Tavis handed Bear Driller and the rest of his gear to Avner, then pointed across the slope. “Find someplace to hide,” he said. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”
“What?” the youth nearly screeched the question. “You’re not going up there?”
“I can’t let Bodvar catch that girl.” Tavis heard the frost giant crashing toward the bend. “Not if I can save her.”
“What about Brianna?” the youth demanded. “If something happens to you-”
“Nothing will happen,” Tavis said. “And if it does, Brianna will be safe. I sent a messenger to Earl Wendel with word of what’s happening here.”
“I was thinking of Arlien.”
Tavis pointed at the runearrows in his quiver. “You know how to use those.”
“Against Arlien?” the boy gasped.
Tavis nodded. “If it comes to that.”
Avner clutched the equipment to his breast and turned to do as ordered. Tavis resumed his climb, moving as fast as his weary legs would carry him. As he approached the ravine, he saw that above the bend it became something of a gorge, with rocky outcroppings flanking it on each side. He spied the girl standing near the center of the gulch, frozen in fear.
Bodvar’s head came around the corner, and his pale eyes went directly to the girl. He stooped over to scoop her up, his long beard swinging like a pendulum over her head. Tavis hurled himself into the ravine. He slammed into the frost giant with a thud, knocking the astonished warrior into the opposite wall.
A sharp crack sounded from the cliff top. Something long and brown sizzled past Tavis’s head, then there was a fifteen foot spear standing where Bodvar had been a moment before. The shouts of several angry men echoed down from above. The scout looked up and saw five black-haired humans struggling to pull a small ballista away from the gorge brink.
Bodvar sat upright and stared at the spear lodged in the gully floor. “Sharpnose, you saved my life!” he gasped. “Why’d you do a thing like that?”
Tavis shrugged. “Only Skoraeus knows.” As he spoke, the scout kept a sharp eye on the cliffs above. The ambush had caught him unawares, and he wanted no more surprises from the brave little girl and her companions. “You don’t deserve it”
Bodvar frowned. “I’ve smashed my share of traell dens,” he said, his voice defensive. He stood, then reached down to Tavis. “But reasons don’t matter. You did it, and now I owe you a debt.”
The scout accepted the proffered hand. “Does that mean you won’t be asking Hagamil for a challenge fight?”
“Only if you want-which I truly hope you don’t.” Bodvar grinned, then said, “I’d be honor-bound to lose.”
“That would hardly be amusing,” the scout replied. He glanced up and down the ravine, then said, “Let’s go, before they attack again.”
Bodvar shook his head. “Don’t worry, they’re back in their holes by now.”
“They’ve done this before?”
Bodvar raised his brow, fixing a suspicious eye on the scout “You’ve forgotten what happened when you came to hear Julien and Arno’s plan?”
Tavis winced, grinding his teeth together so hard that he tasted powder. “My-uh-my mind’s been on other things.”
Bodvar fixed the scout with a leery glare, then shook his head. “Stone giants,” he grumbled. “You’re so lost in your own worlds that you wouldn’t notice if Annam returned to this one.” Tavis said nothing.
Bodvar sighed, apparently interpreting the scout’s silence as a demand for further information. “The traells have been harassing us since Hagamil stomped their village.” The frost giant pointed up the slope. “But they escaped into their little mines, and now they keep bothering us. We’ve already lost three good warriors.”
“Three giants?” Such attacks would never drive the giants out, but he was glad to know the traells hadn’t lost their spirit “Is that so?”
“ ’Course it is,” Bodvar grumbled. “But don’t worry, they won’t be back. Let’s go get that other traell and be on our way.”
“Traell?” Tavis echoed. He hoped his bewilderment seemed genuine enough.
Bodvar’s eyes widened. “The one I gave you!” he rumbled. “You put him someplace safe, didn’t you?”
Tavis spread his palms and looked down at his empty hands, trying to appear appropriately sheepish. “I don’t have the bow, either.”
A blue flush rushed up Bodvar’s milky face. “Surtr’s fires! You were supposed to hold that stuff!” He grabbed Tavis by the neck and shook him. “Slagfid’ll stomp us!”
“It’s my fault,” Tavis said. “I shouldn’t have saved you.”
This brought Bodvar’s temper back under control. He released Tavis, then started to run his eyes over the ground. “That bow’s got to be here somewhere.” He looked up at the scout, then asked, “You had the traell and bow when you jumped, right?”
Tavis’s chest tightened, and a hot flush crept over his body. To answer that question truthfully was to expose himself. But simply refusing to answer, as most firbolgs did in such situations, would only make Bodvar more suspicious.
Bodvar’s glare grew more menacing. “You did have them, didn’t you?”
Tavis tried to swallow and found that he could not get past the lump in his throat. He scowled as though thinking, then looked up to meet Bodvar’s gaze-the frost giant was about three feet taller than him-and nodded.
Bodvar narrowed his eyes and did not look away.
Runnels of cold sweat began to trickle down the scout’s brow. His stomach tied itself into knots, and the exhaustion he had been fighting all day returned with such a vengeance that his knees began to tremble.
Bodvar’s lip curled into a contemptuous sneer, then he clapped a hand on the scout’s shoulder. “You don’t be so scared, Sharpnose,” he said. “Even if we don’t find ’em, Slagfid’s not going to kill us or nothing. Hagamil might, but not Slagfid.”
Tavis closed his eyes. “What a relief.” The scout’s voice cracked as he spoke. He pointed down the ravine and said, “You search in that direction, and I’ll look up here. Take your time-Avner’s good at hiding.”
“Yell if you find anything,” Bodvar said.
The frost giant turned around and began his search, overturning boulders and shaking trees so hard that bird nests fell from the boughs. Tavis did the same, though he was careful to keep a watchful eye turned toward the cliff top. In spite of Bodvar’s reassurances, he knew that any humans who baited their traps with young girls would not shirk at a few risks.
Tavis glanced behind him and saw that Bodvar was searching very carefully indeed. The frost giant’s section of ravine looked as though an avalanche had torn through it, with pines leaning in every direction and a jumbled heap of boulders piled in the center of the gully. The scout silently cursed his companion’s thoroughness, then pulled the ballista spear out of the ground and began to poke and prod into crevices and crannies.
About twenty paces up the ravine, the spear pierced something soft. A muffled grunt of pain came from inside the dark nook into which Tavis had thrust the spear. The scout glanced down the gully and did not see Bodvar, though he did hear the crack of a toppling tree around the bend. The firbolg breathed a sigh of relief, but did not withdraw the weapon. Until he could examine the wound, it was best to leave the spear where it was.
The traell was not so patient The weapon jerked once as the victim pulled free of it, then something bright flashed out of the crevice. Tavis had time to realize that the gleam was a steel blade before a battle axe buried itself deep into his big toe.
The scout jumped back, yelling in pain and surprise. The axe pulled free of his foot and rose for another strike. A skinny man with black braids and a gaping hole in his thigh limped out of the cranny. The traell swung his weapon again. Tavis jerked his leg away, and the blade sank deep into the blood-soaked ground. The scout brought his foot back and kicked the axe out of the man’s grasp.
“Sharpnose?” yelled Bodvar. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I have matters well in hand,” Tavis could not keep the pain out of his voice, for the axe blow had cut his toe half off. “I’ll be fine.”
Tavis’s attacker stood in front of the crevice, shielding it with his scrawny body and glaring up at the scout.
