The bodyguard sneered at being relegated to the position of assistant, but, lacking any missile weapons of his own, took the arrows. "Follow my lead. I'll lake five steps and turn left, then three steps and break right, and do the same thing once more," Morten said. "If we're not dead by then, you're on your own."
The two firbolgs scrambled up the bank. Tavis fired at the top of the cliff. Goboka's warriors stood their ground and counterattacked, determined to keep the pair from reaching the copse where Brianna and the hill giant were hiding. The scout's arrow pierced the throat of one brute, then the other ogres released their own bowstrings. Tavis and Morten made their break, narrowly avoiding injury as ogre shafts clattered to the ground beside them.
Avner's sling whistled from the spruce stand. A stone streaked up and glanced off an ogre's shoulder, then Brianna voiced a spell. One of the shafts in the brute's quiver changed into a snake and buried its fangs into his arm. Morten slapped another arrow into Tavis's palm. The scout fired again, the ogres shot back, Avner's sling whistled, and the battle evolved into a flurry of flying shafts and stones.
By the time the firbolgs made their last break, only one ogre remained. He suddenly retreated from the edge of the cliff, and Morten leaned over to rest his hands on his knees.
"Runt. I've got to admit it," the bodyguard panted. "You're a fine archer."
The scout paid the compliment no attention, and not only because the pounding of his heart in his ears made it difficult to hear. Ogres did not abandon their posts, at least not when their shaman was nearby. If the warrior had retreated, it was because there was no longer any need to hold his quarry at bay.
Tavis looked down the gorge and saw that Goboka's magical copse was no longer gliding up the canyon. Rather, the stand was sweeping toward them with all the speed of a wildfire, the roots of the majestic trees slithering over the rocky ground like tentacles. The spruces themselves were swaying madly, their boughs fluttering and snapping like battle flags, and their boles groaning like bloodthirsty banshees.
"Run for the gate!" Tavis yelled.
Brianna and the other humans were already fleeing up the gorge, but the hill giant was not moving. Instead, he remained at the edge of the copse, staring at his unconscious dire wolf.
"Greta!" he wailed.
Tavis could not tell whether the giant was crying out in remorse or commanding his stricken wolf to rise. The scout thrust his bow into Morten's hands, then turned back for the pet. He had no love for dire wolves-he considered them little more than cowardly bullies-but if rescuing the giant's pet would help their dimwitted guide think more clearly, it was worth the risk.
The scout hoisted the beast by its legs and could not help noticing that the thing was a male. "And that churl called me stupid," he muttered. "Greta indeed!"
Tavis hefted the wolf across his shoulders, then turned and ran toward his companions. Greta was a heavy load and slowed him considerably, but the broad grin on the giant's face left no doubt in the scout's mind that he had avoided a lengthy delay by picking up the beast.
"Go on!" Tavis yelled. He did not dare stop to look back down the valley, but knew that they had no time to waste. Goboka's magical copse was coming fast, perhaps faster than any of them could run. "I'll bring Greta!"
The hill giant plucked the three humans off the ground, then stepped into the stream and splashed up the valley. Although the big oaf was rather ungainly and awkward, his long strides covered the ground quickly. Even Morten could not quite keep pace, though he was scrambling along the bank at his best sprint. It was no wonder that Tavis, burdened by Greta's extra weight, quickly fell behind and lost sight of his companions in the rough terrain of the stream channel.
That was fine with Tavis. The hill giant was putting distance between Brianna and Goboka, which seemed a fair trade for bearing the wolf. But the scout could not keep his end of the bargain for much longer. Already his lungs burned with exhaustion, his thighs ached with weariness, and his head pounded from the exertion. He struggled on, determined to outrun the shaman's copse not for his own sake, but for that of the princess. Only he understood the true danger to Brianna-that posed by her treacherous father-and if he allowed himself to die she would never be safe.
The rush of falling water began to hiss through the cramped canyon. The scout looked up to see the slender ribbon of a waterfall spilling over the lip of a high granite wall. Although the tiny cascade was a mere trickle compared to the rumbling monster that had nearly claimed the party earlier, it rose more than a hundred feet high, and Tavis saw no way he could scale such a high cliff with a dire wolf on his back.
