Still holding the boulder over his head, the hill giant scowled. 'How that better than horse?' he demanded. 'Maybe good for Noote-not for Rog.'
Knowing that the ogres would not allow her much time to complete her negotiations, Brianna hazarded a glance down the mountainside. At the other end of the moor, the ogres were still scrambling up the slope, making more progress than she would have liked against the torrent of boulders Morten and Tavis hurled down upon them. Closer to the princess, the brutes had opted for different strategy. They were staying below timberline, slipping through the spruce shadows as they ran abreast of her route. This puzzled the princess for a moment, until she realized that they were trying to enter the gorge lower down, after which they would quickly move to cut off the last escape route.
Brianna looked back to the giant. 'If you bring me to Noote, he'll be happy with you.' In spite of her growing concern, she forced herself to remain patient. She would not win Rog's help by trying to pressure him. 'He'll reward you.'
This sent Rog into such a fit of hysterics that he dropped his boulder, almost crushing his own foot.
'All right, then!' Brianna called. 'I'll reward you myself. How would you like five horses?'
Rog stopped laughing and picked up his club. 'Where?'
From the other end of the moor came the clatter of ogre arrows striking stone. Brianna glanced back to see Earl Dobbin and Avner scrambling toward her across the tundra.
'Those humans!' the giant protested. 'Not horses.'
'I'll send the horses to you,' Brianna promised. 'Okay?'
The hill giant's eyes narrowed in suspicion. 'You not even let Rog eat one horse. Why give him five?'
'Blizzard is special to me.' Brianna said. 'It would be like watching me eat one of your wolves.'
Rog's lip curled into a disgusted sneer, and the princess knew she had touched an emotional cord. 'I'll give you ten horses,' she offered. 'But you have to say yes right now-and call your wolves off my horse.'
'Yes!'
Rog tightened his lips against his yellowing teeth and gave a rising whistle that rang through the canyon. A dozen indignant howls protested the call. The hill giant repeated his summons, this time following it up with a threatening bellow. The wolves yelped, then Brianna spotted their gray forms slinking back down the gorge.
Rog tossed his club into the canyon, then sat down and braced his hands on the edge of the cliff. He turned around and carefully lowered himself until he was dangling by his fingers. Although the precipice had to be thirty feet high, the hill giant was so tall, and his arms so long, that his feet almost reached the bottom. He dropped into the gorge and fell over backward, tumbling down the talus slope head over heels. Halfway down, he slammed into a spruce trunk, shaking a torrent of brown needles down on his head, and came to stop. As though nothing unusual had happened, the giant stood up and brushed himself off, then retrieved his club and crossed the valley to climb up the slope on Brianna's side of the gorge.
The princess turned around to check on her companions. Earl Dobbin and Avner were almost upon her. By the steady rumble of rolling rocks, she could tell that Morten and Tavis remained at their posts, still hurling boulders down at the ogres. Meanwhile, down at timber-line, a steady line of Goboka's warriors were sneaking through the spruce forest toward the gorge.
'Tavis!' Even as she yelled the name, Brianna found herself wondering why her first instinct had been to call the scout's name instead of her bodyguard's. 'You too, Morten! Come now-or you'll be cut off!'
The princess heard one more set of boulders crash down the hill, then the rumbling began to quiet. Confident that the firbolgs had heeded her warning, Brianna faced the gorge again. She found Rog standing at the base of the cliff, his arms raised toward her.
'Jump,' he called. 'Rog catch good. Better than most hill giants.'
Though the hill giant's words hardly inspired faith, Brianna had no time to indulge her reservations. She simply stepped off the cliff and hoped for the best, fairly certain that at least Rog intended to catch her. The princess dropped through the air for a single queasy instant. The back of her shoulders slapped the edge of the giant's leathery palm, but the rest of her body missed entirely. The momentum of her fall whipped her forward. Her head flashed past four massive fingers that were slowly curling inward in a futile effort to grasp her before she tumbled away, and she found herself pitching face first toward the rocky talus slope below.
The hill giant's second hand rose from his side and appeared beneath her. She slammed facedown into the palm, coming to a stop with a loud and painful grunt. A moment later, Rog's thick fingers curled around her body, almost crushing her ribs as they locked her in his grip.
'See? Rog's hands good.' The hill giant set her on the ground near his feet.
'They got the job done,' Brianna allowed, still gasping from her impact. 'But hold your hands like this for my friends.'
She cupped her palms together to show the hill giant what she meant. He stooped over-way over-and squinted at her hands with a single red-veined eye. Most giants suffered from farsightedness, but Rog's condition was worse than most. He barely seemed able to separate her from the rocky slope.
'But what if Rog miss with first hand?' the giant asked, cupping his palms together.
'Hold still.' Brianna advised. 'They'll jump into your palms.'
The hill giant looked doubtful, but put his hands together as she had instructed and raised them toward the cliff top. 'Your friends, not mine,' he said, shrugging.
As Earl Dobbin leaped from the cliff, Brianna heard a soft growl, then felt a cold nose nuzzling her neck. She turned around and found herself staring up into the yellow eyes of the leader of Rog's wolf pack. When she had seen the beast from atop the cliff, she had not realized how huge it was. The thing was almost as large as Blizzard, its thick fur matted so densely that a dagger could not have pierced it. The creature's muzzle was slender and pointed, with slavering black lips and fangs as long as daggers. Bounding up the hill behind the beast were its eight fellows, all close to their leader's size and just as wicked-looking.
As the creature glared at her, the princess realized that she had been mistaken about its species. The thing was not a wolf, but its cousin, a dire wolf-twice as large, nasty tempered, and not nearly as smart.
When the dire wolf began to snarl. Brianna quickly lowered her eyes so it would know she wasn't challenging it, then raised her hand to Hiatea's amulet. Me little no threat, she thought, using her goddess's magic to project the message to the beast. Big wolf leader wolf. Don't hurt.
The message seemed to satisfy the wolf. It merely snapped at her face a couple of times, then quickly retreated before Rog noticed what was happening. Brianna breathed a sigh of relief, then repeated the message as the hill giant lowered her two human companions beside her.
Rog was just raising his arms again when Tavis's panicked voice drifted down. 'Here we come!'
In the next instant, both Tavis and Morten came soaring over the top of the cliff, followed instantly by a flight of dark arrows. As the shafts sailed across the gorge, rattling harmlessly off the far wall, Rog's eyes opened wide as bucklers. He tried to position his cupped palms first under the scout, then under the bodyguard. Finally, he gave up and threw a hand out toward each one. The firbolgs hit the giant with a mighty crash, then all three figures went tumbling down the slope amidst a cloud of dust. The dire wolves bounded after them howling in glee, trying in vain to catch up and join the fun.
Taking her lead from the beasts, Brianna grabbed her human companions by the wrists and started down the slope. 'The ogres can't be far behind.'
'They aren't,' Earl Dobbin assured her.
The three humans approached the bottom of the hill just as the dire wolves caught up with Rog and the two firbolgs, who were still rolling across the rocks toward the small stream. The beasts leaped into the fray with snapping jaws and wagging tails.
'Off, Anouk!' commanded Rog. 'Back, Elke!'
If anything, the hill giant's orders only made the wolves more determined to continue the tussle-until one of the beasts suddenly sprouted a dark shaft in its flank. The creature yelped in pain and limped from the jumble, collapsing less than ten steps away. The other dire wolves scattered instantly, breaking for the nearest stand of woods. Brianna and the other two humans followed their lead.
'Firbolgs!' Rog yelled, finally getting a look at his companions. The hill giant scrambled to his knees, then began squinting at the ground in search of his club. 'Hate firbolgs!'
'We don't think much of giants, either!' Morten yelled back.
The bodyguard pushed Rog over, then reached for the battle-axe tucked into his belt. Tavis simply rolled
