Avner, and then Earl Dobbin was clutching' madly at the boy's legs, his mouth gaping open in a scream that no one could hear above the din of falling water.
Tavis reached for l he lord mayor's ankles. He felt cold water slipping between his fingers. The scout glanced over his shoulder and saw the dark edge of nothingness creeping toward his feet. He cupped his hands and pulled with all his might, at the same time kicking with both legs. He surged forward, felt the water drag him back, and plunged his feet toward the river bottom.
The scout felt soft mud sucking at his boots, then found himself struggling to keep his balance in neck-deep water. Pulling against the current with his arms, he walked toward shore, carefully anchoring each foot before he moved the next. The water grew shallow, and soon he found himself standing on shore, a half dozen paces from where his companions lay gasping on the boggy ground.
Tavis started to collapse, but stopped when he saw Avner yelling at him and pointing at his back. The scout slowly turned and saw, less than a pace away, the sharp edge of a cliff. Far below, the silvery ribbon of the waterfall emptied into a pool strewn with craggy boulders that had tumbled off the top of the precipice in times past.
And down there, leaping from one jagged stone to another in a frantic attempt to cross the river, was Basil.
Tavis raised his arm to wave, then saw a black shaft come streaking out of the trees on shore. The arrow skipped past the verbeeg's shoulder and disappeared into the river, then a lone ogre stepped out of the forest. The scout pulled Bear Driller off his back and reached for an arrow-only to discover that his quiver had been ripped from his back in the raging river.
With his useless bow in hand, Tavis watched the ogre below nock another arrow. Basil dived into the water and saved himself as the shaft shot past, but the refuge was only temporary. His attacker was already pulling another arrow from his quiver and leaping onto the rocks.
Realizing the runecaster could not stay underwater forever, Tavis stepped over to Avner. He tried to ask for the boy's sling, but when he could not make himself heard over the waterfall, simply pulled it from inside the youth's cloak. Grabbing a stone off the ground, he returned to the edge of the cliff.
The ogre was standing on a boulder in the middle of the river, peering down into the water. Tavis placed his stone in the sling and whirled the strap over his head, then hurled the missile at the brute below.
The rock splashed into the water a dozen paces behind its target. The ogre loosed his shaft, then Basil came up for air. By the time his foe could nock another arrow, the verbeeg had disappeared once again beneath the water.
Tavis grabbed another rock off the ground, then felt Avner's hand tugging at his wet sleeve. The boy took the sling and placed a fist-sized rock into the pocket. He stepped over to the cliff edge, began whirling the strap above his head, and waited. When the ogre drew his bowstring back to fire, the young thief whipped his missile forward. The stone streaked down and struck the brute squarely in the back of the head. The warrior pitched face first into the water.
Basil came up for air again, cocking his head in puzzlement as the dead ogre drifted past. The verbeeg touched his hand to the back of the corpse's head, then seemed to realize where his help had come from and looked toward the top of the waterfall. Tavis waved, motioning for the verbeeg to come up and join them.
Basil shook his head, then turned downstream and began to swim. He looked over his shoulder and waved one last time, then dived back under the water.
As Tavis stood puzzling over the verbeeg's sudden desertion, a volley of ogre arrows sailed out of the trees below, arcing up toward him. He did not even bother to step back, for the distance was too great, and he knew they would all fall short.
Goboka's burly figure stepped from beneath a giant hemlock's heavy boughs, a crackling red javelin in his hands. The shaman glared at Tavis for a moment, then hurled the spear into the air. The scout leaped back, barely ducking out of the way as the missile streaked past in a blur of red and orange.
The javelin struck a black spruce, splitting the bole in two as it passed through. The shaft buried itself deep in the trunk of another tree, then hung there with crimson sparks sputtering from its end.
Along with Brianna and the rest of his companions, Tavis threw himself to the ground. He landed at the princess's side. They lay on the ground for a moment. Then, with an explosion audible even over the din of the waterfall, the tree erupted into a giant pillar of flame.
Tavis felt Brianna's hand on his shoulder. 'I guess you don't know everything,' she yelled, holding her mouth close to his ear. 'Now we try my plan!' * 10* The Hanging MOOR
After a grueling all-day ascent with the ogre horde clambering close behind. Brianna crested a small cliff and saw a hill giant hulking in the distance. She knew then her small company would soon be safe.
It didn't matter that the entire length of a hanging moor and a deep alpine canyon separated her from the giant. The meadow's tundra would be easy to run upon, and the gorge was narrow enough to yell across, so she would simply sprint over to the chasm's edge and demand the hill giant's help. Then he would escort the princess's party into Gray Wolf lands, and even Goboka would not dare violate Noote's dominion by following. At least that was Brianna's hope, for she saw no other means of escape.
The hanging meadow sat like a broken saucer upon the mountain's flank. On its uphill side, a sheer wall of granite soared into the sky, its distant crown lost in the pearly vapors of a low-hanging cloud. The downhill side was encircled by a craggy precipice, falling more than thirty feet to a steep slope of talus stones and puny bristlecone pines. This scarp descended several hundred paces to timberline, where a wall of spearhead spruce abruptly rose to replace the ground-hugging pine thickets.
There, just emerging from the majestic spruce forest, was Goboka's horde. The warriors were spread out in both directions, cutting off any hope of trying to descend back into the valley below. Unless the companions could fly, their only hope of escape was to descend into the gorge at the far end of the moor.
'Well?' called Tavis. 'Does it lead anywhere?'
'Yes, to freedom!' Brianna turned around and lay on the moor, reaching down to help her companions up the small cliff. 'There's one of Noote's hill giants ahead.'
Tavis's lips tightened in irritation, but it was Morten who spoke. 'We'd better think this over.' he said. 'That giant's liable to attack before you can explain who you are-especially when he sees you with giant-kin.'
'That's why I intend to approach him alone, while you and Tavis wait here,' Brianna said. 'I know how giants and giant-kin feel about each other.'
The animosity between the two groups was not bitter enough to be called hatred, but it was as old as the giants themselves. According to the ancient stone giant songs, both true giants and giant-kin had sprung from the loins of the lusty mother-goddess Othea, but they had not been sired by the same father. The true giants were descended from Othea's husband, the great god Annam, while the giant-kin were scions of her illicit lover, a minor deity named Ulutiu. As with many such families, the sibling races were jealous and resentful of each other, but they could also be helpful when it was mutually beneficial-and Brianna felt sure she could make it worth Noote's trouble to tolerate a pair of kin.
Unfortunately, her firbolg companions seemed reluctant to test the hospitality of hill giants. Neither one of them was making a move to climb the cliff, or to help Earl Dobbin and Avner up.
'We don't have time to debate this,' Brianna said. She pointed down the mountain, to where the ogres were gathering themselves into packs of ten and twelve. 'If you know another way out of here, tell me.'
Tavis's only reply was to point up the mountainside.
Brianna craned her neck back. She saw only a vertical wall of granite, scoured by gales of blowing snow and draped with thick curtains of ice.
'I can't scale that!' burst Earl Dobbin. 'Not with an injured leg.'
'And probably not with two good legs,' the scout replied. 'But Avner's an excellent climber. He'll lower his rope for you.' The scout pointed at the coil of rope the youth carried over his shoulder.
'I understand being nervous about asking hill giants for help, but you can't be serious!' Brianna continued to stare at the cliff. Now that she had been looking a little longer, she could see that the ice curtains were in fact hanging glaciers-most ready to come crashing down at any moment. 'We'd freeze to death up there, even if we survived long enough to climb out of arrow range.'
'Morten and I'll hold the ogres off,' Tavis said. 'By the time they get past us, you'll be out of range.'
'Leave you behind?' Avner gasped. 'I won't do it!'
