then, without standing up, he gathered his feet beneath him and drove his shoulder into it as hard as he could. Again the giant bellowed, but this time he also came down.
The effect was something like a tree toppling in an over-thick stand of woods. The fellow crashed into two more giants beside him, and they also fell, unable to catch themselves with their hands tied behind their backs. This pair unbalanced two more, who had to stop kicking long enough to regain their balance.
The opening that resulted wasn't much, but it was enough for the firbolg. He jumped to his feet and clambered away, dodging and weaving as hill giant feet lashed at him from all directions. He suffered several glancing blows that almost knocked him over, and twice he was struck so hard that he actually fell and tumbled through the swarm of legs, somersaulting across insteps and ricocheting off ankles. Each time, he managed to roll back to his feet and continue running. At first, he moved across the lodge toward a side wall, as though searching for a clear alley. Then he suddenly turned toward Brianna and darted into a dense thicket of hill giant legs, where the crowd was packed so thickly that the giants smashed each other's shins more often than their target. Even when a foot did catch Morten, it did not have much momentum, and so the blow was not very painful.
By the time the firbolg neared the middle of the lodge, the hill giants ahead were beginning to bump each other aside, trying to create enough space around themselves so they could land a solid attack if the rabbit came their way. Morten dodged back toward the center of the room, running straight for the shimmering orange light of the cooking fire.
As the firbolg broke free of the thicket of giant legs, he was surprised to see Tavis no longer hung over the fire. Ig had already taken the scout's spit down and was using a bone butcher knife to cut the cocoon apart. Long strings of drool were dripping from the fomorian's mouth, and he was licking his twisted lips with a long gray tongue.
'Leave him alone!' Morten bellowed.
The bodyguard started to charge the cook, hoping that the fomorian was typical for his race and coward enough to bluff away easily. Otherwise, Morten would have to abandon the scout. He could not afford the time it would take to kill the fomorian.
The firbolg suddenly found his way blocked by the fomorian dancing slave. Although hardly as big as a hill giant, she was still much larger than Morten, and he could not easily dodge around her.
'Go!' She thrust his battle-axe into his hand. 'We take care of Tavis Burdun.'
Morten stared at the weapon in confusion, so stunned by the unexpected help that it took him a moment to realize the fomorian slaves had become his allies. The firbolg accepted his axe and started to step past the fomorian, intending to rush into the crowd on the other side of the lodge. Before he made it all the way around her enormous hip, the hides on the wall ahead were ripped away with a tremendous whoosh. The firbolg caught a glimpse of towering fir trees silhouetted against a blue sky, then hill giants began to spin around, shouting and screaming in astonishment. The tumult lasted only a matter of seconds before giants began to collapse, the black fletching of ogre arrows protruding from wounds that, on their huge bodies, seemed mere pinpricks.
Deciding it wiser to risk hill giant feet than ogre arrows, Morten spun around. The conditions on that side of the lodge were no better. Goboka had planned his attack well, catching his enemies in a deadly cross fire.
Noote's angry voice came bellowing from the other end of the lodge. 'Forget game! Fight ogres!'
Hoping the giants ahead could hear their chief, Morten turned and ran for Brianna's end of the lodge. At first, Noote's followers seemed confused about what was happening. While their fellows dropped all around them, many continued to stomp and kick at Morten, angrily bellowing about the game being unfair when he used his axe to fend off their attacks. Then, as their unconscious fellows piled on top of each other, the giants seemed to realize the firbolg was not their greatest problem. They began to work feverishly to unbind each other's hands. Morten even began to help, cutting their hands free as he ran past.
To the bodyguard's relief, Goboka's attack was concentrated near the center of the lodge. Fifty paces down from the cooking fire, the walls remained intact, and the giants were moving toward the battle with their clubs and wooden shields. Occasionally, one of these warriors took a swipe at Morten, but the firbolg had little trouble dodging these halfhearted attacks-especially when the aggressor was invariably chastised for wasting time. They had ogres to kill!
By the time Morten reached the far end of the lodge, it was more or less empty. All the giant warriors were back near the cooking fire, bellowing insults at their attackers and trying to work up the courage to raise their shields and charge into the onslaught of ogre arrows. All that remained here, in the relatively untouched corners of the lodge, were a handful of wrinkled giants too old to do much of anything except watch the clan's whimpering children. None of them made any move to stop Morten as he approached Brianna.
'Are you all right up there?' the bodyguard called.
'Better than you,' Brianna warned. 'Look behind you.'
The floor began to tremble as someone broke into a charge. Morten spun around to see Noote and his queen rushing toward him. The bodyguard could not imagine how they had pushed their way through the swarm of giants in the center of the lodge, but there could be no denying they had.
Cursing under his breath, Morten braced himself to meet the charge. One giant he could handle, but two- his silent complaint was interrupted by the muffled strum of a bowstring. The queen cried out in shock and began to stumble. She managed to take one more step before collapsing on her face, the black fletching of an ogre arrow protruding from one enormous buttock.
The bodyguard felt the cold fingers of panic slipping around his heart, at least until he realized that it wasn't an ogre that had fired the shaft. Tavis's crimson-skinned figure stood a short distance beyond the queen, with a scrap of filthy hide tied loosely about his waist and the fomorians standing to either side of him. The scout was trying to nock another arrow, though he was so weak that he could not stand without leaning against the leg of the female dancing slave.
'Save your strength!' Morten yelled.
The bodyguard allowed Noote to continue his charge. Then, when the hill giant stooped over to reach for him, the firbolg hurled his axe. The weapon tumbled through the air once, then lodged its blade deep in the chieftain's forehead.
Morten dove away, catching a glimpse of Noote's eyes growing blank as he pitched forward. The hill giant's body did not fall clear to the ground, instead lodging against the wall below Brianna's feet.
The firbolg picked himself up, then climbed Noote's back and stood on the hill giant's shoulders as he plucked Brianna off the wall.
'Nice axe work,' the princess commented. 'Now let's get out of here-and fast!'
Morten glanced over his shoulder and saw that some of the hill giants had decided it would be easier to go out the entrance than to try squeezing out the holes the ogres had opened in the center of their palace. About two dozen of the huge warriors were rushing toward the exit, bellowing war cries and whirling clubs over their heads.
'Fools,' Morten commented. He began to unwrap Brianna. 'Goboka will expect that.'
'But I bet he won't be expecting that, will he?'
The princess pulled her arm free of her loosened bindings and pointed to Tavis. The scout and his fomorian rescuers were rushing straight toward the side of the room, desperately attempting to avoid the giants charging down the center of the lodge. As Morten and Brianna watched, the fomorians linked arms and lowered their shoulders, then hurled themselves through the wall with a tremendous crash.
'Let's go,' Brianna ordered. She pulled the rope off her legs and tossed it aside, then started to run. 'We don't want to get left behind.' * 16* Unexpected Help
A few moments after the fomorians opened the gaping hole in the side of the Fir Palace, Tavis and his companions rushed through it. The scout ran between Morten and Brianna, who had snatched up two battered hill giant bucklers to screen the trio's flanks. Although the shields were as large and heavy as tower doors, the princess's ancestral strength allowed her to carry hers as easily the bodyguard did his. The small company did not bother to guard against frontal assaults, for their fomorian allies had ripped a huge section of hides from the lodge wall as they exited, then cut a broad swath through the ogre lines by hurling this tattered canopy over the heads of their would-be attackers.
Tavis and his companions made it only three steps out of the lodge before ogre arrows began to pound the shields on both flanks. The assault sounded like some sort of crazy drumbeat, reverberating through the wood with an erratic cadence of thumps and thuds. Tiny splits appeared in the thick planks, each sprouting the dark tip of an
