Once he felt the glacier beneath his feel, Tavis hefted his sword and silently rushed across the snow, announcing his arrival by slicing into an ogre's neck. The target's head flew off and crashed into another warrior, who was so startled that he howled in alarm and dropped his guard. Morten took quick advantage of the brute's surprise, cleaving him down the center with a single axe-blow. The battle turned against the ogre pack then, and the flashing blades of the two firbolgs made quick worn of their enemies. Within moments, more than a dozen of the brutes lay motionless, their lifeblood draining out to form dark stains on the glacier's milky surface.
"You're no idle braggart," Tavis said. He kneeled down to clean his bloody sword in the snow. That was fine axe work."
"You helped," Morten grunted. He looked toward the horde of ogres approaching across the glacier, then said. "I wasn't expecting them so soon."
"Me either," Tavis said. "It'll complicate our escape."
"What of Brianna?" the bodyguard asked. "Can she run?"
"The princess is well enough," Tavis said, using snow to numb the painful bile she had left on his hand. "But her ordeal has certainly taken its toll on her manners."
"I'm sure the king will show enough gratitude for both of us," said Brianna's voice. "But I have no intention of growing maudlin just because I'm free from the ogres. I'm hardly fool enough to believe that you-or Earl Dob bin-saved me out of the goodness of your hearts. And why you brought Avner along, I'll never understand. This is no place for a child!"
The scout spun around in time to see the princess crawling out of the nunatak hollow. She had wrapped a foul-smelling bear skin around her shoulders, securing the improvised cloak in place with a small piece of rope. Tucked into this makeshift belt was the dagger Tavis had left beside her on the ledge, and from one hand dangled the rope to which the humans were tied.
Morten rushed to her side. "Milady, are you well?"
"Better than you were when I last saw you," she replied. "But you look fine now. What happened?"
Morten looked away, as though ashamed that he had not died in the battle with the ogres. "Tavis and his thieves took me to the castle," he explained. "Simon healed me."
Brianna glanced toward Tavis. "My gratitude." For the first time, there was a hint of warmth in the princess's voice. "I'll see to it that Father rewards you."
"I doubt that will be as easy as you think," Tavis replied. "But right now, we have more pressing concerns."
The scout pointed across the glacier. Goboka was now so close they could see the moonlight gleaming in his eyes, and his horde was close behind. Most of the ogres seemed to be armed with clubs or spears, but those running closest to the shaman's immense form carried their bows in their hands. Apparently, the shaman hoped to ensure Brianna's safety by allowing only his most trusted marksmen to fire arrows.
When Brianna saw the charging pack, she handed the coil to Morten. "Pull that up," she ordered. "Fast."
"How are the humans?" Tavis asked. "Are they well enough to run?"
Brianna raised her brow, regarding the scout as though he had lost his mind. "It was all I could do to save their lives," she said. "They were practically ice blocks."
"We'll carry them," Morten said.
With an effortless jerk, the bodyguard pulled the two humans onto the glacier. Brianna had swaddled them both in furs, so that Tavis could tell them apart only by the relative size difference between the boy and the man. The princess cut the rope binding them together, then passed Avner to Tavis and Dobbin to Morten.
"What about Basil?" Morten asked, throwing the earl over his shoulder.
"We won't save him by waiting here," Tavis replied, hefting Avner onto his own shoulder. "He can catch us later."
"Who's Basil?" Brianna asked.
Tavis turned away from the ogres and started to run, at the same time explaining, "The verbeeg you saw in my barn."
"He's a part of this?"
The princess had hardly finished her question when a tremendous shudder rumbled up from the heart of the glacier. Tavis's feet slipped from beneath him, and he dropped to his side, his fall cushioned by the soft corn snow on top of the glacier. Brianna and Morten also fell The bodyguard landed atop his burden, drawing a muffled cry of anger from Earl Dobbin.
"Did Goboka do that?" Morten gasped.
Tavis looked back and saw a great crevasse opening across the glacier, more or less above the ice cave through which they had crawled. Dozens of ogre warriors had already disappeared into the rift, and more were spilling into it as the abyss widened.
"It wasn't the shaman," Tavis reported. "My guess is that Basil's rune caused that explosion."
Morten stared at the growing crevasse in awe, then shook his head and picked up the bundle containing Earl Dobbin. "We can't tarry here."
