The Druid Queen tdt-3

by Douglas Niles

  Thurgol grunted from the pain of a sword cut beside his knee, bashing out the brains of the insolent human swordsman who had injured him. By this time, the firbolgs roamed throughout the warehouse, more and more of them piling through the two entrances until the entire band had collected around their leader. They raised a lusty cheer, and the chieftain felt a cruel flush of triumph.

  Then he reflected: There hadn't been more than a few dozen men in this whole place, and it had taken something like two hundred firbolgs the better part of an hour to root them out. When he put the fight into these terms, it didn't cause his heart to swell with martial pride.

  Such concerns were beyond the interest of his troops, however, especially after one of them discovered that the warehouse had stored more than fish. Indeed, this seemed to be the biggest liquor repository a town the size of Codscove could possibly need! Casks were broken open before Thurgol even noticed the discovery, and in moments, the smell of flowing rum began to rival even the stench of gutted fish.

  Some four hundred stalwart men-at-arms answered the High Queen's mustering within twenty hours. Mostly they came from Corwell Town, but cantrevs Dynnatt and Koart contributed small companies of footmen as well. Nearly twoscore of the Corwell men were mounted and carried light lances; the others included many with longbows and the rest bearing swords and shields. Each man also carried two flasks of highly flammable oil.

  The two sergeants-major organized the recruits in the courtyard of Caer Corwell. Sands barked at the swordsmen and archers, organizing them into four companies of march, while Parsallas shouted and harangued the riders and spearmen, forming a long central formation and assigning the horsemen to assume various scouting duties once the formation took to the march.

  Robyn stood upon a balcony in the keep, addressing the men gathered in the courtyard below. Alicia and Keane waited at the head of the great file, with the Exalted Inquisitor of Helm off to the side.

  "For the first time in a generation," she exhorted them, "the giant-kin have broken the peace, carving a path of destruction across the face of Myrloch Vale and the Winterglen! Will you men join your king and march against them?"

  The resulting cry echoed from the walls of the castle, clearly audible even down in Corwell Town.

  "Your king already rides," she continued, turning to look clearly at the cleric of Helm. "In the name of the goddess, go forth and restore the Balance! I name the Princess Alicia as your commander, the noble Sir Keane as her lieutenant."

  "For the kings of Corwell!" shouted the men, their deep voices rumbling in unison as they chanted the ancient battle cry of the kingdom: "The kings of Corwell!"

  Robyn lowered her gaze to rest upon her daughter's uplifted face. "Go now, Princess. Find the enemies of the goddess and bring them to the right!"

  "Aye, my queen!" pledged Alicia, with a bow. In another moment, she sprang into her saddle, waiting as Keane and the cleric mounted somewhat more slowly.

  "Forward!" she cried. A thumping song begun by a few veterans, rhythmic in tempo and nonsensical in verse, brought the men into a steady march. Alicia and the other riders circled the courtyard and passed through the gatehouse, followed by each rank of footmen in turn, after they clumped proudly past the queen's balcony.

  "For the kings of Corwell!" Once again the battle cry echoed from the walls, ringing firmly as the column of men made its way through the gatehouse and onto the castle road.

  Just as Alicia, mounted on her fleet mare Brittany, led the column from the gatehouse down the long, descending curve of the road, another rank of men hove into view, coming across the moor from the south. The princess was delighted to hold up the march until the newcomers, forty keen-eyed crossbowmen from Llyrath Forest, fell in at the end of the line. Despite an all-night march, the hearty woodsmen had no difficulty following the rest of the column.

  Robyn stood alone in her window for several minutes after that, watching them start across the moors toward the northern highlands. She had given Alicia a map showing a good pass, hitherto known only to a few druids. It should allow them to reach the western shore of Myrloch by the second day out of Corwell.

  "Well, they're gone. Now what do we do for excitement?" The voice, from the door of her chamber, whirled the queen around in shock, even as she realized that Deirdre had simply entered without knocking.

  "You-you startled me," she said unnecessarily.

  "Obviously," Deirdre said, walking into the room but staying away from the sunswept balcony. "There's quite a chill," she added, wrapping her arms around her ribs.

  "I hadn't noticed." Robyn quickly stepped into the room and pulled the large double doors shut. "How are you feeling this morning?"

  "I feel fine, Mother!" snapped the princess with a suggestion of her earlier vitality. "In fact, this place is starting to drive me crazy. I'd like to get out of here!"

  "Go for a walk-perhaps even a ride," her mother suggested. "When the sun gets a little higher, it's sure to be a warm day."

  Deirdre shook her head firmly. "No, not like that… not out with people. I want to get away… from…"

  She didn't finish the thought. Instead, she rose abruptly and crossed to the door. She stopped, as if she wanted to say something more to the High Queen. But then she spun on her heel and quickly left the room.

  The moorhounds coursed after a stag in full voice, wailing across the gentle ridgetop, down through the forested valleys, and into the tangled bottomlands and fens. Tristan spurred Shallot on, and the great war-horse thundered after the racing dogs, carrying the High King down a steep slope and plunging into the dense forest beyond.

  Thorns tore at Tristan's leggings, and only his armor allowed him to bull his way through the ensnaring thickets. Hacking with his great sword, the king forced a path for himself and his struggling horse, until finally they broke onto a trail and thundered deeper into the wood, following the baying song of the hounds.

  The hunt drew Tristan into its vital embrace, so much so that nothing else mattered. He felt the terror of the stag as a powerful enticement pumping through his veins. His lance trailed behind-there was no other way to carry the ungainly weapon in this tangled terrain-yet he longed for the chance to raise the long shaft, driving the barbed head toward the stag's pounding, fear-stricken heart.

  He knew that the hounds would take the beast, and he understood that this was the law of the hunt, right and proper and every bit in keeping with the Balance. Yet at the same time, he felt a tearing sense of jealous rage, a powerful compulsion that told him that he himself deserved to slay the beast, had earned the first bloody taste of fresh meat.

  Tristan rode like a wild animal, racing through the hunt, desperately thrilled at the thought of the kill so close at hand. Above the tangled growth, he caught a glimpse of the antlered head cresting a grass-covered ridge, the baying of the hounds sounding close behind. When the great dogs broke into the clear behind the stag, the mighty animal had already disappeared over the summit.

  Baying frantically, their song resounding from the very heavens, the five moorhounds bounded after their terrified quarry. Tristan angrily spurred Shallot into a desperate, thundering gallop, urging the powerful stallion up the steep slope. The High King's surroundings had ceased to matter; he knew only the scent of blood in his nostrils, the imminent fate of his quarry before him.

  Cresting the low ridge, he saw the stag splash through a wide, shallow stream below. Still howling, the dogs leaped into the water, bounding through the streambed, their slavering jaws snapping after the bounding form of the great deer.

  Shallot plunged down the following slope with admirable courage, the stallion's powerful forelegs bearing the brunt of the rapid descent. The war-horse carried the king around the most tangled thickets, past the more precipitous dropoffs, retaining his balance on treacherous terrain, springing downward as if he sensed his rider's need to complete this hunt with his own arm, his own steel.

  The stag plunged into a wide meadow of lush greenery and blazin
g flowers, but then water gleamed to either side, flying outward in shimmering curtains of spray. The animal's mindless flight carried it farther into a marsh, and as it slowed, the huge hounds sprang into the mire in pursuit.

  The stag lunged and kicked, reaching with desperate fore-hooves for solid ground but finding only bottomless muck. Splashing and thrashing, the creature pressed ahead, but now the howling dogs closed in steadily. The stag located a low hummock of mud, perilous fundament amid the morass but the only dry ground within reach. Scrambling out of the water, the cornered beast turned its impressive rack of antlers toward the bounding, wailing hounds.

  "Hold!" cried Tristan as Shallot reached the edge of the mire and plunged in without a moment's delay. The dogs, well disciplined to their master's command, froze immediately. They barked and snapped at their quarry, but did not close to bite.

  The king spurred his plunging horse, trying to drive Shallot to greater efforts as the huge stallion labored through the clutching mud of the swamp. Here was his chance! Tristan raised his lance, leveling the gleaming steel tip at the trapped stag and kicking the stallion into even greater efforts to charge. Then a strange urge held his hand. He thrust the lance into the mud and instead drew his longsword, feeling a flush of impending victory at the satisfying weight of the blade.

  The five dogs snapped and snarled, but obeyed his command not to attack. As Shallot carried Tristan onto the hummock of mud, however, the stallion reared back in fright. Clutching his sword, Tristan stared in shock as gray, skulking figures emerged from the brush beyond. Leaping forward with sleek grace and quick, animal power, a pack of lean wolves gathered in a protective circle around the frightened deer. More and more of the lupine forms, nearly as big as his hounds, pounced forward, forming a ring of bristling fangs and raised hackles surrounding the panting, exhausted stag.

  The baying of the hounds rose to a furious pitch as the five dogs confronted the wolf pack. A strange kind of equilibrium seemed to hold them in place, only a few paces apart. Ranthal, leading the hounds, stepped forward, stiff-legged and snarling, but the largest of the wolves moved forward from the pack to meet him.

  The wild animal's yellow eyes stared, unblinking, at the huge hound. Unconsciously Tristan held his breath. He felt certain that Ranthal would hurl himself at the wolf unless a command from the king held him back. But so powerfully did the hunting song pulse through Tristan's veins that he gave no thought to restraint, never even considered telling his dog to hold.

  Yet, surprisingly, Ranthal did not attack. In fact, after a few moments confronting the wolf's baleful glare, the great moorhound crept backward, rejoining his four packmates with almost palpable relief. The wolves, meanwhile, made no aggressive move, instead holding firm in their protective ring. Any attack against the stag would have necessitated a charge through their bristling fangs.

  Astonished, Tristan held his sword before him, angled toward the ground, and considered the merits of a short, deliberate charge. Shallot could carry him through the wolves with little danger, and he knew that the hounds would protect the flanks of the great war-horse. Yet still something held his hand-he didn't know what the cause-as the bloodlust of the hunt slowly drained away. He felt as if he awakened from some kind of dream, not entirely certain how he had come to be where he was. Carefully he lowered his sword, no longer wishing to drive it into the flesh of his quarry.

  "Greetings, King of Callidyrr, Monarch of the Ffolk, Uniter of the Moonshaes, and Slayer of Giant-kin!" The voice, heavy with irony, nearly knocked Tristan from his saddle with raw surprise, for the words had come from the great wolf!

  "Who-who are you?" he demanded.

  "Who am I?" The wolf sounded amused. "Rather, ask yourself who are you, High King Tristan Kendrick!"

  "You've answered that question yourself!" he retorted, still shaken by the unusual speaker. He knew insolence when he heard it, and it wasn't an attitude he was used to or accepting of.

  "Have I? Or is there more to it than that?"

  The creature's irritating responses, meeting a question with another question, grated on the king's nerves. Growing angry, he raised the tip of his sword again. "I tire of your word games. Explain your reasons for blocking me from my game!"

  If the wolf had heard the king's demand, he gave no indication. Instead, the lanky form sat on its haunches and regarded Tristan with those two impossibly bright eyes.

  "Answer me, beast!" snapped the High King, yet even as his anger built, he felt a swirling sense of confusion enclosing him. This wasn't right, he knew-and not just because a wolf spoke to him with a human voice. No, the protection the wolves offered to the stag, that was certainly unnatural, and the carefully neutral way they regarded his own dogs both combined to give the man a sense of caution.

  "Tell me, human king"-the way the wolf said the word sounded as if humans made a very low grade of king indeed-"what great cause brings you to Myrloch Vale? Why do you ride here, frightening the animals and terrorizing the Earthmother's own deer?"

  "What business-" For a moment, outrage wrenched the words from Tristan's mouth, but his brain, although it worked a little more slowly than his jaws, suddenly focused on the wolf's question. Why indeed was he here?

  With a quick look at the sun, he saw that his chase of the stag had carried him far to the west of his planned route. He had lost several hours in the exuberant chase, not to mention the time needed to retrace his steps and rest his weary horse.

  "I ride against the enemies of the goddess!" he declared, as if to remind himself at the same time as he informed his questioner. He no longer thought of it as a mere beast of the forest. "Firbolgs and trolls have broken the peace of the vale, marching against their neighbors for war and plunder. My mission is nothing less than the restoration of the Balance in Myrloch Vale!"

  "An interesting tactic," murmured the wolf, the golden eyes taking on a sly cast. "This stag, for instance-he represents a great threat to the Balance, does he?"

  Tristan flushed. "No! I was hunting. I grew tired of trail fare and desired fresh meat."

  The wolf cast an amused, skeptical eye at the great deer.

  The animal stood nearly as tall as Shallot, with a rack of antlers spreading farther to the sides than a tall man's armspan. Finally the barrel chest had ceased its heaving, and the stag seemed to listen attentively, watching the exchange between the wolf and the rider.

  "You must be very hungry," noted the great lupine, after completing his comparison.

  Shaking his head in annoyance, Tristan was about to retort that he didn't intend to eat the whole stag when a cautious voice urged him to hold his tongue. Suddenly he understood the wolf's point. "My hounds must eat as well," he finished lamely.

  "Of course-all things must eat! This is the way of the Balance. But I will tell you something, King of the Ffolk: You were chasing a lord of Myrloch Vale, one who has ruled over his domain for as long as you have held sway in your own. It is a domain that has been free from humans, except for such as honor the vale and its life. Now, is it the purpose of this great animal's life, the purpose of the Balance, that he should feed a human trespasser and his dogs?"

  Suddenly Tristan felt an appalling sense of sadness. The wolf was right, of course-the wolf, or whoever this was speaking to him.

  Consumed by the force, the magic, of the hunt, he had all but forgotten the threat of the firbolg army, the monsters that even now menaced his subjects to the north. For a moment, he remembered the urgency that had seized him upon the first notion of his grand quest. He had delayed no more than an hour before taking to the trail. Now he had wasted many times more than that on this frivolous chase!

  No, he chastised himself, it was worse than frivolous. When he looked at the proud stag, which still stood before him even though it had recovered its breath, it occurred to him that slaying the beast might be as great a crime, in its own right, as was the firbolg sacking of Cambro.

  "Who are you?" he asked again.

  This time, he felt c
ertain that the wolf's long, narrow jaws curled upward into a smile. "A friend," came the reply. Then, in a flash of movement, the wolf whirled and sprang away, followed by the others of his pack. In seconds, they had disappeared into the woods.

  The stag remained standing on the hummock before Tristan, facing the five hounds. The dogs sat attentively, eyes fixed upon the stag but hindquarters planted firmly on the ground. Then, as if dismissing the interlopers gathered around him, the great animal lowered its muzzle to the fresh grass and began to graze.

  "Come," the High King said firmly, and the dogs fell into file behind Shallot. The war-horse plodded back through the marsh, the hounds bounding along behind as they struggled to keep up. Finally they reached open woods and dry land, and Tristan urged the stallion into a lumbering trot.

  He had a good deal of time to make up.

  Even the shelter of the narrow strait did not improve Brandon's mood. The blasting of the storm and the lashing of the wind had diminished remarkably, but gray clouds scudded quickly across the sky. For its part, the sea remained angry, too, as a series of long, rolling crests swept against the Princess of Moonshae's hull from the north.

  The vessel heeled to starboard, plunging steadily eastward between the islands of Gwynneth and Oman. Despite the smoother waters near the Oman shore, Brandon ordered the ship to follow the southern coast of the strait, for there the wind was stronger and the longship's speed correspondingly improved.

  "By Tempus!" muttered Brand, in his usual post beside Knaff at the stern. "Might as well have left it to the whimsy of the gods. I'm sure we could have sailed to the south and met a storm coming from that way as well!"

  "As sure as the sunrise," Knaff agreed. "Best to hold steady on a nice, easy course."

  Not sharing the young prince's urgency, the old helmsman didn't see any particular problem with their change of course. In fact, he felt that his captain could use a little calming down on that point, and Knaff was the only member of the crew who would dare make even a gentle insinuation along those lines. Even as he reflected, the thickest of the clouds blew past the sun, and bursts of illumination began to break through. Where it struck the water, the sea turned from ominous gray to a dark but powerfully beautiful azure.