the stairs.
The giant’s head rose into view. The brute had piercing blue eyes, with a full face, long yellow hair, and a thick beard. To Brianna’s astonishment, the end of an iron crossbow bolt protruded from one of his temples. There was no blood or any sign of an entrance wound. The dart was simply there, as though it were a part of his head.
As the scout scrambled to his feet, the frost giant squinted at him through the shattered wall. “Tavis Burdun!” he growled. Hagamil looked past the scout to Brianna, then turned to yell over his shoulder, “Hey, Julien! Here they are! Both of ’em!”
Tavis moved forward to attack again, but Hagamil quickly brought the stub of his wrist around. The scout stopped a few feet short of the giant’s reach.
A muffled crash rumbled up from somewhere lower down in the keep. The staircase trembled, then a series of hairline cracks appeared in the steps between Brianna and her bodyguard.
“Tavis, maybe Brianna ought to handle this,” said Avner, stepping back toward the queen. “You’re about to go down the fast way!”
As the youth spoke, Brianna extended her arm, pointing the tip of her spear amulet at the iron bolt protruding from the giant’s temple. Tavis looked down at the cracks widening beneath his feet, then turned and rushed up the stairs toward the queen.
Brianna spoke her incantation. Yelling in alarm, Hagamil turned to leap off the tower. He was too late. A bolt of lightning sizzled from the queen’s talisman straight to the iron quarrel in his temple. It struck with a thunderous crackle, then the giant fell out of sight, leaving only a puff of pink-tinged smoke where his head had been a moment before.
Brianna felt Tavis grab her arm and pull her up the stairs. She looked down and saw the step in front of her falling away. The lower half of the stairway was tumbling into the inner ward.
“Come on,” Tavis said. “That was Arlien that Hagamil called to. He’ll be coming any minute. We’ve got to get ready.”
“Ready?” Brianna asked, her stomach knotting with apprehension at the thought of facing the prince again. “Then you have a plan?”
“It’s a little rough, but I think it’ll work,” he said, starting up the stairway. “I’ll explain it to you as soon as we find a good place to make a stand.”
Brianna turned to follow, nearly falling as the step beneath her lower foot cracked loose. It dropped more than three stories into the rubble below.
“A good place to make a stand?” she gasped. “Where do you think we’re going to find that in all this havoc?”
The answer came from the temple door, where Avner stood looking toward the front of the chamber. “It may have to be right here,” he said. “We seem to be surrounded.”
18
Before following Avner into the temple, Tavis glanced past Brianna, down the crumbling staircase. In the outer ward far below he saw Arlien clambering toward the base of the keep. The scout saw no sign of Basil in the rubble of the inner curtain and did not know what had become of the runecaster. Nevertheless, it seemed clear that the verbeeg’s last spell had been an effective one, for the prince’s armor was battered and gouged, with sizable gaps showing in many seams. It also seemed just as clear that any damage Arlien had suffered would not prevent him from pursuing the queen. He had tossed his helmet aside and was staring up at his quarry with a dark, acid gaze.
“Tavis, are you coming?” Avner was calling from inside the temple. “I really think this is something you should handle.”
The scout turned and stepped through the doorway. He saw the top of the altar lying on the floor and a procession of Cuthbert’s men climbing out of the dais. Four warriors already stood near the front of the room, casting nervous glances at the crumbling ceiling above their heads. All of the men were fully armored, with loaded crossbows in their hands, full quivers hanging across their shoulders, and hefty axes attached to their belts. Judging by the amount of space they had left between themselves and the altar, they expected at least eight more men to follow. The scout could already see the helmet of the next one rising into sight.
Tavis pulled Avner back, passing both him and the hand-axe to Brianna. He nocked an arrow in his bow and pointed it at the warrior climbing out of the altar.
“I’d advise you not to come any farther, soldier,” the scout said. “I may not be holding Bear Driller, but at this range, even this bow has enough power to bore a hole through your steel hat.”
The man stopped and turned toward the scout, eyes wide with astonishment. The four soldiers already in the room gripped their crossbows more tightly, but wisely refrained from raising their weapons. The scout could have killed any two of them before the first one aimed his quarrel.
“Tavis, what are you doing?” gasped Brianna.
“I overheard the ettin-Arlien-say that he’d spare Cuthbert and his family in exchange for betraying you,” explained the scout “Apparently he accepted.”
“How dare you insinuate such a thing!” shouted the earl’s muffled voice. The soldier in the altar retreated down the stairs, then Cuthbert clanged into view, his visor pushed up to reveal a face red with fury. “I assure you, once we’re done with the giants, I’ll defend my name on the field of honor!”
“Defend your name wherever you like,” Tavis said, his arrow now trained on the earl. “It won’t change what I heard at Split Mountain.”
“Or what I saw in this castle,” Avner added.
The keep shook under a fresh wave of frost giant assaults, shaking a few more steps loose from the shattered stairway below. Brianna and Avner shoved into the temple behind the scout, pushing him farther into the room.
“And exactly what did you see, Avner?” Brianna demanded.
“Arlien and Cuthbert coming through the inner gate together, and they didn’t look too mad at each other,” the youth explained. “Tavis fired on the prince from the keep, so they split up. Arlien came down the ramparts, and the earl came through his secret passage. Now here we are, trapped in the middle.”
“I came through the passage because the prince barred the gate tower door. That’s when I knew for certain that he was a spy,” Cuthbert replied. “I assure you, he never would have escaped my men if Tavis’s arrows hadn’t come as such a surprise.”
The earl climbed out of the altar, then glanced at the temple’s sagging corner and motioned at the four men already in the room. “You four go back down and wait for us.”
None of the warriors moved, and one said, “It appears you may need us here, Earl.”
“Nonsense. This is just a misunderstanding,” Cuthbert said. “Besides, as a noble, I live at the queen’s pleasure. Even if she allowed an impudent firbolg to kill me, you would not interfere.”
“As you order, Milord,” grunted the warrior.
The soldier and his three companions clanked toward the altar.
“Well said, Earl,” Brianna commented. “But Tavis is hardly an impudent-”
The queen was interrupted when the walls around the temple’s sagging corner fell away, leaving a large section of floor hanging free over the ward. Although Tavis could not see what was happening at the base of the building, he did spy several frost giants staring up toward the temple staircase as though watching Arlien climb. If the collapsing wall had caused the prince any trouble, the scout saw no sign of it in their faces.
Tavis turned to Cuthbert. “Tell your men to clear the passage,” he ordered. “And if you try to lead us into a trap-”
“I won’t. I assure you.” The earl pointed to the arrow in Tavis’s bow. “You can hold that on my back. If anything happens, I’ll be the first to die.”
