off the sliding map case and dropped into the secret passage, listening to his own bones crunch and grind as he bounced down the stairs.
By the time he reached the bottom, the agony was beginning to set in. Every breath sent stabbing pains shooting through his chest and abdomen, while the anguish in his left shoulder was so fierce that he knew even attempting to move the arm would prove futile. He rolled to his knees, but grew dizzy and nearly fainted when he tried to stand.
Tavis smelled smoke. He looked up the staircase and saw dark fumes curling down the passage. That was when he thought of Avner. The youth’s torch had not rolled far after being dropped. If the map cabinets were on fire, it would not be long before the boy burned as well. The scout dragged himself up a stair, then saw Julien dropping to his belly at the top of the passage.
Tavis grabbed his bow and quiver and lay on his back, his feet pointing up the stairs. The ettin thrust a torch into the passage, but Brianna suddenly leaped into view, swinging her hand-axe at his temple. Julien glimpsed the attack at the last instant and turned away. A loud crack echoed through the chamber as the blade scraped along his huge skull.
Blood sprayed in all directions, but Tavis guessed that Julien had suffered only a superficial scalp wound- messy, but hardly fatal. Using his good arm, the scout hooked his bow over his toes, then nocked an arrow.
Julien looked at Brianna. “Stay away!” he growled, shoving her back. “You can’t save him now.”
The ettin thrust his long arm back into the passage, trying to reach Tavis with the torch in his hand. The scout fired, and his wooden arrow sank deep into his attacker’s forearm. The flaming brand dropped harmlessly on the stairs.
Julien withdrew his hand and plucked the shaft from his forearm like an annoying splinter. Tavis nocked another arrow, grunting from the sharp pains the movement sent shooting through his chest. The scout saw a billowing cloud of smoke behind the ettin, and he heard the queen coughing.
“Brianna!” he yelled. “Avner-don’t let him burn!”
Julien peered down the stairs. “Ill trade you,” he said. “The boy’s life for yours.”
“So you can take Brianna to the titan?” Tavis aimed his arrow at Julien’s brown eye. “Not even for Avner!”
The ettin quickly placed a shielding hand between the shaft and his face. Plumes of smoke swirled between his huge fingers.
“My offer is better than you think. Lanaxis doesn’t need Brianna forever,” Julien said. “He’ll allow her to return to Hartsvale after she delivers the child I got on her.”
The bowstring nearly slipped from Tavis’s fingers. “What?”
The ettin lowered his hand. “It’s true,” Julien said. “One child. That’s all we want Is that so much to ask?”
Tavis did not know what to think. If the ettin had fathered a child by Brianna, the king of giants would be born whether they escaped or not. Would Ostoria then be fated to rise again, and what would that mean for Hartsvale? A vision of the human roasting over the ettin’s campfire flashed through the scout’s mind, and he knew he would have to kill Brianna’s child, or even the queen herself, before he allowed such a thing.
From somewhere behind Julien, Brianna screamed, “You fathered nothing on me!”
The prince’s discarded warhammer flashed into view, slamming into the side of the ettin’s skull. A tremendous crack resounded down the stairs. Julien’s brown eyes glassed over, but the brute did not fall.
“Liar!” Tavis yelled.
The scout drew his arrow back until he heard the little bow crack in protest, then released the string. The shaft flashed away, and the last Tavis saw of it was when the dark fletching disappeared into the ettin’s eyeball.
A shocked gurgle rose from Julien’s throat His hands started to rise toward his head, then dropped to the floor as his entire body fell limp. His huge torso collapsed over the stairwell, plunging it into darkness and driving a pillar of choking smoke down the narrow passageway.
Tavis tossed his bow aside. He struggled to his feet and staggered up the dark stairs as quickly as his battered body would allow. When he reached the top, he threw his good shoulder into the ettin’s lifeless chest and tried to push the huge corpse away. He gulped down a lungful of smoke seeping into the passageway and started to cough. The attack racked his shattered body with such pain that he nearly tumbled back down the stairs.
Tavis knelt on a step until the fit passed, then held his breath and redoubled his efforts. An agonized groan burst from his lips. A sliver of hazy yellow light appeared between the ettin’s body and the edge of the portal. Clouds of silvery smoke boiled into the passage. The scout pushed his aching body into the narrow gap until he could brace his feet against a stairwell wall and shove the corpse completely out of the way.
Tavis heard Brianna coughing and gasping. He climbed into the map room and saw the queen coming toward him out of the smoke. She held Avner’s limp body cradled in her arms.
“Is he-”
“He’ll need some healing, but he’ll survive,” the queen said.
She slipped past Tavis and descended the steps, holding the youth against her chest like an infant. The scout grabbed a torch and followed her. The smoke thinned as they neared the bottom of the stairwell, and they both stopped coughing. The bodyguard and his queen continued down the dank passageway for several minutes, until the water seeping down from Cuthbert Lake started to lap at their feet and the fire behind them seemed a harmless and distant thing.
Brianna stopped and faced Tavis. She was cradling Avner in one arm, as mothers sometimes hold their babies. “About what Julien claimed,” she said. “I hope you aren’t gullible enough to believe everything you hear.”
“Of course not. I may be a firbolg, but I’m not naive.” Tavis placed his good arm around Brianna’s shoulders and drew her close. “But I do believe you. I always have.”
Epilogue
Brianna stepped into the cool mountain breeze and inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the crisp smell of pine. To her side, at the bottom of the cliff onto which the secret passage opened, lay the two hill giants that Cuthbert’s guards had slain when they had opened the passage. Though there had been more waiting in the ravine below, her army had indeed been close by. Earl Wendel had been the first to hear the sounds of battle, and had personally led the charge to drive the outnumbered brutes into the lake.
“Majesty!” Wendel was clanking across the ledge in full armor. He was a burly, middle-aged man with a full beard and a warm twinkle in his eye. A lanky young farm boy followed close behind him. “Thank Stronmaus! Thank Hiatea! You look-well, you look healthy enough!”
Brianna glanced down at her soiled and tattered frock, then answered, “I am, due in no small part to your quick response. My thanks for answering my summons.”
The earl’s eyes darted toward the lake, where the smoke from Cuthbert Castle still poured across the water.
“I’m only sorry we failed to arrive sooner,” Wendel replied. He shook his head sadly, then turned sideways and gestured to the youth behind him. “Your Majesty, I’d like to present Eamon Drake. This lad ran across half of Northern Hartsvale to fetch us.”
Eamon bowed, and Brianna smiled at him. “I’m sure we can find a place among the palace squires for you, if you’re interested.”
“Of course, Majesty,” the boy replied. He peered around Brianna into the passage’s dark mouth, a concerned look on his face. “But what happened to Tavis?”
Brianna glanced back at the secret door. “Tavis?”
“I’m right behind you,” the scout answered.
He emerged from the passage, sopped to the hip and hunched over his battered ribs. Behind him came two of Cuthbert’s soldiers, bearing Avner’s unconscious form. They had volunteered to carry the boy when they returned to check on their queen’s progress.
