Troy Denning - The Titan of Twilight

A woman hissed, then groaned in pain-Brianna!

With visions of cruel, malformed fomorians dancing through his head, Tavis threw his cloak into the passage to distract his wife’s captors. He followed with his sword raised, then heard several voices cry out in surprise. He found himself stooped over in a small tunnel, staring down at his wife’s fur-swaddled form. One man was holding a torch over her, while another knelt on the floor, hunched over her bare midsection. There were no giant-kin-fomorians or otherwise-anywhere near the queen.

Tavis lowered his guard.

Someone behind him hissed, “Firbolg!”

“Wait, it’s me!”

Tavis was spinning even as he spoke, bringing his sword around to deflect the misguided assault. A sharp crack rang off the tunnel walls as his blade sliced through a well-aimed lance, but even the lord high scout of Hartsvale was not fast enough to counter the thrust of the second front rider. The point of a lance sliced across his flank, opening a long gash above his hip.

Tavis grabbed the lance and jerked it from the man’s hands. “Is this the proper way to greet me?”

“Lord High Scout!” The men uttered the exclamation together, then one continued, “But you-Avner said you fell to the fire giants!”

“I did.” Tavis returned the lance he had taken, then pressed his hand over his bleeding wound. “But-”

“But Tavis Burdun always honors his duty,” interrupted Brianna. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Even if he must cheat death to do it.”

“Firbolgs can’t cheat, milady,” he replied. “You know that.”

Tavis sheathed his sword and faced his wife. She had a pearly grin upon her lips and a violet sparkle in her eyes, but her joy could not hide how hard the last hours had been for her. She looked haggard and weak. Her golden hair was sweat-plastered to her head, and her complexion was more pale than alabaster. Her pain showed in the lines etched into her brow and around her mouth, and her cheeks were as sunken and hollow as a corpse’s. Although her belly was no longer swollen in pregnancy, Front Rider Gryffitt was carefully sewing shut a long incision that someone had cut across the lower part of her abdomen.

Tavis could hardly bring himself to look away from the wound. If he had not seen the joy in her eyes, he would have assumed that one of their enemies had cut the child from her womb.

Tavis knelt at his wife’s side. “What happened?” he asked. “How badly are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Brianna’s voice was as serene as moonlit snow. “And Tavis-I have something to show you.”

The queen opened her cloak. There, suckling at her breast, was the most hideous infant Tavis had ever seen. The baby was the size of a two-year-old, with stubby limbs and pudgy red fingers that pinched at its mother’s flesh like talons. It had dull brown eyes as ravenous as they were vacant, a short pug nose, bloated cheeks, and blood-red lips. Sparse tufts of wiry black hair covered its fat, round head, and the thing resembled a goblin more than a child.

“Well, Tavis?” Brianna asked. “Don’t you think he looks like you?”

The muggy underground air suddenly felt cool and crisp, a sure sign that Tavis and his companions were finally nearing an exit. They were deep down in the mine system, wading through the turbid orange waters of a drainage tunnel as long as it was straight. The walls babbled with the constant echo of dripping water, and the ceiling was so lofty that even the high scout could stand upright. Dozens of side tunnels opened off the main passage, all filled with streams of cloudy, auric water that stank of iron and copper and a dozen other minerals too obscure to name. But it was the heavy smell of brimstone-sharp and acrid and fresh-that concerned Tavis. The queen’s party could not be far from where the fire giants had broken into the mine warrens.

“Thatcher, hold up a minute.” Tavis was carrying the queen and her child in his arms, for the tunnel waters were so deep that only he could keep them dry. “Do you feel that cold air?”

The front rider stopped and nodded. “It’s coming from there.” He gestured forward with Tavis’s glowing bow, which had become the party’s only light source when their torch guttered out. “We must be near an exit.”

“Thanks be to Stronmaus,” whispered Gryffitt. “I was beginning to think we’d never get out of this labyrinth.”

“We haven’t yet,” Tavis cautioned. “Our enemies are sure to be watching the portals.”

“Then let us hope they missed one,” Brianna said. “If we keep stumbling around in the dark, sooner or later we’ll run into Raeyadfourne’s warriors-or something worse.”

The queen was looking much healthier now. After Gryffitt had finished sewing her up, she had used her healing magic to mend both her own wounds and some of those Tavis had suffered. Unfortunately, she had been unable to do anything about her fatigue. She was still so weak she could hardly stand.

Tavis nodded to Thatcher. “Lead on,” he said. “But keep a watchful eye, and you other men hold your weapons ready.”

The other front riders arranged themselves on Thatcher’s flanks, two carrying hand axes and two bearing lances cut short for use inside the mine. The party continued down the tunnel. The foul waters grew deeper, the interval between support timbers shorter. Twice as they passed side passages, Tavis heard the distant rumble of firbolg voices.

The air became cooler. They passed a drift in which the waters sat stagnant, with no sign of any current flowing from the other end. Deep within the passage echoed the sucking sounds of draining water, and Tavis smelled the mordant reek of brimstone hanging heavily about the entrance.

A dozen steps later, the main tunnel intersected another flooded corridor. The two passages joined and angled off together. The cold breeze became a frigid wind. The water was up to Tavis’s navel now, and he could feel the current pressing against the front of his thighs-the opposite direction he had expected.

Thatcher stopped in the intersection. “The wind’s coming from up there.”

He was not pointing down the joined passages, but up the opposite arm of the intersection. This tunnel was even more heavily braced than the one in which the queen’s party stood. It looked as though it had been driven through wood instead of granite.

“And down the main tunnel?” Tavis asked.

Thatcher waded around the angle. He came back a few moments later. “I think it’s the tunnel you blew up with your runearrow,” he reported. “The passage is filled with rocks, and the support timbers have burned away. I saw a boot sticking out of the rubble. It had to be as large as my chest.”

The report did not please Tavis. The main body of the firbolg troop had been hiding just up the canyon from the site of the fire giants’ ambush.

“What are we waiting for?” Brianna asked. “The choice is obvious enough. Let’s walk into the wind.”

Tavis shook his head. “Not without scouting ahead.” He pointed at Thatcher and one other front rider. “You two take a look.”

Thatcher and his companion waded up the opposite fork of the mine, holding Tavis’s bow and their own weapons above the swirling orange currents. Mountain Crusher’s blue glow reflected off the water and danced across the timber-lined ceiling, filling the tunnel with a half-moon halo that steadily dwindled away. The darkness grew as smothering as a cave-in, and Kaedlaw began to growl.

“Maybe I should cast my light spell,” Brianna suggested.

“I’d rather you saved it,” Tavis replied.

Thatcher and the other front rider were bait. If there were firbolgs hiding outside, Mountain Crusher’s light would draw them out. The resulting commotion would serve as an alarm, and the queen’s party could slip away during the turmoil.