giant.
The scout cursed the man’s bravery. With the fellow standing so close, Tavis did not dare utter the command words that would activate his arrow’s magic runes. “No!” he called. “Run!”
The stranger swung his hammer into the fog. The blow landed with a sonorous thump, and the giant grunted in pain. A huge silhouette limped out of the haze, stooping over to hold his knee with one hand.
Even hunched over, the marauder loomed over his foe like a mountain. He was easily half-again as large as a hill giant, with a wild mane of silvery hair, skin as white as snow, and a trickle of dark blood dripping from his arrow wound. With an air of hateful disdain, the great savage glared down at his attacker, and the stranger wisely froze to avoid triggering an assault.
Tavis no longer felt quite so foolish. The marauder was a fog giant, the sneakiest of all the true giant races. They had thick, puffy pads on the soles of their feet that enabled them to move in near silence. As their name implied, they took full advantage of their stealth by inhabiting foggy areas where their skin and hair coloring served as ideal camouflage.
The fog giant drew himself to his full height, his head vanishing into the hazy sky. Tavis screamed a mighty battle cry and started forward, hoping to draw the giant toward himself. The unknown warrior slammed his hammer into the marauder’s leg. The massive knee buckled sideways.
An angry bellow pealed over the rubble, then a huge, double-bladed axe arced down out of the haze and struck the stranger’s enchanted armor with a sharp clang. The man did not disappear in a spray of blood, as Tavis had expected, but simply sailed into the fog. He crashed down some distance away, without even a groan to suggest he had survived.
The giant grunted, then stepped toward Tavis.
The scout yelled, “Basil is wise!”
A ray of shimmering blue lanced out of the giant’s throat wound. The brute roared in astonishment and started to raise a hand to his neck, then the runearrow detonated. The marauder’s head disappeared in a brilliant burst of sapphire light, leaving the body to teeter on its own. The corpse continued to stand for several moments, until the tension suddenly melted from its joints and it collapsed in a crashing heap.
When the rumbling died away, Tavis heard the distant clamor of clanging armor. The Company of the Winter Wolf was rushing through the fog at top speed, no doubt with Brianna in the lead. The scout did not bother yelling at the queen to turn back. She could not have heard him over all the racket.
Keeping one eye open for more giants, Tavis quickly gathered his spilled arrows, then went to look for the stranger’s body. The scout found the warrior lying in the rubble of a small hut, next to a root cellar containing the mangled remains of several children and their guardian.
Tavis knelt at the stranger’s side. The fog giant’s axe had staved in the warrior’s breastplate, splitting it apart and opening a horrible gash over the fellow’s ribs. The scout reached up and flipped the visor open. Inside was a swarthy, handsome man with curly, dark hair and a cleft chin. His brown eyes were open and alert, focusing on Tavis’s face. His broad mouth twisted into a weak smile.
“Basil is wise?” he groaned.
Tavis nearly leapt away, so astonished was he to hear the man speak. “M-My runecaster’s idea of a joke,” he explained. The scout touched one of the red-fletched shafts in his quiver. “It’s the command to activate these runearrows.”
The stranger’s bleary eyes widened in alarm. “By the Titan!” he cursed, trying to drag himself away. “I didn’t mean-”
“Relax. The arrow has to be nocked before the command works.” Tavis pushed the man back down. “How many more fog giants are skulking around this village?”
The warrior managed a condescending smile. “None, I suspect,” he said. “I was hunting only two. You killed one, and I injured the other. I doubt he’ll come back looking for trouble.”
“Probably not,” Tavis agreed, relieved to hear that Brianna would not be endangered. “But one can never be too careful. I’ll post a guard as soon as the company arrives. In the meantime, I’d better have a look at your injuries.”
The scout started to unbuckle the warrior’s mangled breastplate.
“That’s not necessary,” the stranger said, raising a hand to stop Tavis. “Just help me up.”
“Up?” the scout exclaimed. “If I do that, your insides will spill all over the ground. Take a look at yourself!”
The warrior obediently lowered his gaze. When he saw the rent in his armor and all the gore spilling out of his wound, his swarthy face grew as pale as the fog. “The armor will hold me together.” Despite his brave words, the stranger’s voice was quivering. “That’s why I wear it”
With that, he grabbed the scout’s shoulder and pulled himself to his unsteady feet To Tavis’s enormous relief, the stranger was right about his armor-nothing more than blood spilled from his ghastly wound. With an agonized groan, the fellow leaned over and retrieved his warhammer, then straightened his shoulders and started to lurch toward the pastures.
Tavis stepped to his side. “What are you doing?”
“Hunting down that giant I wounded, of course,” the man replied. “I trust you’ll be good enough to help.”
“No! Absolutely not! The last thing I want is more fighting!” Tavis was thinking of Brianna and the Company of the Winter Wolf, which he could still hear approaching through the fog. “Besides, in your condition, you couldn’t hunt a marmot. Come with me, and we’ll have that wound looked after.”
The scout caught the stranger by a shoulder pauldron and gently pulled him back.
“Unhand me!” the warrior ordered. The fellow grimaced, then stepped forward, clearly expecting the scout to obey his command. “That giant’s about to escape.”
“Good. Let him.” Tavis retained his grip.
The stranger’s feet slipped, and he would have fallen had the scout’s grasp not been so secure. “How dare you!” the man blustered. He regained his balance and slowly turned around. “Do you know who I …?”
The warrior found himself craning his neck to look into Tavis’s eyes, and he let his sentence trail off. He looked the scout up and down, his mouth gaping open.
“No, I don’t know who you are,” Tavis replied. He raised his open hand in the traditional sign of friendship. “But I’m Tavis Burdun.”
The man’s astonished expression did not change, and he showed no sign of recognizing the scout’s name. “You’re a firbolg!” he sputtered.
The scout nodded, surprised it had taken the stranger so long to notice that obvious fact. As giant-kin, firbolgs were larger and more thick-boned than humans. Although Tavis was a runt by his race’s standards-standing only eight feet to the normal ten or twelve-he was still big enough that his ancestry should have been obvious. “Does my race bother you, sir?”
The warrior shook his head. “Of course not. I was merely surprised that I hadn’t noticed before.” Remembering his manners, the stranger raised his hand in greeting, then cringed at the pain this caused him. “You may call me Arlien, my friend. Now, I really must go if I’m going to catch that giant”
He turned to leave, but Tavis caught him by the arm.
“What’s so important about killing that giant?” the firbolg demanded. The Company of the Winter Wolf was now so close that Tavis could hear Selwyn’s men calling through the fog as they struggled to maintain formation. “Is it worth the risk that you’ll be the one who dies?”
Arlien rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tavis,” he said, “ I won’t get killed.”
“You’re lucky you’re not dead already.” The firbolg pointed to the man’s mangled armor. “And you still haven’t answered my question. What’s so important about killing that giant?”
The warrior regarded Tavis as though he were daft “I should think that’s obvious,” he said. “The churl assaulted me!”
It was Tavis’s turn to roll his eyes. “That’s a reason?”
“It seems sufficient to me,” Arlien retorted.
“Perhaps under different circumstances,” the firbolg allowed. “But as it is, you can’t go.”
“I can’t go?” Arlien fumed. “And just how do you propose to stop me?”
“I’m quite sure Tavis would find a way,” said Brianna. “He’s a most resourceful bodyguard.”
