking him from the platform. "No time for stupid feelings."
The fomorian snatched Basil's dagger and, as Morten crashed into the ogre pack, carved the rune's last line.
A coating of bright green moss instantly spread down the path. The timbers began to rot, dropping away in a steady stream of decomposing matter. A deep groan sounded from the wooden buttresses, then the hanging road tilted steeply, spilling Morten and the ravaged ogre pack toward the valley floor.
Ooo dropped the dagger at Basil's side. "Escape complete. Now bargain done." The fomorian stepped into the fault cave. Without looking back, she called, "Good-bye, Tavis Burdun." *17* Goboka Returns
From deep in the forest echoed a loud, sharp thump, then something began to crash through the underbrush toward them. Too exhausted to leap up, Tavis and his three companions slowly gathered their weapons and dragged themselves to their feet.