Troy Denning - The Giant Among Us

Earl Cuthbert groaned.

“Avner, I said no.” Brianna pushed the boy away before he could get a good look at the map. In spite of her command, Avner was just wild enough to try following Tavis on this perilous mission. “It’s too dangerous.”

“And being here’s not?” Avner scoffed.

“It’s safer than defying the queen’s command.” Tavis gave the boy a stern glare. “Now promise that you’ll stay-or must I ask Earl Cuthbert to lock you in his dungeon?”

Avner exhaled sharply. “I promise,” he said. “But you’re making a mistake. It’d be safer with two of us.”

“Not if Tavis is successful,” said the earl. He tried to lay a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder, but Avner sloughed it off and slipped away into the shadows. Cuthbert accepted the boy’s surliness with a good-natured shrug, then looked back to the scout. “Would you like to take this map? It’s my only copy, but you’re welcome to it.”

“No.” Tavis propped his elbows on the desk and studied the area around Shepherd’s Nightmare. “If something happened to me, I wouldn’t want this to fall into the giants’ hands.”

The earl breathed a sigh of relief. “Then there’s only one more thing I can do for you,” he said. “Do you have everything you need?”

Tavis studied the map for a moment longer, then picked up his shoulder satchel and hickory bow. “I think so. Perhaps even more than I need,” he said. “This strikes me as too heavy for a long swim.”

The scout unbuckled his sword belt, but the earl caught his hand before he could remove it. “You can keep that, my friend,” he said. “You won’t have to swim-not tonight”

Brianna frowned. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “We discussed this already. A boat’s too likely to be seen.”

“He won’t need a boat,” Cuthbert replied.

The earl stepped over to a long map case in the center of the room and braced his shoulder against the end. A soft rumble reverberated through the chamber. The entire cabinet slid across the floor to reveal a set of mossy stairs leading down into a dark tunnel. The dank odor of lake water began to rise from the passage, and somewhere far below Brianna heard a tiny stream of water trickling through a rocky chute.

“A secret passage?” the queen queried.

The earl nodded. “It runs on a straight course toward Shepherd’s Nightmare,” he said. “The tunnel would be a little tight for most firbolgs, but Tavis should be small enough to pass.”

Tavis scowled. “I don’t recall seeing this on the Castle Registry.” The registry was an ancient collection of castle plans that Basil had uncovered in the Royal Library. At the verbeeg’s request, Brianna had sent an envoy to each of her earls to ask for updates. “You broke the law by failing to report it.”

The queen smiled at Tavis’s naivete. Although the scout had grown up among humans, he still suffered from the firbolg proclivity to view the law as sacred and inviolable.

“I think we can forgive Cuthbert that oversight,” Brianna said. She had never expected her earls to divulge all their secrets, but what each man had revealed told her a great deal about his loyalties. Cuthbert had reported his collapsing bridge and the murderholes that overlooked the waters at the base of his castle walls, and that was more than most earls had done. “However, I am disappointed you didn’t mention this earlier, Earl. It would have saved me a great deal of worry.” Brianna fixed him with a stern look.

Cuthbert shrugged. “This passage has been a family secret since long before you were queen and I was earl,” he replied. “I wanted to think matters over before violating an ancestral tradition.”

“Then I thank you for making the correct choice,” Brianna said, somewhat tartly.

“You should not need to thank him for obeying the law.” Tavis buckled his sword belt, then added, “And certainly not when it benefits him as much as his queen. Unless I return with help, the giants will flatten his castle.”

A crimson cloud settled over Cuthbert’s face. “If saving my castle were my only concern, it would be a simple matter to persuade the giants not to attack.”

Tavis’s blue eyes grew as cold as the glacier ice they resembled. “If you yield to that temptation, know that I will hunt you down myself.”

There was no need for either man to spell out what temptation. Now that it had become obvious that the giants were here for Brianna, they all knew that Earl Cuthbert could save his castle and his family simply by giving the invaders what they wanted. Of course, there would be a terrible battle between his own troops and the Company of the Winter Wolf, but that fight would be far easier to win than the one against the giants.

Tavis continued his threat. “I will make it my business to see your-”

“Tavis, I hardly think that’s necessary.” Brianna interposed herself between the two men. “Perhaps Earl Cuthbert doesn’t have his siege stores in order, but that hardly makes him a traitor.”

Tavis switched his gaze to Brianna. “A man who defies your law for no reason-”

“Then it was a poor law,” Brianna interrupted. “I know that Earl Cuthbert is a good man. Have you forgotten that he was one of the first to stand with us against my father?”

The scout’s eyes softened. “I remember.”

“Good,” Brianna said, genuinely relieved. Cuthbert clearly feared for his castle and his family, but the queen knew he would never betray her. He always sent his taxes to Castle Hartwick on time, which told her more about the man’s trustworthiness than how many dragons he had slain. “Now perhaps Avner and Basil should say their farewells.”

The queen turned and saw Avner standing at the edge of the lamp’s flickering light, but there was no sign of the runecaster. With a knot of anger forming in her stomach, she called, “Basil!”

The verbeeg’s flat feet paddled across the floor as he tried to sneak out of the folio room. A moment later, he appeared at Avner’s side, still stooped over because of the low ceiling.

“Yes, Majesty?” He arched his bushy eyebrows in a parody of innocence.

“I told you to leave Earl Cuthbert’s books alone.”

“But these folios are ancient They contain the entire history of the giant race!” he objected. “Quite possibly, they might tell us what the Twilight Spirit wants with you.”

“They don’t,” Earl Cuthbert replied. “I have read every volume, and there’s no mention of any such spirit”

“Metamorpherie is very subtle,” Basil insisted. “You’d miss the reference during a cursory scan.”

“Those folios were captured when my ancestors drove the stone giants from this vale!” Cuthbert growled. “I can assure you, I have done more than scan them during the fifty-odd years I have lived in this castle.”

“The earl would have remembered something as important as a reference to the Twilight Spirit, I’m certain,” Brianna lied. Given Tavis’s recent accusations, she thought it would be wiser to smooth their host’s rumpled feathers now and arrange later for Basil to examine the volumes. “Tavis is about to leave. I thought you might like to wish him luck.”

The verbeeg pulled his satchel off his shoulder and placed it on the floor. “I’ll do more than that,” he said, opening the leather sack. “I prepared a little something that might help him sneak past the giants.”

Basil withdrew a large silver mask from his satchel. It was shaped like a smiling face, with holes where the eyes and mouth should have been. The verbeeg had etched more than a dozen of his magical runes deep into its glistening silver.

“That was a wedding gift from Lady Cuthbert’s father!” the earl yelled. “And you’ve ruined it!”