Arlien raised one brow. “Tavis?”
“Yes, that’s right,” the queen answered, and the name vanished as quickly as she heard it. “My bodyguard is the finest scout in Hartsvale-in all the Ice Spires. If anyone can get through, he will.”
“My point exactly,” replied Arlien. “We don’t know if anyone can get through. And even if he does, he won’t return in time. The giants will attack when the wind shifts tomorrow.”
“ If the wind shifts tomorrow.”
“Stop fooling yourself!” the prince snapped. “Hiatea has been watching over you on behalf of the giants. Why else do you think she favored such a young girl?”
The queen narrowed her eyes. “How do you know when the goddess came to me?”
Hiatea had granted her favor to the princess of Hartsvale at the age of five-but only Brianna, her father, and Castle Hartwick’s high priest knew that.
Arlien seemed lost, then he looked at the floor and admitted, “My spy told me.”
“The High Priest!” Brianna gasped, more shocked than angered. “Simon was like an uncle to me!”
Arlien grimaced. “You mustn’t go too hard on him,” he said. “He was doing only what was best for both countries.”
“I’m certain that’s what you told him, but I’m not so foolish,” she said sharply. “And now you may leave.”
The prince furrowed his dark brow. “Surely you don’t intend to stay,” he said. “You must see-”
“What I see is a coward.” She glared down at Arlien.
The prince’s jaw pumped up and down in stunned silence, then finally caught hold of his thoughts. “I’ll forgive that unfortunate choice of words. You didn’t realize what you were saying. You’re still weak and confused from your illness.” Arlien went over to the bench and picked up the mug, then returned and handed it to Brianna. “Drink your restorative. I’m sure you’ll come to your senses.”
“I’m feeling fine-much better, in fact, than I have in days,” Brianna replied. She clamped her jaw down against the temptation to drink, then turned and dumped the libation out the window. “And I have no intention of marrying a coward, or of allying Hartsvale with a country that sends one to court me. So, dear prince, it seems you’re under no obligation to stay and fight. Feel free to leave any time you wish.”
Arlien’s face grew as dark as a thunderhead. “You may have misunderstood me, Queen Brianna,” he hissed. “When the fighting starts, no one will be closer to your side than me.”
“Good,” Brianna replied. “I’ll see you on the morrow.”
Arlien gave her a curt bow, then went to the door and paused there. “I suggest you don’t waste all of your newfound vigor praying to Hiatea,” he said. “You’ll soon have need of your strength. Tomorrow may come sooner than you think.”
10
A long, uncanny trumpeting trilled over the glacier, at once as shrill as a wyvern’s cry and as full as a dragon’s roar. Tavis stopped walking and ran his eyes over the milky miles of snow ahead. He saw the dark crags of a few scattered peaks poking through the ice, but otherwise the terrain looked exactly as it was: a vast, barren sheet of snow and ice thick enough to bury entire mountains.
“I didn’t call for no rest,” growled Slagfid. He shoved Tavis after Bodvar, who was breaking trail through six feet of fresh snow. “Keep going.”
Tavis limped forward again, as anxious as Slagfid to maintain a steady pace. The scout judged the magic would fade from his runemask no later than dawn, returning him to firbolg form. Before then, he had to reach the frost giant camp, learn where Hagamil was meeting Julien and Arno, and slip safely away. To complicate matters, he had no idea how much farther he had to travel. Glaciers like this one could swallow entire mountain ranges, spanning distances so huge that even giants could not cross them easily. The war party might not reach camp until after Hagamil had fallen asleep for the night, and Slagfid would hardly be anxious to awaken his chief and report a botched mission.
Despite his mangled toe, Tavis soon caught up to Bodvar and had to slow his pace. Although the snow was barely knee deep, it was heavy and wet, and Bodvar had been breaking trail for most of the journey. The warrior’s breath came in wheezes and gasps, and his legs were so weak that he had to catch his balance with each step.
The scout looked back at Slagfid. “Bodvar can barely walk,” he said. “The rest of our journey will go faster if someone else breaks trail.”
“Bodvar wouldn’t be breaking trail if he’d held onto that traell, like I told him,” Slagfid growled. “But you’ve got me in trouble, too. You can break trail if you want.”
Tavis made no move to accept the frost giant’s offer. “You’ve seen my toe. I’d spend more time floundering than breaking trail.” He did not add that the effort of impersonating a stone giant had left him nearly as exhausted as Bodvar. The muscles in the scout’s legs were quivering like aspen leaves, and his breathing was so heavy he could hardly see through the curtain of white vapor rising from his mouth. “Call Egarl up. He should have come back to look for us.”
“That’s for me to decide.” Slagfid eyed Tavis suspiciously. “I don’t see why you’re in such a hurry, Sharpnose. After losing that bow, Hagamil’s going to be no happier to see you than Bodvar.”
“I’m not frightened of Hagamil,” Tavis replied.
“Then you’re a fool,” Slagfid snorted.
Seeing that the frost giant would not be swayed, the scout limped after Bodvar. Slagfid was right about one thing: Tavis was a fool. Since learning where ice diamonds really came from, the scout had told himself the same thing at least a hundred times. He wanted to gouge out his eyes for not seeing that Arlien was a fake, and to tear off his own ears for failing to hear the ring of falsehood in the man’s silky voice. What a chuckle the prince must have had when Tavis warned him to be wary of Cuthbert!
Arlien would probably be with Julien and Arno when they delivered Brianna to the frost giants. If so, the scout would make the prince pay for his treachery.
As he contemplated his vengeance, Tavis’s stomach began to burn. He would have no weapons when he returned to firbolg form. His broken sword still lay back at Shepherd’s Nightmare, and Avner had his bow and quiver.
Fortunately, unless the youth had undergone an unexpected change of character, Avner wasn’t likely to return to Cuthbert Castle as instructed. He was far more likely to follow the scout onto the glacier. Assuming he didn’t freeze to death or fall into a hidden crevasse, Tavis would actually be grateful for the boy’s disobedience.
Another eerie trumpet rolled over the ice, reminding Tavis of the most significant danger to Avner. Plenty of creatures made their homes on glaciers, many of them predators. If one of the beasts happened to catch the youth’s scent… the scout saw no use in picturing what would happen.
Ahead of Tavis, Bodvar suddenly pulled up short. “Praise Thrym!” he puffed. “A rider.”
The frost giant was looking toward a nearby nunatak, one of the craggy stone peaks that occasionally jutted up through the surface of the glacier. A deep trench encircled the pinnacle, for during the day the spire’s dark rock gathered enough heat from the sun to melt the ice around it. Like the mountainous nunatak itself, the hollow was huge, easily the size of a small canyon, and lumbering out of that icy gorge was the hulking, shaggy form of a woolly mammoth.
The creature seemed remarkably small, perhaps because of the young frost giant riding him. The youth’s legs easily straddled the beast’s huge back, his feet dangling almost to the ground. The scene reminded Tavis of a human child riding the family sheepdog.
“Hey, you!” Bodvar waved at the distant youth. “Come break trail for us!”
Slagfid offered no objection to the request, perhaps because he sensed Bodvar could not continue much longer.
