“Myrrima is inside,” the girl mumbled. She fled into the house. Borenson quickly came out, Myrrima on his arm.

“It is a beautiful autumn day.” Gaborn smiled at Borenson. “I smell sunbaked wheat fields on the wind, and autumn leaves, and . . . treachery.”

Borenson gaped at the fog, perplexed. “I thought it was getting cloudy,” he said, “I had no idea. . . .” He would not have been able to see the fog through the house’s parchment windows. He sniffed. Borenson had four endowments of scent. His nose was far keener than Gaborn’s. “Giants. Frowth giants.” He asked Myrrima, “Do you have many giants around here?”

“No,” she said, surprised. “I’ve never seen one.”

“Well, I smell them. A lot of them,” Borenson said.

He looked into Gaborn’s eyes. They both knew something odd was afoot. Gaborn had come hours ahead of schedule.

Gaborn whispered, “Assassins rode into town. Muyyatin. At least ten are on the road north to Castle Sylvarresta, but I saw none on my way here.”

“I’ll scout this out,” Borenson said. “It could well be that someone is laying a trap for your father. His retinue will pass through town tomorrow.”

“Wouldn’t I be safer with you?” Gaborn asked.

Borenson considered, nodded. He retrieved his own horse from behind the house, just as the Days rode up through the mist.

“We’ll be back in a bit,” Gaborn told Myrrima, then spurred his stallion out into the meadow behind her cottage. He felt uneasy leaving her, with giants about. Yet he and Borenson were certainly riding into danger.

A slight breeze sighed from the north, carrying the haze. They rode toward it, over green meadows. The river twisted west, and they soon found themselves riding along the banks of River Dwindell, on a hay trail.

Along the river, the unnatural fog deepened, rising in a great cloud, making it dark, dark enough so swallows quit dipping in the water, and instead a few bats began diving for insects. Fireflies rose like green sparks out of the bushes. The grass along the river was deep, lush, but cropped short.

All along here in the floodplain the farmers had harvested hay. The haycocks stood out along the river, like great rocks in a sea, and each time Gaborn saw one rising from the mist, he wondered if it was a giant, wondered if a giant might be hiding behind it.

Gaborn could smell giants now, too. Their greasy hair smelled bitter, the musk and dung on their skins overwhelming. Mold and lichens grew on their aging bodies.

Until a hundred and twenty years ago, no one in all Rofehavan had heard of frowth giants. Then, a tribe of four hundred of the huge creatures had come over the northern ice one winter, battle-scarred, fearful. Many of them wounded.