The Druid Queen tdt-3

by Douglas Niles

  Crawling forward flat on the ground, concealed beneath the green foliage of a thorny bush, Baatlrap observed the humans beneath the cool light of the moon. The great bulk of the army broke into companies and prepared to make camp. These did not interest the great troll.

  Instead, his black, unfeeling eyes remained fixed upon the human lord with the great stallion. That man remained with the dwarves, and presently, to the great troll's bitter satisfaction, this small force marched away from the main body of the army.

  Swiftly Baatlrap gathered his remaining warriors, staying well away from the human encampment as they started out. They circled the battlefield, then quickly found the trail of the dwarves and the human king.

  Carefully, cautiously, staying well back from his quarry, Baatlrap led his trolls along the moonlit coastal trail.

  The dwarven captain led the way along the coast for the better part of six hours as the dawn grew into a cloudless, bright morning. The heat began to increase, untempered by any breeze off the strait.

  "I still can't figure out why they wanted to steal the axe," Finellen groused. "What use is it to them? Why, the dolts didn't even use it in battle!"

  "And why did they break a peace of twenty years?" Tristan added, puzzled himself.

  "I think the answer to both questions lies with these firbolgs, and the sooner we catch them and beat the truth out of them, the happier I'll be!"

  Tristan shared his old companion's eagerness to conclude their pursuit, but he was surprised to find that his own sense of grim determination had begun to flag somewhat. He wanted to answer these questions as much as ever, but the lust for vengeance no longer burned quite so hotly in his heart. It had been replaced by a kind of wondering curiosity.

  By midday, true to Finellen's prediction, the bearded dwarfwoman announced that they must turn inland. Tristan noticed a large split rock, jutting from a promontory on the shoreline, and assumed that this was some kind of landmark.

  Indeed, after no more than a quarter-mile of hiking, they reached an apparently impenetrable clump of thornbushes. The branches were interwoven so thoroughly that any attempt to push through, or even to hack a passage, would have been painful if not impossible.

  Nevertheless, the dwarf ducked low, lifting heavy branches lined with jagged, prickly thorns out of the way. Tristan followed, using his shield to part the thorny branches, but still he and the other humans had to crawl on their knees to make their way through.

  Then abruptly the thicket gave way to a small, grassy clearing, completely surrounded by the thorny hedge. Finellen stepped to a broad stump, the only feature of the meadow, and twisted it once. Tristan wasn't surprised when it fell away, revealing a spiraling stone staircase descending into the earth.

  Following the High King, Keane produced a small pebble and, with a snap of his fingers, caused it to burst into bright illumination. "Here you go, Sire," he said, passing it to Tristan.

  The king lifted the stone as he followed the dwarf into the dank, tightly circling stairwell. Cool white light splashed along the walls and steps before him, clearly showing him the passage. In the confining space, with the ceiling low overhead and the walls constantly pressing against one shoulder or another, the king was profoundly grateful for the illumination.

  The others followed, aided by several additional enchanted pebbles. The dwarves, with their natural night vision, had no need of such aid. After twenty or thirty steps, the stairway became a tight-walled, steeply descending corridor. In places, Tristan had to turn sideways just to make the passage, and he began to wonder if it would be possible to follow such a passage for any number of miles.

  "It opens up before too long," Finellen said, as if reading his mind. "As soon as we join up with the main passage."

  "Good news!" broke in a familiar voice.

  Tristan whirled in surprise as Newt popped into sight behind him, hovering in the corridor that was so narrow his gossamer wings nearly brushed the sides. "Let's get going," said the faerie dragon, settling on the king's shoulder.

  "I'm glad you're here, old friend," Tristan said, warmly touched by the little creature's courage.

  True to the dwarf's prediction, a few hundred paces, all of it steeply descending, brought them to an intersection with a much wider tunnel. Finellen wasted no time in starting down this passageway, where Tristan was relieved to see that he could walk upright with no difficulty. Still perched on the royal shoulder, Newt nonetheless stretched out his wings, enjoying the extra space.

  Keane and Alicia followed behind them, with Brandon, Hanrald, and Brigit next. The remainder of Finellen's dwarves marched silently in the rear. The tunnel drew them deeper into the underground world, the darkness seeming to thicken around them with each step.

  As they continued on, the descent was much less noticeable, though it was still there. Onward they trudged, through the darkness of the underearth, while the humans became more and more conscious of the weight of seawater overhead.

  For long, dark hours, they made their way along these dank passages. Pillars of stone draped from the ceiling overhead or jutted upward from the floor. In places, they did both, looking to Alicia uncannily like great jaws ready to snap shut on unsuspecting prey.

  They talked little, listening instead to the sounds of their footsteps scuffing along the smooth stone floor, or else listening to the vast, unfathomable silence of the Underdark. When they paused to listen carefully, they heard only the echoes of their own passage slowly drifting into the infinite distance and darkness.

  The lone dwarf stood guard at the thicket of thorns, assigned to wait there by Finellen as a simple precaution. The dwarfwoman had no reason to suspect that the route might be discovered, yet her natural diligence had required the posting of the sentry.

  Now the warrior ambled around the periphery of the hedge, noting nothing unusual in the surrounding woods. He turned back to the thicket, where his captain and her companions had disappeared no more than thirty minutes before. He would have liked to have accompanied the war party, yet he pragmatically accepted the necessity of his current post.

  In his musings, he failed to hear the faint crackling of undergrowth behind him-at least, not until it was too late. When the guard finally sensed a presence, he whirled, raising his axe. But here again his reactions were a fraction of a second too slow.

  The great, jagged-edged blade of bronze dropped into the dwarf's shoulder, nearly severing his head. Instantly slain, the poor fellow tumbled to the ground while his attacker crept past his crumpled body.

  The killer was a huge troll, and he had to bend nearly double to force his way into the thicket. He was further handicapped by the fact that he lacked one hand, the left, which had been chopped off above the wrist. A file of ragged trolls followed him through the tangled path.

  Nevertheless, the hulking creatures soon reached the central clearing. They tore at the earth and shrubs, seeking something, and it was only a matter of moments before the great, one-handed troll pried open the tree trunk to reveal the passage leading into the ground.

  A flaming chariot came to rest beside Deirdre Kendrick, and she welcomed the arrival of her ally. The Exalted Inquisitor joined the princess at the base of the Icepeak, knowing that the schemes of the gods approached fruition.

  In preparation for their ultimate triumph, it was necessary for the princess to master a new aspect of clerical might, the enchantment that would enable them to clear the path for the entry of the New Gods. The magical mastery was beyond even the patriarch's skill, yet with his knowledge and experience, coupled with the clear favor of the gods, the man taught the woman what she needed to know.

  Deirdre learned a spell reserved for gods and those of near godly power, for it affected the very fundament of the worlds. Through the immortal core of her body-the core formed by the shards of the shattered mirror-the ability came to her from the vastness of the cosmos. The princess was more than an agent to the gods; she was a part of them, an extension of their might in the worl
d.

  Thus they gave her the key to control-the thing that would allow her to master those who would, who must inevitably serve her. The spell they gave her offered control of the cadence of life, of the grand progression of events and existence that wove itself into the tapestry of life and history.

  For Deirdre had been given the power to bring time itself to a stop.

  Stirrings on Oman's Isle brought a chill to the body of the Earthmother. For ages of mortal time, the Peaksmasher had lain dormant, safely cocooned beneath the greatest mountain in the domain of the goddess. His threat had been countered once, when she was young and strong, and since that time her body had served as his bier.

  Now she felt the assault of Talos and Helm, the powerful pressure of the New Gods. Her great druid would labor in her name, she knew, but she would not be enough. In order to prevail, the Earthmother would need more.

  She would need nothing less than the aid of an immortal ally.

  15

  Grond Peaksmasher

  It took three days for the firbolgs to descend from the steep summit of Icepeak and skirt the base of the mountain. After the first steep descent, the trail mellowed into rolling woodland country. The giants traversed a series of gentle ridges that fanned out from the Icepeak like spokes from a hub. Finally they approached the massif from the north. Here only one narrow valley trailed downward, and so the reputed prison of the Peaksmasher was easy to find.

  During the course of their long backtrack, Thurgol came to see the wisdom of Garisa's observation. Indeed, what difference could three days more or less make to an imprisonment that had already spanned a dozen centuries or more? Also-and somewhat soothing to Thurgol's ego-the shaman hadn't once tried to point out the fact that she had been correct in her initial suggestion of their path. The mountain heights had proven too much of a challenge even for the determined firbolgs. Her restraint was very unfirbolg-like behavior, and even as he appreciated the respite from her sharp tongue, Thurgol found himself wondering about her reasons.

  The giantess, marching stolidly with the great axe across her shoulder, gave him some clue when she spoke to him on the trail.

  "Grond Peaksmasher…" she mused wonderingly. "What will he do? We bring him the axe, chop him free of the ice-and then what will he do?"

  "He will be grateful," Thurgol asserted. "We are his children, are we not?"

  Garisa didn't answer the question directly. "It was a long time ago when he came to the Moonshaes. Since his imprisonment, we firbolgs have lived a good life. Gwynneth has been a good home."

  "Not all so good-remember the dwarves," the chieftain countered.

  "Are they evil? Dwarves let us live by ourselves. Maybe we should have left them alone."

  "Why say this now? It's too late!"

  "You are right, young chieftain. Here we are-our home is very distant."

  "True … we have gone far," Thurgol agreed. "We're almost to the end now."

  "But what end is it? Do we take a new master who will drive the humans from the isles? What purpose does he have-and, through him, do we have?"

  "We have to wait for that," the chieftain declared pragmatically.

  "Wait… yet not wait," Garisa muttered, half to herself. "It all comes too soon."

  By the middle of the third day, they had ascended far up the narrow northern valley, picking their way in single file along many sheer precipices. Below them splashed a river of ice-cold water, flanked by groves of lush, dark pines. The trail followed the sloping mountainside some distance above the streambed, and the giant-kin beheld a similar, rock-faced ridge across the valley. The chieftain led the way, eagerly looking forward every time they came around a bend or past a thick clump of trees.

  And then finally there it was.

  Or was it?

  They came around a rocky shoulder to see a sweeping wall of ice. The glacier filled the circular terminus of the deep, narrow valley. Thurgol was astounded by the clear reality before him. How could such an expanse of frost survive the hot months of summer? Indeed, though it was still massive, the surface before him was pocked with melting, pitted by dirt and stone and debris. In fact, the ice was more gray on the surface than white or clear.

  "It's true," the chieftain breathed, awestruck, as Garisa hobbled up behind him. She gasped as she saw what he meant.

  Barely visible, solidly encased within the vast sheet of frozen water, the image of a colossal figure was barely discernible, towering as high as a small mountain in its own right. The cloudy ice obscured much detail, but they could see icy ledges that might have been eyebrows, a trailing slope of slate gray rock that flowed like a beard from other granite crags that looked remarkably like cheeks and jowls.

  Neither of them saw the human woman concealed in the rocks at the base of the great glacier. Now, her dark eyes flashing, that observer watched the firbolgs from a shadowy, cavelike niche. She had waited days, with growing impatience, but now at last the giants were here!

  Gradually the whole file of firbolgs came up the steep-walled valley. Very slowly Thurgol led them in the final stages of the ascent. He thought that the base of the ice sheet was the logical place to go, and Garisa did not demur. Climbing a steep slope of shattered rock, the giantess ignored her chieftain's offers of help. She had carried the axe this far, she declared, and she would see it to its final destination herself!

  A few minutes later, the band had gathered at the foot of the massive figure, staring in awe and deference at the form they distinguished amid the ice. The semitranslucent coating obscured all but the crudest details, yet they saw clearly that the colossal object was unspeakably huge, undeniably lifelike in form.

  Slowly, reverently, Thurgol took the Silverhaft Axe from the stooped shaman. The shaft felt right and proper in his hands, the blade perfectly balanced in its crystalline beauty. The chieftain felt as if he had been born to the weapon's use, though in fact he had never wielded an axe for other than woodcutting.

  He approached the base of the steep glacier, passing between huge, squarish blocks of blue ice, scrambling up several large rocks until he stood before the uninterrupted surface. Gleaming and pure, uncracked, the glacier swept upward, curling through the end of the narrow valley.

  In her niche, the black-haired woman remained silent and intent, staring with raw tension at the giant-kin and his mighty axe. She held her breath as he climbed toward the glacier's base, watched him heft the weapon, check its balance in his hands.

  Thurgol raised the axe over his head, gathering all the strength of his giant muscles for the most important blow of his life. The ice seemed so smooth, so perfect, that it seemed a shame to scar it, but he felt no regrets. For the first time since embarking from Blackleaf, he had the feeling that he did something purely, unalterably right and proper.

  He swung the axe, and the crystal blade bit through the surface of the glacier. A great, twisting crack snarled its way up the smooth face, and chunks of ice, some the size of a human's house, tumbled free, rolling and smashing down the steep slope. But Thurgol stood firm, ignoring the shattering ice on either side, awaiting the results of his action, the will of the gods.

  Then the woman in the rock niche raised her hands and whispered the words to a spell, too softly for any of the giant-kin to hear over the din of the crumbling glacier. And as she spoke, the power of her own magic took hold of the valley before her.

  And time stood still.

  Tavish had traveled a great deal in her life, had endured many months of exposure to weather, many meals of substandard food, long days of wearying travel and exhausting nights of frequently interrupted sleep. Yet never in her six decades of life, she knew, had she been so tired, so hungry, and so cold.

  She had followed the firbolg party onto the slopes of the Icepeak, in fact almost blundering into the giant-kin as they backtracked down their trail. Scrambling into a dense stand of pines, Tavish had held her breath as the column marched past within an easy stone's throw of her hiding place.

 
; Then, of course, she, too, had reversed her course, following the plain trail of the giants as they returned to the lowlands and made the long, circuitous passage around the base of the mountain. Her steady pursuit had left the bard little time for food gathering, and she hadn't dared light a fire that might reveal her position, so she had grown progressively weaker, colder, and more miserable during the course of the trek.

  Then had come the final, terrifying climb up the steep approaches of this cliff-walled vale, until she once again reached a vantage over the giant-kin. Now she crouched among the rocks on the mountainside, half a mile from the glacier but high enough for a clear view of the ice sheet and the firbolg party gathered at its base. And yet, as fatigued and uncomfortable as she was here, she wouldn't have been anywhere else in the world, given the fascinating nature of the events going on before her.

  First came the astounding effect of the axe's blow against the glacier as the gaping crack shivered its way upward across the face of the ice. In the immediate following moment, some kind of magic seemed to halt the firbolgs in their tracks.

  Tavish stared in astonishment as the giant-kin froze like statues, immobile and apparently unaware. They remained fixed in the actions they had been engaged in, some who had been walking growing rigid to the point of having one leg raised, ready to take the next step, though not yet coming into contact with the ground. Even more strange, several blocks of tumbling ice hung suspended in the air, their plummeting descent halted by the unseen force.

  But Tavish's surprise grew to astonishment as she saw the black-haired young woman emerge from concealment and walk boldly among the unaware humanoids. Squinting-her eyes were not the keen tools of observation they had been twenty years earlier-she studied the flowing hair with its suggestion of familiarity, and she thought that she recognized the woman's confident gait.