from beneath him, and he dropped to the road face first, crushing the horsemen and their mounts beneath his heavy body.
Before the fire giant could recover, the last pair of riders arrived, their weapons pointed at the soft, unarmored flesh at the base of his neck. The momentum of the charge drove their lances deep into the giant’s torso, eliciting a scream as thunderous as it was brief, then their mounts crashed into his shoulders. The horsemen flew from their saddles and tumbled down the length of their foe’s spine, their armor chiming against his until they skidded off his flanks.
As they struggled to their knees, the next fire giant stepped around the bend and carefully crushed each man beneath his foot. Behind the brute, Tavis could see at least two more giants, and he suspected there was a long line behind them.
The high scout nocked his runearrow.
The palace courtiers began to leap from their sleighs and scurry down the road. Swaddled as they were in thick cloaks of combed fur, they looked like a herd of frightened wolf pups fleeing the slavering jaws of a snow dragon. Their abandoned draft horses also panicked, turning the road into a churning mass of hysterical beast and man. Sleighs began to plummet over the riverbank and topple along the edge of the road, and such a tumult of terrified shrieking filled the air that it was impossible to separate the human voices from those of the horses.
Tavis aimed at the chest of the leading fire giant, more than three hundred yards away, and hissed the command word that would trigger his bow’s magic. A rune flared red and vanished from sight. The high scout released Mountain Crusher’s bowstring, and the arrow streaked away, leaving a trail of crimson light above the jumble of abandoned sleighs.
The runearrow pierced the black armor as though it were leather instead of steel. The giant peered down at the fletching that had sprouted in his breastplate, and Tavis could imagine the brute’s face scowling in fear and confusion. Fire giant armor was as thick as a dungeon door, hammered from special steel forged only in the fires of their volcano homes. For anything less than a storm giant’s spear to pierce it was unthinkable-at least without magic. The fellow reached up to pinch the arrow between his thumb and finger.
“Blast him now!” urged Radborne. “Say the word!”
Tavis remained silent When the giant tried to extract the runearrow, the butt of the shaft broke off. The warrior’s face paled to an ashy charcoal. He turned to face his comrades, pointing at the pinhole in his armor. The second giant in line leaned down to inspect the wound, with a third peering over his shoulder.
“esiwsilisaB!” Tavis cried.
A sapphire light reflected off the slope beside the three giants, then a thunderous boom shook the canyon. The wounded brute dropped where he was, a smoking hole in his chest. The second giant’s head simply vanished in a ball of blue flame. The third survived long enough to cover his mangled face and turn away, then fell over the riverbank and crashed through the ice.
Four more giants stomped around the bend. The footmen of the rearguard formed two wedges and started down the road.
The palace courtiers began to gather around the queen’s sleigh, assaulting both Brianna and Tavis with a din of questions and suggestions. The scout quickly found himself trying to keep the frightened crowd at bay as well as watch the giants ahead. He did not notice the arrival of the rest of the Royal Snow Bear Company until a sergeant clanged to a stop at his side.
Tavis turned to the man, a grizzled veteran with a gray beard and bushy black eyebrows. “Get these worthy gentlemen and ladies out of the way,” the high scout ordered. “Send the rest of your footmen to reinforce the rearguard.”
As the sergeant and his men began to herd courtiers toward the landslide, Tavis took an inventory of his quiver and bow. He had plenty of black-feathered runearrows left, and four runes still remained on Mountain Crusher’s lower limb. Unfortunately, those sigils were of little use at the moment. The runes on the upper limb were the ones that made his shafts pierce the fire giants’ thick armor, and only two of those remained.
The high scout looked up the canyon. The four fire giants were scuttling down the narrow road, hunched over so that he could barely see their heads and shoulders above the abandoned sleighs. The brutes were hiding behind their bucklers, with the surfaces angled to deflect arrows. They had been careful to space themselves so that Tavis’s blasts could not kill more than one at a time.
The rearguard was still a hundred yards from the leader.
Tavis nocked another runearrow. As the main body of the Royal Snow Bear Company pushed through the tangle of abandoned sleighs, the high scout fired at the second of the approaching giants. The magic shaft streaked away, penetrating both buckler and armor with a single loud clang. The high scout spoke his second command word. The blast sent the huge warrior’s buckler twirling high into the air, with the arm that had been holding it still attached.
The leading giant cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. He grimaced at the sight of his comrade’s mangled carcass, then rose to his full height and charged. Tavis nocked another runearrow, but held his fire. The rearguard’s first wedge was already rushing to meet the attack. The three point men brandished battle-axes, and everyone else held long pikes.
The giant closed the distance in three crashing steps. The men in the middle row angled their pikes toward his midsection. He brought his buckler down instantly, sweeping the sharp points aside, and swung his fiery sword into the wedge. A chorus of agonized screams echoed off the cliffs, and the wind was suddenly heavy with the stench of charred flesh. Four severed bodies dropped in midstride.
The wedge continued its charge, the weapons of the rear echelon now rising toward the fire giant’s vulnerable loins. Too late, the brute realized his mistake and stepped away, trying in vain to bring his shield back into position. The pikes struck home, and a loud crackle echoed off the walls as several shafts snapped against his steel armor. The giant bellowed in pain and stumbled back, the splintered ends of two wooden poles protruding from the seams in his armor. The axemen went to work, hacking at his ankles as though felling a tree. The huge warrior toppled to the icy road, crushing three more humans before the survivors swarmed him.
The rearguard’s second wedge began its charge, rushing forward to meet the last pair of fire giants. Hoping to spare them the trouble of felling both brutes, Tavis pulled another runearrow and turned Mountain Crusher back down the canyon. The pair had wisely decided not to hide behind their bucklers and were rushing up the road at a full sprint. The high scout drew his bowstring back and aimed at the one in front.
Before he could fire, a bolt of lightning arced away from the queen’s sleigh. It struck the leading fire giant with a thunderous bang, burning a terrific hole through his breastplate and the chest it protected. The bolt blasted through the brute’s backplate and crackled halfway to the next giant before finally fading.
The high scout shifted his aim to the last fire giant and fired. The shaft took its target high in the breastbone. Tavis uttered the command word. The brute’s head disappeared in a blue flash, then his body collapsed in a clanging heap of steel and flesh.
“Well done!” exclaimed Radborne. “You saved my mines!”
“That’s a good thing, I suppose,” Tavis allowed. “But I was more concerned with the queen’s safety.”
The high scout turned to face Brianna and found her lying in the bottom of her sleigh, clutching her abdomen. Avner was kneeling by her side holding her head. When he looked up to meet Tavis’s gaze, his eyes were wide with alarm.
“I think your baby likes the fighting!” he yelled. “He’s coming!”
The high scout slung his bow over his shoulder and went to his wife. “Sergeant! I want men here!” he bellowed. “We must carry the queen’s sleigh over that landslide!”
The sergeant arrived almost instantly. “Begging your pardon, Lord Scout,” he said. “But I don’t think we’ll be having time for that.”
Tavis looked up and saw the sergeant pointing down the canyon. Another fire giant was peering around the bend.
2
