"Ready for rabbit run?" the chieftain boomed. Then, when he was answered by nothing more than an astonished drone, he saw Sart coming toward him and demanded, "Who at High Gate?"
It was the ogre who answered. "High Gate Goboka's now." He waved his arm around the room. "All this be Goboka's, soon."
Noote bared his filed teeth in displeasure. "What you mean, ugly pip-squeak?" he demanded. "Goboka dead!"
The ogre's jaw dropped, and he knitted his sloped brow in confusion. He studied Noote for a moment, then his purple eyes twinkled with understanding. "Liar, fat giant!" he accused. "Goboka send me to talk."
The queen's eyes flashed toward the far end of the palace, where Brianna was probably hanging by now, then she narrowed her eyes and bit her lip in thought. Morten needed no magic to know she now realized the princess had lied about the shaman's demise.
The ogre fixed his purple eyes on the queen's face, then said, "Goboka say give Brianna, or Gray Wolves all dead by dusk."
Keeping her eyes fixed on the ogre, the queen leaned over to whisper in Noote's ear. If Morten wanted to keep the hill giants from returning Brianna to Goboka, he had to do something now.
Dragging the heavy pole along with him, Morten took a few quick steps and planted his heel in the ogre's ribs, pushing the brute to the ground with a powerful thrust. "If you want Brianna, you have to race me," he growled. "Make the rabbit run!"
"Big fun!" yelled a nearby giant.
Such a clamor broke out that Noote could only scowl in frustration as he tried to hear his whispering queen. Finally, he gave up and shrugged her off.
"Grab ogre!" he bellowed at Sart. "New game today: rabbit race!"
Morten told himself that racing the ogre would make it easier to rescue Brianna. With two rabbits in the race, he would be kicked by only half as many hill giants.
But the bodyguard didn't believe it.
When Avner heard the footsteps echoing out of the fault cave, his weary body jerked so hard that it nearly sent him plunging into the valley below. He braced his hands against the wet timbers and carefully pushed away from the edge of the platform, at the same time trying to swallow the cold lump of panic that had risen into his throat.
The youth's concentration had been so consumed by the scene below, where the dark figures of Goboka's horde had quietly surrounded all the hill giant lodges, that he had entirely forgotten the possibility stragglers might be coming through the cave at dawn. Now he feared he would pay a terrible price for his oversight. Hiding was out of the question, since he had been peering over the edge of the timber platform, consequently lying in plain sight, when he heard the sound. Nor could he flee, since the only direction to go was down into the valley with the ogres.
Still, the youth was not about to give up. After Goboka had opened the gate, Avner had spent half the night clinging to the timbers beneath the platform, hiding from the ogre packs as they sporadically came slinking out of the cave. Only his terror and the pain of his broken arm kept him from freezing to death. Despite the ruthlessness with which their shaman was driving them, the brutes seemed as alert and as dangerous as ever, and the boy spent the entire time horrified that his teeth would start chattering and give him away, or that one of them would sense him shivering through vibrations in the platform's timber floor. But somehow he escaped detection, and they stopped coming, leaving only a pair of sentries behind to guard the cave mouth.
The young thief disposed of the first sentry by chirping softly until one of the brutes, no doubt thinking to make a meal of the birds nesting beneath the platform, stuck his head down to investigate. Avner attacked quickly and savagely, driving his dagger into his foe's exposed gullet. Leaving the blade buried there, he used his good hand to grab the stunned ogre's greasy topknot and pull him over edge. The warrior plummeted into the dark night, the knife in his throat preventing him from voicing a scream that might draw the notice of his fellows below.
The ogre had not even hit bottom before the boy was silently climbing up through the chain slots. As expected, the second sentry was kneeling close to where his partner had disappeared. Although the brute's attention was fixed on the edge, he was not foolish enough to expose himself as his companion had done. Instead, he had a shaft nocked in his bow, and was listening for more sounds from beneath the platform. Moving as quietly as only a terrified thief can, Avner crept a half dozen steps across the platform, then pulled a poisoned arrow from the warrior's quiver and plunged the tip deep into his back.
