Brianna rolled her eyes. "Please, I know better," she said. "How much is my father paying you for this?"
"Nothing!" Tavis snapped. "The king-"
The scout stopped himself in midsentence, realizing that now was no time to tell the princess about her father's betrayal.
"What about the king?" Brianna demanded. If the haughty tone in her voice was any indication, the princess was recovering fast. "Finish what you were going to say."
Tavis shook his head. "The king didn't offer to pay me anything," he said. The scout pulled Brianna's amulet from his cloak pocket, then pressed it into her hand. "And you can have this back-free of charge."
The princess's mouth fell open. "Where'd you find it?"
"The same place you lost it," he replied curtly.
Tavis turned away and untied the rope from his belt, then sat down on the ledge to pull up Avner and the earl.
"What are you doing?" the princess asked, peering over his shoulder. The bitterness had gone from her voice, but it had not been replaced by any hint that she felt sorry for how she had treated him so far.
"I'm hauling up two people who risked their lives on your behalf," Tavis said.
As the scout fed the rope through his hands, slivers of fiery light began to flicker across the ledge. He glanced back and found Brianna clutching her talisman to her chest, the red glow of her goddess's magic slipping from between her fingers.
"Save some of your healing magic," he said. "These humans are dying of cold and need your help-if it isn't too much trouble for Your Highness."
"Of course not." If the princess noticed the reproach in Tavis's voice, she showed no sign. "Who are they?"
"Avner and Earl Dobbin."
"Really!" Brianna considered this news for a moment, then asked, "And what did my father promise them?"
Tavis did not bother to answer, and before the princess could say anything more an alarmed war cry sounded from above. The scout looked up to see Morten flinging his dagger at something across the glacier.
"Morten?" Brianna gasped. "What's he doing here?"
"He came with us," Tavis explained.
The scout redoubled his efforts to pull his companions up, but raising two humans over such a distance was not an easy task, even for a firbolg.
Brianna sat down beside him, then reached for the rope. "I'll bring them up," she said. "You help Morten."
Tavis did not yield the line. "They're too heavy."
"Don't be ridiculous," the princess said. She grabbed the rope about a foot below Tavis's hands, then began to raise the humans almost as fast as the scout had been doing. "After all, I am a Hartwick."
"So I see," Tavis said, standing. Like almost everyone in Hartsvale, he knew of the supernatural strength of Brianna's father and male ancestors, but this was the first he had heard that the princess shared the gift. "I wonder what other secrets you and the king have been keeping."
Without waiting for a reply, Tavis climbed up to help Morten. By the time he reached the top of the chasm, the bodyguard had already disappeared onto the glacier. From the constant chime of clanging weapons, it sounded as though the firbolg was hard-pressed to defend himself against the ogre pack.
Tavis braced his back against the granite cliff and peered over the lip of the glacier. Directly ahead lay two dead ogres, one with a dagger through his throat and the other missing a head. Morten stood a short distance away, surrounded by the whirling clubs and darting spears of more than a dozen of Goboka's savage warriors.
What the scout saw on the other side of the glacier concerned him more than Morten's situation. The shaman's huge figure was just cresting a ridge of moonlit snow. He was coming, with a large troop of warriors at his back, from the direction of the ice hut. Tavis didn't understand how Goboka had reacted so quickly to his failed plan. The ice hut was on the far side of the glacier, too far away for the shaman to have heard the fight between Morten and the sentries guarding Brianna.
The scout drew his sword and thrust the tip into the soft snow, using it as a handhold while he pulled himself onto the glacier. A dozen paces away, Morten continued to battle the ogres, spinning first in one direction and then the other, his battle-axe slicing through the air in long graceful arcs. With their primitive weapons, his foes could not penetrate his whirling guard, but neither could the bodyguard assault them. As Morten tried to bring his axe to bear, three of the brutes moved forward to strike at his flanks, forcing him to redirect his efforts into driving them back. The ogres were locked into combat just as tightly as the bodyguard. Two of them lowered their clubs and reached for their poisoned arrows, only to have Morten assail them with a vicious series of cross-strikes.
