The Druid Queen tdt-3

by Douglas Niles

"I don't see why not," Robyn said, without conviction. "After all, an Exalted Inquisitor, so I've heard, is a rank achieved by no more than a handful of clerics at any given time. He must be very knowledgeable of his god."

  "I hope so!" Alicia declared with passion.

  The two women joined the priest and the king in the library. Upon Hyath's instructions, they pulled the shutters and shades across the window, darkening the room, while Tristan made himself comfortable on a long, bedlike couch. Meanwhile the patriarch enjoyed some of the salt meats, bread, cheese, and wine of Corwell.

  "If you three will wait in the next room, we'll get started," Hyath instructed them after he cleaned his plate and very nearly emptied the bottle.

  Robyn rose with noticeable reluctance, following Keane and Alicia into the adjacent anteroom. The inquisitor closed the door firmly behind them, and they settled down impatiently to wait.

  For a time, they heard nothing, and then Hyath's voice emerged from the room. The priest performed some kind of chant, his voice following a precise cadence, rising and falling in pitch as he drifted, almost singing, through phrases that none of them could identify. Then his voice dropped again, though the soft murmur of verbal rites still came from beyond the door. Then even that faded into silence.

  For several more minutes, they listened but heard nothing, aching with curiosity, not daring to open the door. Robyn rose and began to pace, while Alicia clasped her hands before her and Keane sat in attentive silence, alert for any sound from the darkened library.

  The quiet broke suddenly with a sound of gurgling shock growing quickly into a scream of terror. They heard a crash, like a boom of thunder, and Robyn cried out in alarm.

  Keane reached the door in less than an instant, twisting the latch and throwing the portal open with a surprisingly powerful push of his shoulder. He stumbled into the room, waving his hands to clear thickening smoke from the air as the queen and princess rushed in behind him.

  "What… what happened?" gasped Alicia, racing to her father's side.

  Tristan lay on the bed, blinking and shaking his head. He groaned softly. At least they could see that he was still alive.

  Only then did they notice the patriarch of Helm. The Exalted Inquisitor lay motionless on the floor, sprawled on his back as if he'd been knocked over by some shocking force. His eyebrows were singed, his face blackened, and his huge body displayed no sign of life.

  Alicia turned back to the king as Tristan raised his left arm. They both saw that the limb still ended in the blunt stump of his wrist.

  The dwarven community proved to have an exceptional number of well-stocked wine cellars-so many, in fact, that the hulking conquerors settled for plundering only a select few. Trolls, sinuous and flexible, searched the small houses while the giants waited outside. Several times trolls reported a solid door in the basement of one of the dwarven homes.

  Quickly firbolgs wielding axes and hammers smashed a path to the cellar door, usually by knocking out a wall and then collapsing the floor above the wine cellar's hallway. The roof of the actual chamber, they quickly found, was generally sealed over with a heavy stone arch impervious even to firbolg strength.

  Thus they entered the wine cellars by the simple expedient of bashing down their metal-banded, heavy oaken doors.

  This was a sport where natural firbolg talent could excel, and thus it became a contest as one of the giants smashed his club, a foot, or perhaps a rock into the portal. If it didn't collapse-and it never did before the fifth blow-another would try, and so forth. The firbolg who actually smashed down the door then crawled inside and earned the honor of sampling the first keg.

  Stars stood out in brilliant relief above Cambro as the chill of the night seemed to sap every bit of cloud and vapor from the air. The chieftain stood beyond the circle of buildings, near the impenetrable darkness beneath the forest canopy. He watched the pillage dispassionately, trying to dispel the worry that continued to nag at him. Where were the dwarves?

  Thurgol pulled his cloak around him, grumbling about the unseasonal chill. More logs, as well as a few scraps of wooden furniture, added their fuel to the blaze in the center of town, and the bonfire surged higher and higher, challenging the darkness of the sky itself.

  The firbolg heard increasingly raucous laughter, a gruff and bawdy song. Still discontent, Thurgol wandered around the village, peering anxiously into the shadows beneath the looming trees.

  Harsh words barked above the din. A firbolg insulted the nose of a troll, calling it "short as a corncob." Immediately the chaotic festivities doubled in volume. Thurgol heard bets wagered, with odds going two to one in favor of the giant, and cheerful insults tossed in from the crowd. He returned to the circle of his comrades somewhat heartened by the prospective entertainment of a good brawl. Quickly seizing the keg from a small troll, the chieftain shouldered his way through the tightly packed throng of firbolgs and trolls to get a good look at the fight.

  The firbolg participant was Hondor, a great brute of a giant-kin with tiny eyes and a perpetually confused expression on his drooping jowls. Though he couldn't be certain, it seemed to Thurgol that the troll was Essekki, a treacherous, gawking member of his clan who did in fact possess a very undistinguished proboscis. Now the two brutes, almost equal in height, though the firbolg weighed nearly double his opponent, circled each other menacingly. The first clasp had come to a draw, and they gasped for breath as they prepared to close again.

  Essekki backed carefully away from the fire, which had temporarily died to a great mountain of glowing embers. Fire was the thing feared above all else by trolls, for the burning of their flesh was one type of wound that even their amazing regenerative powers could not heal. Thus the troll took great care not to leave himself vulnerable to the sizzling danger. Growling wolfdogs circled the fight, their eyes and fangs gleaming in the darkness. They wouldn't attack, Thurgol knew, but the fervor of combat agitated them just the same.

  Hondor ducked in again, bashing sideways with a hamlike fist that somehow connected with the troll's head. Essekki flew through the air, crashing to the ground in a heap. In another moment, the firbolg leaped onto his stunned opponent's back, grasping the troll's nose and skull and twisting his head brutally. The snapping of the beast's neck shot through the night, silencing the crowd for the briefest of moments.

  Then the din erupted again as winners demanded payment from losers and the latter protested vainly that the troll would regenerate. Thus, they claimed, the fight might not be over yet. It was an argument that had raged after hundreds of such fights since the trolls had come to Blackleaf. As always, the prevailing rule was applied: Once the troll died, the fight was over. If he wished to resume the contest upon regeneration, which rarely happened, the brawl would be considered a new fight.

  Once again the band settled down to drinking and arguing. Thurgol took his place among them, allowing the warmth of fire and companionship to dispel the chill of the night. He ignored the whispering voice of concern, which in any event had changed its monotonous tune. Instead, he tried to console himself with the suggestion that the alert wolfdogs would hear anyone approaching through the woods, barking an alarm before any serious harm could be done. Indeed, as the rum flowed and the fire grew, it seemed that the threat of danger drifted farther and farther away.

  No longer did his internal voice caution him that the woods were full of dwarves. That was a vague and distant worry. Instead, however, it tried to make him think by asking persistent questions. What should they do next? Where did they go from here?

  Then the miracle began.

  Amid the sacking of Cambro, as Garisa watched the male trolls and firbolgs cavort and posture around the raging fire, the shaman grew increasingly irritated by the frenzied and mindless chaos, which could only drag the tribe to ruin. Beside her was the mighty Silverhaft Axe, though she still didn't quite believe that the tribe had actually regained it from their despised enemies. But her mind, exceptionally alert and active for a firbolg's, was a
lready looking ahead, trying to imagine ways that this remarkable turn of fortune could be used to propel the tribe in a proper direction.

  The stooped and elderly matriarch sat, somewhat removed from the press of raucous males, on a bench made from a dwarf's bed that had been dragged into the street. Here she received some of the most tender meats and the sweetest wines among the entire band's booty, for even if they overruled her opinions, the giant-kin still showed their old shaman a measure of dignity and respect.

  Yet these facts were no consolation as she watched her kinsmen dance and whoop in the harsh light of the towering fire. She saw that even Thurgol, who for a brief moment had displayed a modicum of character and leadership, now returned to the fire, betting on the fights and drinking like any mulish adolescent.

  Something, Garisa decided, had to be done, and as usual, she had some idea as to what that thing should be. Carefully she pulled an old blanket over the axe, concealing the gleaming haft and the brilliant diamond blade from observation.

  Slowly, subtly, the stooped female rose to her feet and shambled forward from her bench. A pair of hulking trolls, eyeing her suspiciously, nonetheless stepped back to let her pass. The crone's sharp walking stick had more than once been employed to open a path between slow-stepping humanoids. The same applied to a great wolfdog, who had somehow snared a place near the roaring blaze. The great canine bounced to its feet and slinked out of the way as the shaman approached.

  A young firbolg, his eyes blank and his jaw slack from the effects of many hours of drinking, blinked stupidly as Garisa snatched a massive bowl, foaming over with stout ale, from his hands. She sniffed the beverage, then tasted a gulp or two, smacking her nearly toothless gums in appreciation. The young warrior went off in search of an easier drink, and the old shaman nodded in satisfaction.

  Setting the empty bowl on the ground, Garisa reached into the pockets of her apron with her two gnarled, yet surprisingly nimble, hands. Feeling through an assortment of bulbs and roots, pouches of herbs, and bundles of dusty powders, she found the two that she wanted-a touch of ground spice coupled with a moist bit of crushed grub.

  Carefully she watched to see that the festivities progressed uninterrupted around her. Several shoving matches drew the attentions of the crowd, and the shaman finally felt certain that no one watched her.

  Swiftly she pulled forth her hands, mingling the powder with the mash of crushed grub and casting the entire glob into the fire. A whoosh of force sucked the air from the clearing for a moment, bringing every argument to a stop. Stunned into silence, the humanoids of Thurgol's army gaped at the image that slowly floated upward from the fire.

  At first they could see nothing more than a shapeless form in the mist, yet even in this vague outline, it had a certain solidity that belied its gaseous nature. Slowly the vapor drew together into a white form that seemed to glow like a full moon in the darkness of the night air.

  Not a sound escaped the lips of a single dumbstruck firbolg or troll as they stared at this intangible message from they knew not where. Slowly, gradually, the white shape grew firm and solid, taking on an obvious image … the image of a snow-capped mountain summit. A rocky crag jutted sharply upward, surrounded by steep shoulders of sweeping icefields and long, precipitous cliffs.

  "The Icepeak!" breathed a firbolg. Garisa didn't see who made the identification, but she had known that one of her tribe would do so. After all, the towering mountain, capstone of Oman's Isle, had long been attributed as the birthplace of the giant clans. There was no other mountain in the firbolg realms that loomed so high, or bore such a distinguishing crown of snow upon its summit.

  Then the image began to waver and change. Slowly the picture of the mountain faded, returning to its shapeless circle and then, ever so slowly, forming another likeness, an object that appeared so solid that it might really have floated over the fire before the awestruck watchers.

  This time they saw the picture of a monstrous axe, its huge, double-bitted blade nicked and scarred by combat so that the runes inscribed upon its broad surface were all but unintelligible.

  "An axe!" gasped the same firbolg who had spoken before, this time quite unnecessarily.

  "The Silverhaft Axe!" Garisa broke the silence with a sudden screech of definition. "Such was the blade borne by Grond Peaksmasher at the forging of the clans!"

  Murmurs of astonishment, tinged with awe, rippled from the onlookers. They well remembered the tale, chanted by them all, on the night before they had embarked on this adventure. The presence of that very axe, found in this village, could not fail to stir the warlike pride of each and every one of the giant-kin, and even to a lesser measure the trolls.

  "What does it mean?" inquired Thurgol after a few moments of stunned silence.

  "Does the Ancient One awaken?" asked another giant-kin.

  "It's a sign!" croaked Garisa, sensing her cue in the firbolg's question.

  "A sign of what?" demanded Baatlrap suspiciously. The hulking troll's black eyes bore into the shaman's skull, but Garisa shrugged away his attention.

  "Who knows?" she said, with an exaggerated glance at the heavens. "The will of the gods is displayed, but it remains to us mortals to determine how that will is understood and acted upon. But know this, my villagemates: The gods are well pleased with the Clan of Blackleaf, for we have righted a great wrong in restoring the axe to its proper owners!"

  "Aye! The gods are pleased!" A chorus of congratulations rose from the shadows around the great fire.

  "They are pleased, but they are not satisfied. This can only mean that our work is not done!" hissed Garisa, fixing them all, one at a time, with the balefully gleaming orb of her wandering eye.

  "Tell us!" demanded a troll, nervously following Garisa's glance at the sky. "What is the will of the gods?"

  "Tell us!" came the chorus of agreement, a basso rumble of voices, all turning to the ancient shaman for advice and comfort. "What do the gods desire?"

  Garisa made a great show of shuffling about the full periphery of the large fire, examining the floating image of the axe from every angle, cocking her head this way and that to confront the different firbolgs and trolls with her challenging gaze. To an individual, they would not meet her eyes.

  At last she came back to the place where she had started. The image of the huge axe remained poised in the air; once Garisa had established the simple illusion, she hadn't had to pay attention to it. Instead, the image would remain for some time, unless she chose to adjust it.

  Staring back at it, mumbling unintelligibly, she suddenly did just that. The axe disappeared with shocking suddenness. The firbolgs and trolls erupted in gasps of astonishment or murmurs of superstition and fear.

  "Bring me my bowl!" declared Garisa, her voice shrill. A pair of firbolgs leaped to obey. "Find me coins-they must be gold! Then I will foretell the will of the gods!"

  Deirdre started upward in her bed, aware of the pounding of her heart, the pulsing of blood and life through her veins-all that and more! She felt a keen sense of awakening power, of growing mastery.

  Her nightly sleep had become a soothing balm for her spirit, such that she could hardly contain her anxiousness during the day. Each darkening eve, it seemed, brought her a new infusion of vitality, energy … and sheer, constantly building might. That, more than anything, slowly convinced her to stir; she had to test, to examine this sense of limitless power!

  Somewhere in the castle, she sensed the presence of another powerful being, one who had summoned his god to serve him. That god, she sensed, had refused. But why? The pressure of the immortal contact tingled in the air around her, tantalizing her even as it refused to answer her question. Yet within that teasing aura, she sensed she would find more than a simple explanation.

  She sat up in her bed, feeling as though she were still in the midst of a dream. Around her was her room, looking as mundane as ever, but now she had a feeling that she could see through those walls, beyond the confining borders of her apartment
s.

  And what beckoned there was not Caer Corwell. Instead, she sensed that she rested in the midst of a vast cosmos, a place so immensely huge that the entire Realms amounted

  to little more than specks of dust. On those specks, the tiny, insignificant islands called the Moonshaes were even less than dust.

  Voices called from the spacious void surrounding her, drawing her attention this way and that. She knew them and she was pleased, for these were voices of mighty beings, and they showed her honor and respect. In a flash, she understood, and the knowledge placed her entire existence into perspective.

  She had been selected to hear the gods themselves, and it was an honor that dwarfed all the rest of her life.

  Ever watchful, Helm took note of the immortal turmoil tearing at the fiber of Gwynneth. He pressed close, his power linked to the life and body of the patriarch, only to find that a strong barrier of power held his full might at bay.

  Over the land, the presence of Talos was a rumbling and ominous cloud, not yet ready to unleash its storm. Below, the fertile loam of the Earthmother flourished, as if in challenge or scorn.

  The Vigilant One realized immediately that the goddess, not the storming god, formed the barrier to his own power, actively resisting the workings of Helm's might or his agents. The goddess blocked him, while Talos… Talos strived to weaken her.

  In a flash of immortal understanding, Helm sensed the course of destruction acted upon the world. A horde of monsters ravaged the land. Some of them labored in the name of Talos, though even the beasts themselves did not understand.

  And Talos showed his workings freely to Helm. The Vigilant One understood that knowledge of the scourging band could be used to his own advantage-and that such advantage would not be unpleasing to Talos.

  Thus, in mistrust and suspicion, but full awareness of mutual desire, the purposes of Helm and Talos became aligned.

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