No, Gaborn’s best chance was to let the giant draw close, bend near enough to sniff him, so that Gaborn could pull his saber and slice the monster’s throat. Quickly, quietly.

“Friend,” Gaborn said softly, reassuringly. He dropped the horse’s reins as the giant approached, dropped his bow. The giant warily leaned on his pole, hunched forward, sniffed from ten feet away. Far, too far.

It drew a foot closer, sniffed again. Frowth giants do not have keen noses. The monster must have been two feet between the eyes. Its broad nose wrinkled as it sniffed.

Gaborn smelled rotting meat on its breath, saw dried blood matted into its fur. It had fed on carrion recently.

It drew half a step closer. Gaborn ambled forward, making soft noises as if he were a friendly soldier trying to prove himself.

The size of the beast overwhelmed him. I am nothing beside it. Nothing. It could lift me like a pup. The beast’s huge paws were each almost as long as Gaborn’s body. It did not matter that Gaborn was a Runelord. Those enormous paws could smash his bones, rake through his muscles.

The silver eyes drew near, each as large as a plate. Not the throat, Gaborn realized. It was too far for a lunge. Don’t stab the throat. The eye. The huge silver eyes were not protected by thick pelt.

The creature was old, its face scarred beneath the fur. One of the ancients, then, that had come over the northern ice. A venerable creature. Gaborn wished he knew some of its tongue, had some way to bribe it.

The frowth giant knelt forward, sniffed, and its eyes drew wide in surprise.

Gaborn pulled his saber and lunged, ramming the blade deep. The blade twisted when it hit the giant’s eye, slid behind the socket, far into the monster’s brain. Gaborn wrenched his saber and danced aside, slicing as he pulled free. He was unprepared for the volume of blood that gushed from the wound.

The giant lurched back, grabbing its eye. Its lower jaw went slack in that moment. It bolted upright, staggered a pace to the left, and raised its muzzle to the sky.

Even as it died, the giant bellowed in warning. A thunderous howl shook the forest.

And all around Gaborn, to the north, south, and west, giants howled in answer.

5

IN THE DEDICATES’ TOWER

Below Castle Sylvarresta that evening, the city lay quiet, hushed. Traders from the South had come in unusually large numbers throughout the day—caravans bringing valuable spices and dyes, ivory and cloth from Indhopal.

Bright silk pavilions decorated the greens before the castle, the lanterns within the tents making them glow like multicolored gems—jade, emerald, topaz, and sapphire.

From the dark, forbidding stone of the castle walls, it seemed a beautiful yet discomfiting sight.