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Somewhere in the unseen valleys ahead were trees, or so Bria
A dozen paces down the couloir, Goboka stopped. The ogre shaman lifted a boulder off the bottom of the narrow trench, then began a careful examination of the stone. Bria
With an impatient grunt, the shaman dropped the boulder he had been examining and reached for another. Bria
But that was impossible. Even if the ogres had not gagged her with one of their filthy rags, the princess could not have stopped her teeth from chattering long enough to do the job. They were high in the mountains, where the sun's rays were as frigid as ice, and a slabbing, bitter cold crept into the lungs with every breath. To make matters worse, as a way of discouraging another escape attempt, Goboka had burned Bria
Bria
At least Bria
When no guards appeared. Bria
At the front of the ogre line, Goboka picked up a long, narrow stone with a sharp point on each end. With a mighty thrust, he drove one end deep into the ground, planting the stake in the center of the couloir, where the walls stood within twenty paces of each other and the pitch was so steep stones sometimes rolled down the hill with no visible impetus. The shaman tested the pillar to make sure it was steady, then look Runolf's head and placed it on top of the post.
The shaman said something in the deep, guttural voice he used for casting spells, Runolf's eyes popped open. They were not dazed or glassy, as those of a dead man, but seemed fully alert and alive. The traitor's gaze roved over the couloir and came to rest on Bria
Bria
Goboka looked across the valley and raised his hands to his mouth. A loud, wavering cry erupted from his throat, cutting through the wind to crash against the cliffs of the distant mountains. For a moment, there was no answer, until an excited murmur slowly bubbled up from the remote fields beneath Needle Peak. The gray stones stirred, and at first Bria
The disembodied head of Runolf Saemon sat thirty paces down the slope, fixed atop a small rock spire lodged between the craggy walls of the sleep couloir. The sergeant's face was pale with death, his cheeks hollow and his lips the color of ash, but his eyes still seemed very much alive. They were as blue as mountain columbines, with twitching crow's feel at the corners and watchful pupils fixed on Tavis's face.
For a long time, the scout sat on his haunches in the windy notch above the couloir, waiting for Basil and Avner to join him.
More than anything. Tavis wanted to avoid thinking about the gruesome scene below, but his mind would not allow it. His thoughts kept returning to what he saw, searching for an acceptable theory to explain why it was Runolf Saemon's head waiting down there.
There was only one conclusion for Tavis to reach: His mentor had been part of Bria
The only thing Tavis did not understand was why.
The scout fixed his eyes across the valley, where a long file of dark forms was climbing the glacier north of Needle Peak. A cold wind was blowing from that direction, and on its breath Tavis caught faint whiffs of the rancid, sour-milk odor of ogre flesh. Sometimes, he thought there was a more fragrant scent, one he remembered from the princess's visits to the Weary Giant, but his imagination was only playing tricks on him. Bria
The scout's stomach burned with a hollow pain he had felt not too long ago, upon learning of the death of his adoptive mother, Isa Wirr. This time, he could not say for whom he was mourning. Was it for Bria
Tavis forced himself to look down the couloir and met his mentor's gaze. Runolf's eyes were filled with shame and regret, two emotions Tavis had never before seen on the man's face. In life, Runolf had been one of those rare humans as confident in his own moral code as firbolgs were in their laws, a dedicated man who always upheld the strict codes of duty and honor to the letter. How the ogres had corrupted a man of such character, the scout could not imagine. Perhaps when he knew that, he would also know why they had taken Bria