Avner hooked the needle through the womb. Brianna flinched so violently that one leg slipped the grasp of an inattentive front rider, tightening a set of abdominal muscles that the young scout had carefully separated. The fibers slipped back into place, causing him to drag the sharp needle across the queen’s womb. Brianna screamed, her head jerking forward. Gryffitt’s belt held her in place, and the front riders once again pinned her securely to the ground.
“I see the queen’s birthing has been a difficult one,” said the firbolg. Avner recognized the rumbling voice as Raeyadfourne’s. “Give us the ugly child, and Munairoe will heal the mother.”
“Fine. Go fetch him.” Avner had no intention of letting any firbolg near Brianna, but it couldn’t hurt to buy time-especially if the needle had caused more injury to the womb. The young scout glared at the man who had allowed the leg to slip, then hissed, “Pay attention. You’re more dangerous to the queen than the firbolgs.”
Avner returned his attention to his patient and carefully pushed the stringy muscles away from the incision, then examined the small cut his needle had made. The tip had scratched the womb, but hadn’t pierced it. He glanced toward the front of the tunnel. Raeyadfourne was still watching and waiting for his fellows to arrive. The young scout did not like the chieftain’s patience. It suggested that he had someone who could offset the disadvantage of the cramped tunnel, perhaps a shaman or runecaster.
Blizzard continued to jerk at her reins and neigh at the firbolg, and Avner continued to sew, working as fast as he could without being careless. He was just putting in the last stitch when Raeyadfourne spoke again.
“Munairoe is coming up the trail now.” The firbolg was still kneeling at the front of the mine. His head was pushed just inside the collar, with the crown of his skull pressed against the roof of the tunnel. “Bring out the queen and her twins.”
It was the queen herself who replied. “I have only… one child, and he is handsome… as handsome as his father.” Brianna’s eyes shifted to Thatcher. “Show him.”
Avner nodded his permission, then opened one of Simon’s healing potions. He poured half the contents directly over the seam he had sewn in Brianna’s womb. The blood immediately ceased seeping from the closure. The edges fused together, leaving an ugly red scar in the incision’s place, but the queen was not ready to move. Before his task was complete, the young scout still had to close a layer of membrane and another of flesh.
As Avner worked, Thatcher released the queen’s arm and lifted the baby into the torchlight.
Raeyadfourne snorted in disgust. “That child? Kaedlaw?” he scoffed, using the firbolg word for ‘handsome as the father.’ “A name will not disguise a hideous face. Bring him out, and our shaman will help you survive to raise the princely one.”
“But I have… only one child!” Brianna protested. “And he… he is Kaedlaw.”
The queen’s brow was furrowed in confusion, as though she could not imagine why Raeyadfourne insisted on calling her child ugly. Avner feared he knew the reason. The firbolg did not see the same face as Brianna; he saw the visage that had been upon the child’s face at the moment of birth. The young scout glanced at the torch holder. The man was gazing toward the tunnel mouth, his eyes tense with the strain of keeping secret the transformation he had witnessed.
“Pay attention,” Avner hissed. “Hold that light down here, where I can see.”
Raeyadfourne’s rumbling voice filled the tunnel. “Galgadayle’s dreams have never been wrong. You must give us K-Kaed-uh-law.” The firbolg’s voice cracked with the strain of speaking a name that was a lie to his eyes. “We demand this for the good of Hartsvale, as well as our own.”
“We’ll give you nothing,” Gryffitt growled. “And if you want to take this handsome boy from the queen, you’ll have to do it from the sharp end of a lance.”
As Gryffitt made his declaration, Avner was carefully moving into place the edges of the translucent membrane he had cut to reach Brianna’s womb. He allowed her abdominal muscles to slip back where they belonged, then poured the remaining healing potion over the area. Normally, the patient was supposed to drink the elixir, but the queen had said her insides would mend faster if the tonic was poured directly onto them.
From outside came the heavy footsteps of a second firbolg. Raeyadfourne turned away from the tunnel mouth to converse with his fellow. Avner motioned the front riders to their weapons.
“Gather your things quietly,” he whispered. “We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“Where we going, if you don’t mind my asking?” asked Gryffitt. “Getting ourselves trapped in the back of a mine seems no better than fighting it out here.”
“Earl Wynn said the veins in this mountain cross each other like a tangle of worms-and the tunnels follow veins,” Avner explained. “With any luck, we’ll connect to another mine and sneak out that way.”
As the front riders gathered their parkas and weapons, Avner began to close the cut on the exterior of Brianna’s abdomen. Without the front riders to pin her down, she flinched and jerked whenever the needle pierced her skin, but her motions caused him little trouble. The movements were not as severe as when he had been closing her womb, and even if his hand slipped, he was not likely to cause serious injury. He worked as fast as he could, spacing the stitches just tightly enough to close the wound. If the edges overlapped in places, he did not worry. There would be time to tidy up later.
Avner was only half finished when Raeyadfourne spoke again. “Running will do you no good,” the firbolg said. “Even if you escape us, the fomorians and verbeegs will be waiting at the other exits.”
“I never thought to see the day when firbolgs consorted with the likes of those scum,” commented Gryffitt. He and the other front riders had already slipped back into their parkas and gathered their weapons. “Have you taken a sudden liking to thieves and murderers?”
Raeyadfourne shrugged, and it seemed to Avner that the firbolg had changed somehow. The chieftain’s silhouette appeared somehow more feral and threatening.
“The verbeegs and fomorians are our brothers,” Raeyadfourne explained. “If you surrender the ugly child, you have nothing to fear from them.”
“Let me heal the queen, and give us the second child,” boomed a second firbolg, Munairoe. “He will not suffer at our hands.”
Avner saw a pair of green eyes peering around Raeyadfourne and realized what had changed. The chieftain’s beard now hung clear down to his belly. His hair had become a long, wild mane, and, most importantly, his huge shoulders no longer covered the tunnel mouth completely.
“He’s shrinking!” Avner gasped.
A guttural curse erupted from deep within Raeyadfourne’s throat. He threw off his bearskin cloak and pulled a four-foot hand axe from his belt, then scuttled into the tunnel. Although the chieftain still had to squat on his haunches, he was now small enough that his hands remained free to fight.
Blizzard went wild, filling the passage with ear-splitting shrieks. She whipped her head violently against her reins, drawing an ominous creak from the thick mining timber to which she was tied, and her hooves hammered the stone floor. The front riders ignored the angry mare and leveled their lances, moving forward to attack the chieftain.
“You men, wait!” Avner yelled. If the front riders attacked Raeyadfourne now, they would still be fighting when the rest of the firbolgs reached the portal. “Come back here!”
Avner pulled his hand axe from its sheath and hurled it at the post to which the Queen’s Beast was tied. The weapon tumbled straight to the timber and sliced cleanly through Blizzard’s leather reins. The angry mare hardly paused to gather her feet before springing up the passage. She bounded over Brianna and knocked the front riders aside as she barreled past to attack Raeyadfourne.