that kept Hartsvale’s armies strong; they had felled her husband, and with him the pillar of her strength; soon, they would take Brianna herself, and with her the infant so desperately fighting to reach a bloody and uncertain future.
Brianna did not know what to do when-if-her enemies captured her. They would present her to their mysterious guardian, the Twilight Spirit, so he could use his magic to get a giant king on her. To prevent that, the queen had vowed to die before allowing any giant to take her alive-but she had made that pledge before her pregnancy. Now, she worried that she lacked the strength, perhaps even the right, to make the same choice for her child.
Brianna opened her eyes and exhaled long and hard, then rolled to her knees.
A pair of hands grasped her beneath the arms. “Wait a minute,” said Avner. “I’ll help you up.”
Avner pulled backward, rocking Brianna into a kneeling position-and filling her belly with fiery pain.
“Avner!” she barked. “What are you doing?”
“We’ve got to go.”
The young scout pointed up the canyon to where the abandoned sleighs of the courtiers sat beside the road. A single fire giant was already walking by the tangle, casually kicking to death panicked draft horses as he passed. The brute was little more than a hundred yards away, close enough to see his flashing bronze eyes and foul green teeth.
Brianna clenched the young scout’s arm. “Avner, I can’t run,” she gasped. “Not now!”
Avner reached into his cloak and withdrew a purple flask sealed with a cork. Inside was one of the thick, frothy healing potions that Brianna’s high priest had given to Avner and Tavis. “Maybe if you drink this.”
Brianna pushed the vial away. “I’m not wounded; I’m giving birth,” she said. “Simon’s elixirs won’t help me. I need Gerda.”
The young scout paled. “Radborne hasn’t returned.” He studied her with a growing expression of horror. Brianna was a foot and a half taller than him, and weighed a hundred and fifty pounds more. There was no question of his carrying her. “Maybe the Beast-”
The queen shook her head. “Even if Blizzard could climb the landslide, I can’t ride.” The mere thought of sitting on a horse filled her with an unbelievable ache. “You go for help.”
Avner cast a nervous glance up the canyon, and Brianna followed his gaze. The leading fire giant was passing the last of the courtiers’ sleighs. Fifty yards behind him, several of his companions were slowly coming up the road, stopping now and then to grind what remained of the Royal Snow Bear Company into the ground.
Avner unsheathed his sword. “I can’t leave your side,” he said. “I promised Tavis.”
“You will do as I order! It’s our only chance.” Brianna grabbed his arm and pulled herself up. Although her pain was receding, she clenched her teeth at the effort. “And hand me my spell satchel before you leave.”
The young scout started to argue, but abruptly stopped when a loud clatter erupted from the landslide behind them. Brianna turned around to see Radborne Wynn and six front riders escorting a pair of twelve-foot strangers down the jumbled boulder heap. Long pelts of ice-crusted beard hung from the jaws of both newcomers. They wore their brown-furred parkas drawn tight against the howling wind, so that they resembled the fabled bear-men reputed to inhabit certain remote valleys of the Ice Spires.
“Firbolgs!” Avner slipped his sword back into its scabbard. “We’re saved!”
“I wish we were,” Brianna muttered. Like everyone else in court, Avner had apparently heard of the firbolgs’ recent alliance offer-but not the price they asked in exchange. “They’re no friends of ours.”
Avner scowled and started to draw his sword again, but Brianna motioned for him to leave the weapon sheathed.
“I don’t know what to expect,” she whispered. Perhaps the firbolgs had decided to offer their help without demanding the life of her unborn child. “Just follow my lead.”
From behind Brianna came the fire giant’s booming voice, bellowing for his companions to hurry. The firbolgs lumbered down the slide at their best pace, easily outdistancing their human escorts. One was as brawny and broad shouldered as a bull moose, with pale eyes the color of blue tourmaline. The other was spindly enough to be a verbeeg; his eyes were more like alabaster, white and milky and deep: Galgadayle.
Blizzard neighed spitefully at the newcomers. She stepped in front of Brianna, positioning her white-flecked torso between the queen and the hairy strangers. The firbolgs stepped off the landslide and stopped a single pace away. Though the mare was as large as any charger in the kingdom, her shoulders rose barely as high as their waists.
“I am Raeyadfourne, ur Meadowhome,” the burly one stated. He bowed, then gestured at the gaunt seer. “I’m sure you remember Galgadayle, oin Meadowhome.”
Brianna understood just enough of the firbolg tongue to recognize the appellations as titles, rather than names. Galgadayle translated roughly as “The One who Dreams for Us,” while Raeyadfourne was “Broad Shoulders that Bear Our Burdens.” “Oin” simply meant “lies in,” identifying Galgadayle as a resident of Meadowhome, while “ur” meant “watches over,” identifying Raeyadfourne as its chief.
“What are you doing here?” Brianna demanded.
Galgadayle glanced down the canyon, where the crashing footsteps of a sprinting fire giant echoed off the cliffs. “I should think you’d be happy to see us,” he said. “We came to save you.”
The seer pushed Blizzard aside as though she were a house pet. The big mare stumbled into Avner and knocked him to the ground, then Galgadayle scooped Brianna up in a single arm. This drew a scowl from Raeyadfourne, for snatching strangers up without permission bordered on lawlessness, but the chieftain did not voice any objections. He merely pulled a six-foot battle-axe from its sheath and stepped toward the fire giant
“I’ll hew the orange beard,” Raeyadfourne said. “Galgadayle will carry you to safety, Queen.”
“Safety?” Brianna scoffed. “This is abduction!”
“The elders have discussed your reluctance to heed Galgadayle.” Raeyadfourne did not look at Brianna as he spoke. “The first law is to defend the clan, so they have decided to take you under protection until the twins are born.”
With that, the chieftain turned to meet the fire giant. Galgadayle started up the landslide, cradling Brianna in one arm. Avner snatched the queen’s satchel off the ground and followed, lagging behind as he clambered over boulders that the seer stepped across in a single stride. Blizzard did not even try to follow. She cast a wary look at the jumble of huge rocks, then bounded up the mountainside toward one of the precarious mining trails.
A sonorous battle cry rang off the canyon walls, followed by the thunderous clang of a huge axe striking thick steel. Brianna looked past Galgadayle’s shoulder and saw Raeyadfourne duck as the fire giant’s sword swept over his back. The chieftain drew himself to his full height-which put his head at his foe’s midriff-and swung his axe. The giant twisted away and counterattacked, and the two warriors fell into a vicious, clamorous dance of death.
Avner scrambled to the seer’s side, then caught Brianna’s eye and cocked an eyebrow.
“There’s no need for violence, young man,” warned Galgadayle. “I mean no harm to either your queen or Tavis’s son. It’s the other twin, the one fathered by the ettin, I want”
Avner tripped in astonishment and fell to his knees. Brianna hardly noticed, for she felt as though the seer had punched her in the stomach. The ettin was the magical imposter whom the Twilight Spirit had sent to court her. His powerful love potion had befuddled her for days at a time. She did not remember being seduced by the spy, and she could not recall much of what had happened during the dreamlike haze.
Brianna twisted in her captor’s arms and saw Avner slowly rising to his feet. His expression was more hurt than suspicious, for he knew as well as anyone that the firbolg seer could not lie about this matter-or any other.
“Avner, Galgadayle’s mistaken!” Brianna cried. The queen wanted the young scout to know the truth, and not only because he was her best hope of escape. Avner was like a son to her and Tavis; to lose the youth’s trust would be to lose all that remained of her family. “You were there when Simon divined my womb! I’m carrying only one child!”
Galgadayle nearly dropped Brianna onto the sharp rocks. “That can’t be!” He tipped his head to look down at her. Brianna could barely see his white eyes above the ice-crusted curtain of his long beard. “Who is this Simon?”
“A high priest of Stronmaus,” Brianna explained. “He said you were wrong.”
Galgadayle considered Brianna’s words for a moment, then shook his head. “You’re lying. My dreams are never wrong.”
