The Druid Queen tdt-3

by Douglas Niles

  Spreading her arms out wider, she toppled into the air.

  Then a white hawk soared from the high tower, catching a powerful updraft and rising swiftly into the sky. The bird's course remained constantly northward, toward the wide valley of Myrloch.

  Almost holding his breath in tense anticipation, Thurgol watched Garisa prepare for her foretelling. She had before her a smooth copper bowl, half filled with clear water. She sprinkled some dark dust into the bowl and stirred it with a grimy finger, smiling with satisfaction as the water dimmed to a murky brown.

  She had placed the bowl beside the gleaming form of the Silverhaft Axe, explaining that the nearness of the artifact could only help the accuracy of the foretelling. In this she was right, for she had already decided what the prophecy was to be, and the weight of evidence provided by such a potent artifact, she knew, would make it virtually impossible for the thick-skulled firbolgs to dispute her.

  "Now the gold," she declared, holding out a hand behind her. Several young firbolgs hastened to drop shining coins in her hands, coins that had just been liberated from dwarven treasuries.

  Beyond the bunch of eager giant-kin, a sullen group of trolls, naturally centered around Baatlrap, looked on in rank skepticism. Thurgol was relieved that his firbolgs outnumbered the gangly beasts. It would be just like trolls, he thought, to ignore the clear will of the gods, the will that Garisa would certainly reveal to them. Wolfdogs skulked restlessly around the periphery of the gathering, nervously sensing the giants' agitation. Growls and snarls accompanied their anxious pacing, the smaller dogs staying well out of the paths of their larger kin.

  Before the fire, the shaman spun her fingers around the bowl, bringing the water into a swirling whirlpool that washed up the insides of the bowl without losing a drop over the edge. Eagerly the firbolg chieftain watched the coins plop, one by one, into the water.

  "I see …" Garisa mumbled after three coins had plunked into the bowl.

  "What? What?" Thurgol pressed, before his comrades rudely hushed him. To the chieftain, the water had seemed relatively unchanged, still dark in color but quickly swallowing the coins without any display of pyrotechnics or, so far as he could see, any message from a god.

  Another coin plopped into the water, then another. "More!" hissed Garisa, and her hand was once again filled with coins. She reached back into the water, stirring it faster and faster, dropping gold piece after gold piece into the swirling liquid until, by Thurgol's best estimate, perhaps twenty pieces of the precious metal lined the bottom of the bowl.

  This was a small fortune by any firbolg's estimate, and he became increasingly worried about whatever command of the gods would require so much payment. And still Garisa stirred, while the trolls looked on with obvious scorn and secretly growing curiosity.

  Finally all the second batch of coins had been dropped into the water, but this time the shaman did not demand more. Instead, she placed both hands in the water, stirring more diligently than ever, yet still taking great care to spill none of the enchanted liquid.

  "I see the Silverhaft Axe-again!" she hissed, her voice taut with wonder. "It glows like a beacon before us! It is the summoning agent of the gods, making their will known in the Realms. And beyond the great weapon, rising to the heavens themselves, I see the pristine summit of the Icepeak!"

  Thurgol squinted. He, personally, could see nothing even vaguely resembling a weapon or a landform in the murky water, but he wasn't about to challenge his shaman over the clear will of the gods. Furiously he tried to consider the implications of Garisa's words, but he could fathom no meaning there.

  Abruptly, in a sweeping gesture, the old female picked up the bowl and tossed the water over her shoulder, in the direction-no doubt inadvertently-of the skeptical trolls. Baatlrap cursed as he was thoroughly doused, but all other eyes remained fixed on Garisa.

  The water was the only thing that had flown from the bowl! The gold coins remained in the bottom, lined up in a passable imitation of an arrow. The sign pointed in a clear direction, after Garisa set the bowl down on the ground, and even the dimmest troll or firbolg could understand its import.

  For the arrow pointed straight north. There, across the stormy Strait of Oman, they all knew, rose the highland ridge and its crowning glory, the Icepeak.

  "Grond Peaksmasher …" Garisa said slowly, so that her words rang in the ears of all who were present. "He summons us northward in his hour of need."

  "Northward? Where?" mumbled Thurgol, scratching his head as he looked at the golden arrow. It certainly looked like an arrow, and no one could doubt the fact that it pointed to the north. But still there was much he didn't understand.

  "We must journey to the Icepeak, bearing the Silverhaft Axe before us!" Garisa proclaimed. "There we will find the Forger of Giants, frozen in the ice. Our task can only be to break him free!"

  Even in the peaceful forest, Hanrald and Brigit noticed that Finellen's dwarves took careful precautions with their camp. For one thing, it was screened on all sides, concealed in a shallow, bowl-shaped depression and protected by thick stands of pines. Even a large blaze would have been well shielded, yet the dwarves burned small fires, feeding just enough fuel to build up a solid bed of coals for cooking and, later, to produce such warmth as the summer wilderness required.

  Dwarves were common enough in the mining cantrev of Blackstone, Hanrald's home, but the young earl found the warriors of Finellen's band to be quite different from those familiar and cantankerous folk. The dwarves of Myrloch moved through the woods like beings who belonged there. They left little sign of their passage, and even their camp was a neatly arranged gathering, organized so as not to destroy several gardenlike clumps of columbine and bluebells.

  "Is this just routine, or are you worried about something?" Hanrald asked Finellen, gesturing to the pairs of crossbow-armed lookouts posted around the camp.

  "I just like to be careful," replied the gruff commander, whose manner had begun to soften under the influence of a good meal-exceptionally tender venison, Hanrald had been pleased to discover-and the flask of sour rum that the earl and the dwarf had begun to share.

  Brigit's initial hostility had relaxed to something like guarded neutrality. Still, she said little during the meal and did not partake of the potent beverage.

  "Actually," Finellen continued, "we haven't had any trouble for quite some time now. Old habits die hard, I guess. Why, back when I was young, there were bands of firbolgs in these heights that would get together and attack every few years. Life was interesting, then…."

  "My father told the same kind of stories about the Fairheight Mountains," Hanrald agreed.

  "Now we're lucky if we find an outlaw troll or two during the course of a year. Why, it's getting so a dwarf can't find an honest fight within a hundred miles!"

  "I should think that would be cause for celebration," Brigit said acidly, the memories of the Elf-Eater's rampage still fresh in her mind.

  "Oh, I suppose it is," Finellen agreed, without any trace of irritation. "Still, a gal who would like to keep her hand in things needs a little practice. Unless you think our friend Tristan's going to live forever."

  "You know the High King?" asked Hanrald, astounded. He had never seen a dwarf anywhere near the Kendrick court.

  "Knew him, I did," Finellen replied. "Let me see that flask. I don't want you to warm it too much with your big human hands." She took the bottle and swallowed a long, gurgling draft. "There, that's better."

  "Finellen commanded the dwarves who served your king during the Darkwalker War," Brigit explained, less hostile than before. "Their services were quite … useful in determining the final outcome."

  "Useful?" Finellen almost sputtered out a mouthful of sour, catching herself just in time to swallow before her outrage exploded. "Why, we cut down more firbolgs than you see trees in this forest!" she proclaimed. "And who stood in the trenches, holding the line, while the fancy-saddled riders pranced about on their horses and waited to steal al
l the glory?"

  "I've heard tales of your valor," Hanrald said soothingly, though Finellen was right about the glory. In the histories of the campaign as the earl had learned them, the Sisters of Synnoria, clad in silver armor and mounted on their white steeds, played a far more dramatic role than had the stolid dwarves.

  "I didn't expect anything else, really," Finellen groused good-naturedly. "And I'll swear to this very day, it was worth putting up with our pointy-eared allies in order to put King Tristan on the throne! He's the best thing that's happened to these islands in four generations-that's four generations of dwarves!" the bearded warrior concluded pointedly. Hanrald understood that she meant a good four centuries.

  "That he's been, for Ffolk and northman too," the earl agreed. "The Treaty of Oman has lasted for twenty years!"

  "A brief spark of time," Brigit noted, joining them beside the fire and finally taking a taste from Finellen's flask. "Can his peace last a hundred years, or two hundred, when his life must end in mere decades?"

  "Yes!" Hanrald pressed. "Through his family, a dynasty that will carry the weight of his will and his wisdom, as well as that of his queen!"

  "But who's to say that the ruler who follows will wield that might well?" countered the elf. It seemed to Hanrald as if she tried to debate contradictions within her own mind as much as with him.

  "In Alicia, I believe the first-" Hanrald broke off in mid-sentence as a shadow of movement off to the side distracted him. He turned in astonishment to see a man standing at the very edge of their fireside.

  Finellen cursed and sputtered, this time spitting the rum onto the fire so that it flashed brightly.

  "Where did-how did you get here!" she demanded, bouncing to her feet and reaching for the axe at her side. Other dwarves shouted indignantly and reached for weapons, while the guards at the fringe of the camp began cursing each other for the lapse in diligence.

  "Peace," said the man, holding up his hands so that they could see he held no weapon. "I come to speak with you, not to attack."

  "How did you get past my guards?" demanded the dwarven captain, still indignant.

  "With the help of the goddess," the fellow said quietly. "I am Danrak, druid of Myrloch."

  The priest of nature was a nondescript man with long, carelessly tossed hair that was nevertheless full-grown and clean. No more than average size of frame, his shoulders were as broad as a wrestler's, and an unspoken grace and strength lurked in his body, visible even as he walked the few steps to the fire.

  "It's all right," Finellen assured her warriors, and the members of the band grudgingly returned to their own fires. She kept her eyes on the druid, however. "Why was this necessary?"

  "I had thought, under the circumstances, that your guards might be a little edgy. I preferred to speak with their captain before taking an arrow through any part of me."

  "Circumstances?" demanded Finellen. "What circumstances?"

  The druid's eyes widened in surprise-and something else. Sadness, Hanrald realized with a strong sense of foreboding.

  "I–I'm sorry," Danrak said, faltering for the first time.

  "What is it, by the goddess?" stormed Finellen, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice to a low hiss. The dwarven captain shared the earl's dire sensation of threat, Hanrald could tell.

  "It's Cambro," the druid said quietly. "It was attacked yesterday by an army of firbolgs and trolls."

  Finellen sat in absolute silence for a moment, a silence that was as painful to Hanrald as a consuming explosion of temper. Finally she exhaled, a long, drawn-out breath that seemed to continue for the better part of a minute.

  "How bad was it?" she asked, in a voice like the dull rasp of a saw.

  "Many dwarves escaped-most, I think," Danrak said. "Though they left the village in the hands of the attackers. When I last observed the brutes, the night before yesterday, they were engaged in a bit of victory celebration."

  "I can imagine," growled Finellen. "We'd just poured the last three years' vintage from their aging to their storage casks. I'd guess they would have found plenty of them. Any prisoners?"

  "None that I saw," Danrak replied. "And as I told you, many dwarves escaped with their lives-though not much more. I met a number of them in the woods."

  "Where are the dwarves now?"

  "One of our order, Isolde, has taken them to various shelters in the Winterglen. They are safe there and have plenty of food and drink. Naturally they desire to return to their homes."

  "Why did I let myself get drawn away?" groaned Finellen, lowering her head dejectedly into her hands. "I take the best warriors in the village and go off on some wild-goose chase, while the real threat is right in our own back yards!"

  "It wasn't a wild-goose chase!" Hanrald interjected. "I saw that Elf-Eater, and if it had gotten out of Synnoria, you'd have desperately needed fair notice!"

  "He's right," Brigit agreed, surprisingly sympathetic. "You were wise to examine the threat that menaced Synnoria, just as I have every intention now of finding out about this so-called 'army' of firbolgs and trolls."

  "Are the bastards still in Cambro?" inquired the dwarf, only the deadly gleam in her eyes revealing her grim determination.

  "I don't know. I was able to eavesdrop on some of their celebration. It seems that they plan to march north," Danrak declared.

  "Why, that'll take them right into the Winterglen!" barked Finellen, perceiving the peril to the refugee dwarves.

  The druid, however, raised a calming hand. "Your village-mates are well hidden-for the most part, in caves and the like. You don't need to worry about them, even if the beasts march within a dozen feet. More to the point, why do they go north?"

  "There's nothing in their path except for a few tiny villages of Ffolk and northmen," Brigit pictured, remembering Gwynneth's geography. "Then they'll reach the Strait of Oman."

  "Perhaps they want to go for a swim," Hanrald suggested wryly.

  "Whatever it is, they've got to be hunted down and destroyed. I've got fifty brave dwarves here who've got just the axes for the job!"

  Hanrald looked at Brigit with a raised eyebrow. "As a loyal subject of my king, I'm duty-bound to find out what this is all about," he declared.

  "Better get some sleep, then," warned Finellen. "We'll be down the trail before first light."

  Deirdre rose from her bed during the darkest hours of the night, relieved to see that heavy clouds obscured the sliver of a moon. She went to her window, casting open the shutters to a scene of absolute black.

  Her window faced away from the town, and not so much as a glimmer of lamplight disturbed the invisible blackness of the rolling moor. She stood there for a long time, letting the darkness wash over her.

  It was easy to imagine the great void in which she had floated during her dreams. No stars gleamed through the overcast, and the distant expanse before her may as well have been an infinite cosmos. She listened for the voices of the gods….

  Talos and Helm circled warily amid the infinite cosmos, each prepared to smite the other with thunderbolt or cyclone, yet each at the moment more concerned with the intransigence of the earth goddess ruling a small and isolated group of islands.

  And so to that common foe the two gods turned their schemes, though neither neglected to maintain a suspicious watch upon the other.

  Still, against the Earthmother, their powers would be far greater than alone, for each could bring to bear his most powerful tool-and both tools could be made to serve the common end.

  In the case of Helm, this asset was his most accomplished servant, the Exalted Inquisitor himself. For Talos, the living weapon was none other than the Princess Deirdre, with her secret and crystal-hard soul.

  5

  Old Campaigners' Council

  Garisa snored, each exhalation flapping lips and cheeks like sails teased by a vagrant breeze. The sound itself was lost amid the chorus of similar rumbles and snorts from the giant-kin and trolls who slumbered all around, blissfully unmindful of
the mass hangover awaiting the army with the coming dawn. A soft wash of light blossomed beside the giantess as she clutched the Silverhaft Axe even in sleep, while the massive bonfire had once again settled into a small mountain of glowing coals. Otherwise the village lay in darkness.

  Only one shape stirred among this gathering of humanoids-a tall form, casting a long, almost sticklike shadow in the fading light of the coals. Baatlrap crept silently, stepping across firbolg and troll alike with uncharacteristic care. His black eyes, as devoid of obvious feeling as any walleyed salmon's, fixed unwaveringly on the gleaming blade.

  Finally he crouched beside Garisa and carefully, moving no more than an inch at a time, tugged at the blade. Very slowly the axe moved out of her grip. Once the giantess snorted and stirred restlessly, and the hulking troll froze, talons poised above her neck. Then she settled again, and the gangly troll completed his surreptitious theft.

  Clutching the weapon to his wiry chest, Baatlrap darted for the shelter of the surrounding forest, sprinting through the trees until he reached a point far removed from the village. Only then did he squat to the ground and examine his treasure.

  A pattern of runes, indecipherable to the troll, danced across the broad blade. The surface was a mosaic of many diamonds, so masterfully cut that from the evidence of sight and touch, it might have been one flawless stone. The handle, of cold metal, was as smooth and shiny as silver, yet it seemed to possess an inner strength greater than any steel.

  Yet beyond the physical beauty of the object, Baatlrap sensed a power in his hands that was deep and fundamental. He wondered if this was the power of Grond Peaksmasher, god of the firbolgs. Or could it be something more direct, more useful to the troll? In the dim recesses of his brain, he found images of dark thunderheads, leaden with storm and crackling with jagged bolts of lightning. In the destructive power of those storm clouds, he sensed his duty, his mission.

  Slowly, deliberately, the great troll took the axe in his right hand. Still squatting, he placed his left wrist on the ground and stretched his five long fingers before him. With a cruel grimace-or perhaps it was a bizarre smile of wicked ecstasy-he brought the blade down sharply, hissing at the pain that lanced through his hand and arm. Green blood spurted from five wounds, while the severed digits twitched mindlessly on the ground.