dusk-purple and vanished from sight, save for the rune itself and a gleaming line of cobalt along the weapon’s edge.
Basil nodded his approval, then moved to the sergeant’s hand axe. “These runes will help your steel find purchase in Lanaxis’s armor,” he said, using the titan’s ancient name. “But don’t swing your weapons about unnecessarily.”
“Why?” The sergeant scowled at the glimmering stain spreading across his axe blade.
“My runes haven’t had time to dry.” Basil was already working on the next soldier’s weapon, and he did not even look up as he spoke. “The night air will rub them off.”
Across the ward, Lanaxis had moved to the back end of the keep and was peering into the red tower. He reached inside, came up empty-handed, then grunted in anger and slapped his palm against the spire. The third story came loose and crashed to the ground with a deafening boom.
Tavis shouted an order, but realized his ears were ringing so hard that even he couldn’t hear his own voice. He motioned for the sergeant to join him, then started across the ward at his best sprint. The others would have sense enough to follow when their weapons were ready.
By the time Tavis dodged past the rubble heaps and reached the temple tower, his hearing had returned to normal. He found a dozen stunned crossbowmen waiting for him, their faces shocked and hopeless.
“It’s no use, milord,” said the leader. “He’s a phantom. Nothing will touch him!”
“These will!” Tavis raised his sword and, without slowing his pace, pointed to the glowing rune. “Come along, and when someone falls, arm yourselves with his weapon.”
Fifty paces away, at the other end of the keep, the titan pulled a struggling body from the red tower. Tavis’s stomach turned queasy with fear that it might Avner, who was the most likely person to whom Brianna would have entrusted Kaedlaw. A steel gleam flashed between Lanaxis’s dark fingers, and the high scout breathed easier. His young friend never wore armor.
The titan opened his hand and let the steel-clad figure drop. The man screamed briefly, then crashed to the ground twenty paces ahead of Tavis. Lanaxis stooped over and pushed his arm back into the red tower, allowing the high scout a brief glimpse of Brianna. Her eyes were fixed on the interior of the building, her mouth hanging open in a terrified expression that left no doubt who Lanaxis would pull from the tower next.
From inside came the rumble of collapsing walls, followed by the muffled screams of dying men and the clack of firing crossbows. A flurry of black quarrels streaked from the keep’s arrow loops and sailed harmlessly through the titan’s body.
Then Tavis was upon his foe.
The high scout found himself at eye-level with a murky shin so large he could not have stretched his arms around it. There was no time to slip behind the leg to attack the heel tendon. Tavis drew his weapon back and chopped at the front of the ankle, hurling his full weight into the blow.
It was like trying fell a mature spruce with a single axe-strike. The impact numbed Tavis’s arms to the shoulders, and his stinging hands lost their grasp on the hilt. A deafening roar boomed down from the sky, then he found himself stumbling across the cobblestones. The high scout braced his feet and managed to regain his balance. The ground heaved beneath his feet as the titan shifted his immense weight, jerking his injured foot into the air. The fetid smell of stale blood filled Tavis’s nostrils, and a cascade of warm brown fluid rained down on his head.
The high scout did not look up. He simply dived away and hit the cobblestones rolling.
Lanaxis’s heel came down behind him, cratering the ground and bouncing him into the air. Tavis slammed down on his back, tumbled onto his feet, hopped twice as he regained his balance, then spun toward his attacker. His sword was still lodged in his foe’s ankle, the blade buried at least ten inches into the joint, but that did not stop Lanaxis from drawing his leg back to kick.
Tavis bent his knees, gathering himself to leap away. Lanaxis’s foot reached the zenith of its arc, nearly ten yards away, and started back down.
Three soldiers charged past to meet Lanaxis’s gloom-booted foot. They hit with a mighty crash and flew off in three separate directions, leaving their rune-scribed axes buried in the titan’s instep. The foot continued to sweep forward.
The high scout leapt aside and grabbed for his weapon, deftly jerking it free. Lanaxis’s leg reversed direction and came swinging back like a pendulum. The foot was upon Tavis so fast that he barely had time to bring his sword around. The heel impaled itself on the tip, then drove straight down the rune-scribed blade and slammed into his shoulder.
Tavis felt the bone snap beneath his biceps, then his feet left the ground. He flew through the air for what felt like a dozen seconds. Finally, he crashed onto the cobblestones and started rolling, each somersault more painful than the last. He did not stop until he slammed into the jagged stones of the inner curtain.
Tavis slumped in a battered heap to the ground, a venomous haze of pain poisoning his mind with thoughts of surrender. Every fiber of his pain-racked body demanded that he relinquish himself to the numbing mists of oblivion. But something outside him kept urging him not to give up, to keep his eyes open and hold on. It was a voice, a woman’s voice, and she was screaming his name.
Tavis looked toward the center of the ward and glimpsed his wife, still gripped in Lanaxis’s hand and staring in his direction. He tried to wave to her, but his broken arm would not rise. The titan turned to face a small company of guards assailing him with Basil’s rune-scribed axes, and the high scout lost sight of Brianna’s terrified face.
A whoosh sounded through the ward, and Lanaxis’s shoulders rose. He tipped his head forward to look at the men clustered about his shins. A keening wail filled the air, then a blustering cloud of purple murk spewed from the titan’s mouth and gushed over his attackers. Voices screamed and armor clanged, and the men went tumbling across the cobblestones to slam into the stone walls of the inner curtain.
Lanaxis continued to exhale for minutes. Soon, his purple breath was rolling into every corner of the ward, carrying with it such biting cold that Tavis’s flesh went numb. The scout gathered his strength and pushed himself to a seated position. When the pain filled his head with turbid swirls of oblivion, he took several deep breaths and fought to stay alert.
The wail of Lanaxis’s storming breath finally died away, leaving the ward immersed beneath a frigid blanket of murk. The high scout gritted his teeth and slowly, painfully, pushed himself to his feet. He suffered several moments of blurred vision, then found himself staring across the top of a purple fog. The titan had already returned to his search and was burrowing into the red tower like a badger after chipmunks.
On the far side of the ward, Basil stood in the gate and held Tavis’s bow and quiver in hand. The runecaster started across the ward, giving wide berth to the keep. The high scout staggered forward to meet his friend, watching the titan tear into the foundation of the red tower. Lanaxis would not find his prey there, at least if Avner still had the baby. Any border scout knew better than to let himself be trapped in a dead-end hole.
By the time the two giant-kin reached each other, Lanaxis was on his knees, pulling the last stones from the tower dungeon. Dusk had given way to a moonlit night. The titan’s murky breath had settled into the cobblestones, leaving a host of frozen human corpses scattered across the ward. From the outer curtain came the distant booming of Raeyadfourne’s battering ram. The ’kin army was the least of Tavis’s worries. Even if they broke down the gates of the outer curtain, they would still have to smash through the gates protecting the inner ward. By the time they succeeded, Lanaxis would have Kaedlaw and be long gone.
Basil took one look at Tavis’s broken arm. “I can see you won’t be needing your bow.” The verbeeg slipped the weapon over his own shoulder. “And I suppose you still think it’s wrong to use Sky Cleaver?”
Tavis glared up at the runecaster. “What I think doesn’t matter-unless you already have the weapon?”
Basil shook his head. “I was only asking.”
A mighty clatter echoed across the ward as the frustrated titan hurled a handful of rubble against the inner curtain. He peered one last time into the foundation of the red tower, then rose to his feet and lurched toward the flag tower.
“At least he’s limping,” Tavis muttered. The pounding at the front gates increased in tempo, but the scout heard nothing to suggest the beams were ready to give way. “And we did buy Avner some time.”
“True, but even our adept young friend can’t hide forever,” Basil said. “And you’re in no condition to help him-or Brianna. What are we going to do?”
Tavis thought for a moment, then looked toward the front of the castle. “There’s only thing we can do: let
