Brianna turned onto her back and drew her knee to her chest. When she heard the firbolg’s heavy breath coming around the bend, she thrust her foot down into the darkness. Her heel caught the warrior square in the brow. His head snapped back, slamming the back of his skull into the wall, and the warrior slumped onto the stairs without crying out.
The stone walls shuddered, then the stairwell began to shake in steady rhythm. Brianna scrambled up the stairs and came to the second story, where the turret ended five feet short of the dark entrance to the queen’s tower. The ironclad door hung open, swinging on its hinges as the entire spire rocked back and forth. To her right, the queen saw one of the titan’s huge hands grasping the side of the building.
“Avner?” Brianna called. “Answer me!”
Lanaxis gave a mighty grunt. There was a loud bang in the foundations, and a billowing cloud of dust rolled up from void below. The tower tipped away from the stair turret. Brianna swung her arms back and sprang across the broadening chasm, then tumbled into the second-story foyer of the queen’s tower.
10
Brianna could not stop shaking. She sat in the listing angle where the pine floor met the chamber wall, swaddled in her own fur cloak and the woolen capes of five men-at-arms, but even that heavy armor was no defense against the insidious cold. It hung within the tower’s stone walls like the memory of dead kings, its chill poison seeping through all her layers to spread its biting salve over the soft flesh of her back. It came whispering through the arrow loops on gusts of frigid air, driving darts of icy numbness deep into her frozen bones. Even Kaedlaw’s breath, wet and heavy against her skin, seemed to sink deep into her breast, filling her with such a cool, dull ache that she feared her milk would turn to slush.
The queen knew she should find a way to warm the dark room, for Kaedlaw’s sake if not her own, but she could see no way to do it safely. Even if the hearth did not lie on the high side of the floor, it would have been impossible to keep the burning logs from flying all over the chamber. The whole building was swaying in time to the titan’s limping stride. To keep her from being battered to death, Avner had moved all the furniture into the foyer, where it had promptly fallen out of the yawning hole that had once connected the tower’s second story to its stair turret.
Nor could she cast a spell. It required all her concentration to keep her feet braced against the floor and her back pressed firmly against the cold wall, and she could hardly let go of Kaedlaw long enough to make the necessary gestures.
Besides, Brianna suspected warming the room would do little to stop her shivering. She was caught in the grip of a despair colder than the stones at her back, more biting than the icy winds gusting through the arrow loops; with every beat of her heart she felt the fingers of her grief squeeze tighter, filling her breast with a chill lethargy as difficult to battle as the titan. Lanaxis had been born of the gods themselves; he was as old as Toril, and his power was second only to that of his almighty parents. If such a being wanted her son, what could a mere queen do to save the child? There was only one thing, and Brianna was loathe even to think of it.
A muffled groan sounded from the fireplace, and Brianna knew Avner was coming down the chimney-the only route to the third story without a stair turret. The young scout dropped into the empty firebox, then tumbled down the listing floor and came to a rest against the stone wall.
The tower swung as the titan took another huge step. Avner careened into the far wall, and a moment later came rolling back to collide with Brianna. He grabbed her leg and held on, then braced himself and sat up. By the pale slivers of moonlight that spilled through the arrow loops, she could see him rubbing his shoulder.
“What news?”
“None good, I’m afraid,” Avner replied. “Did you hear that crackling a few minutes ago?”
“I thought the tower was coming apart.”
“We’re not that lucky,” Avner said. “We signaled a troop of horse lancers. Lanaxis called a fire blizzard down as soon as they turned toward us. The company was incinerated to the last man.”
“So there won’t be any messengers riding ahead to call for help.”
Brianna’s legs began to shake so severely that her boots started to slide across the pine boards. Her body swayed in time to Lanaxis’s stride, and her frozen back slipped across the stone wall. The queen pulled her feet back into place and redoubled the pressure against them.
In the dim light, Avner apparently failed to notice her struggle. “Even if a messenger had gotten away, it wouldn’t have made any difference,” the youth replied. “No horse alive can outrun Lanaxis.”
“Blizzard could have. She would have found a way.” Brianna allowed herself a moment of silence, then asked, “Can you tell where we’re going yet?”
“He’s seems to be following the Clearwhirl north,” Avner reported. “We see glimpses of the river every now and then.”
“And where are we now?”
Avner swallowed. “We passed River Citadel a little while ago. We could see the turret pennants snapping in the moonlight.”
The cold hand around Brianna’s heart clamped down until it seemed the aching muscle would stop beating. The titan had already carried them across an eighth of her kingdom.
“How long until dawn?” The hour candles had gone out when Lanaxis pulled the tower from the ground, and to Brianna, sitting alone in the darkness, every minute since had seemed an hour. “I think he’ll have to stop then.”
Avner grimaced. “The Bleeding Circle has barely risen above the horizon. We’ll be in the Bleak Plain by dawn.” There was an uneasy pause, then the young scout continued, “We have to slow him down, or Tavis will never catch up.”
“Don’t you think we have troubles enough?” Brianna scoffed.
“Tavis wouldn’t betray you.”
“Then why did he save Galgadayle’s life?” the queen demanded. “And open the gates for the ’kin army?”
“ I would have opened the gates.” The quickness of Avner’s reply suggested he had thought of his answer long before coming down the chimney. “Can you think of a better way to get rid of the ’kin than to let them attack Lanaxis?”
“Avner, you’ll have to do better than that. We both know that wasn’t what he had in mind.”
“We don’t know what he was thinking,” Avner countered. “We only know what you saw, and there could be dozens of explanations.”
“The most likely being that he believes Galgadayle,” Brianna said. “He thinks Kaedlaw is the ettin’s child. He admitted that much.”
Avner remained silent, a sure sign he was struggling against the urge to blurt something out. Brianna could almost feel the words straining at his lips.
“Avner, what is it? You have something to tell me.”
“No, Majesty.”
Brianna cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t lie to me, Avner,” she warned. “You’re the first defender now, not a street orphan.”
Avner sighed heavily. “As you wish, then. I won’t lie-but I respectfully decline to say more. Call it treason if you like.”
“Perhaps I will!”
“I’ll carry the execution order to Dexter myself,” Avner replied. “And that’ll be the last thing your first defender ever says.”
Brianna fell silent, considering the young scout’s bluff. She knew he would not carry the command to the guards on the third floor, as surely as he knew she would never issue it, but Avner preferred subtlety and subterfuge to grand gestures. The queen could think of only one sentiment that would compel the youth to make such a statement.
