When the dire wolf began to snarl. Brianna quickly lowered her eyes so it would know she wasn't challenging it, then raised her hand to Hiatea's amulet. Me little no threat, she thought, using her goddess's magic to project the message to the beast. Big wolf leader wolf. Don't hurt.
The message seemed to satisfy the wolf. It merely snapped at her face a couple of times, then quickly retreated before Rog noticed what was happening. Brianna breathed a sigh of relief, then repeated the message as the hill giant lowered her two human companions beside her.
Rog was just raising his arms again when Tavis's panicked voice drifted down. "Here we come!"
In the next instant, both Tavis and Morten came soaring over the top of the cliff, followed instantly by a flight of dark arrows. As the shafts sailed across the gorge, rattling harmlessly off the far wall, Rog's eyes opened wide as bucklers. He tried to position his cupped palms first under the scout, then under the bodyguard. Finally, he gave up and threw a hand out toward each one. The firbolgs hit the giant with a mighty crash, then all three figures went tumbling down the slope amidst a cloud of dust. The dire wolves bounded after them howling in glee, trying in vain to catch up and join the fun.
Taking her lead from the beasts, Brianna grabbed her human companions by the wrists and started down the slope. "The ogres can't be far behind."
"They aren't," Earl Dobbin assured her.
The three humans approached the bottom of the hill just as the dire wolves caught up with Rog and the two firbolgs, who were still rolling across the rocks toward the small stream. The beasts leaped into the fray with snapping jaws and wagging tails.
"Off, Anouk!" commanded Rog. "Back, Elke!"
If anything, the hill giant's orders only made the wolves more determined to continue the tussle-until one of the beasts suddenly sprouted a dark shaft in its flank. The creature yelped in pain and limped from the jumble, collapsing less than ten steps away. The other dire wolves scattered instantly, breaking for the nearest stand of woods. Brianna and the other two humans followed their lead.
"Firbolgs!" Rog yelled, finally getting a look at his companions. The hill giant scrambled to his knees, then began squinting at the ground in search of his club. "Hate firbolgs!"
"We don't think much of giants, either!" Morten yelled back.
The bodyguard pushed Rog over, then reached for the battle-axe tucked into his belt. Tavis simply rolled away, content to have the hill giant's immense bulk off his body.
"Morten! Rog!" Brianna yelled. "Leave that till later. We have real problems!"
The princess pointed up the slope, to where a pack of Goboka's warriors were drawing their bowstrings. Rog and the firbolgs hurled themselves in three different directions. In the same instant, a chorus of strums sounded from the ogre bows, then a flurry of arrows clattered to the ground where the trio had been wrestling a moment before.
"Go!" Tavis yelled. As he rose, the scout grabbed a handful of black arrows from the ground. "Take cover!"
Neither Morten nor Rog needed to be told twice. Morten scrambled away on his hands and knees, then found protection by slipping over the bank of the small stream. Rog launched himself toward the nearest stand of spruce, crashing into the trees at Brianna's side.
"Ogres!" he gasped. His face was as pale as snow. "Now Rog want a hundred horses!"
Crouched behind a boulder barely large enough to conceal him, Tavis nocked one of the black arrows. The shaft was too short for Bear Driller's draw, so it would not have as much power as one of his own arrows. But, having lost his quiver to the river, it was the best the scout had. He could still generate enough force to pierce his enemy's thick hide, and, thanks to the poisoned tip, nothing more was required.
Tavis poked his head up, heard the expected chord of humming bowstrings, then ducked back down. A host of black shafts scraped over the top of the boulder and rattled to the rocky ground behind him. The scout jumped up and raised his pilfered arrow toward the gorge rim, where a pack of ogre warriors stood clustered three-deep. He aimed at one of the brutes in the second rank and released his bowstring.
The shaft sailed toward the cliff top at an agonizingly slow pace. It seemed to float more than fly, allowing the target and the two warriors in front of him plenty of time to see that it was coming for them. They tried to dodge, but the pack stood so tightly crammed they could hardly move. The arrow nicked the shoulder of one of the ogres in the front, then sliced across the chest of the original target as he tried to twist away, and finally lodged in the arm of an astonished warrior in the third rank. None of the injured ogres fell, and the rest of the pack were already pulling arrows from their quivers to counterattack.
