Basil passed his hand axe to the princess. "In that case, the hunted shall become the hunter."
From his hiding place in a log tangle, Tavis watched Goboka's bulky figure approach. The shaman could not have had much rest in past two days, but he showed little sign of fatigue. His strides were long and steady, his eyes alert, and his jaw set with determination. Even his wound seemed to be healing. From the stump of his severed arm dangled the beginnings of a new limb, complete with a tiny elbow, wrist, and hand.
Goboka stopped twenty paces from the bog. His purple eyes narrowed and glared over the gray mud at the weary Brianna, who sat in the center of the quagmire on a hastily constructed raft of three logs. The ogre's gaze flickered to the opposite bank, where Blizzard stood nickering and scraping at the shore with her hooves, then his nostrils flared. He scowled and dropped to his knees, sniffing at the ground as a wolf might.
Cursing under his breath, Tavis nocked an arrow. Goboka had stopped a good dozen steps short of the cross fire he and Basil had set up, but the scout knew their target would come no closer. Ogres normally did not have an acute sense of smell, so it seemed apparent the shaman had used magic to enhance his-and if his spell was half as powerful as a wolf's nose, it would not take him long to find his ambushers.
Tavis rose and fired. At the sound of Bear Driller's bowstring, the shaman sprang to his feet. As fast as he moved, his reflexes were not quick enough to spare him entirely. The shaft took him in the shoulder above the severed arm. Tavis was still using ogre arrows, so the impact did not even knock Goboka down, but when the ogre saw the arrow's black fletching, his eyes widened in alarm. Cursing in the guttural language of his people, he ripped the shaft from his wound and flung it away.
"Now, Basil!" Tavis yelled. The scout was already nocking another arrow.
Goboka's eyelids began to droop and he sank to his haunches, but he managed to pull a clay vial from his satchel. Without even opening it, he stuck the small bottle into his mouth and bit down. Runnels of bright blue fluid spilled from the corners of his mouth and dribbled down his chin, bubbling and hissing, sending wisps of blood-colored vapor up past his nose.
The scout released his bowstring, aiming for one of the shaman's sleepy eyes. The ogre's lethargic gaze was fixed on his attacker, seemingly oblivious to the streaking shaft. Tavis's hand dropped reflexively toward his quiver, but he found himself thinking he might not need another arrow-until, almost casually, Goboka tipped his head aside and allowed the shaft to hiss past.
Basil rose from his hiding place, also in a log tangle, and flung a flat runestone toward the ogre. With smoke and flame spewing from its edges, the rock sailed straight for Goboka. The shaman looked toward the sizzling rock, then raised the stump of his arm into the air and, with the tiny hand growing at its end, tapped the disc ever so slightly. The missile changed directions and came shooting straight for Tavis.
The scout hurled himself from the log tangle and rolled, trying to put as much distance between himself and the runestone as possible. A loud thump echoed through the forest as the disc buried itself in a log. The sizzle deepened to a rumble, became a roaring crescendo, and finally exploded with a deafening clap.
An eerie tranquility settled over the wood. The silence lasted only an instant before it was shattered by the sputter of a hundred flaming wood shards returning to earth. Tavis curled into a tight ball, listening to the lumber crashing through the tree limbs. The acrid smell of smoke filled the air as huge staves thudded into the ground all around, then he heard a branch snap above his head. The scout looked up to see the sharp end of a flaming stick dropping toward his face. He twisted away, barely keeping the fiery stake from piercing his skull.
Tavis jumped up, nocking another arrow. When he turned to aim. Goboka had vanished.
"Where is he?"
Basil slowly spun around, craning his neck in all directions. "He's disappeared, Tavis." The verbeeg's voice cracked as he registered the complaint. "I can't see him!"
"It's all right. Don't panic," the scout said.
Tavis moved cautiously forward, his eyes searching for fluttering branches or some other sign that might betray an invisible foe. Goboka's voice echoed through the trees behind Basil, chanting the mystic syllables of an incantation. Tavis turned toward the sound and found his arrow pointing at the verbeeg's chest.
"Duck!" the scout yelled.
By the time Basil could obey, Goboka had ended his incantation. The scout released his arrow and heard the shaman leaping for cover. The shaft hissed into the forest without hitting anything, but at least it would make their invisible foe think twice before he uttered another spell.
Basil's log pile shifted. The runecaster cried out in alarm and tried to scramble away, but something caught his feet and pulled him back. One of the logs began to writhe, its gray bark changing to scales before Tavis's eyes. The bole slithered around the verbeeg's waist and began twining him in its mighty coils.
The scout resisted the urge to sprint to Basil's aid, realizing Goboka was probably using the runecaster as bait. Instead, Tavis stopped well out of the snake's reach and fired his arrow. The shaft bounced harmlessly off the beast's thick scales. He tried again, this time drawing his string back until the tip barely touched the bow. Again, the shot did not penetrate.
"Where boy?" demanded Goboka's voice.
Tavis nocked an arrow and turned toward the sound, but remembered how the shaman had thrown his voice in the fault cave and did not fire. Taking care to conceal the maneuver with his fingers, the firbolg slipped the notch of the ogre shaft off Bear Killer's string, but drew the bow as if he were going to fire.
"Leave Avner out of this," Tavis said, relieved to hear the shaman trying such a trick. If it had been possible for the ogre to throw his voice while uttering a spell incantation, Goboka would not have bothered trying to make conversation.
"Let all you go." Goboka said. To give the impression that he was moving about, he had shifted the location of his words. "Give me princess."
Tavis turned his bow toward the voice and released the cord beneath his fingers. The sonorous strum of Bear Killer's snapping bowstring echoed off the trees, but the firbolg's arrow remained between his fingers.
As the scout expected, Goboka's heavy footsteps came rushing at him from behind. Tavis tightened his grip on the arrow and spun, thrusting the shaft out in front of him. He heard an astonished groan and felt the iron tip sink into something pulpy, then the shaman's huge bulk smashed into him, breaking the arrow and knocking the firbolg off his feet.
Tavis crashed to the ground beneath his attacker. The air rushed from his lungs in a single excruciating gasp, then a pair of huge hands closed around his throat. He felt hot ogre blood spilling onto his skin, then Goboka's loathsome face appeared before his eyes, the illusion of invisibility shattered once the shaman revealed his location by attacking. The brute's yellow tusks were gnashing in fury, with blue poison antidote still frothing at the corners of his mouth.
Tavis slammed his palms into the ogre's elbows, trying to break his attacker's arms and free himself of the hands that had squeezed shut the veins in his neck. The shaman roared in anger, but his sturdy limbs did not budge, and he brought his heavy brow down to smash his captive's face. The scout turned his head, keeping his nose from being shattered, but Goboka's forehead still caught him in the cheek. An agonizing crackle resonated through the firbolg's head, and his entire face erupted in pain.
Tavis's sight began to grow murky and black, as though he were climbing into a cave for a deep winter sleep. The scout fought to stay alert, turning all his thoughts toward the dwindling light at the lair's distant mouth, but the gloom continued to close in, until he could see nothing but Goboka's hideous face leering at him from the other end of a narrow, dark tunnel.