The bodyguard felt the cold fingers of panic slipping around his heart, at least until he realized that it wasn't an ogre that had fired the shaft. Tavis's crimson-skinned figure stood a short distance beyond the queen, with a scrap of filthy hide tied loosely about his waist and the fomorians standing to either side of him. The scout was trying to nock another arrow, though he was so weak that he could not stand without leaning against the leg of the female dancing slave.
"Save your strength!" Morten yelled.
The bodyguard allowed Noote to continue his charge. Then, when the hill giant stooped over to reach for him, the firbolg hurled his axe. The weapon tumbled through the air once, then lodged its blade deep in the chieftain's forehead.
Morten dove away, catching a glimpse of Noote's eyes growing blank as he pitched forward. The hill giant's body did not fall clear to the ground, instead lodging against the wall below Brianna's feet.
The firbolg picked himself up, then climbed Noote's back and stood on the hill giant's shoulders as he plucked Brianna off the wall.
"Nice axe work," the princess commented. "Now let's get out of here-and fast!"
Morten glanced over his shoulder and saw that some of the hill giants had decided it would be easier to go out the entrance than to try squeezing out the holes the ogres had opened in the center of their palace. About two dozen of the huge warriors were rushing toward the exit, bellowing war cries and whirling clubs over their heads.
"Fools," Morten commented. He began to unwrap Brianna. "Goboka will expect that."
"But I bet he won't be expecting that, will he?"
The princess pulled her arm free of her loosened bindings and pointed to Tavis. The scout and his fomorian rescuers were rushing straight toward the side of the room, desperately attempting to avoid the giants charging down the center of the lodge. As Morten and Brianna watched, the fomorians linked arms and lowered their shoulders, then hurled themselves through the wall with a tremendous crash.
"Let's go," Brianna ordered. She pulled the rope off her legs and tossed it aside, then started to run. "We don't want to get left behind."
A few moments after the fomorians opened the gaping hole in the side of the Fir Palace, Tavis and his companions rushed through it. The scout ran between Morten and Brianna, who had snatched up two battered hill giant bucklers to screen the trio's flanks. Although the shields were as large and heavy as tower doors, the princess's ancestral strength allowed her to carry hers as easily the bodyguard did his. The small company did not bother to guard against frontal assaults, for their fomorian allies had ripped a huge section of hides from the lodge wall as they exited, then cut a broad swath through the ogre lines by hurling this tattered canopy over the heads of their would-be attackers.
Tavis and his companions made it only three steps out of the lodge before ogre arrows began to pound the shields on both flanks. The assault sounded like some sort of crazy drumbeat, reverberating through the wood with an erratic cadence of thumps and thuds. Tiny splits appeared in the thick planks, each sprouting the dark tip of an iron arrowhead. The venomous points were not yet penetrating far enough to be dangerous, but the scout knew that soon a shaft would split one of the gray slats and pierce the flesh of a shield-bearer.
Though Tavis was not carrying either of the heavy shields, he found it difficult to keep pace with his companions. Both his mangled arm and the gash in his side throbbed with a deep, boiling pain, while Noote's torture had scalded his skin to such a degree that he felt as though wasps were stinging every inch of his body. But his thirst caused the worst suffering. The scout had lost so much sweat during the steaming that he felt like he had not drunk water in a tenday. He could hardly draw breath past his swollen tongue, and his joints burned with the fiery ache of fever. Even the spots swimming before his eyes seemed ready to sink into darkness.
Despite his weariness, the scout nocked an arrow as they stepped onto the canopy the fomorians had laid over the ogre lines. Soon, the warriors flanking them would be in position to try for rear shots. He had to be ready to answer. Trying to summon the strength to draw Bear Driller's bowstring, Tavis glanced over his shoulders-then a tremendous echoing crash rolled over him as the Fir Palace came apart, untanned hides and fir trunks flying in every direction.
At first, Tavis thought Goboka had blasted the lodge with a spell-until he saw the hill giants, following the example of their fomorian slaves, come crashing through the walls. The whole lodge seemed to be exploding, like a hive no longer able to contain its angry bees, and suddenly there were giants everywhere.
