pace slightly, he said, 'I hope you can keep up.'
Somehow. Basil did. While Tavis trotted down the dusty road in near silence, the verbeeg pounded along at his side, gasping for breath and holding his ribs. Despite his obvious agony, never once did the runecaster ask the scout to slowdown. Soon, the firbolg found himself admiring his companion's will, and even began to consider that having a magic-user along might prove useful if Brianna were in serious trouble.
Pausing frequently to look back and make sure Tavis and Basil were still following, Blizzard led the pair onward for the better part of an hour. Though they crossed several streams and the mare's mouth was frothing with thirst, not once did she pause to drink. They passed dozens of granges, small farms with huts of rough hewn logs and pastures fenced by walls of stacked rock. Usually, neither the inhabitants nor their animals were visible, for the sight of a verbeeg, even one accompanied by Tavis Burdun, was enough to send most peasants info hiding.
The farms slowly gave way to long, rounded bluffs of brown granite and tangled heaths of low-growing spruce. Presently, they reached the base of Coggin's Rise, where the road entered a stand of aspen trees. Blizzard stopped and stared into the white forest with pricked ears and flaring nostrils.
Tavis heard nothing except a bevy of pine siskins whistling to each other. Although it was a normal enough sound for this time of afternoon, he nocked an arrow and advanced cautiously down the road, Basil an Blizzard following close behind. The scout came to a toppled aspen at the road's edge. The bole, snapped off about four feet above the ground, had been freshly broken, for the wood still smelled of sap and showed no signs of weathering. Next to the jagged trunk lay an area of compressed ground where a very large person, probably Morten, had fallen to the ground and rolled.
Tavis pointed the tip of his arrow at the fallen aspen. 'Something dropped out of that tree and attacked Morten.'
Basil cast a nervous glance at the other aspens still overhanging the trail. 'What was it?'
Tavis studied the surrounding area for a moment then followed four of Morten's boot prints across the road. There, he found a mass of flies swarming over a large area of dark ground and several strange tracks that he had not seen since his days scouting for Runolf's patrol. The prints were deepest on the ball of the foot with talon marks in front of the five toes. The heel depression was hardly visible, while the arch had left no mark on the ground at all.
'It was an ogre.' Tavis said.
The scout put his arrow back in its quiver, then brushed the flies away and picked up a handful of darkened ground. He sniffed the sticky clump and smelled a rancid odor.
'This is ogre blood.' Tavis said. 'And from the amount spilled, I'd say the brute died quickly.'
The verbeeg looked up, eyeing the quivering boughs, overhead. 'If he's dead, where's the body?'
'Ogres don't leave their dead behind.' Tavis pointed, to a single set of deep ogre tracks leading away from the road into the heart of the woods. 'One of his friends took the body. When he reaches someplace safe, he'll burn the corpse so our priests can't eat it and enslave the fallen warrior's spirit.'
Basil frowned. 'That's ridiculous,' he said. 'Human priests aren't cannibals.'
'No, but ogre shamans are,' Tavis replied. 'And they're too stupid to understand the difference.'
With Basil and Blizzard still close behind, the scout rose and followed the ogre's trail away from the road. As he walked beneath the aspens where the siskins were perched, the tone of their call changed from a gentle sweet sweet to an anxious bzzrreeee, until he and his companions had passed. A few steps later, he came across several of Morten's heavy boot prints heading in the same direction. He followed the two sets of tracks to the base of a stony bluff. He began to climb, then slopped halfway up the hill when Blizzard snorted softly and abruptly stopped.
Tavis pulled an arrow and crouched down. 'Be ready.' he said, turning to face Basil. 'Blizzard seems-'
The scout stopped in midsentence, for the verbeeg had pulled a sheaf of fresh straw from his satchel and was dropping it on the ground. In the distance, Tavis could see two similar bundles marking the route they had taken since leaving the trail.
'What are you doing?' he demanded.
The runecaster's face went pale. 'I was just m-mark-ing our p-path,' he stammered. 'So we don't get lost.'
Tavis nocked his arrow and, without saying anything, swung it toward the verbeeg's heart.
'Avner put me up to it!' Basil blurted.
'In the name of Stronmaus!' Tavis swore, lowering his bow. 'Will I ever be able to trust that boy?'
Basil sighed in relief. 'His behavior is perfectly understandable,' the verbeeg said. 'Avner's terrified of being left alone. Now that you're abandoning him-'
'I'm not abandoning him!'
'Aren't you? As valid as your reasons are, you can't expect the boy to accept them.' Basil reached down to pick up the straw he had dropped on the ground.
'Leave it,' Tavis ordered. 'If he's following us. I don't want him getting lost with ogres about.'
The scout climbed the rest of the way up the bluff. Basil came a few steps behind, but Blizzard would advance no farther. Upon cresting the hill. Tavis found a wide band of black arrows leading across the hillside to another toppled aspen tree, like the one back at the road, it had been freshly snapped off about four feet above ground. Next to the broken stump lay Morten's body, resting facedown in a pool of his own blood.
Tavis bit his lip, but allowed himself no other reaction to the gruesome sight. During his time with the border guard, he had grown accustomed to the sight of good men lying motionless in lonely wilderness places. Though such deaths always saddened him, he had learned to control his emotions, for outbursts of grief and anger could only get a man killed when there was danger about. Nevertheless, the scout did feel a cold knot of dread forming in his stomach, and a panicked voice in the back of his head was screaming the alarm. If Morten had fallen, Brianna could not be safe.
'Diancastra save us!' Basil gasped, stepping to Tavis's side. 'They killed him!'
'So it appears,' Tavis replied. After studying the area to make certain no ogres were lurking in ambush, he led the way across the hilltop. 'I'll have a look around. You see to Morten.'
'As you wish,' Basil said. 'But I don't know what I can do for him. I'm a runecaster, not a necromancer.'
As Basil examined the bodyguard, Tavis made a thorough inspection of the area, retracing the course of the afternoon's events. He found seven dark, rancid-smelling stains on the mossy ground, suggesting that someone- presumably Morten-had spilled a lot of ogre blood. Near several trees, he also discovered set of deep ogre tracks. The scout realized instantly what these prints signified, for the brutes loved to attack by ambush, and dropping out of high trees was one of their favorite tricks.
To Tavis's dismay, he also found the place where Brianna had dismounted to examine Morten, another bloodstain, and the footprints of at least three ogres- one of them especially large-crossing her trail. On the bole of the toppled aspen, he noticed two gashes where Blizzard's hooves had scraped as she leaped across, and he noted the churned ground on the other side where horse and rider had fallen. Then, most disheartening of all, he discovered a gleaming white pebble that turned out to be a fractured human tooth.
Tavis was still searching for clues when Basil called out, 'Morten's alive! Help me roll him over!'
The scout leaped over the toppled aspen and helped Basil roll Morten's huge body onto its back. The bodyguard head and chest were covered with blood, the beard thickly matted with the sticky stuff. His flesh was as pate as aspen bark, and a terrific hunk of flesh had been bitten from his throat. Still, there could be little doubt that he was alive. A cold sweat covered his face, and his breath came in shallow gasps so faint his ribs barely moved. Someone had even cut an arrow from his thigh and dressed the wound with shredded bark.
Tavis pulled a corner of the bandage away and saw that the wound had been scorched by the fire of Hiatea's magic. There could be no doubt that Brianna had cast the spell that nullified the ogres' poison. He put the bandage back in place and cursed.
Basil raised an eyebrow. 'What's wrong?' he asked. 'It's no difference to me, but I thought you'd want Morten alive.'
'I do.' Tavis replied. 'But this was no chance meeting. The ogres were after Brianna all along.'
'How can you know that?' asked Basil.
'The poison on ogre arrows is fast.' Tavis explained. Once it's in your blood, you collapse in about three seconds. It won't kill you, but you'll be too weak to defend yourself.'
