CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CORALEN

Coralen paused behind an old fence post and looked up at the settlement on the hill. Ahead of her she saw Gar enter the new-built gates, giants surrounding him. To her immense surprise he wasn’t dead.

Yet.

So far so good.

To her left, Coralen caught a flicker of movement: Dath and Kulla, doing the same as her, creeping through the long grass. Farrell and Laith had taken a different path, using the vegetation along the riverbank as cover. If their timing was right they should be near the settlement.

“No changing it now,” Coralen muttered to herself. As she scanned the walls of the settlement the giants patrolling it disappeared from view.

Getting a closer view of Gar’s entertainment, no doubt. Unless they’ve decided just to execute him, that is.

She sucked in a deep breath and ran, breaking out of the long grass and sprinting for the wall. She glimpsed Dath and Kulla breaking from cover on the far side of the gate and doing the same. Kulla was faster than Dath, hitting the wall before even Coralen. Then they had disappeared from view around the curve of the wall. She crunched into stone, looked up and froze as she waited for a giant’s face to appear. None did. She dragged in a few deep breaths, unhooked a rope from her belt, looped and knotted the end, then cast it. It caught first time, hooking around a stone piling. She leaned on it, testing how well it had caught, then started to climb, feet against the rock.

A dozen heartbeats and she was at the top. Gar’s voice was ringing out, giants shouting, clamouring.

Let’s do this, then.

She pulled herself over the top, rolling over, dropping to the roof of a building below, half-expecting to crash right into a giant. She didn’t; her feet thumped onto thatch and then she was crouching low and slipping onto her belly. A quick glance showed the wall was empty, a few giants halfway down a stairwell that led to the courtyard. Off to her left she saw Dath appear on the wall, dropping quickly down, crouching in the shadows and drawing an arrow from his belt-quiver. Kulla landed lightly on her feet beside him. Coralen crawled to the edge of the building she was on and looked over.

A new half-built hall towered at the peak of the hill, a wide courtyard before it, full with hundreds of giants, all gathered about Gar, who was standing with his scabbarded sword held high over his head and shouting out his challenge, time and time again.

Where the hell is Ban in all of this?

Her eyes swept the enclosure, and then she saw him, her heart feeling like it had just leaped into her mouth. A rush of fierce joy.

He’s still alive. For now.