ve for it. But the guard, his legs still
free, kicked Lulukee in the face. As he fell, his senses blurring,
Lulukee wondered why he had made that desperate, foolish attempt to
help the big, silent man. He could not answer the question in mere
words. But there was something about him, something about Bram Forest,
which drew loyalty from you even as the sun drew dew from the
ground....

* * * * *

Bram Forest lifted the second guard by sword-girdle and scruff of neck
and held him aloft. The guard's arms and legs flailed frantically.
"No!" he screamed up at the peltasts. "No...."

But they had already unleashed their first volley of stones, pelting
the helpless guard until he lost consciousness. Bram Forest flung him
aside, leaped over the first fallen guard's supine body, and plunged
recklessly into the crowds milling just inside the Ice Gates.

"He went that way!" a voice screamed.

"That way!"

"Over there!"

"There he is!"

It was an ancient city, with narrow, tortuous alleyways and
overhanging buildings and little-used passageways. The wide
streets--the few there were--mobbed with people.

For all his size, the giant had disappeared.

Lulukee picked himself up, dusted himself off, and showed his way pass
to the guard. The guard said nothing. He had lost three teeth and his
mouth was swollen, painful. Lulukee sensed that somehow the little he
had done to help Bram Forest was all he would ever do for him. Yet he
felt with a strange pride he did not fathom that although his role in
the saga of the mysterious giant had come to an end, it was the most
important event in his life and would remain so if he lived to be
six-hundred. He felt somehow--and could not explain why he felt
this--as if in his small way he had done something to make the world
Tarth a better place in which to live.

Whistling, he pushed his way through the crowds and was lost to sight
just as the giant who went before him.

* * * * *

"B'ronth of Utalia!" Prokliam the seneschal proclaimed. Volna the
Beautiful nodded. The doddering old seneschal had already told her
about the Utalian. She was prepared to receive him now. If he knew
what he claimed to know, if he knew the true details of the death of
Prince Jlomec, then he must be silenced. Naturally, he wanted gold.
They always wanted gold. But gold was not the way to silence them.
Gold never worked. It only made them greedy