The Druid Queen tdt-3

by Douglas Niles

  He knew that the rocky shore of Oman's Isle lay somewhere in the murk, but he didn't know how close-so quickly had the waves and wind enclosed and blinded them. Yet he well remembered that this stretch of coast had few sheltered bays, and many long expanses of fang-toothed boulders and precipitous granite cliffs. They would find only disaster if they drew too close to the island.

  "We've got to turn and run with the wind!" bellowed Knaff the Elder, Brandon's veteran helmsman. Now he clenched the tiller in his muscular hands as spray lashed his long gray hair back from his head, plastering his beard to his broad chest. He grinned in savage delight at nature's wrath, yet he was too good a sailor to want to risk the ship and crew in such an unequal contest.

  Brandon's eyes swung to the north, bitterly reflecting the slow pace of their advance. An hour or two of running before this storm would cost them more than a day's worth of progress. He saw the stocky figure of Tavish, crouched behind the figurehead and staring at the spuming sea. If the bard hadn't been forced to take cover, the gods curse him if Brandon Olafsson would do so!

  "Ride her out!" he commanded, squinting into the wind as if to prove that the gale was no match for a northman's determination.

  Waves climbed before them, looming like mountains on the horizon, then crashing along the sleek hull. Skillfully Knaff steered between the crests wherever possible, and when the longship had to take a wave full upon her prow he guided her with stoic courage straight into the foaming teeth of the breakers.

  The Princess of Moonshae wallowed up a steeply sloping wave, barely cresting the summit before a chaotic swirl of spray thundered around them, over the gunwales and washing down the length of the hull. Northman sailors, already bailing frantically, redoubled their efforts. Many cast wary eyes at their prince, wondering whether their captain's grim determination to proceed would prove the death of them all.

  But even Brandon eventually had to face the inevitable. The wind drove at them too hard, the waves loomed too high, for the ship to maintain the steady northward course. Cursing silently against the gods that thwarted him, he shook his head in fury.

  "All right!" he assented grimly. "Bring her around as soon as you can!"

  A series of rolling crests tumbled past them and Knaff held the Princess steady through the succession of powerful blows. Then, spotting a momentary lull, he heeled hard on the rudder, bringing the sleek longship through a slashing turn on the inside of a rolling trough of seawater. The vessel lurched sickeningly on her beam, but then a quick adjustment by Knaff righted her atop a breaking crest.

  Meanwhile, Tavish had backed away from the prow and settled herself on one of the rowing benches, keeping a secure grasp around a nearby thwart. The seas must have gotten too rough for her, the captain mused, deriving some satisfaction from the fact. He realized, then, that his rash course had been a foolish mistake, brought on by his own desire to confront the feelings that stormed within him. Just as well we turned, Brandon grunted to himself-imagine risking the lives of his crew, the survival of his ship, out of the brooding and longing for a Ffolkwoman!

  But now the ship rode with the storm, not against it, and the waves rolled away from beneath the sturdy hull. Sliding forward with dizzying speed, the ship raced southward, propelled by the wind and the storm and careening across the choppy surface.

  Full dark settled around them, and the storm's fury lasted for several more hours-hours during which the Princess of Moonshae raced with the wind, riding the pitching waves with elegant grace. For a time the strains of Tavish's harp accompanied them through the night, but finally the bard fell into a deep slumber. The ship raced on, surrounded now only by the sounds of the crashing sea.

  Yet, as Brandon had feared, the miles swept by with dizzying speed. Though the storm faded into a stiff blow during the middle of the night, there was no longer any question of turning and challenging the wind-in the inky darkness, that would almost certainly prove to be a suicidal course.

  Finally a gray light began to diffuse through the mist. A break in the clouds came with the dawn, and Brandon cursed when he saw the Icepeak, now laying far to the stern as it emerged from a low-hanging blanket of clouds. And still the wind blew from the north, blocking any serious attempt to return to their original course.

  "The sea stands against us," Knaff noted, with a grunted acknowledgement of the prince's frustration.

  "Aye," Brand muttered bitterly. He knew these isles, and knew that the direct route home was not a good path for this trip.

  "Mark a course to the east," he said after a few moments consideration. "We'll take her through the Strait of Oman."

  That route, known from many voyages to each of the veteran sailors, offered good shelter from a northerly gale, and although it represented an increase in distance, the overall time of the voyage could be reduced.

  "Wise choice," Knaff announced in hearty acknowledgment.

  Since the Princess of Moonshae had already passed the southern terminus of Oman's Isle, the helmsman immediately veered her to an easterly bearing. Within a few minutes, the swells around them grew noticeably smaller, with tops of steely gray or green rather than the angry whitecaps of the storm.

  Only then did the crewmen breathe a collective sigh of relief, knowing they had at last entered the sheltered waters of the Strait of Oman.

  In the night, Deirdre grew restless, rising and pacing her rooms like a caged animal. She cast a spell of silence around her, for she knew that her mother slept lightly in the next room. That was part of her tension, she knew. She felt trapped by the overweening presence of the druid queen.

  Again she thought of her father, riding alone across Gwynneth against the forces of chaos. She felt like one of those forces, a powerful instrument, perhaps even a weapon, poised and ready for use.

  And in the spirit of chaos, she had no idea of which way her weapon-herself-would strike.

  "Now, my deadly blade. . now you grow finely honed, almost ready to strike…."

  Talos chortled, sound gurgling like the seething of a volcanic caldron. The god of chaos and evil saw that his vengeance was near, yet for once, his attention was not directed at the princess who slowly prepared to serve him.

  Instead, his delight was fixed upon a darkened forest clearing. There, repeating a ritual he had begun to master, a hulking troll raised a great axe and deliberately sliced off the fingers of his two hands.

  7

  The Battle of Codscove

  Thurgol stood atop the same low hill from which he had first observed the human town and its sheltered bay. Though he stood in plain sight of the town, all the firbolgs of his army were gathered close behind, concealed from view and lolling in the morning shade as they awaited their chieftain's command.

  Below Thurgol, spreading into six broad columns of about two dozen apiece, Baatlrap's trolls marched steadily toward the village. On his lofty vantage, the giant chieftain was stunned by the multitude of his green-skinned allies. Where had they all come from? They crossed green swaths of crops, leaving great brown trails in the dirt as their clawed feet chewed up the moist dirt and mashed wheat, alfalfa, and corn into mud. The wolfdogs paced eagerly at their heels.

  The humans in the village, he saw, reacted predictably to the appearance of the trolls. With no wall to protect them, they gathered into companies and advanced quickly to meet the approaching trolls. The giant-kin saw people scrambling through the streets, racing this way and that. The knights stumbled to their horses and mounted, then stood in a tiny knot on the village green, apparently bickering about what to do next.

  Several ranks of archers hastened out of the village, forming a long line between the outlying houses and the approaching trolls.

  Good! This was the reaction Thurgol awaited. "Follow me!" he bellowed, immediately dropping below the crest of the hill and gesturing to the waiting band of firbolgs. The giants rose to their feet in a mass, quickly breaking into a lumbering trot as they followed their chieftain down the gradually descending ridgeline
, out of sight of the men in the village.

  Within a few minutes, they reached an enclosing fringe of forest. This was part of the broad woods of Winterglen, Thurgol had earlier noticed. In fact, the concealment of the trees extended all the way to the shoreline, ending only a few hundred yards from the western fringe of the village. It was the closest an attacker could come without falling under direct observation by the defenders-and, hence, within range of arrow fire from the deadly longbows of the Ffolk.

  According to the plan hammered out by Thurgol and Baatlrap, the trolls would take their time reaching the edge of the village, knowing that the barrage of arrows could do the wiry predators little significant damage. During this time, however, they would draw the full attention of the archers, or so it was hoped.

  He pictured the scene in the fields, imagining the methodical advance of the trolls. The steel-headed arrows would fly as thick as rain, in volley after volley. Perhaps the humans would raise a ragged cheer when the trolls seemed to falter, the monsters pausing to pluck the missiles from their skin, snap them in two, and cast them to the ground. More and more arrows would fly, to be pulled out and cast aside as the patient trolls allowed their wounds to heal, though doubtlessly growing increasingly irritable and bloodthirsty in annoyance.

  That was the plan, anyway. All Thurgol could hope was that the trolls stuck to their part of it. Huffing from the exertion of his pounding gait, the firbolg pushed his way through the woods with growing urgency, knowing that he had no time for delay. Fronds and ferns tickled his legs, but fortunately there was little dense underbrush to obstruct their passage.

  Garisa hobbled beside him. The old shaman, with her woolen banner of the Silverhaft Axe fluttering in the wind, moved with surprising speed. She hissed and cackled encouragement to the other firbolgs, waving the pennant with unflagging enthusiasm. Though she hadn't been eager to make this attack, she had embraced the assault wholeheartedly once it had been ordered.

  Thurgol heard a soft sound before him, but at first he was uncertain whether it was the wind in the trees or the breaking of waves on the coast coast. Then, in another moment, the trees abruptly gave way to a stark, rocky shoreline. Thurgol slowed cautiously as he saw blue water between the gaps in the trunks, staying back from the sea's edge to avoid exposing himself to discovery.

  Though he didn't know his exact location, he knew that he would reach the village if he followed the shoreline to the right. Cautiously now, taking more care with silence and concealment than with speed, the firbolgs crept through the verdant woods. Soon patches of sunlight came into view ahead, and in another moment, they had reached the edge of the forest. Barely three hundred paces away, they saw a collection of ramshackle fishing huts, and beyond, the larger houses of Codscove.

  Nevertheless, the defense of this side of the town hadn't been neglected, Thurgol saw. Perhaps a hundred men-at-arms stood or sat in the shade along the town's edge. Some of them stared toward the woods, but most seemed to listen intently to the sounds of the battle raging in the field. Buildings obscured the trolls from Thurgol's view, but he heard bellows and taunts and cries of battle. The snarls and savage barks of the wolfdogs punctuated the chaos, and the firbolg chieftain knew that the great canines pressed savagely forward beside their trollish masters. Judging from the sounds of the fighting, which grew louder with each passing second, Thurgol suspected the gangly monsters had already charged into the town.

  Knowing the time for his own attack was ripe, the firbolg chieftain nevertheless paused for a moment's nagging doubt. Once again he couldn't entirely convince himself that this was necessary. He looked longingly at the waters of the strait. The rising bulk of the Icepeak on Oman's Isle was visible in the clear morning air, less than a score of miles away but separated from them by a seemingly uncrossable barrier of water.

  More shouts-shrill screams of human agony and bloodcurdling cries of trollish triumph-rang from the nearby battlefield, and the men-at-arms before the firbolgs became more agitated. The snarling of the wolfdogs increased in fury, and a hideous shriek of terror signaled another human falling to those implacable jaws. Abruptly, as Thurgol watched in astonishment, most of the humans before him picked up their weapons and ran toward the sound of the fighting. Barely two dozen stood in place now, shouting at their comrades to return to their posts.

  "Charge!" Thurgol bellowed, pushing through the last screen of brush to emerge onto the coastal field. All around him, the giant-kin came smashing out of the forest, sounding for all the world like blinded bulls stumbling through a tangled maze of fencework. Their own bellows joined the cries of their chieftain, and the firbolgs lunged across the field toward the gaping humans defending Codscove's shantytown.

  A few of these had bows and raised the weapons, casting desultory arrows into the onrushing rank of giants. Thurgol seized one of the boulders from his pouch and hurled it on the run, cursing as it sailed over an archer's head. A dozen other rocks missed the same target, but the one that hit proved sufficient. The bowman dropped like a felled tree, blood flowing from a gaping wound on his skull.

  The other archers met similar fates as the firbolgs rushed closer. Thurgol raised his club, the old battle rage once again seizing him in its bloodthirsty grip. He cursed as the few humans before him turned away and vanished into the maze of shacks and sheds. Their cowardice made sense; these were the men, after all, who wouldn't join their comrades in rallying to the sound of fighting, but the disappearance of his quarry enraged Thurgol beyond all his previous fury.

  He smashed his club through the roof of a ramshackle building, crudely pleased as the structure splintered into pieces from the force of the blow. Stepping through the shattered remains, he saw a human swordsman darting from the wreckage toward another, more sturdy building. Thurgol caught him in two quick bounds, dropping the man with a crushing blow that almost knocked the wretch's head from his shoulders.

  All around him, the firbolgs shouted in triumph, wading into the motley buildings, chasing out and killing the few humans they found there. The giant-kin began to smash the shacks with clubs, fists, and feet, until very little of the shantytown remained.

  The sturdy building that had originally attracted Thurgol's victim proved to be an exception. It was some kind of fish warehouse, judging from the smell, but it benefitted from far sturdier construction than the other buildings they had come across. Now a number of men had barricaded themselves inside, jabbing through cracks in the walls with sharp spears at any firbolg who dared approach.

  One of the giant-kin near Thurgol grunted in deep, sudden pain. Stumbling to his knees and cursing, the firbolg pulled an arrow from his shoulder.

  "Up there!" cackled Garisa, pointing a bony finger at the archer, who tried to duck out of sight on the roof of the fish warehouse. A barrage of rocks followed him into his hiding place, with what effect the firbolgs couldn't tell. No more arrows came down from the roof, however.

  "Smash down the door!" shouted Thurgol as battle-crazed giants teemed around him, probing and smashing through the ruined shantytown, shaking fists and clubs, throwing stones, and bellowing savagely at the tightly secured warehouse.

  A pair of firbolgs lunged at the door, carrying a heavy timber between them. The foot of the beam crunched into the solid portal, creaking the barrier on its hinges but failing to bash it open. Immediately a long spear snaked from a crack beside the entrance, its barbed head driving deep into the flank of one of the lumbering attackers. The firbolg cried out loudly in pain, stumbling away from the door in panic. His companion, left holding the heavy timber by himself, dropped the beam and hastened after the wounded giant-kin.

  "All of you, attack!" shouted Thurgol, his own fury compelling him to focus on this stubbornly defended building. Firbolgs surged against the square structure from all sides, smashing against the walls, crashing makeshift battering rams into the two doors. They smashed the shutters over the place's windows, but these apertures proved too small for firbolg bodies. Instead, they opened
the attackers up to murderously accurate short-range bow fire from within the darkened warehouse. The giants, on the other hand, couldn't even see their attackers in the shadows.

  Still the doors held firm. Thurgol gathered two dozen firbolgs together, commanding them to hoist a long, stout pole that had once supported the roof of an inn. The giant-kin broke into a lumbering gallop, bearing down on the much-battered front door of the warehouse. Though the leaders flinched out of the way as the inevitable polearms projected from gaps beside the entrance, the bulk of the giants drove the ram home with irresistible power.

  The door to the warehouse snapped free from its hinges, tumbling into a pile of barrels that had been used to brace it. The latter scattered like ninepins, rolling through the warehouse amid a tangled mass of firbolgs, battering ram, and the unfortunate defenders, who tried to dodge out of the way.

  Thurgol stepped through the door in time to see a human spearman drive his weapon into the unprotected back of a firbolg who had fallen to the floor. The giant bellowed in agony as the man pulled his weapon free, raising it for another, this time fatal, thrust.

  But the chieftain of Blackleaf got there first. Thurgol broke the human's body like a twig with a single blow of his club, killing him instantly and sending the corpse flying into the wall like a broken rag doll. The wounded firbolg squirmed on the floor, unable to rise, and Thurgol stepped over him to follow the charge into the warehouse.

  Humans with swords tried to make a stand around the breach, while others threw open the back doors of the box-like structure. Here they met the other half of Thurgol's band, however. The chieftain hadn't been foolish enough to commit all his giants against one side of the building. Led by Garisa's shouts of encouragement, these firbolgs charged into the desperately fleeing humans, slaughtering them by the dozen as they poured like lemmings from the door.