“Sounds good to me,” said Avner.
Without awaiting permission, the youth went to the altar and climbed in after the last warrior. Brianna started to follow, but Tavis restrained her with a hand.
“Cuthbert first, then me, then you.” The scout motioned the earl into the altar. “And I won’t hesitate-”
“I’m sure you won’t,” the earl replied. “But please don’t insult me further by dwelling on the matter.”
Cuthbert climbed over the lip of the altar and clanged down the steps. Tavis slipped into the narrow stairway somewhat more silently, bowing his shoulders inward so they would fit between the dusty walls. He kept his arrow pointed at the earl, who had kindly illuminated himself by taking a burning torch from one of his men.
The earl clanged down the murky corridor, following several paces behind Avner and his own warriors. Tavis waited until Brianna was behind him, then stooped beneath the tunnel’s low ceiling and followed at a distance of four paces. In the cramped confines, the acrid torch fumes were as thick as the oil smoke billowing over the ramparts.
From the back of the line, Brianna asked, “Exactly where are you taking us, Earl?”
“To the secret passage in my map room. My wife and daughters are waiting there,” Cuthbert replied, speaking over his shoulder. There was a catch in his voice. “I’m afraid Cuthbert Castle has fallen. I’d like you to escort my family to safety.”
“What about the hill giants?” Avner demanded, his voice echoing back up the corridor. “Don’t you have any other secret tunnels out of here?”
“One other, but it opens beyond the near shore-where the frost giants came from,” the earl replied.
“What about boats?” the youth asked. “You must have boats.”
“I do,” the earl replied. “In fact, Prince Arlien had the temerity to suggest I could save my castle by allowing him to take Brianna out on one of them.”
“How would that have saved you?” the queen asked.
“Once the giants saw you leaving, the prince assured me they would have abandoned their attack,” the earl replied. “I would have cuffed him, had one of Tavis’s arrows not bounced off his armor at that very moment.”
“How convenient for you,” Tavis remarked dryly.
“Yes, quite,” the earl replied, apparently missing the sarcasm in the scout’s voice. “I’m sure he would have killed me on the spot. But, returning to Avner’s concerns about eluding the giants, it really is best to use the map room passage. You see, before he died, the captain of my Keep Guard spied the queen’s army coming down from the Shepherd’s Nightmare. You may have to fight past a few hill giant sentries when you leave the passage, but at least help will be close at hand.”
“Earl, you keeping say ‘you,’ ” Brianna observed.
“This is my ancestral castle, Majesty.” Cuthbert stopped and ran his hand over a rough-hewn wall. “Now that it has fallen, I have no desire to leave alive.”
Brianna nodded. “I understand,” she said. “But the responsibility does not lie on your shoulders. I brought all this on Cuthbert Castle. If I leave, then so must you.”
The earl shook his head. “Not so, my queen.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “You are Hartsvale. If you perish, the rest of the kingdom follows. It has been my duty to defend you, and it is my regret that I have done so poorly.”
Tavis felt Brianna touch his shoulder. “You can lower your arrow,” she said. “I think we can trust Cuthbert.”
“We can’t be certain,” the scout countered. “Arlien’s tongue was slicker than the earl’s.”
Brianna reached around him and pushed the arrow down. “If Cuthbert were going to betray me, don’t you think he would have done it before the giants demolished his castle?”
The scout frowned, unable to think of any reason even the most treacherous traitor would have waited so long. He took his arrow off his bowstring and returned it to his quiver.
“My apologies, Earl,” Tavis said. “The queen has often said I must learn to make allowances for human nature. If you wish to avenge my slight on the field of honor-”.
“That won’t be necessary, Tavis,” Brianna interrupted. “After Arlien’s duplicity, you’re right to be cautious. And speaking of the prince, why don’t you tell us about this plan you have for dealing with him?”
At last, Basil saw sunlight filtering through the rubble above, and he sniffed the caustic smoke of burning oil. Wine had never smelled so sweet-even to him. The runecaster pulled another block out of the wreckage overhead and tossed it toward the other end of the cramped chamber.
The verbeeg was trapped in a storage room buried in the curtain foundation. By the pale illumination seeping down from above, he could see a small door near where he had been tossing the stones. As battered and weak as he was after his fall with the collapsing ramparts, it might have been easier to crawl out through that portal. But the runecaster could not bring himself to do it. The passage beyond was musty, as black as pitch, and small. He’d rather face the giants than risk lodging himself in the depths of that gloomy tunnel.
Basil removed another block of jagged ceiling, then backed away as a cascade of shattered stones and splintered timbers poured into the chamber. When it stopped, a pillar of brilliant white light was shining down through the swirling dust. The verbeeg crawled atop the rubble and stuck his head up through the hole, pinching his eyes shut against the sky’s effulgence.
The castle had fallen surprisingly quiet. He could still hear the fires crackling on the ramparts, the wounded screaming for help or just plain screaming, and the growl of murmuring giants somewhere close. But there was no more crashing. The castle had succumbed to the attack.
Basil raised his eyelids and blinked against the brightness. He managed to hold them open until his vision adjusted to the light. His head was sticking up a little higher than ground level, and he found himself looking across mounds of rubble in the direction of the keep. The frost giants had hammered away one entire corner of the structure. Several of the brutes were watching a small, armored figure, Arlien, climb into a room hanging exposed on the fourth story. If any defenders remained inside the structure, they were no longer firing their weapons.
Out of the corner of his eye Basil caught a flash of blue twinkling in the rubble. He looked toward the sparkle and, a short distance away, saw a pale zaffer light glinting from beneath the shadow of a stone block. The verbeeg glanced in all directions. When he did not see any giants looking toward him, he pulled himself out of his hole, then crawled forward on his belly until he could reach under the rock. He felt the cold bite of an ice diamond.
Even as the stone began to numb his hand, the verbeeg felt a sick feeling welling up inside him. The last time he had seen Tavis, the scout had been wearing the necklace. Basil tugged gently on the ice diamond. It slipped from beneath the rock easily, bringing along a string of many more of the frigid gems. The verbeeg quickly examined the silver chain’s clasp and saw that it had been unhooked, not torn off. The necklace had been deliberately removed, probably because Brianna feared it would interfere with her healing spells. And if there had been time for the queen to heal the scout, it did not seem unreasonable to hope that she and her party were well on their way out of Cuthbert Castle by now.
Basil exhaled in relief. “A lucky find for me, I guess.”
The pain-numbing properties of the enchanted gems were certain to make an interesting study. The verbeeg wrapped the necklace twice around his wrist and clasped it in place, then considered his next move.
The keep’s shattered corner stood less than thirty paces ahead, a yawning enticement to visit the libraries below. To accept the invitation, all Basil would have to do was dodge a dozen frost giants and duck down the stairs before they smashed him into a pulp. Of course, then he would be alone in the keep with Arlien…
The verbeeg sighed. As valuable as the folios were, they were not worth dying for. He reluctantly turned away and, casting one last look over his shoulder, crawled toward the lake.
The muffled creak of grating hinges squealed from a distant door. The cluttered map room instantly fell silent, and Tavis heard the slap-drag of someone limping through the library.
“Basil!” Avner hissed.
“It isn’t Basil,” Tavis replied. On their way down, they had encountered a keep guard who reported seeing both Arlien and the verbeeg engulfed by the collapse of the inner curtain.
“If the prince survived, why not Basil?”
“Maybe he did, but that’s not him,” Tavis answered. “He’d never make it down here, not with the keep surrounded by frost giants.”
