As the creature glared at her, the princess realized that she had been mistaken about its species. The thing was not a wolf, but its cousin, a dire wolf-twice as large, nasty tempered, and not nearly as smart.

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!" * 12* Rog's Gate

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.

Tavis dived over the dire wolf the ogres had injured with their first volley, cursed silently as he rolled across jagged rocks, and came up running. He heard bowstrings snap as the fastest of his enemies loosed their arrows. The scout hurled himself over a fallen log into a stand of trees. He did not see where the shafts landed, but none hit him.

Tavis crawled beneath the low-hanging boughs of a spearhead spruce, then stood up behind its bole and nocked another ogre arrow. When he peered around the trunk to take aim, he saw that the three warriors he had wounded earlier were in various stages of collapse, one teetering at the cliff's edge, one holding himself off the ground with his hands and knees, the last lying unconscious with the arrow still lodged in his arm.

The scout fired again, picking, as he had before, a target in the second rank. The arrow gashed two ogres before shattering against the mountainside. This time, Tavis had plenty of time to watch his targets collapse, for those who had not been wounded finally understood the strategy of his glancing shots and were scrambling to open some space between themselves. The poison did not drop the wounded ogres immediately, for they had received only minute doses as the tip grazed them. Still, the toxin was powerful. Their knees began to wobble, then abruptly buckled, and both dropped in the same instant-one knocking the teetering warrior over the cliff.

The five uninjured warriors kneeled at the edge of the precipice, arrows nocked and ready. They seemed content to hold their fire as long as their quarry made no move to escape. The ogres had no reason to press the attack: reinforcements would arrive soon enough.

Tavis fired another arrow. He waited long enough to see his target drop flat and narrowly escape death, then the scout ducked back behind his spruce trunk. Four ogre shafts answered his attack, two of them passing so close they peeled the bark from his cover. The arrows had not even planted themselves in the ground before Tavis was sprinting from his stand of trees.

"This way!" He leaped over the fallen wolf and dodged toward the stream where Morten had taken cover, motioning for Brianna and Avner to follow him.

The ogres' bowstrings snapped, and the scout threw himself headlong into the water. After splashing into the middle of the icy stream, he climbed to Morten's side and peered over the bank. Along with Avner and Earl Dobbin, Brianna was still hiding in a stand of trees with the hill giant.

Tavis nocked an arrow. "I'll cover you!" be yelled. "Hurry! We've got to get out of here!"

Avner stepped from his hiding place to obey Tavis, and the ogres drew their bowstrings back to fire. Then the hill giant's long arm lashed out and snatched the boy up.