Valiant (9 page)

“There were two giants, and now they are gone. Not killed. Gone.” It seemed important that he know the truth about my role as giant killer. “That’s all.”

Fine Coat narrowed his eyes, as if he suddenly recognized me. “Do I know—?”

I didn’t give him a chance to finish the question. I pointed at Will. “He’s hurt! If you have any honor, you’ll let me help the boy.”

For a moment, the nobleman stood there, studying my face.

I couldn’t breathe around the fear, but I folded my arms and glared up at him.

One heartbeat. Two. Then he let me pass.

“It’s the champion!” Someone lunged forward and tugged at my shirt, yanking me off balance. “Show us your arm, giant killer!”

I twisted to free myself, but Fine Coat was faster.

“Stand back! Give them room!”

I heard the ring of a sword being drawn, and I sensed the crowd pull back as Fine Coat moved to stand between us and the crowd.

“Will?” I knelt beside him.

His eyes opened. Focused on me. He swiped at the wetness on his cheeks, his face taut with pain. “It hurts, Sir.”

I tried to keep the fear from my eyes. His right foot was twisted at a grotesque angle. Small tremors kept rattling his frame, and he was pale—too pale. I wanted to push his dust-filled hair back from his eyes, but didn’t dare indulge in such a feminine gesture.

“I told you not to go giant hunting,” I whispered.

“But you got me back and”—Will pointed to Fine Coat—“he carried me the last bit. I couldn’t—”

I shook my head. “You are the bravest here, Will. Do you hear me? No one was as brave as you.”

Oh, he was pale. Even his freckles looked faded.

“Did you kill them?” Will asked, though I could hardly hear his voice over the crowd. “They say you killed the giants.”

I made a face, almost comforted that he was well enough to long for gore. “Don’t be daft. The giants think I’m stronger than they are, thanks to cheese and a bird and the cannons.”

He wasn’t interested in such details. “Why didn’t you kill them?”

“You
are
daft,” I said. “Did they hurt your head as well?”

I put my hand on his forehead then—roughly, the way a man might. He was covered with cold sweat, and the dust that covered my hands left a rusty smudge on his face. I needed to get him out of the crowd.

I stood and yanked on Fine Coat’s sleeve to get his attention. “He needs a doctor! He—”

A shout rose above the crowd. “Make way! Way for the guard on castle business! We seek the champion!”

Eight or ten of the castle guard inched toward us, escorting a thin-faced herald. The horses they rode liked the mob as little as I did, shying every now and then, their ears flat against their heads.

The guard in charge, a bulky man with small eyes, drew his sword and brandished it until the crowd parted. “We have a message for the champion! Make way for the guard and the king’s herald!”

I’d just faced the giants. What could the court have to say about it?

Whatever it was would be more than a message. King Eldin would want to see me himself. I imagined being led to a bath, a page telling me I couldn’t see the king looking so filthy.…

I couldn’t go to the castle. Not as the champion. They’d find me out.

I tugged on Fine Coat’s sleeve. “Please! I don’t care about the castle. We must go. Can you take us home? I’ll tell you everything that’s happened, anything you want to know.”

Fine Coat peered down at me, then at the guards. “What—?”

Stupid, stupid
 … I’d been too anxious.

I drew in a deep breath. “Please. I need to find a doctor for Will.”

Too late. The small-eyed guard dismounted and stood before us, face flushed, sword held before him. He was not pleased to see Fine Coat.

Fine Coat was not pleased to see him, either. His jaw tensed and he folded his arms.

The guard wiped his shining forehead with his arm, and spat, just missing Fine Coat’s boots. “Lord Verras.”

So that was his name
. He didn’t flinch away, just nodded. “Pergam.”

Pergam squinted up at Verras and spat again. The spittle landed on the boot this time. “Here you are in the middle of things again. It’ll be my pleasure to tell Leymonn.”

Lord Verras stood straighter. “I’ll tell him myself. It
is
my job, after all.”

Pergam peered at me and chuckled, a mean little sound for such a big man. “It’s the small ones that are the fighters, every time.” Then he turned to face the crowd and shouted, “Silence, you! Hear King Eldin’s decree!”

The herald spoke into the hush Pergam had created. “By decree of King Eldin, descendant of the Great Emperor, king of Reggen and all its territories …”

I turned to run, but stopped when I saw Will smiling up at me. I couldn’t leave him.
There must be a way to carry him back home, to
—

Lord Verras tugged me back to face the herald. “Your name …,” he prompted.

I blinked up at him. What had I missed?

“They want to know your name … lad,” said Verras.

I squared my shoulders and jutted my chin just a little. The herald looked at me expectantly.

“It’s …”
Would Lord Verras notice the similarity between Avi and Saville?

Pergam waved his sword. “Give us your name!”

“I’m a tailor!” It was no answer, but I didn’t think Pergam or the herald would notice.

But I felt Lord Verras’s attention, bright as the sun. He knew something wasn’t right.

“Wait,” he murmured, almost to himself.

Pergam and the herald didn’t hear, or didn’t care. The herald turned back to the crowd. “The valiant tailor is welcomed to the castle. He will be made a guest of honor there!”

“No!” Lord Verras stepped toward the little man, but Pergam shouldered into him. Verras was tall, but Pergam was broad—and all too happy to thwart Verras.

The announcement rolled on. “He will advise the king of
the weaknesses of the giant army. And … according to the king’s proclamation, he will prepare for his wedding to the princess!”

What was King Eldin doing, giving the princess away to someone he’d never met? Had his fear of the duke and his army made him that stupid?

A cheer rose up from the crowd.
Idiots!

“But I’m a—tailor!” I shouted.

The cheers rose louder.

“Oh, the sweet boy! He’ll be a good husband to her, that one!”

“Not grasping like some of those knights.”

Lord Verras looked as if he wanted to strike the herald. Instead, he plucked a wide-brimmed hat off the head of a field-worker and jammed the hat on my head, tugging the brim low over my brow. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, as if congratulating me, and muscled me toward a horse.

I twisted away. “Will!”

Verras tugged me back toward the horse. “You need to leave. Now,” he whispered. “And, for pity’s sake, don’t let anyone see your face.”

I scowled up at him, but his expression stopped me flat. He knew. Somehow he knew.

“He’s wearing my hat!” the field-worker shouted. “The giant killer’s wearing
my
hat!”

The crowd around him pounded his back as if he had won a great prize. I looked back at Will. Two of the guards plucked
him up as if he were a great pile of homespun. No one would carry a silk so carelessly.

Will shrieked.

I pulled away from Lord Verras, darting toward the men. “Careful of his foot!”

The guards thought I was a giant killer as well. One of them nervously half saluted me. I almost laughed, until I saw Will, his head lolling to one side. He’d passed out again.

And then Lord Verras was tugging me back, pushing me toward the horse. I looked over my shoulder. The guards were carrying Will’s limp form toward another horse.

“Get … up!” Lord Verras commanded.

I didn’t know how to mount a horse. I’d never ridden before. Verras bent down and put my left foot in the stirrup. “Up!”

He gave me a rough prod, and I lunged up onto the saddle. Lord Verras mounted another horse nearby and began pushing through the crowd.

“Follow me!” he shouted.

That was the last thing I wanted, but my horse was more compliant, carrying me forward whether I wanted it to or not. I looked behind me once more. One of the guards held Will before him on his steed.

“Verras!” Pergam’s shout rang out over the crowd.

Lord Verras looked back but didn’t stop. “I’m taking the champion to the king.”

O
ur horses broke
into a canter when we reached the edge of the crowd. I clutched the saddle, convinced my horse was trying to pitch me off.

I almost wished it would. I’d fall, then disappear down a narrow street, and escape this horrible trip to the castle—and Lord Verras, who knew far too much.

I kicked my feet free from the stirrups and loosened my grip on the saddle.…

What would happen to Will if I ran?

I slipped my feet back into the stirrups. I couldn’t leave him—but that didn’t keep me from imagining what would happen if I were discovered.

We had almost reached the castle. The cliffs behind it loomed above us, with the Guardians carved into them, their faces turned toward any who approached the city. Time had blurred their outlines and chipped their faces, but their eyes, with the long, slashed pupils, remained untouched.

I’d looked into eyes like those as I’d shouted up at the giants. Whoever had carved the Guardians had
seen
giants. Perhaps giants had done the carving.

A cool shadow brushed my face as we rode under an iron
gate. Castle guards clustered there. I thought they’d gather around us and demand to see the champion. Yet only one watched as we rode past, making no effort to hide his suspicion. “Verras! I should have known you’d miss the excitement! Where are Pergam and the champion?”

Lord Verras kept riding but called over his shoulder, “Pergam’s close behind.”

We entered a smaller courtyard where a man with close-cropped hair, armor, and a cape waited for us. Lord Verras circled his horse around to speak to him.

“I need twenty minutes.”

“You have ten, if that.”

Why did Lord Verras need time?
I twisted in the saddle to better hear.

“King Eldin is impatient to meet the champion. He’s to be brought to the throne room immediately.” The man pointed at me on my horse, its tail flicking at the flies that billowed around us. “Is that—?”

“Yes,” said Lord Verras. “
That
is the champion.”

The guard gaped.

“Close the gate,” commanded Verras. “It’ll buy us a minute or two.”

He urged his horse toward the far side of the courtyard, and, once again, my horse followed.
Impatient to meet the champion
rang like a bell inside my head. Soon King Eldin would discover that his champion was a girl, that there was no young man to claim the princess’s hand. No one to tell the duke and his giants to leave.

I swallowed down my panic. I needed an ally.

Before us were two men dressed in gray, their clothing beaten by sun and rain until the fabric was the color of willow bark. Rangers—and friends of Lord Verras by the look of it. They watched us trot toward them, shifting their weight as if the cobblestones pained their feet.

Lord Verras dismounted quickly. “Two giants,” he announced. He looked back at me and asked, “Which way did they go when they left?”

The encounter with the giants seemed years ago. I closed my eyes to better remember. “Down the north road through the smaller villages. The one that … travelers to Reggen take.”

I’d almost told him it was the road we had taken.

“How tall were they?” asked the older ranger.

Verras shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’d say as tall as the oaks near the Kriva.”

Lord Verras wasn’t even looking at me. It was my last chance to escape—or find an ally. Perhaps I could slip away.

My legs shook as I slid off the far side of my horse, shielded from the rangers’ view. A quick glance over my shoulder showed that the guard at the gate had disappeared. Maybe I could find the doorway he had used.
I could find … Lord Cinnan, the king’s advisor. He’d never liked the Tailor’s apprentice, but he was wise. He’d know what to do
.

“Shouldn’t be hard to follow them.” That was one of the rangers.

Lord Verras didn’t answer immediately. I peered around my horse, wondering if he’d noticed I was gone. He was too
occupied by his conversation with the rangers. “You don’t have to go. I can’t order you, and I doubt Lord Leymonn will require it.”

Leymonn again. The rangers’ faces hardened at his name.
Who was he?

Finally, a ranger spoke. “But you think it would be good to follow the giants.”

Verras nodded. “I do, Restan. Right now we have only the … champion’s information.” He stumbled over the word as he gestured to me. I quickly stepped into view and prayed I didn’t look guilty. Lord Verras didn’t seem to notice.

“We need to know how many giants there are,” continued Verras, “and where they are. The king should know his enemy.”

The older ranger—Restan—raised his eyebrows as if he doubted the king. Then he clapped Lord Verras on the shoulder. “Can’t be left blind at a time like this. We’ll bring news tomorrow night.”

I saw Lord Verras’s relief in the way his shoulders relaxed, in the breath he released. “Thank you.”

The rangers bowed and left without another word. The young one looked back at me before he disappeared, his incredulity clear. I glowered at him, hoping I looked fierce enough that he’d reconsider his opinion of me.

Lord Verras turned. “We need to go.”

I glanced over my shoulder, as if the strength of my wanting could make Lord Cinnan appear.

Lord Verras reached for my arm. “We need to go
now
.”

I stepped back again. “But Will … They’re not here yet.”

“That’s why we must leave. I need to talk with you alone.”

Hoofbeats.
Pergam and Will must be close
.

I crossed my arms. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Verras looked toward the gate and scowled. “I wasn’t asking permission.”