Read Online The Titan of Twilight by Troy Denning - Free Book Online

There was no telling when the queen’s agony would end.
    Avner slipped one arm around Brianna’s shoulders and clamped his free hand over her mouth. The sound vibrated through his fingers and continued to reverberate off the dank walls, only slightly muted by his grasp.
    “Milady, the firbolgs are coming!” Avner hissed.
    Brianna glared into the young scout’s eyes. She clutched his wrist and used it to support herself. She felt as though she were slowly exploding from the inside out; her lower back ached with such a fiery, crushing pain that she wondered if her kidneys had been smashed. Her intestines had turned into writhing, searing snakes of anguish. The worst agony of all was her pelvis. She could feel her womb pushing the baby against the inner edge of the cavity, trying to force the infant out and managing only to drive barbed spikes of pain deep into her bones.
    It would have been easier to squeeze a boulder through a keyhole. For several minutes now, Brianna had not felt the baby descend any farther, and she was growing weak. Her midwife had said that would not happen. Gerda had told her that Hiatea gave every mother the strength she needed to deliver her child, but the queen could feel her vigor fleeing her body on the wail she was breathing into Avner’s hand. Her infant was stuck.
    “Majesty, the firbolgs will hear you,” Avner pleaded. “Please, you must be quiet!”
    Brianna ripped Avner’s hand from her face. “Surtr… take the firbolgs!” she said, half groaning and half growling. She was surprised to find she could talk at all; a moment ago, she could force nothing out but wails of agony. “Do something useful… kill them!”
    “There are at least thirty, Majesty,” replied Avner. “We can’t possibly—”
    “Don’t bother me with… with this!” Brianna snarled. She heard a clatter from the front of the tunnel as the nervous front riders rose to obey her orders; then she regretted her words. She wasn’t going to save her child by issuing impossible orders. “Wait, you men! Don’t listen to me. Can’t you see I’m giving—” She paused to groan. “That I’ve got other things on my mind?”
    The soldiers glanced at each other and studiously avoided looking toward the back of the tunnel. They hovered just inside the portal and did not seem to know what to do. Brianna dropped to her knees, and then fixed her gaze on Gryffitt’s slack-skinned face. She had seen fog giants with better color.
    “What do you think, Gryffitt?” the queen asked. She could still feel the baby against her pelvis, but the pressure from her womb was slackening. She hoped that meant her body was resting, not that it had given up. “The delivery isn’t going well, is it?”
    Gryffitt’s baggy eyes flicked away. “I’m not much of a midwife, Majesty.”
    “But you are a father six times over,” Brianna countered. “Surely, you learned something.”
    Gryffitt rubbed his beard-stubbled chin. “I’ve never heard such yelling, milady,” he said. “Even with number three, and he was breech.”
    Brianna’s heart sank. “That’s what this feels like.” She looked to Avner and asked, “What about Gerda?”
    The young scout shook his head. “There are thirty firbolgs between us and the road,” he said. “And even if we could get past them, there are twenty more with the courtiers.”
    Brianna nodded. “Then you and I must turn the baby.”
    Avner swallowed. “But Gryffitt—”
    “Will keep a watch on the firbolgs,” the queen interrupted. She did not want the front rider with her, even if he was a six-time father. The last person she needed nearby was someone more terrified than she. “Gryffitt understands what a woman in labor might say. He’ll know better than to obey if I start shouting crazy commands.”
    “I’ll do my best, Majesty.”
    Gryffitt turned toward the tunnel mouth, the strain already draining from his face. Brianna shook her head, unable to understand the peculiar male fear