“No more than fifty paces out,” said the old man. “We sank the first raft, but there are two others close behind. It’ll be a close thing.”
As Brianna finished levering the spoon down, the short soldier she had sent for a rope returned with a large coil slung over his shoulder. The queen waited until the loader had locked the arm into place, then stepped away from the catapult.
“Keep firing,” she said. “I’m afraid I must attend to some other things.”
The queen took the rope and went to an open embrasure. The mammoth was so close now that she could see its frightened eyes peering up from the surface of the lake. As she had surmised earlier, it was young Avner sitting on the beast’s neck, one hand buried deep in the creature’s long hair and the other holding his fellow rider’s head above water. To Brianna’s astonishment, she recognized the rugged face of this second passenger as that of her firbolg bodyguard. She could not even begin to guess how the boy had come by his unconscious body, but she suspected that the scout’s return meant he had failed to summon reinforcements.
There were half a dozen hill giant rafts behind the mammoth, at distances varying between thirty and a hundred paces. Fortunately, the clumsy vessels made awkward platforms for stone hurling, and only the giants on the two nearest craft stood any chance of hitting their targets.
“Avner, rope!” Brianna called.
The queen passed several loops to one hand, then used the other to throw the rope. The coils unfurled perfectly, spinning out to fall just short of the mammoth’s trunk.
The hill giants hurled another volley of boulders at the beast. The stones splashed down in a tight circle, swamping Avner’s mount beneath a mantle of white spume. A shrill, ear-piercing screech echoed off the castle wall. When the froth spattered back into the lake, one side of the mammoth’s rear quarters had slipped beneath the water. His speed had slowed considerably.
The catapults slammed another pair of boulders into the air. Both stones, now the heaviest the engines could launch, came down on the same raft. The vessel disintegrated in a wet, crunching roar, leaving three battered hill giants in the bloodied water. The brutes slapped at the splinters of their raft, desperately trying to grab something buoyant enough to keep their heavy bodies from sinking.
The mammoth gave a joyful trumpet and continued swimming. Avner grabbed the end of Brianna’s rope and tied it around the chest of Brianna’s bodyguard. The queen was glad to see that the boy had thought to place the knot between the scout’s shoulder blades, so that he would be dragged backwards, with his head still above water, when she pulled him to the castle.
“Haul away!” the youth yelled.
“You come, too,” Brianna called. “I can bring you both up.”
“It’ll be faster one at a time.” As the youth spoke, he was dragging himself over the mammoth’s head. “Besides, I’ve got to do something.”
Brianna pulled. Even the hill giants on the farthest rafts redoubled their boulder-casting, hurling a constant storm of rocks that fell far short of the mammoth. The four warriors on the closest vessel gave up throwing in favor of paddling and rapidly began to gain on Avner’s injured mount.
Brianna continued to pull, at the same time casting anxious glances down the ramparts in both directions. Selwyn and Cuthbert had restored enough order so that soldiers armed with heavy crossbows now stood in most embrasures. The spoon on Blane’s catapult was cranked about halfway down. The engine close to her was not even that close to firing. She looked back at the lake and saw Avner treading water beside the mammoth’s head, tugging at a rope tied to the beast’s trunk.
“Damn it, Avner!” she hissed. “The next time I tell you to grab the rope, do it!”
The giants on the closest raft stopped paddling and laid their clubs aside to reach for boulders. The first warrior launched his stone just as Brianna’s bodyguard reached the base of the castle wall. The rock arced not toward Avner or the mammoth, but at the unconscious firbolg at the end of the queen’s rope. The missile splashed into the water less than two paces from its target, sending a plume of water so high that droplets hit the queen’s face.
“Fire on those giants!” Brianna yelled.
The cords of several heavy crossbows popped simultaneously, sending javelin-sized bolts sizzling down at the raft. One of the giants bellowed in pain and dropped to the deck, clutching his thigh. Two more reached for boulders, while the third grabbed two shields and positioned himself in front of his companions.
Brianna started pulling her bodyguard up the wall. She saw Avner slip the rope off the mammoth’s snout, then push on the side of the beast’s head to direct it toward the open lake.
“Avner, come on!”
The boy looked up and nodded, then swam away. The mammoth bugled its good riddance and dived.
The giants on the raft hurled their boulders. The stones hit on each side of her bodyguard and shattered against the castle wall. Brianna pulled harder, yanking the rope up so fast that it grew hot in her hands. The hill giants turned to reach for more rocks.
The bow of the raft suddenly rose, pitching both giants into the lake, then the mammoth’s head appeared beneath the logs. The beast drove one corner of the vessel high into the air and flipped it aside with an angry snort. Though the craft did not capsize, the two passengers slipped off its deck into the churning waters. The mammoth let out a blood-curdling bugle and paused long enough to gore a giant before turning toward the far end of the lake and diving out of sight.
“That’s quite a mammoth you’ve got there, Avner!” As she called to the youth, Brianna was hauling her bodyguard into the embrasure. “Do you know where we can get a dozen for the royal stables?”
“The same place I got that one!” The youth was treading water at the base of the wall. “From the frost giants-and they should be here any time!”
The youth’s comment sent a concerned murmur rustling down the wall. Brianna lowered her bodyguard onto the rampart at her feet. He was in bad shape: burned, cut, battered, and blistered from frostbite, not to mention half drowned. A pang of remorse shot through her breast, though she could not say why. She had seen many of her soldiers injured more severely than this, and while she was concerned for them, she had never felt anything like guilt because of their injuries.
As Brianna struggled to untie the wet rope around the scout’s torso, Cuthbert scurried over to her. The earl’s eye went straight to the scout’s face.
“Is that your…?” He let the question trail off, his jowls trembling. “It is! Tavis! Have all the gods deserted us?”
Brianna gave up on the knot and pulled the earl’s dagger from its sheathe. “What are you talking about, Cuthbert?”
“The hill giants are attacking!” he cried. “That’s what I came to tell you. They just launched their entire fleet”
Brianna looked up. “That is interesting.”
A hill giant boulder crashed off the castle wall and was immediately answered by both catapults. The queen returned her attention to her bodyguard and cut the rope just above the knot. “Avner’s reported that the frost giants are coming, too.”
“Then we’re doomed,” Cuthbert uttered. “If Tavis is here, no reinforcements will be coming.”
“We don’t know that, Earl.” Brianna turned back to the embrasure. “And even if it’s true, haven’t I spoken to you about demoralizing the men?”
Cuthbert mumbled an apology, then stooped over to pull the unconscious scout away from the embrasure. Out on the lake Brianna saw that the catapults had claimed another raft. The remaining hill giants had given up the chase and were slowly paddling toward the other side of the castle, presumably to join their fellows in the main attack. Brianna dropped the rope to Avner. The youth tied a loop into the end and slipped his foot into the eyelet, then allowed himself to be hoisted up.
Brianna grabbed the youth’s wet arm and pulled him over the embrasure. “What’s all this about frost giants?” she demanded. The boy looked almost as bad as her bodyguard, with his face and hands blistered and dark from the effects of frostbite. “And where have you been?”
The youth gestured toward the castle gate, sweeping his hand across the hills beyond the bridge. “The frost giants are hiding behind those ridges. That’s why we had to swim instead of using the gate.” Avner looked down at the scout’s unconscious form, then added, “As for where I’ve been, that should be obvious. The real question is,
