Troy Denning - The Titan of Twilight

“I think we’re going to be safe, milady,” Tavis reported. “We should reach Wynn Castle by sunrise.”

“You’ve done well, Lord Scout,” Brianna replied. “But I must admit I won’t feel safe even after we return to our own castle. The war with the giants has been bad enough. I don’t know if we can defeat a ’kin alliance as well.”

“Let’s not worry about the ’kin now,” Tavis suggested. “Perhaps the light of day will show us a way to put to rest our trouble with them.”

“What could possibly change between now and tomorrow?”

Tavis hesitated before answering, and it was a mistake.

“Well?” Brianna asked. “What will daylight show us, save more trouble?”

“Perhaps we can strike a compromise with the firbolgs,” Tavis replied. “After all, Galgadayle’s dream was not entirely correct.”

“Entirely?” Brianna sat up, twisting around to look at Tavis and consequently shielding her nursing child from his view. “Exactly what do you think was correct about Galgadayle’s prophecy?”

Tavis did not want to answer. Lying was out of the question, of course, but so was telling Brianna that her child’s face bore the worst features of both the ettin’s heads. “Let’s discuss this tomorrow, after we’ve had more rest.”

“No. I want to know now,” Brianna insisted. “You don’t think Kaedlaw is your son, do you?”

The two men carrying the forward half of the litter stumbled and nearly fell.

“Brianna, this is not the time to discuss what I think,” Tavis said. “You’re still weak, I’m exhausted and sore, and the only important thing is to reach the protection of Wynn Castle.”

“Answer me!” Brianna yelled. “I command it as your queen.”

“We’d better slow down,” Tavis said. Once his fellow litter bearers had obeyed, he took a deep breath and met his wife’s gaze. “Kaedlaw was fathered by the imposter. He’s too ugly to be mine.”

The two front riders glanced over their shoulders, one with an arched brow and the other a slack jaw.

Brianna shrieked, “Ugly?”

Tavis nodded, his eyes fixed on Kaedlaw’s piggish face. “That round head,” he said. “That pug nose and double chin… what made you think he was my child?”

Tears streamed from Brianna’s eyes. “Tavis, how could you?”

Tavis wanted to reach out and embrace his wife, but he could not free his hands without dropping her litter. “You were beguiled.”

“You’re the one who’s beguiled!” Brianna shouted. “What spell did Galgadayle cast on you-or have you betrayed me of your own accord?”

“I haven’t betrayed you,” Tavis insisted. “But you must admit that the child doesn’t resemble me. Just look at his eyes: mine are blue and yours are violet, but his are brown. And whose eyes were brown? The imposter’s!”

Brianna’s expression went blank, then her eyes began to widen in terror. At the same time, the two front riders abruptly stopped walking and turned around.

“Lord Scout, what are you talking about?” asked one. “The child’s eyes are as blue as ice!”

Tavis scowled at the man. “What’s wrong with you?” He looked from the front rider to Brianna, who now had a distant expression on her face, then back again. “Did the queen order you to say that?”

The second front rider shook his head. “She ordered nothing of the sort. The child looks just like you!” The man looked toward the queen with an expression so tender he might have been her husband, then added, “Not that you deserve a royal son!”

Brianna threw her legs over the edge of the litter and, still holding Tavis’s bow, stumbled around behind the two front riders. There was a mad, terrified light in her violet eyes.

“Gryffitt!” She did not look away from the high scout as she yelled.

Far up the passage, Tavis saw the front rider’s distant figure stop. “Yes, Majesty?”

“Come back here,” Brianna commanded. “You shall carry my litter, and we shall send this-this firbolg-to scout ahead.”

“That’s not necessary, Brianna,” Tavis said. “There’s something strange happening here. I’m seeing one thing, and everyone else another.”

“Silence, firbolg!” Brianna snapped. Something clattered far up the tunnel, in the darkness beyond Gryffitt, but the queen paid it no heed. “You will do as I command, or I’ll have you executed for treason.”

From behind Gryffitt came the echo of flat feet slapping against the wet floor. The front rider pulled his hand axe and spun to face the noise.

Tavis dropped his end of the litter and held a hand out to Brianna. He heard another clatter up the tunnel, and then a loud thump.

“Your Majesty, my bow-please!”

Brianna pulled away, still oblivious to what was happening behind her. “Stay back, traitor!”

Gryffitt’s distant figure hefted his axe and stepped forward. A sharp twang echoed off the tunnel walls. The front rider dropped his axe and Brianna’s glowing dagger, then pitched over backward. He landed flat on his back, a huge crossbow bolt protruding from his chest.

A slender, gray-haired verbeeg stepped into the light of Brianna’s dagger. In his hands, he held a large crossbow with an iron quarrel nocked in the groove. The tip was pointed straight at Brianna.

Tavis reached for his bow, but stopped when the newcomer raised the crossbow menacingly.

“Don’t be foolish. These bolts are poisoned.” The verbeeg backed away from the glowing dagger, once more cloaking himself in darkness. “We would prefer to keep the queen alive, but we will forego the ransom if we must. Now drop your weapons.”

“What do we have here, Tavis?” Brianna asked. She glared up the tunnel and refused to set Mountain Crusher aside. “More of your allies?”

“Of course not, milady.” The high scout slowly unbuckled his scabbard belt and motioned for the front riders to do the same. “But I would advise you-”

The verbeeg suddenly gave a strangled, gurgling cry. His crossbow clattered to the tunnel floor, releasing its bolt to ricochet harmlessly off a sooty wall. The verbeeg himself appeared an instant later, falling face-first into the light of the glowing dagger. There was blood cascading down his chest and a scrawny human form clinging to his back.

“Avner?” Tavis gasped.

The young scout leapt off the verbeeg’s back and grabbed Brianna’s glowing dagger, then started down the passage.

“Nothing to worry about,” he called. “There were only two.”

“Avner, I’m so happy to see you!” Brianna walked forward and pushed Mountain Crusher into the youth’s hands. “Keep a close eye on Tavis. He seems to be acting like just another firbolg.”

With five armored escorts following close behind, Tavis clambered up the stair turret and stepped onto the roof of Wynn Castle’s arsenal tower. At the parapets across the way stood Basil of Lyndusfarne, Royal Librarian and Runecaster to Her Majesty the Queen. The ancient verbeeg held his spindly hands clasped behind his back and wore a cloak of matted wolf-fur over his stooped shoulders. The tips of his big ears were crimson with cold, and his white hair was so thin that it barely concealed his gray, scaly scalp. He seemed as oblivious to the high scout’s arrival as he did to the muttered conversation of his own guards.

Tavis stopped at the verbeeg’s side, but said nothing. Basil’s milky blue eyes were focused far across the snowy plain, where the sun had kindled a twilight blaze in the clouds behind the glacier-clad peaks of the Ice Spires South. The runecaster looked almost blissful. His bushy eyebrows were arched in nearly sacred awe and his thick lips upturned in rapturous joy, but his expression did not conceal entirely the toll taken on him by the last three years. The circles under his eyes were as deep and black as canyons, and his cheeks were sunken with fatigue.