his mouth and start gasping. The scout craned his neck, searching for a more secure position higher on the cliff.
Tavis’s eye fell on a broad crevice angling across the face ten feet above. A firbolg could have crawled inside the crack and rested, but not a giant. On the other hand, the fissure would have been well out of a firbolg’s reach. Not so for a giant. The scout pulled himself chest height to the ledge, then stretched a hand toward the crevice.
Gavorial’s long arm made the reach easily. Tavis slipped his hand into the crack and knotted it into a ball, twisting it sideways to wedge the fist in place. He tugged twice. The rough stone dug deep into the hard stone giant flesh, and the scout knew he would not slip. He braced the soles of his feet on the cliff and leaned back, anchoring himself in a secure tripod position. With his free hand, he took Bear Driller from his mouth and gasped for breath. The muscles of his arms and legs knotted into aching lumps, but he hardly cared. As long he kept his hand wedged in the crevice, he would not fall.
The scout glanced behind him to see three frost giants scrambling toward the ruined beaver dam, their eyes fixed on the rim of the canyon. Tavis followed their gazes and saw the angry youth glaring down at him, no doubt trying to think of some way to dislodge him. The firbolg waved Bear Driller in the boy’s direction, hoping Avner might remember Basil’s runemask.
The youth spat and yelled something, but Tavis could not hear it over the roaring floodwaters. The boy made no move to escape, and the scout began to fear he intended to give battle.
The three frost giants reached the half-drained beaver pond and crossed its muddy bed in three strides. Moving with calm deliberation, they went to the cliff and boosted one of their number high enough to reach the rim of the gorge. As the warrior slowly pulled himself over the top, Avner took his sling from beneath his cloak and loaded a stone.
“Don’t harm the child!” Tavis yelled in Gavorial’s booming voice. “That boy is like a son to Queen Brianna! Julien and Arno can make good use of him.”
Avner whirled his sling over his head, then whipped it in Tavis’s direction. The stone sailed straight at the scout, but he was powerless to dodge or twist away. The rock struck him squarely in the ribs, sending a surprisingly sharp pang through his chest. Tavis groaned, nearly falling into the floodwaters when his aching muscles twitched.
The three frost giants chuckled in delight. Avner grabbed another stone.
“Still want us to catch him alive, Sharpnose?” It was the warrior atop the canyon rim who cackled the question.
“That’s what Julien and Arno would want,” Tavis answered. Although he had never heard the names before, it seemed apparent that Julien and Arno were leading the assault against Brianna. “I’m sure you’ll be well rewarded if you capture him alive-and severely punished if you do not”
This silenced the laughter of the frost giants. The warrior on the canyon rim lay down and dangled an arm over the edge. One of his fellows boosted the other one up to grasp the proffered hand. Avner loosed another stone, striking the brute atop the cliff in the back of the head. The giant yelled in pain, nearly dropping his companion.
“Don’t let go, Egarl!” roared the dangling warrior. “Or, by Thrym, I’ll cleave your skull!”
“Don’t swear oaths you can’t keep, Bodvar,” advised Egarl. The frost giant glanced over his shoulder. “And you, traell! Stone me again and I’ll smash you flat as a pond.”
The youth yelled something Tavis could not hear, then flung another rock at Egarl. The frost giant cursed and pulled Bodvar up the cliff. Avner slipped his sling into his jerkin and grabbed the tree limb he had used to pry the boulder off the mountain.
“You’d do well to surrender, boy!” Tavis yelled. He glanced down and saw that the beaver pond had finally emptied itself. The floodwaters were subsiding. “No harm will come to you!”
The two frost giants started up the slope. Avner heaved his lever at them. The branch landed far short, then tumbled end-over-end toward its targets. Egarl caught the heavy limb in one hand, then tossed it into the gorge as though it were a stick.
Avner kicked his fulcrum loose. The fir trunk rolled down the hillside toward the frost giants’ ankles. Bodvar let the log roll into his hand, then snapped it in two and dropped the pieces at his feet He continued to climb.
Avner finally turned to flee. As he tried to scramble up the slope, Tavis saw that the youth was exhausted. The boy’s legs were barely moving at half speed, and he had to stop every third step to catch his breath.
Tavis climbed down the cliff, then lowered a trembling foot into the subsiding floodwaters. When the current did not threaten to sweep his leg from beneath him, he dropped the rest of the way and started toward the drained beaver pond.
By the time the scout reached the ruined dam, the frost giants had Avner flanked on both sides. The youth feinted toward Egarl, then darted between Bodvar’s legs. The giant uttered a cold curse and spun around, snatching Avner up easily.
“Don’t harm him!” Tavis yelled. He stepped across the beaver pond’s muddy bottom in two quick strides, then went to stand at the third frost giant’s side. He raised a hand toward the warrior holding Avner. “Hand him down to me.”
A milky hand clasped his arm and pushed it down. “You must think us stupid!” growled the third frost giant “We caught the traell.”
“I’ll see you get credit,” said Tavis. “But I should carry him. I knew the child when I served at Castle Hartwick.”
“Liar!” yelled Avner.
Tavis looked up to see the youth’s angry eyes glaring down at him. The boy was securely enclosed in Bodvar’s fist, with nothing but his head showing over the frost giant’s index finger.
“When you were at Castle Hartwick, I lived at Tavis’s inn with the other orphans,” he said. “The only time I ever saw you was after Tavis chased you off.”
The third frost giant narrowed his pale eyes and stared at Tavis in open suspicion. “What kind of trick you playing, Sharpnose?”
The scout silently cursed Avner’s irrepressible spirit. So far, Tavis had avoided the necessity of lying, allowing the frost giants to draw their own conclusions from what he said. The boy’s sharp tongue threatened to expose his ruse.
Tavis met the frost giant’s gaze evenly. “You wouldn’t know the traell’s value if I hadn’t told you who he was,” he said. Strictly speaking, Avner was not a traell. The name properly applied only to the semicivilized humans who wandered the frozen plains north of the Ice Spires, but frost giants seldom made the distinction. “All I ask is that you let me carry the traell.”
“No!”
The voice boomed out from the other side of the gorge, where Tavis saw a frost giant wearing a steel skullcap with ivory horns. The fellow looked large even for his race, with pale yellow eyes and snarling blue lips.
The frost giant started across the pond. “You have Tavis’s bow to give to Julien and Arno,” he said. “All we have is this miserable traell.”
“I don’t trust you to keep the boy alive, and he’ll be no good to Julien and Arno dead,” Tavis said. “I’ll trade you.”
The scout held Bear Driller out to the leader, who was already stepping out of the beaver pond.
“Trade him what?” called Avner. The boy remained gripped securely in Bodvar’s fist “That ol’ piece of hickory?”
“That is Bear Driller,” said the giant leader. He eyed the bow carefully, but made no move to take it. “I have heard the poets sing its praise often enough to recognize the weapon.”
“So?” Avner scoffed. “Just because Gavorial got the bow doesn’t mean he got Tavis. I’ve already caught him in one lie. How do you know he isn’t lying about the battle?”
The scout bit his tongue, restraining the urge to tell Avner to shut up. The youth was trying to incite trouble among his captors so he could slip away in the confusion, an art he had apparently cultivated during his years as a street thief. Tavis feared the technique would be the undoing of them both.
The frost giant leader shifted his gaze between Avner and Tavis. “The traell does have a point,” he said.
