Tavis dropped the dire wolf and reached for his sword.

"No, stupid firbolg!" The hill giant's voice came booming down from above. "Bring Greta."

A coil of greasy rope splashed into the stream. Tavis looked up to see the hill giant straddling the top of the waterfall. Morten and the humans were nowhere in sight. Snatching the wolf, the scout jumped into the water. Holding Greta under one arm, he barely managed to slip the line around his chest before the loop tightened and he was yanked off the ground, a steady spray of cold water crashing down on his head.

Several spruce trees lunged forward and scratched their prickly boughs across his legs. Tavis kicked so madly that he almost dropped Greta, but his efforts did not keep a limb from twining itself around his ankle. The scout's ascent ended with an abrupt jerk. His leg nearly popped from its socket, and the rope bore down so hard that his breath left his chest in a single huff of agony.

From the top of the waterfall, the hill giant let out a deep grunt and continued to pull. The loop around Tavis's chest tightened until he feared it would crush his ribs, and the joints in his leg felt as though they might burst apart. Greta began to slip out from beneath bis arm. He dug his fingers into the wolf's fur, knowing that if he dropped the beast, the giant would drop him.

Tavis looked down and could hardly believe what he saw. The hill giant had pulled him, with an entire spearhead spruce dangling from the limb wrapped around his ankle, more than halfway up the waterfall. The tree's roots were waving in mad circles, as though the thing were actually frightened, and it was reaching up with several other limbs to secure a better grip on the scout.

Screaming in anger, Tavis drew his sword and hacked at the branch around his ankle. His blade cleaved it in a single blow, slicing through with a sick pop that sounded more like he had cut bone and tendon than wood. The tree dropped away, its limbs and roots flailing madly, and splintered against the rocky streambed with a tremendous crash.

Then, as the hill giant tugged Tavis to the top of the waterfall, the spearhead's color changed from needle-green to flesh-gray. Its trunk flattened into the oblong form of a chest its roots twisted themselves into a pair of legs, and its branches withered into two gangling arms, one ending at the wrist The tree began to shrink, its tip coalescing into a brutish head with the jutting chin and squinting, purple eyes of a dead ogre.

Tavis looked at his own leg and saw that the branch clinging to his ankle had become the brute's severed hand. Before he could kick it away, the scout felt himself being swung over the cliff. He was gently lowered and placed on a granite bank beside the waterfall, then the hill giant took Greta from him and stroked the wolf's fur.

"Thank you, stupid firbolg."

"You're welcome," Tavis huffed. He pulled the ogre's hand off his ankle and flung it over the waterfall. "But call me Tavis, not stupid firbolg."

The giant smiled down at him, showing the stubs of a dozen brown teeth. "Rog." The finger he used to jab his burly chest was the size of short sword. "Friends?"

Tavis returned the grin, and not just out of politeness. Hill giants were not known for repaying debts of honor, but if Rog felt grateful enough to offer his friendship, perhaps be would make a good ally.

"Yes, friends." Tavis did not raise his arm to shake hands, for hill giants interpreted such gestures as an attempt to steal something. "May our fellowship endure as long as the mountains."

"Longer!" boomed the hill giant.

"Then may it last as long as there is sky above and ground below," Tavis corrected.

Glancing over the waterfall into the gorge, the scout saw that Goboka's magical copse was rapidly changing back to its true form. All of the spruces had shrunk to proper size for ogres. Each tree stood on two crooked legs instead of a tangle of roots. Half of them were rushing forward, their boughs twining together to form long gangling arms, while the rest seemed to be plucking bows and arrows from the midst of their brandies.

As Tavis watched, a huge crow stepped from behind an ogre-tree near the back of the stand and glared up at him with an eye as black as an abyss. It cackled angrily, then stretched its wings.

"Rog, we'd better run for your gate," Tavis said. "I have a feeling there's more ogre blood than crow blood running through that bird's veins."

Rog's eyes went blank. "Huh?"

The crow launched itself into the air.

"That bird's really an ogre shaman," Tavis explained,

He stepped away from the cliff edge. "And if we let him catch us in the open, neither one of us will live long enough to appreciate our new friendship."

"Tavis not worry," Rog said. "Gate here."

The scout turned around and saw the small pond from which the waterfall flowed. To all sides of the pool rose sheer walls of stone, their dark faces streaked with runnels of water trickling down from the shelves of blue ice hanging upon every ledge. There was no gate anywhere, at least that Tavis could see, nor any other passage out of the tarn valley.

Tavis was about to ask about the gate, and his companions, when he noticed the rest of Rog's wolf pack swimming near the base of a cliff. They were circling outside a black crevice that the scout had, at first, taken to be merely a streak of dark stone, but which he now realized was a fissure in the mountainside.

With Greta tucked under one arm, the hill giant stepped into the icy water and waded toward the crevice. After sheathing his sword, Tavis followed. The bottom disappeared from beneath his feet, but the swim was a short one, and he quickly found himself trailing Rog's wolves into the fissure. He paused inside the entrance to look back across the pool and saw Goboka, in crow form, rising above the waterfall.

Tavis turned around and resumed his swim, following the wolves into a narrow channel of dark water. The cove continued about fifty paces before coming to a gently sloping bank of dry granite. The scout's companions sat upon this craggy shore, waiting for him.

Brianna held what passed for a torch among hill giants, a burning sapling so large she had to support it with both hands. By the brand's light, Tavis could see that they had entered a fault cave, a sort of crack in the mountain between two unimaginably huge blocks of rock. Unlike limestone caverns that wandered along the winding courses of ancient underground streams, fault caves ran in straight passages and sharp angles.

This one was no exception. Beyond his companions, the scout saw a long, narrow corridor leading toward the heart of the mountain. Rog had already finished his long swim and was starting to crawl up the passage on his hands and knees. The tunnel was large enough that even Morten could stand in it, but the massive hill giant could barely squeeze through. His great rear-end was dragging against both walls at once, while his broad back was perilously close to becoming lodged in the confines of the crack's narrowing ceiling. The giant could not have turned around if his life depended on it.

Ahead of Tavis, the first wolf crawled out of the pool and shook, spraying Brianna and the others with icy water. A moment later, the scout's feet touched bottom and he began to wade forward, waiting his turn in line. Morten slipped around the wolf and held Bear Driller out to Tavis.

"Here's your bow, runt." The bodyguard was not ridding himself of an unwanted burden so much as promptly returning another warrior's weapon. "Glad the ogres didn't get you."

"I wanted to wait for you," said Avner, "but Rog wouldn't put me down."

"Which is just as well," added Earl Dobbin. He stepped deeper into the passage, trying to keep himself from being sprayed as the wolves continued to crawl from the icy waters. "Our goal is to save Princess Brianna, not your wretched master."