The Titan of Twilight (24 page)

Raeyadfourne craned his neck to look down the back side of the hill. Tavis and the others did likewise. The firbolgs stood at the base of the gentle slope, clouds of white vapor spewing from their panting mouths. The short-legged verbeegs had gathered at the western end of the hill. They were leaning on their spears or kneeling in the snow, their ribs heaving as they gasped for breath. The fomorians, hindered by their deformities, were still scuttling or limping or slinking over to the eastern end of the hill, where they were collapsing in the shelter of a small spruce copse. Two companies of human footmen were also rushing northward at their best pace, but they would not arrive in time for the battle.

After studying the exhausted warriors for a moment, Tavis looked back to the meadow. “The f-firbolgs will ch-charge the t-titan,” he said. “I’ll sn-sneak into the t-tower to get B-Brianna and the ch-child.”

The three chieftains all raised their brows at the sound of Tavis’s stuttering. A predatory grin crept across Orisino’s broad mouth.

“You sound… chilly.” The verbeeg glanced at Ror, then observed, “Strange; it doesn’t feel that cold to me.”

“That’s enough,” growled Raeyadfourne. “You know well enough why he’s cold. I doubt you’d make the same sacrifice for someone you loved.”

“Fortunately, verbeegs aren’t foolish enough to indulge such emotions.”

Tavis shot the verbeeg a warning glance.

“I’m w-warm enough to n-nock my bow.” The high scout glared at Orisino until the verbeeg looked away, then shifted his gaze to the western end of the field. He pointed to the storm giants at the roasting fire. “The v-verbeegs will attack those t-two. Ror and his f-fomori-ans will take the p-pair in the village.”

Ror scowled, then looked beyond the village into the forest. “Ror see three giants—one in wood. Firbolgs go to village, them. Fomorians sneak up on tower, us.”

Tavis shook his head. “There won’t be any sneaking during this battle. Even fomorians can’t—”

The sound of wings broke overhead. The high scout rolled onto his back and saw two glacier vultures swooping low over the knoll. In an eyeblink, the birds were past and diving toward the firbolgs at the base of the slope.

Tavis pushed himself down behind the hill crest, pulling his bow off his shoulder as he slid.

The vultures reached the bottom of the slope and beat their wings, one turning toward the verbeegs and the other toward the fomorians. By the time Tavis had nocked his first arrow, both birds were rounding the corners of the hill. Most of the warriors below showed no sign of noticing the creatures, and none made any move to down them.

Tavis returned his unfired arrow to his quiver and scrambled back to the summit. The vultures were racing across the field toward the queen’s tower. They flew straight to the giant kneeling there and landed on his shoulder, then began cackling and groaning into his cavernous ear.

“I think we’ve been spotted,” Tavis growled. “Damn birds!”

“To your tribes!” Raeyadfourne rose to his feet. “We’ll follow Tavis’s plan.”

Ror shook his head emphatically. “Ror like ambush better—”

“Do it, Ror!” snapped Orisino. “There’s no time to argue.”

Orisino stood and bounded down the slope. Ror scowled after the verbeeg a moment, then reluctantly hefted his great bulk and waddled toward his own tribe. Tavis fixed his attention on the queen’s tower and remained on the hilltop, aching to the bone with weariness and cold. The battle was off to a bad start. Without the confusion of a surprise attack, it would be difficult to sneak past the giants to the tower, much less steal away with Brianna and her child.

After listening to the vulture’s report, the storm giant rose to his full height, two full heads taller than the queen’s tower, and peered up the rocky scarp toward Tavis’s hiding place. The birds cackled into his ears again, and the giant looked toward the west end of the hill. He raised a hand and pointed in the verbeegs’ direction.

“Nikol and Ramos, there are verbeegs there.” The storm giant’s voice blustered across the field like a howling wind. “See to them.”

The two cooks looked first toward their leader, then toward the hill. They abandoned the spitted moose to the condors and started forward, drawing their enormous two-handed swords. The weapons were twenty feet long, with hawk-sized nicks on the blade edges and blemishes of orange rust on the flats.

The vultures continued to cackle in the leader’s ears. He turned to the other side of the field, where the two searchers had stopped their explorations. He gestured at the eastern end of the hill.

“Fomorians are gathering there,” he rumbled. “Call Eusebius from the wood. They are for him.”

One of the searchers took an owl off his shoulder and sent it into the forest. The other called, “What of us, Anastes?”

Anastes pointed toward the center of the hill. “Firbolgs for you, Sebastion, and for Patma as well.”

Sebastion and Patma nodded grimly, then drew their swords and angled across the field toward the center of the hill. Anastes pulled his own weapon and positioned himself squarely between the queen’s tower and the giant-kin, precluding any possibility of anyone slipping past his fellows during the confusion.

Tavis cursed the giant’s wisdom. It addition to protecting the tower, the storm giant was shielding Lanaxis from the firbolgs. The high scout shifted his gaze to the titan’s slumbering form, wondering how much of a factor the ancient colossus would play in the coming battle. The mere fact that he had stopped suggested his power was diminished in daylight, but there was no way for Tavis to guess to what extent. It seemed too much to hope the titan would be rendered completely helpless.

The high scout glanced over his shoulder and saw his ‘kin allies still struggling to organize their warriors.

“Q-Quickly! The giants are ccoming after us” Tavis began to shiver, more with cold, he thought, than fear. “Two for the v-verbeegs, two for the firbolgs, and one f-for the fomorians.”

The chieftains boomed their commands even louder. The verbeegs slipped around the corner and the firbolgs started up the slope at a trot, but the fomorians continued to mull about with no sense of direction.

A cacophony of bird calls erupted over the field, and stinging pellets of graupel began to pelt Tavis. The high scout looked back toward the heath and saw the first four giants already moving into attack positions. The fifth, Eusebius, was just emerging from the forest and starting toward the fomorians. Anastes remained in front of the queen’s tower. All six giants were hidden from the thighs down by a curtain of blowing snow, and they had thick clouds of birds whirling over their heads.

Tavis reluctantly pulled a runearrow from his quiver. By drawing attention to himself early in the battle, he was making it more difficult to reach Brianna. But he could not allow the storm giants to carry the fight to the hill’s back. Unless the combat occurred in the meadow below, he would have no chance at all of reaching the queen’s tower.

Tavis nocked his runearrow and rose, aiming at the giant who had been addressed as Sebastion. The high scout had to take a moment to steady his arms, for the icy wind had chilled him to the point of trembling. Peals of thunder rumbled across the sky, so loud that his ears throbbed and his knees ached to buckle.

Sebastion stepped onto the hill, with Patma close behind. Tavis had to angle his arrow only slightly downward to set the tip on his target’s breast. He emptied his lungs, then drew his bowstring and loosed the shaft.

A flurry of screeching falcons streaked down from the sky and struck at the arrow as though it were a lark. One of the birds snatched the missile from the air, then banked away over the field. Sebastion climbed a step higher, and Tavis had to crane his neck to look into the giant’s eyes.

“Damn birds!” The high scout’s cold-numbed fingers fumbled for another runearrow.

Sebastion raised his sword to strike. Tavis found a shaft and pulled it from his quiver, nocking and firing in one smooth motion. This time, the target was so close that there was no chance for the falcons to snatch the arrow. It flashed through the whirling birds and lodged itself deep in the giant’s breast.

Sebastion did not even wince. He simply squinted at Tavis and started to bring his sword down.

“esiwsilisa!” Tavis cried.

A ray of sapphire light lanced from the wound. Sebastion’s chin dropped, and the strength left his swing. The giant’s chest opened across its entire width. His arms flew out to the sides and sent his great sword spinning through the sky, and his body folded around his mangled torso. He pitched over backward and disappeared into the blowing snow at the bottom of the scarp. A tremendous boom rolled across the meadow, and the hill bucked so hard that it bounced Tavis into the air.

The high scout came down on his side and felt the air rush from his lungs. Blowing snow blocked his view of everything around him, save for the whirling birds above and Patma’s head rising over the crest of the knoll. Tavis did not wait for his breath to return, or even for the pain of his fall to register. He pushed off with all fours and leapt to his feet, facing the back of the hill.

Raeyadfourne’s tribe was rushing up the gentle slope, concealed from the waist down by a blustering white curtain. Bolts of lightning skipped through their midst like dancers, hurling firbolgs and shattered stone in all directions. The air smelled of charred earth, seared flesh, and rain, and not even the howling wind could cover the cries of the wounded.

Tavis spun around to find Patma’s face glaring at him. The giant’s thin lips twisted into an angry snarl, his silver eyes flashed like lightning, and his sword came arcing down out of the sky. The high scout dived away.

A terrible screech sounded behind him; then the entire hill shuddered beneath the impact of the giant’s huge weapon. Tavis hit the cold ground rolling and came up on his feet. In his freezing fingers he held a runearrow he did not remember drawing. He turned around and found himself standing beside an enormous steel blade buried deep in the knoll’s stony summit. The birds were as thick as fog around him, and their angry cries drowned out even the rumbling of the thunder.

Patma jerked his sword free, leaving a smoking crevice where the blade had struck. Tavis fumbled his runearrow onto his bowstring and pointed it at his attacker.

The piercing shriek of a tarn hawk stabbed Tavis’s ear. Something sharp slammed into his shoulder and dug in. His bowstring slipped from his fingers, and the runearrow arced harmlessly over the hill crest. He toppled onto his side, then slid across the icy ground, wings beating madly about his head, talons tearing at his shoulder.

Tavis twisted onto his back and brought Mountain Crusher up, hooking the end around the bird’s neck. Its head came down instantly, the beak darting at his eyes. The high scout turned aside, then cried out as the raptor’s powerful mandibles tore into his cheek. He reached up blindly and, when he felt the creature’s nape in his cold grasp, gave a sharp twist. The hawk squawked briefly and fell limp, shrouding the scout’s face beneath its feathery wings.

“Damn birds!” Tavis pushed the creature off his head. “Surtr’s flames t-take you all!”

Tavis leapt up and faced the hill crest, expecting to feel a huge sword biting through his shivering midriff at any moment. Instead, he saw Patma’s rust-flecked blade sweeping along the ridge, spraying a cone of hail at the charging firbolgs. So fierce was the icy stream that it swept the burly warriors off their feet and hurled them, bloody and groaning, back down the slope. Even those who eluded the hail were not spared. A fan of silvery sleet trailed from the back edge of the weapon, coating ! everything it touched beneath a suffocating mantle of blue ice.

Knowing better than to waste another runearrow, Tavis nocked a normal shaft and fired at the giant’s eyes. A swarm of birds streaked to intercept the missile, startling Patma and temporarily blocking his view. A gray harrier caught the shaft in its breast and careened out of the bevy, and the hail stream veered from its targets.

That instant was all Munairoe needed. The shaman’s voice rang out from the rear of the firbolg ranks, and a crackling tongue of flame arced up the slope to strike Patma’s sword. The crimson streak sizzled up the weapon’s length. The hail and sleet gave way to a hissing geyser of white steam, then the blade shattered, spraying jagged shards of hot steel in all directions.

A pattern of bloody stains blossomed across Patma’s white shift, and a dozen firbolgs clutched at their faces and went down. Something hissed past Tavis’s head. He reached up and discovered blood trickling down his neck. His ear had been sliced open by a steel shard he had not even seen.

Several of Raeyadfourne’s warriors thundered past Tavis, hurling themselves off the hill crest at Patma. Their axes struck his chest with a series of wet-sounding thuds. The storm giant blasted the ridge with a ferocious bellow of pain. He toppled out of sight with three firbolg axes lodged in his chest, the warriors still dangling from the handles. All four combatants tumbled down the rocky scarp in a clamorous maelstrom of crashing bodies and shouting voices.

Raeyadfourne rushed past with the rest of the Meadowhome firbolgs, and Basil stopped at Tavis’s side.

“Look at you! You’re covered in blood again,” the runecaster panted. “You can’t take much of this.

Munairoe said—”

“I know what M-Munairoe sssaid,” the high scout stuttered. “But Brianna’s d-down there.”

Tavis charged over the summit in time to see the Meadowhome firbolgs swarming Patma. Only the storm giant’s wildly flailing limbs were visible, for he had fallen beneath the veil of wind-driven snow at the base of the scarp. The high scout bounded down the rocky face, stealing glances at the rest of the battlefield as he bounced between outcroppings.

At the eastern end of the meadow, the furtive fomorians were nowhere in sight. But the giant Eusebius was swinging his blade back and forth through the ground blizzard, flinging gore in all directions. At the western end of the field, the battle looked to be bloody on both sides. One of the storm giants had fallen to his knees with several verbeeg spears in his midriff, but the other was standing his ground against Orisino’s orderly ranks, cleaving through his foes’ waists two and three at a time.