“How shall we do it?” Raeyadfourne cast an uneasy glance toward the sinking sun. “We don’t have much light left, and I don’t fancy fighting storm giants after dusk.”
“Titan sleeping. Kill first, him,” suggested Ror. “Then storm giants leave, them.”
“That’s absurd, Ror,” said Orisino. “How will you kill that titan?”
It was Raeyadfourne who answered. “We wounded him last night, and many of our axes still bear Basil’s rune marks.” The chieftain squinted at the titan for a moment, then reluctantly shook his head. “But Lanaxis is no fool. Even Tavis couldn’t get within a hundred paces of him without being seen. One way or another, we’re going to have fight the storm giants first. I say we attack as soon as our warriors are ready.”
Raeyadfourne craned his neck to look down the back side of the hill. Tavis and the others did likewise. The firbolgs stood at the base of the gentle slope, clouds of white vapor spewing from their panting mouths. The short- legged verbeegs had gathered at the western end of the hill. They were leaning on their spears or kneeling in the snow, their ribs heaving as they gasped for breath. The fomorians, hindered by their deformities, were still scuttling or limping or slinking over to the eastern end of the hill, where they were collapsing in the shelter of a small spruce copse. Two companies of human footmen were also rushing northward at their best pace, but they would not arrive in time for the battle.
After studying the exhausted warriors for a moment, Tavis looked back to the meadow. “The f-firbolgs will ch-charge the t-titan,” he said. “I’ll sn-sneak into the t-tower to get B-Brianna and the ch-child.”
The three chieftains all raised their brows at the sound of Tavis’s stuttering. A predatory grin crept across Orisino’s broad mouth.
“You sound… chilly.” The verbeeg glanced at Ror, then observed, “Strange; it doesn’t feel that cold to me.”
“That’s enough,” growled Raeyadfourne. “You know well enough why he’s cold. I doubt you’d make the same sacrifice for someone you loved.”
“Fortunately, verbeegs aren’t foolish enough to indulge such emotions.”
Tavis shot the verbeeg a warning glance.
“I’m w-warm enough to n-nock my bow.” The high scout glared at Orisino until the verbeeg looked away, then shifted his gaze to the western end of the field. He pointed to the storm giants at the roasting fire. “The v- verbeegs will attack those t-two. Ror and his f-fomorians will take the p-pair in the village.”
Ror scowled, then looked beyond the village into the forest. “Ror see three giants-one in wood. Firbolgs go to village, them. Fomorians sneak up on tower, us.”
Tavis shook his head. “There won’t be any sneaking during this battle. Even fomorians can’t-”
The sound of wings broke overhead. The high scout rolled onto his back and saw two glacier vultures swooping low over the knoll. In an eyeblink, the birds were past and diving toward the firbolgs at the base of the slope.
Tavis pushed himself down behind the hill crest, pulling his bow off his shoulder as he slid.
The vultures reached the bottom of the slope and beat their wings, one turning toward the verbeegs and the other toward the fomorians. By the time Tavis had nocked his first arrow, both birds were rounding the corners of the hill. Most of the warriors below showed no sign of noticing the creatures, and none made any move to down them.
Tavis returned his unfired arrow to his quiver and scrambled back to the summit. The vultures were racing across the field toward the queen’s tower. They flew straight to the giant kneeling there and landed on his shoulder, then began cackling and groaning into his cavernous ear.
“I think we’ve been spotted,” Tavis growled. “Damn birds!”
“To your tribes!” Raeyadfourne rose to his feet. “We’ll follow Tavis’s plan.”
Ror shook his head emphatically. “Ror like ambush better-”
“Do it, Ror!” snapped Orisino. “There’s no time to argue.”
Orisino stood and bounded down the slope. Ror scowled after the verbeeg a moment, then reluctantly hefted his great bulk and waddled toward his own tribe. Tavis fixed his attention on the queen’s tower and remained on the hilltop, aching to the bone with weariness and cold. The battle was off to a bad start. Without the confusion of a surprise attack, it would be difficult to sneak past the giants to the tower, much less steal away with Brianna and her child.
After listening to the vulture’s report, the storm giant rose to his full height, two full heads taller than the queen’s tower, and peered up the rocky scarp toward Tavis’s hiding place. The birds cackled into his ears again, and the giant looked toward the west end of the hill. He raised a hand and pointed in the verbeegs’ direction.
“Nikol and Ramos, there are verbeegs there.” The storm giant’s voice blustered across the field like a howling wind. “See to them.”
The two cooks looked first toward their leader, then toward the hill. They abandoned the spitted moose to the condors and started forward, drawing their enormous two-handed swords. The weapons were twenty feet long, with hawk-sized nicks on the blade edges and blemishes of orange rust on the flats.
The vultures continued to cackle in the leader’s ears. He turned to the other side of the field, where the two searchers had stopped their explorations. He gestured at the eastern end of the hill.
“Fomorians are gathering there,” he rumbled. “Call Eusebius from the wood. They are for him.”
One of the searchers took an owl off his shoulder and sent it into the forest. The other called, “What of us, Anastes?”
Anastes pointed toward the center of the hill. “Firbolgs for you, Sebastion, and for Patma as well.”
Sebastion and Patma nodded grimly, then drew their swords and angled across the field toward the center of the hill. Anastes pulled his own weapon and positioned himself squarely between the queen’s tower and the giant- kin, precluding any possibility of anyone slipping past his fellows during the confusion.
Tavis cursed the giant’s wisdom. It addition to protecting the tower, the storm giant was shielding Lanaxis from the firbolgs. The high scout shifted his gaze to the titan’s slumbering form, wondering how much of a factor the ancient colossus would play in the coming battle. The mere fact that he had stopped suggested his power was diminished in daylight, but there was no way for Tavis to guess to what extent. It seemed too much to hope the titan would be rendered completely helpless.
The high scout glanced over his shoulder and saw his ’kin allies still struggling to organize their warriors.
“Q-Quickly! The giants are c-coming after us! ” Tavis began to shiver, more with cold, he thought, than fear. “Two for the v-verbeegs, two for the firbolgs, and one f-for the fomorians.”
The chieftains boomed their commands even louder. The verbeegs slipped around the corner and the firbolgs started up the slope at a trot, but the fomorians continued to mull about with no sense of direction.
A cacophony of bird calls erupted over the field, and stinging pellets of graupel began to pelt Tavis. The high scout looked back toward the heath and saw the first four giants already moving into attack positions. The fifth, Eusebius, was just emerging from the forest and starting toward the fomorians. Anastes remained in front of the queen’s tower. All six giants were hidden from the thighs down by a curtain of blowing snow, and they had thick clouds of birds whirling over their heads.
Tavis reluctantly pulled a runearrow from his quiver. By drawing attention to himself early in the battle, he was making it more difficult to reach Brianna. But he could not allow the storm giants to carry the fight to the hill’s back. Unless the combat occurred in the meadow below, he would have no chance at all of reaching the queen’s tower.
Tavis nocked his runearrow and rose, aiming at the giant who had been addressed as Sebastion. The high scout had to take a moment to steady his arms, for the icy wind had chilled him to the point of trembling. Peals of thunder rumbled across the sky, so loud that his ears throbbed and his knees ached to buckle.
Sebastion stepped onto the hill, with Patma close behind. Tavis had to angle his arrow only slightly downward to set the tip on his target’s breast. He emptied his lungs, then drew his bowstring and loosed the shaft.
A flurry of screeching falcons streaked down from the sky and struck at the arrow as though it were a lark. One of the birds snatched the missile from the air, then banked away over the field. Sebastion climbed a step higher, and Tavis had to crane his neck to look into the giant’s eyes.
“Damn birds!” The high scout’s cold-numbed fingers fumbled for another runearrow.
Sebastion raised his sword to strike. Tavis found a shaft and pulled it from his quiver, nocking and firing in one smooth motion. This time, the target was so close that there was no chance for the falcons to snatch the
