|
"Lord High Scout."
The men uttered the
exclamation together, then one continued, "But you--Avner said you fell
to the fire giants!"
"I did." Tavis returned the
lance he had taken, then pressed his hand over his bleeding wound.
"But--"
"But Tavis Burdun always
honors his duty," interrupted Brianna. Her voice was hardly more than a
whisper. "Even if he must cheat death to do it."
"Firbolgs can't cheat,
milady," he replied. "You know that."
Tavis sheathed his sword and
faced his wife. She had a pearly grin upon her lips and a violet sparkle
in her eyes, but her joy could not hide how hard the last hours had been
for her. She looked haggard and weak. Her golden hair was
sweat-plastered to her head, and her complexion was more pale than
alabaster. Her pain showed in the lines etched into her brow and around
her mouth, and her cheeks were as sunken and hollow as a corpse's.
Although her belly was no longer swollen in pregnancy, Front Rider
Gryffitt was carefully sewing shut the long incision that someone had
cut across the lower part of her abdomen.
Tavis could hardly bring
himself to look away from the wound. If he had not seen the joy in her
eyes, he would have assumed that one of their enemies had cut the child
from her womb.
Tavis knelt at his wife's
side. "What happened?" he asked. "How badly are you hurt?"
"I'm fine." Brianna's voice
was as serene as moonlit snow. "And Tavis--I have something to show
you."
The queen opened her cloak.
There, suckling at her breast, was the most hideous infant Tavis had
ever seen. The baby was the size of a two-year old, with stubby limbs
and pudgy red fingers that pinched at its mother's flesh like talons. It
had dull brown eyes as ravenous as they were vacant, a short pug nose,
bloated cheeks, and blood-red lips. Sparse tuffs of wiry black hair
covered its fat, round head, and the thing resembled a goblin more than
a child.
"Well, Tavis?" Brianna
asked. "Don't you think he looks like you?" |
