"What about the verbeeg?" asked a guard.

"There is ho verbeeg," Brianna snapped. "Now perhaps you should do as I suggested."

The earl glared at Brianna and shook his head. "Finish the search." he rasped.

The guards resumed their havoc, though they were careful to probe the floor of Blizzard's stall only from the adjoining pens. It was not long before they shoved the mules aside to search the straw piled at the base of the loft ladder. Soon, one of them thrust his spear deep into the heap and withdrew a bloody tip.

"Got something!" he chortled.

The other guards pointed their weapons at the heap. "Come out, thief." ordered one.

Something stirred, then a sharp hiss sounded from the pile, filling the barn with a foul, sulfurous stench. Crying out in disgust, the guards doubled over and began to throw up.

In the next instant, a cacophony of braying and screeching filled the air. The mules bolted for the door, joined by a swarm of rats that had scurried from beneath the mangers and several owls that had dropped from the rafters. Morten stepped in front of Brianna, forcing the stampede to divide around her and consequently protecting Tavis, Runolf, and Earl Dobbin as well. Still, the lord mayor did not escape unscathed. The horrid smell caused him to retch, and the resultant heaving of his bruised ribs dropped him to his knees in pain.

"Glacier skunk!" Tavis gasped, more perplexed than sickened by the rancid stench. Glacier skunks rarely left their mountain homes, and he had never heard of one actually entering a village.

The others in the room were less curious than alarmed. Morten swept Brianna up in his arms and lumbered out the door with Runolf close on his heels. Next went the guards, doubled over, stumbling, and stinking like carcasses left in the sun to rot. They abandoned the lord mayor readily, for glacier skunks were to the smaller striped and spotted skunks what true giants were to giant-kin. When a glacier skunk's fumes hit a man, rivers of stinging tears poured from his eyes, hot embers filled his throat, and his stomach churned like a tumbling boulder. Sometimes he coughed blood, occasionally he stopped breathing, and, worst of all, the awful stench stayed with him until a cleric cast the proper spell to remove it.