Troy Denning - The Titan of Twilight

The high scout leapt from his corner, aiming his sword at the eye atop the fomorian’s head.

The hunter flinched and turned away. Tavis’s blade drove straight through the thick skull. A torpid shudder of death ran down the brute’s crooked spine. The misshapen body went slack and slumped into the murky waters, filling three-quarters of the passage even lying on its belly.

A puff of hot, rancid air wafted over Tavis’s shoulders. Without pausing to dislodge his sword, he jumped off the corpse, angling toward the rock spur where Mountain Crusher had snagged. From the darkness behind the dead fomorian came the boulderlike fist of a second hunter. The blow caught Tavis in midleap and sent him hurtling down the passage into a timber post. He heard the muffled snap of cracking ribs, then lost his breath and dropped into the water.

A shower of rock dust, pebbles, and splintered wood splashed down around his shoulders. Tavis looked up. Above his head, the end of a rotten beam was sagging beneath a ton of broken, growling stone. A frustrated hiss sounded behind the dead fomorian as the second hunter tried to shove aside his companion’s bulky corpse. The high scout pushed himself away from the tunnel wall, less concerned with his angry pursuer than the drooping beam overhead.

The ceiling did not come crashing down, but continued to pour into the water in a steady stream of stone and dust. Suddenly, Tavis saw the mountain above him not as a solid mass of granite, but as a colossal heap of pulverized stone being slowly ground to dust beneath its own immense weight. Keeping one eye on the drooping beam, he reached out and lifted Mountain Crusher off the rock that had snagged its string.

A growl of rage sounded upstream. Tavis spun around, already pulling a wet arrow from his quiver.

A pair of silver eyes were glaring over the dead fomorian’s back. The orbs were as large as bucklers, and set so close that the edges almost touched. Tavis could barely see the rest of his foe, a creeping black silhouette slipping across the corpse’s humped back. To fit through the narrow space, the hunter had flattened out his body as though he were a mouse crawling beneath a door.

Tavis nocked his arrow and pointed the tip between the two gleaming eyes. The dark shape of a huge webbed hand interposed itself between the arrow and its target. The high scout drew his bowstring back, groaned at the pain in his cracked ribs, and loosed the shaft.

The arrow tore through the shielding hand with a sound like ripping leather, then crackled into the narrow band of cartilage between the fomorian’s eyes. A deafening screech echoed through the tunnel. Tavis nearly gagged on the rancid odor of the hunter’s death rattle.

The fomorian’s eyes, now dull and glazed with death, continued to move as another hunter tried to work the body out of the cranny.

Tavis retreated to the fork and waded up the tunnel, each step a struggle against the pain in his ribs. This time, there would be no quick cures for his anguish. He had given the last of Simon’s healing potion to Galgadayle, and Brianna had no more mending spells left. The high scout clenched his teeth and reminded himself that his agony was nothing compared to the torture Thatcher and the other front rider had suffered.

Soon, Tavis saw the silvery glow of Brianna’s magical light spilling from a passage ahead. He waded up to the tunnel and found Gryffitt crouching in the entrance. The corridor was scorched and rubble-strewn, with the jagged tips of boulders jutting out of the opaque waters. Loose stones dangled from the ceiling like stalactites. About twenty paces behind the front rider, the queen and her escorts were crouching in ankle-deep water at the edge of a gaping hole.

“I told you not to wait,” Tavis chided. “There are more fomorians behind me.”

“And we heard firbolgs up ahead,” Brianna countered. “Now come here, before they see that glowing bow of yours.”

Tavis slipped past Gryffitt and clambered over the submerged rocks toward the queen. The passage was clearly the route through which the fire giants had entered the mine system, for the walls were coated with fresh soot. The pit where Brianna had stopped was easily ten paces across. A steady flow of water poured into the hole, splashing off stones somewhere far below and filling the battered passage with the eerie sounds of a subterranean cascade.

“Do you have any runearrows left?” Brianna asked.

Tavis nodded. “About half a dozen.”

“Good.” She gestured at the disintegrating ceiling. “Nock three and stick them in the roof.”

From the mouth of the drift, Gryffitt called, “There’s a torch coming down the tunnel.”

Tavis glanced across the pit, and his heart sank. The hole was too wide to jump, and it would not be long before the fomorians cleared the opposite fork of the drainage tunnel. He looked back to his wife.

“If you’re thinking of bringing the ceiling down on us-”

“I’m not.” Brianna tossed her glowing dagger into the pit, revealing a huge tunnel about fifteen feet below. The passage was more than ten feet in diameter, with smooth, soot-coated walls. “We’re going out the back way-and you’re going to close the door behind us.”

Avner stood well back in the drift, spying upon several giant-kin and their captive, Marwick. The young scout held his throwing dagger in his hand, and his eyes were locked on the prisoner’s terrified face.

The throw would be a difficult one. Marwick was kneeling about twenty paces away, in the center of a large, irregular cavity where a tangle of drifts merged from above and below and every other direction. The front rider’s captors sat around him, crammed into the mouths of the nearest passages like bears into badger holes. Two of the ’kin might have squeezed into the hollow with their prisoner, but the cavern was too small to hold all five.

Avner could silence Marwick easily enough, but escaping so many ’kin would be difficult. The three firbolgs-Raeyadfourne, Munairoe, and Galgadayle-had shrunken to a size not much larger than Tavis. Despite the cramped drifts, they would not have much trouble running him down.

The two verbeegs were another matter. Even squatting on their haunches, they had to tuck their chins to fit into the passages. Unfortunately, they each carried a big crossbow and a quiver full of barbed, nasty-looking quarrels. To make matters worse, they had also put together a crude sketch-map of the mine. Their knowledge of the terrain would give them a sure advantage.

“Human, I warn you not to lie,” Munairoe said, speaking to Marwick. “If I must call the wind spirit into this dank place, she will not take pity on a scofflaw.”

“I told you, the queen bore only one child,” Marwick insisted. “Your seer was wrong.”

“Galgadayle’s dreams are as right as a firbolg’s tongue,” insisted Munairoe. “It is humans who lie.”

“Not this time.” Marwick kept his gaze fixed on the floor. “One child. I saw Avner take him from her womb.”

“Raeyadfourne, enough of this!” hissed a verbeeg. He was a slender, gray-haired male with features as sharp as spearheads. “Make us a gift of your prisoner, and we shall know the truth soon enough.”

Raeyadfourne glowered at the verbeeg. “Torture is a breach of the law, Horatio.”

Horatio’s lip curled into a contemptuous sneer. “Your law.”

Raeyadfourne scowled. “Must I remind you-” The verbeeg raised his hand. “I know, I know.” There was an air of resignation in his voice. “We agreed to obey your law. Carry on.”

Horatio pulled a parchment map from inside his cloak and unrolled it on the floor. He began to examine the document as though the interrogation no longer interested him.

Raeyadfourne looked back to Marwick. “If the queen bore only one child, was it handsome or ugly?”