Hagamil turned toward the warrior. “If you were close enough to see the fight, why didn’t you kill Tavis Burdun?”
Bodvar looked away. “I didn’t see the fight,” he admitted. “Just the proof.”
“You have proof?” Hagamil said. “Let me have that, then.”
Tavis reached inside his robe and withdrew his empty sword belt and mottled cloak, all that he still possessed of his gear. Hagamil snatched the tiny scraps and held them up to his enormous eye.
“What are these rags?” he demanded.
“Tavis Burdun’s sword belt and cloak,” Tavis replied.
“This isn’t proof!” Hagamil roared.
The frost giant flung the belt and cloak in the general direction of the remorhaz. The beast’s head pivoted and lashed out, snatching both items from the air. It swallowed them down in a single gulp, then licked its lips with a glowing red tongue and lunged at Frith one more time.
“Sharpnose had more,” whispered Bodvar. “He had that long bow, Bear Driller, and the quiver with the golden arrow.”
“Had?” Hagamil growled. “What happened to them?”
“I had them before the traells ambushed us,” Tavis said.
“You were ambushed?” Hagamil demanded, looking at Slagfid.
“Just them.” The leader pointed at Tavis and Bodvar. “Sharpnose saved Bodvar’s life. That’s when he lost the bow and quiver.”
Hagamil’s face turned as blue as a sapphire. He whirled on Bodvar and yelled, “Sharpnose lost Bear Driller to save your miserable life?”
The warrior stumbled back, his eyes wide with terror. “I–I-I didn’t ask him t-to.”
“It-doesn’t-matter!” The chieftain was so angry that he could barely sputter the words.
Hagamil’s massive hand lashed out and clamped onto Bodvar’s ear. For a moment, Tavis thought the angry giant would rip the thing off, but the chieftain’s intentions were far more deadly. He flung the elbow of his opposite arm into the side of Bodvar’s head, twisting his hips forward to hurl the full force of his weight into the blow.
A tremendous crack echoed through the cavern, as deep as a drumbeat and as sharp as a thunderclap. Bodvar’s nostrils and ears began to pour blood, then his limp body slipped from Hagamil’s grasp and collapsed in a heap. The warrior’s mouth was still gaping open, astonished at the speed with which death had descended upon him.
Hagamil whirled on Tavis next, reaching for his throat The scout raised his arms inside the chieftain’s wrists and knocked the menacing hands away, then drove the heel of his palm into the giant’s chin. The blow would have launched any other giant off his feet, but it merely shoved Hagamil’s jaw out of socket.
The chieftain did not counterattack. A blank look suddenly replaced his angry mask, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets. The lids fluttered wildly, and one eyeball slowly sank out of sight behind his cheekbone. The yellow hair braids dropped from his head and writhed away like snakes, until they were plucked up and swallowed when they ventured too close to the remorhaz. The frost giant’s massive shoulders slumped forward, his milky skin grew pallid and yellow, and Tavis found himself looking at the gaunt, one-eyed form of the shaman.
Halflook raised a bony hand to his dislocated jaw and popped it back into place. After opening and closing his mouth a few times, he fixed his bloodshot eye on Tavis and gave him a snaggletoothed grin.
“It’s been a long time since someone struck Hagamil,” Halflook said. “Much less knocked him unconscious.”
“Yeah, but we can’t bait the worm without Hagamil! What do we do now?”
The question came from the pit, where Sjolf and Snorri stood with the haggard ogre stretched between them. Although ogres stood half again as tall as humans, this one seemed as small as he did forlorn. He was about the size of a frost giant’s leg, though not nearly so big around, with hunched shoulders and long, gangling arms. His loutish face was as pale as ivory, and his jutting chin trembled so badly that his tusks looked as if they might shake loose. The wooden spear had been thrust into his hand like a cruel joke, and the rusty shackles had been fastened to his ankles like an anchor.
“Is the baiting off?” asked one of the giants-Tavis did not know whether it was Sjolf or Snorri.
Halflook shook his head. “Why would it be?” he demanded. “Doesn’t Halflook deserve some fun?”
The giants answered with a hearty chorus of approval. Halflook smiled and took Tavis’s arm. He started toward the far end of the chamber, where several seats had been carved into the edge of the pit.
“You also deserve some fun, my friend,” he said. “Killing Tavis Burdun could not have been easy.”
“The battle was desperate,” Tavis replied. “But I have no interest in worm-baiting. If you’ll honor Hagamil’s agreement and tell me where you’re meeting Julien and Arno, I’ll be on my way.”
Halflook stopped and raised his brow, his single eye twinkling with a knowing light. “Hagamil promised you that?”
“He did,” Tavis replied.
The shaman shook his head regretfully. “I can’t help you. Hagamil has told me no more than anyone else: We are to break camp tomorrow, and he will lead us to the rendezvous.” Halflook worked his bruised jaw back and forth, then added, “And I wouldn’t advise you to wait and ask him. He’ll be in a foul mood when he returns.”
Halflook started forward again, but Tavis did not follow.
The shaman looked back, and a reassuring smile slid across his cracked lips. “Come along, Sharpnose. You’ve nothing to fear from me, and Hagamil won’t be back until morning.” His gaze drifted toward the cavern exit and again grew distant and unfocused. “Besides, there’s a surprise coming-one you won’t want to miss.”
Tavis glanced toward the exit and saw nothing except the sable night. Nevertheless, he followed Halflook to one of the seats of honor, quite sure that the shaman would not let him leave now even if he insisted. One of Hagamil’s concubines threw a mammoth fur down on Tavis’s chair, then held his arm so that he didn’t slip as he lowered himself into the icy seat. Even through the thick fur the scout felt the cold creeping into his weary bones. Halflook sat beside his guest, directly on the ice.
In the bottom of the pit, the ogre now stood alone, his neck craned back and his beady, bewildered eyes running over the enormous faces gaping down at him. The last of his two captors was just stepping off the log ladder onto the chamber’s main floor. Slagfid and another warrior had taken hold of the remorhaz’s harness poles and were holding the writhing beast over the pit. Frith stood next to them, grasping a long halberd, which he would use to slice the harness.
Halflook leaned over to Tavis. “I know stone giants find these things boring, so perhaps we should make a wager,” he suggested. “Having something at stake does liven things up.”
“What kind of wager?” Tavis asked. He had little interest in watching the cruel contest and even less in wagering on it, but he knew the shaman had a good reason for proposing a bet
“Do you think the ogre will injure the remorhaz before he dies?” Halflook asked.
Tavis studied the frightened prisoner for a moment. He bore no love for ogres-they were a brutal, wicked race-but he had learned to respect them. In desperate circumstances, they were especially spirited, and they possessed a certain animal cunning that would prove useful in a battle such as this.
“The ogre won’t last long,” Tavis decided. “But he’ll draw blood.”
“Good,” replied the shaman. “Then that’s our wager.”
“And the stakes?” Tavis asked.
“If he fails to draw blood, you tell me how you and Bodvar really lost Bear Driller and Little Dragon,” said the shaman.
“How did you know we lost Little Dragon?” Tavis’s heart was beginning to pound with cold apprehension. “No one said that”
The shaman smiled. “Is that really what you wish to know if you win?”
“No, of course not.” Tavis exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself and keep his face relaxed. “If the ogre draws blood, you’ll tell me how to find the rendezvous.”
“Why is the rendezvous so important to you?” Halflook asked.
“Why is it so important to you that only frost giants accompany Brianna to Twilight?” the scout countered.
Halflook smiled crookedly. “I had not thought stone giants so covetous of such honors,” he said. “But I was speaking truly when I said only Hagamil knows. The best I can do is give you safe passage and one of Bodvar’s bulls
