The Druid Queen

by Douglas Niles

  “First there is a matter of honor and gratitude I would address.” He raised the silk-wrapped package that Keane had seen him carry into the flying chariot. “It is a gift, if you will allow, from myself and, with your permission, from my god. It would please me greatly if it meets with your approval.”

  Curious, Tristan took the long shape and rested it across his knees. Awkwardly, limited by his one hand, he pulled the silk away, unrolling it through several layers before he revealed a splendid sword and a smooth leather scabbard.

  “By the Great Mother, this is a weapon worthy of a king,” Tristan breathed, his tone hushed and awestruck. He seized the gold-embossed hilt, which was narrow and sleek, sized for a single hand. Pulling slowly, he revealed inch after inch of silvery blade until the full expanse of keen steel, fully four feet long, came free of its leather sheath.

  “I thank you, Patriarch,” Tristan said softly. He stood and flourished the blade, relishing the smooth balance, the slender length and deadly edge, as sharp as any razor. “It is a blade I shall wear with pride.”

  “And with which, no doubt, you’ll strive to do what is right for your people and your land. That will is yours alone. I shall tell you only that the blade is blessed by the gods, and only through its use will their will be known.”

  “A potent protection indeed,” Tristan said, turning back to regard the cleric shrewdly. “Now tell me, priest, what is the nature of your vision?” asked the king, settling himself to listen.

  “There is evil in your realm!” the cleric intoned firmly. “My god requires—nay, demands—that this evil be rooted out and destroyed!”

  “Name this evil!” snapped Tristan, not at all happy about anyone demanding anything from him. He slapped the sword back into its scabbard, though he still held the weapon comfortably across his knees.

  “It is a force on this very island, marching to war through a valley around a great lake—”

  “Myrloch!” Robyn whispered, her pulse quickening.

  “Already they ravage the dwarves. Soon they will turn against humans, elves—all who would live in peace!” The cleric spoke intensely, staring into Tristan’s eyes. “It is an army that must be destroyed—destroyed by you!”

  “What nonsense is this?” demanded the king, though his tone showed a trace of doubt. “Who would dare disturb the peace of Myrloch Vale?”

  “The vision showed me great, misshapen creatures—giants, with gnarled tree-trunk legs and low, sloping foreheads. They carried clubs and hurled boulders.”

  “Firbolgs?” Tristan all but gasped. Since their defeat in the Darkwalker War twenty years ago, the few surviving giant-kin had withdrawn peacefully to their remote lairs, offering no disturbance. He stood in agitation, pacing to one end of the library before turning back to hear the Exalted Inquisitor continue detailing his vision.

  “And other creatures were there, too—greenish of skin, with great noses and wicked talons. They, too, are monstrous, standing far taller than a man.”

  “Trolls?” The king shook his head in amazement. “It—it’s preposterous!”

  The cleric sat back and regarded the monarch silently.

  “Why has there been no word? How long has this destruction been going on?”

  Hyath shrugged. “I have no way of knowing. Is this ‘Myrloch Vale’ a remote place? Perhaps there have been no survivors following the rampages of such villages as can be found there.”

  “Not even any villages,” the king admitted with a shake of his head.

  “But there are druids!” Robyn snapped, rising and crossing the room to confront the two men. She felt confident now that the discussion had turned to Myrloch Vale. After all, she had received her training in the druidic arts there, and no place was more sacred to the worship of the goddess Earthmother. It was a place that was more than a second home to her; it was the heart and soul of her goddess’s spirit. “And furthermore, if something threatened the sanctity of the vale, I would know it!”

  The cleric didn’t try to dispute her. Instead, he shrugged, a maddeningly casual expression, and directed himself to the king. “I can remain but a short time. However, if you decide to acknowledge the clear will of Helm, I shall make every effort to assist you so that we can complete the matter which has brought me here in the first place.”

  “There is no war—no army of monsters!” Robyn protested. “You’ll be wasting your time!”

  Tristan looked up at her, and she saw the distress in his eyes, the despair at the notion that he, a proud warrior-king, would remain a cripple for the rest of his life. She also saw the stubborn determination that had brought him to his throne and held him so securely to the wise course the two of them had plotted for the Ffolk.

  “Are you absolutely sure?” he asked. “That there’s no threat, no danger out there?”

  She was sure, in her own mind, but again she saw that look of fear on her husband’s face. It was a look she had seen very rarely, and now, as always before, it frightened her to think that Tristan was afraid. She couldn’t increase that fear with a curt rejection of his hope.

  “I don’t know how it could be otherwise,” she said gently. “But in order to make certain, I’ll journey to the vale and see for myself. I hope your schedule will allow you to remain a day or two until my return,” she added in an icy tone to the Exalted Inquisitor.

  “Of course,” he bowed, ignoring her manner. “But isn’t this valley some distance away? Can you journey there and back in two days?”

  “Patriarchs of Helm,” Robyn concluded pointedly, “are not the only persons of faith who can travel with speed.”

  Her preparations were simple, and ten minutes later the High Queen bid her family farewell. She quickly climbed the steps of the high tower, acknowledging a tiny voice of alarm inside her, a voice that warned that the cleric of Helm might just possibly be right.

  No! She would know if some evil disturbed the vale! Wouldn’t she? Angrily but unsuccessfully, she tried to dispel the nagging doubt.

  She reached the platform atop the tower and paused for a moment. Again the sweep of moor and firth spread below, but now the scene did not soothe her. Too many questions disturbed her mood as she stepped to the rim of the parapet. 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 all 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 f
ireside.

  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.