The door opened inward.
Kaylor had expected resistance.
Instead, six ettins stood in two lines beyond it.
Each was nearly twice his height. Twelve heavy faces watched the heroes enter, some suspicious, some merely dull with waiting. Clubs rested against shoulders broad enough to block the passage by themselves.
None of the two-headed giants attacked.
They grunted among themselves.
One head whispered to its partner. The other answered with a disagreement that seemed likely to continue for the rest of the day.
Kaylor kept his shield raised.
The Cloak of Displacement pulled his image slightly away from the body beneath it. Several ettin eyes followed the false position. Several others found the real one.
“Good evening,” Isamu said. “Take us to your leader.”
The nearest ettin stared at him.
Both heads lifted one thick arm and pointed toward another door at the far end of the chamber.
The remaining ettins did the same.
No escort followed the gesture.
Isamu looked at Kaylor.
“Their hospitality lacks refinement.”
“They did not attack,” Fendor said.
“That is the first favorable review their service has received.”
Kaylor advanced between the two lines.
The ettins allowed the heroes to pass.
Grazim walked close behind Kaylor, shield ready and warhammer in hand. His new height placed him below the ettins' knees. Several of the giants looked down as he passed. Grazim looked up at all of them with enough calm certainty to make the scrutiny feel mutual.
Hexen's surviving wolves followed in a loose pack. Their hackles remained raised, but they obeyed his silent command and did not lunge.
Nethnarel reached the second door and glanced back.
The ettins had turned to watch them.
“They may be waiting until we are trapped between the doors.”
Kaylor opened the way into the next cavern.
“Then we will decide which side regrets it.”
Beyond the second door, the mountain opened into a much larger passage.
The ceiling rose beyond the reach of ordinary darkvision. Pillars of uncut rock climbed into the darkness, left standing where the giants had hollowed chambers through the mountain. The floor bore the marks of generations of enormous feet. Smoke, grease and old blood had settled into the stone.
Kaylor waited until everyone crossed.
Then they closed the door behind them.
The Immovable Rod fitted beneath one of the giant crosspieces. Hexen placed it, pressed the hidden control and tested the door.
The wood moved less than a finger's width before the rod held it fast.
No pounding came from the ettins beyond.
That made their restraint more unsettling, not less.
The passage continued deeper.
A narrow cut opened to the north, little more than a waiting hollow behind one of the stone pillars. Fendor examined it long enough to recognize its purpose. A guard could have hidden there and allowed intruders to pass before striking from behind.
It was empty.
The sounds ahead were not.
A great fire roared somewhere beyond the pillars. Voices moved through the caverns: deep, overlapping and numerous. The noise resembled a village heard from outside its walls, except every laugh and argument came from a throat large enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
Hexen lifted the Staff of the Woodlands.
Leaves carved into the staff shifted beneath his fingers.
The magic spread outward without wind or light. Dust softened beneath their boots. The scrape of armor faded. Even the wolves' claws seemed to touch the floor without sound.
Pass without Trace surrounded them.
Fendor drew up the hood of the elven cloak he had carried through the Vault and the mirror realm. Shadow gathered along its edge and blurred his pale hair against the darkness.
“I will see what waits ahead.”
Kaylor nodded once.
“Do not begin the fight alone.”
“I know.”
Isamu looked toward him.
“You have said that before beginning fights alone.”
Fendor disappeared between the pillars.
He moved along the outer wall rather than crossing the center of the passage. Rock broke his outline. Hexen's magic swallowed the remaining signs of his movement.
One hill giant looked toward him as he passed.
The creature's eyes narrowed.
Fendor had made no sound. He had crossed no firelight. Yet chance, instinct or some buried predator's sense caused the giant to recognize that the darkness was not empty.
It stepped back.
It did not raise an alarm.
Fendor continued.
The pillars ended at a vaulted cavern so broad that the fire at its center looked like a bonfire built in an open field.
Hill giants occupied the chamber in groups. Ettins stood among them. Wolf-like beasts slept near the fire or prowled the edges. Barrels, sacks and broken crates from Oxland had been stacked along the walls.
At the far side sat the ruler of the tribe.
The king was not merely large for a hill giant.
He was immense.
An ordinary hill giant might have reached fifteen feet. This creature approached twice that height and carried the mass of several of his people. Metal armor had been made specifically for him, plate by plate, each section broad enough to roof a small house.
A maul rested within reach of his hand.
Its haft was longer than a wagon. Its head appeared carved from a single block of dark stone, and fire moved across it without consuming the weapon.
The serpent wrapped around the king was larger still.
Its body looped behind the throne, around one pillar and back across the stone beside him. The thickest part of it was wider than a man was tall. Its head rested near the king's shoulder, eyes open and watchful.
The serpent moved its head.
The king answered without speaking.
Fendor watched the exchange.
They were communicating.
The great fire threw both of them into full light: the impossible king, the titanic serpent and the flaming maul between them.
Fendor began retreating toward the others.
The serpent's eyes followed him.
The king turned.
His voice crossed the cavern.
“Come forth.”
The gathered giants fell quiet.
“I see you.”
Fendor stopped hiding.
Kaylor entered the firelight before the elf could stand alone.
The other heroes followed him.
Hill giants rose across the chamber. Ettin heads argued in low voices. Wolf-like creatures came to their feet.
The king raised one hand.
Every one of them held position.
That single gesture told Kaylor as much about the tribe as the throne did.
The giant before them was not merely the largest creature in the cavern. He was obeyed.
He asked why they had entered his home, why they had slain his people and what purpose had brought them into the mountain.
His speech was rough but far more controlled than that of the hill giants they had encountered outside. Intelligence lived behind the huge face. So did confidence.
Kaylor stepped forward.
“We saw your people occupying Oxland. We saw them taking the city's food, killing its defenders and stripping away what the people need to survive the winter.”
The king's expression did not change.
“We came to end that threat,” Kaylor continued. “Whether it ends through words or steel depends upon what happens now.”
For several breaths, only the central fire spoke.
Then the king explained.
The raids had not begun with Oxland.
For years, something had occupied the tribe's hunting grounds beyond the mountain. The giants had fought to reclaim them and failed. Warriors they believed dead rose again. Wounds closed. Every victory became another defeat.
The tribe had withdrawn into its caverns and sealed the road behind it.
Hunger followed.
They moved outward because the lands around Oxland still produced grain, livestock and game. The king claimed his warriors took only what the tribe required. He claimed they spared most of the people so the farms and herds would remain when the giants returned.
It was not mercy.
It was harvest.
But it was also not the mindless destruction Kaylor had expected.
The king offered terms.
Clear the path to the old hunting grounds, destroy the evil that held them and the tribe would leave Oxland alone.
Kaylor looked across the chamber.
The giants waited upon their king's answer to hunger because none of them possessed the authority to choose another.
Memory returned to him in fragments that did not belong to his current life alone: old teachings about giant tribes, strength contests and rulers who remained rulers only until someone stronger proved otherwise.
Among hill giants, might was law.
The strongest led.
A challenge could change the tribe in a single fight.
Kaylor looked up at the king.
“Are you the ruler of every giant here?”
The king laughed.
“Do any of these fools look capable of ruling me?”
Kaylor glanced at the assembled tribe.
Then back at the giant before him.
“I think I am.”
The cavern erupted with noise.
Some giants laughed. Others shouted. The ettins argued with themselves over whether the dragonborn's claim was bravery or stupidity.
The king rose.
The serpent uncoiled with him.
The flaming maul came into his hands.
Grazim caught Kaylor's arm before he advanced.
Divine warmth passed through the dragonborn's battered body. Bruises left by the outer battle faded. The worst of the pain beneath his armor loosened.
Kaylor looked down at the halfling cleric.
“You are not joining the challenge.”
“I am aware.”
“Then why do you look pleased?”
“Because I have just healed you, and someone else is about to discover why that was necessary.”
The king named the terms.
He and the serpent would fight together.
Kaylor could choose three companions.
Four against two would be considered fair enough for a challenger of his size.
The giants would not interfere.
Neither would the remaining heroes.
Kaylor chose Fendor first.
The elf had already begun lowering the Oathbow.
His hand rested upon the hilt of the Vorpal Longsword.
Nethnarel stepped forward next.
The king had weight, armor and numbers behind him. She had never regarded size as a reason not to experiment.
Hexen joined them last.
His wolves remained with Grazim and Isamu outside the cleared ground.
The king's followers moved away from the central fire and opened a broad circle through the cavern.
Isamu folded his arms.
“I dislike honorable combat.”
Grazim looked toward him.
“Because you are excluded?”
“Because people insist upon rules immediately before trying to kill one another.”
The serpent lifted its head above the king.
Kaylor drew the Sword of Sharpness.
The Dancing Sword trembled at his side, waiting for release.
Fendor drew the vorpal blade.
The challenge began.
Fendor moved first.
He crossed the open ground at a run and struck before the king completed the first swing of his maul.
The Vorpal Longsword cut through the giant's armor at the thigh, then opened another line across his side. The blade found flesh with terrifying ease, but the perfect killing line did not come.
Not yet.
Kaylor came in behind him.
The Dancing Sword left his hand and moved independently through the air. It attacked high while the Sword of Sharpness struck low.
Dark force gathered around the Oathbreaker and spread to Fendor beside him. The elf's next attack landed with more weight than muscle alone could have produced.
The king roared.
Kaylor called the broken remnants of his old divine power into the wound and drove the sword deeper.
The answering swing of the maul crossed above Fendor and descended upon Kaylor.
The Cloak of Displacement pulled Kaylor's image aside.
The king adjusted.
The enormous stone head struck the real dragonborn.
Kaylor caught part of the blow on his shield. The rest drove him backward across the floor. Fire rolled over the shield and around his armor, diminished by the old protection woven into the metal but not extinguished.
The king swung again.
This time the maul found him cleanly.
Kaylor remained standing because falling would have made the third blow easier.
Nethnarel raised both hands toward the king.
Telekinesis seized him.
For one instant, the sorcerer expected the enormous body to leave the ground.
It did not move.
The spell could lift a horse, a wagon or a boulder large enough to crush either.
The king weighed more.
Nethnarel changed targets without releasing the magic.
A stone near the edge of the fire tore free from the ground.
It was nearly the size of Grazim and heavy enough that several ordinary men could not have shifted it. Nethnarel lifted it above the king, higher than his head and higher still.
The serpent sensed the danger.
It unwound from its master and slithered clear.
Nethnarel released the boulder.
The impact struck the king across the shoulder and drove him to one knee.
Stone shattered against armor.
The king rose beneath the fragments.
Hexen had been waiting for a clear view of that armor.
He closed one hand.
Heat entered the metal.
The giant's plates darkened, then glowed where they touched the body beneath. Leather straps smoked. The king reached for a buckle too small for his fingers to manipulate quickly.
The armor did not come off.
Every movement became a choice between the heroes before him and the metal cooking him from within.
He chose Kaylor.
The maul came down again.
Kaylor's false image took the first blow.
The second struck his shoulder and nearly buried him beneath the weapon's head.
Fire crossed the cavern.
The serpent attacked Fendor.
Its jaws opened around the elf before he could clear the reach.
Fendor drove the Vorpal Longsword against the inside of its mouth, but the bite closed. Teeth pierced armor. The world became darkness, muscle and pressure.
Then the serpent swallowed.
Fendor vanished down its throat.
The giants surrounding the challenge shouted in approval.
Isamu unfolded his arms.
“The rules have become less appealing.”
Grazim tightened his grip on the warhammer.
“Not yet.”
Inside the serpent, acid burned across Fendor's armor and cloak. He could not draw the Oathbow. He could barely move the sword.
Nethnarel turned from the king.
She had used Polymorph upon an ettin only hours earlier.
The serpent was larger.
The principle remained the same.
Her magic closed around the titanic body.
Scale collapsed into scale. The coils shortened. The immense head twisted downward as the creature became too small to contain what it had swallowed.
The serpent vanished.
A worm dropped onto the cavern floor.
Fendor appeared beside it in a rush of displaced air, armor scorched and sword still in hand.
He rolled once and came to his feet.
The worm began crawling away.
Nethnarel pointed toward it.
“Do not step on that.”
Isamu looked at the creature.
“I had not planned to.”
“You considered it.”
“Briefly.”
Hexen maintained the heat around the king's armor.
He began calling a healing spirit, then stopped when the new magic threatened to break his hold upon the metal.
The king was still moving.
That mattered more.
Hexen drew a javelin instead and threw it.
The weapon struck the giant's chest and remained there, small against the enormous armor but real.
The king attacked Kaylor again.
One blow followed the displaced image and destroyed only stone.
The next caught the dragonborn across the side.
Kaylor's shield rang. His knees bent. The maul's fire washed across him and left his armor smoking.
He remained within reach of Fendor.
The dark strength surrounding him remained within reach as well.
Fendor looked up at the king.
The giant had endured arrows, steel, divine power, a falling boulder and armor hot enough to burn through flesh.
He still stood.
The elf tightened both hands upon the sword that had killed Grazim.
The war-priest watched from outside the circle.
Fendor met his eyes for one heartbeat.
Grazim gave no blessing to the blade.
He did not ask Fendor to put it away.
The king raised the maul for another strike against Kaylor.
Fendor ran.
The first slash opened the giant's leg.
The second cut through a hanging plate of heated armor.
Fendor planted one foot against the king's knee and climbed the falling pieces of metal as though they were steps.
The giant saw him too late.
Fendor rose along the king's body in one impossible leap.
The Vorpal Longsword crossed the firelight.
Its edge found the neck.
The stroke passed through armor, flesh and bone without slowing.
The giant king's head left his shoulders.
For an instant, the body remained upright.
The flaming maul slipped from both hands.
It struck the floor with enough force to send a tremor through the entire cavern.
The body followed.
Fendor landed beside it.
The king's head rolled once and came to rest facing the fire.
Silence crossed the tribe.
Then every hill giant in the chamber went to one knee.
Ettins bowed both heads. Wolf-like beasts lowered themselves to the stone. The more menacing giant who had stood nearest the old king crossed the cavern and knelt before Fendor.
The word passed through the room.
King.
Fendor looked at Kaylor.
“No.”
Kaylor lowered his sword.
“You challenged their ruler and killed him.”
“You challenged him.”
“You removed his head.”
Isamu approached the edge of the circle.
“Leadership has chosen you in the form of a vorpal blade.”
“I refuse.”
The giants bowed lower.
Nethnarel moved beside Fendor. Illusory flame traveled along her clothing, making the elf appear to stand beside a burning herald.
She leaned closer.
“Your first command could be ordering them to kill the worm.”
Fendor looked down.
The tiny creature continued crawling across the stone. One careless footfall would restore the serpent before killing it.
“That may also be my shortest reign.”
Kaylor stepped onto the fallen king's maul.
The flames did not touch him while the weapon lay inert, but their light climbed across his armor.
The giants looked toward him because Fendor did.
Kaylor used the attention.
“The ruler who lies before you told you that the enemy in your hunting grounds was too strong.”
A rumble moved through the tribe.
“He led you away from your own land. He sent you against farmers, merchants and people who could not stand against you. He made you believe that survival meant taking from those weaker than yourselves.”
The second-in-command lifted his head.
Kaylor pointed toward the worm.
“Are you giants, or are you worms like that serpent?”
The answer shook the chamber.
Giants struck fists against their chests. Ettins roared from both mouths. The wolf-like beasts answered with piercing howls.
Kaylor raised his voice above them.
“Your strength is your own. Your hunting grounds are your own. Take them back. End the raids upon Oxland. Release every prisoner. Return what remains of the city's food and winter stores. Then march with us against the creatures your former king feared to face.”
The second-in-command rose.
He was still a hill giant, but heavier, tusked and more dangerous-looking than most of the tribe. He came to stand before Fendor.
“Lead the way, master.”
The title made Fendor close his eyes.
Kaylor looked toward him.
“They are waiting for their king.”
Fendor opened his eyes.
“Then their king commands them to reclaim the hunting grounds and leave Oxland.”
The giants roared again.
The worm reached the edge of the challenge circle.
Hexen ended the problem before the spell could.
His body changed.
Arms became wings. Clothing and staff folded into the form of a giant eagle large enough to carry a man. He caught the worm carefully in his talons.
Kaylor retrieved the Immovable Rod and opened the route back through the guarded chamber.
The ettins still waiting there moved aside as the eagle passed.
Hexen flew out of the mountain.
He climbed until the lair entrance became a dark mark beneath him and the clouds lay close enough to touch.
Then he released the worm.
The tiny body fell.
Polymorph failed before it reached the ground.
The titanic serpent returned in open air with no mountain beneath its coils and no king beside it.
It struck the mountainside with a force that echoed back into the lair.
It did not rise again.
By the time Hexen returned, the giants had begun preparing for war.
Messengers left for Oxland to call back the raiding force. Others gathered weapons, hides, barrels of oil and what food remained in the cavern.
The old king's possessions remained where he had fallen.
His armor was far too large for any hero to wear.
The flaming maul was worse.
Kaylor tried to lift it.
He could shift the haft and raise one end from the floor. He could not wield it. Even the ordinary hill giants approached the weapon with caution, and only the strongest among them could drag it without help.
Nethnarel examined the enchantment without naming its strength in numbers.
“It was made for something stronger than any of us.”
“Stronger than most of them,” Grazim said.
The second-in-command could lift it badly. That was not the same as fighting with it.
Kaylor looked across the gathered warriors.
“The most valorous giant in the battle ahead may claim the maul, if any of you prove capable of using it.”
The promise produced another roar.
Fendor looked at him.
“You are giving away my royal property.”
Kaylor's displaced image turned toward him before the real dragonborn did.
“You seemed eager to abdicate.”
The tribe's hoard occupied several pits near the king's seat.
Most of it was mixed coin: copper, silver and gold worth roughly eleven thousand gold pieces together. The heroes left it with the tribe. If the giants were truly returning stolen stores and abandoning their raids, they would need provisions and something with which to trade instead of take.
The gems were more tempting and less easily resolved.
Two black pearls rested in a carved stone cup. Four topazes and four alexandrites lay among them, each large enough to catch the firelight from across the chamber.
Nethnarel counted them.
Grazim considered the people of Oxland from whom some of the treasure might have been taken.
Fendor considered the tribe that now believed every object in the cavern belonged to him.
No one settled the question that night.
The maul remained beside the dead king.
The gems remained under guard.
The mixed coin remained with the giants.
The heroes rested while messengers traveled toward Oxland and the tribe gathered its mightiest warriors.
For the first time since the mirror realm, they slept beneath stone without expecting the floor itself to attack them.
When they woke, the second-in-command led them deeper into the mountain.
The route descended through passages older than the occupied lair. Worked stone gave way to natural tunnels. Water moved somewhere beneath them. The air grew colder and cleaner the farther they traveled from the central fire.
At last, the passage ended before a wall of boulders.
The giants had built it years earlier.
Beyond the barrier lay a hidden valley completely enclosed by mountains. It had once provided the tribe with game, water and enough open land to sustain them without raiding anyone.
Then the creatures came.
The second-in-command described them as giant-shaped but not giant-kind. Their flesh closed after axes opened it. Broken bodies rose. Warriors who believed they had killed one found it standing again behind them.
Only the old king had ever left one dead.
He had used the flaming maul.
The rest had risen until the giants retreated and sealed the tunnel.
Hexen looked toward Nethnarel.
“Regeneration.”
She nodded.
“And the one that stayed dead was burned.”
Grazim rested the head of his warhammer against one shoulder.
“Then the enemy is not unkillable.”
“It is merely particular,” Isamu said.
The giants began removing the first boulders.
Cold air entered through the gaps.
It smelled of pine, wet earth and something old enough to have claimed the valley while its rightful hunters hid behind stone.
Fendor stood beside the warriors who called him king and watched the darkness widen.
They had come to the mountain to destroy a tribe.
Instead, they had inherited one.
Beyond the boulders waited the enemy that had taught hill giants to fear death that would not remain dead.
The first stone moved aside.
The hidden hunting grounds breathed through the opening.