The Weight of Honor by Morgan Rice Page B

King’s Guard.
    “You can kill me,” Bant said, facing Duncan, “and you can kill my men. But you won’t take Escalon without us.”
    “True,” Duncan replied. “Which is why you must join us. You leave me with no choice but to kill you if you stand in our way. There is no turning back for us, and I want you by our side.”
    Duncan took a chance: he reached out in the silence, extending a hand. He looked Bant in the eye, waiting.
    An impossibly long silence followed, until finally, Bant reached out and clasped arms with him, nodding back with a look of respect.
    In that clasp, Duncan knew, the fate of Escalon had been sealed. He felt a rush of relief.
    He smiled and turned to the room, and a small cheer followed.
    “Tonight,” he called out to the men, “we feast. And at dawn, we ride to victory!”

CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    Vesuvius flailed as he plummeted toward the cave’s rock floor, landing with a thud, feeling as if all his bones were breaking on impact. He lay there, limp, helpless to do anything but watch the devastation all around him. He saw the beast towering above him, stepping forward, making the ground shake, swiping his great hands and killing a dozen trolls at once. Trolls flew every which way across the tunnel, smashing into walls, and when he tired of swiping them, the giant lifted his great foot and flattened those who ran, crushing them into the ground.
    The giant turned and Vesuvius’s heart leapt as he saw it set its sights on him. It roared, showing sharpened teeth, then raised a foot and came down right for Vesuvius’s head. Vesuvius knew that in but a moment he would be crushed to death.
    Vesuvius somehow managed to muster whatever strength he had left and roll out of the way, as the giant’s foot sank into the earth beside him, creating a crater dozens of feet deep. The giant, enraged, raised its other foot, and Vesuvius knew he had to think quick or else die here in this tunnel along with all of his other trolls.
    Vesuvius searched his surroundings frantically and noticed something gleaming in the sunlight. He saw one of the long pikes lying there, abandoned by one of his trolls who lay beside it, dead, and he knew it was his only chance. He scrambled to his feet and ran, ducking under the giant’s other foot as it came down and missed. He scurried across the cave and grabbed the pike, spun around, and charged. He raised it high with both hands and aimed for the giant’s Achilles’ heel, the narrowest point of the beast’s body.
    Vesuvius turned the pike and swung it sideways, aiming for the narrowest point, and prayed the beast did not raise its foot before he could complete the blow.
    Vesuvius was surprised to feel the pike actually enter the creature’s flesh; he drove it all the way through from one side of the beast’s heel to the other, and he was surprised to see it emerge from the other side as blood gushed everywhere. It was a perfect strike.
    The tunnel shook as the beast roared in pain, raised his foot, and stomped, creating another crater, sending Vesuvius stumbling as it barely missed. It then dropped to one knee, clearly in agony, unable to stand. It turned its head and screeched, looking everywhere for Vesuvius, off balance, reeling from the blow.
    “THE PIKES!” Vesuvius shouted to his trolls.
    His remaining trolls rushed forward and grabbed pikes as he led the charge. As the beast knelt there, its head lowered, Vesuvius jammed another pike into the back of the giant’s neck. Beside him his trolls did the same, stabbing the beast in the neck and chin and face and shoulders.
    The giant roared in agony and frustration; it reached up, grabbed the pikes, and yanked them out, snapping them in half as he gushed blood. It swiped back, killing several of Vesuvius’s men, and Vesuvius narrowly missed being killed.
    Knowing he needed a decisive blow, he grabbed another pike, rushed forward and this time swung upwards, beneath its chin, into its throat.
    The giant flailed,