The Druid Queen

by Douglas Niles

  A whirring form buzzed past his ear, and Tristan ducked instinctively before recognizing the sound of Newt’s agitated flight.

  “Over here—try this way!” came the excited voice out of the air. In his agitation, the faerie dragon had forgotten to make himself visible. But as he dove forward, accompanied by the sound of ripping, tearing earth, it was clear that the trolls weren’t going to fall for his illusionary diversions. A great chasm seemed to open in the earth before the feet of the advancing monsters, but the brutes simply stepped onto the apparently gaping fissure, finding the dirt there to be every bit as solid as it was elsewhere.

  The ring closed faster, and Tristan knew that his next escape attempt—whether it succeeded or failed—would be his last. Once more he guided Shallot into a charge, and the stallion seemed to sense the raw urgency. Lowering his broad head, snorting aggressively, the war-horse thundered toward a gap between two pairs of trolls.

  Immediately the creatures sprang together, closing the narrow opening effectively, while others raced for the point of impact. Tristan hunched low in his saddle, bracing the shield against his leg and shoulder, holding his potent sword like a lance, challenging any trolls to face him on his right.

  Shallot smashed into the humanoids, carrying two of the hideous beasts to the earth and trampling them brutally with heavy hooves. Ranthal sprang beside the horse, clamping his jaws to the face of another troll, while Tristan speared one through the chest with the keen sword.

  But still more of them surged around him. He felt claws raking his legs, heard Shallot cry out in pain. The king’s arm, grown into an unfeeling, leaden weight, chopped, hacked, and stabbed with Trollcleaver, but he couldn’t hold the savagely pressing beasts at bay.

  The stallion reared back, breaking free of the press for a moment. Then a troll lunged at Shallot’s flank, knocking the horse sideways. For a sickening, desperately hopeful moment, Tristan thought that the mighty stallion would recover his balance.

  Instead, Shallot fell heavily on his side. The king flew from the saddle, feeling the impact with the ground before it happened. Even as the stunning force of the fall drove the breath from his lungs, he tried to scramble to his feet but found his muscles strangely unwilling to move.

  And so he could only lie there, helpless in the midst of his enemies, waiting the blow that would certainly bring the end.

  * * * * *

  “They haven’t come any farther along the coast,” reported Brigit, galloping up to the column of exhausted dwarves. Hanrald took her hand as she swung down from the saddle. “They’re staying in place near the shore, almost as if they’re waiting for something behind them.”

  “Let them wait for us!” snapped Finellen, elated at the news. “How far away are they now?”

  “Not far,” Brigit replied. “If you keep up the pace, you should get there in a few hours.”

  “Double-step, now—quick march!” Finellen called. “Make time, dwarves! There’s battle awaiting! We’ll have the Silverhaft Axe back by nightfall!”

  The column of doughty warriors picked up its pace with noticeable enthusiasm. The tromp of booted feet thumped against the ground in rapid cadence, and despite their long hours without any real respite, the bearded warriors looked fresh and eager to meet the enemy.

  Hanrald swung into the saddle of his war-horse as Brigit remounted beside him. Pacing themselves with a gentle trot, they rode at the head of the dwarven formation, following the course the sister knight marked to the camp of the trolls and firbolgs.

  Because of Finellen’s hastened march, they covered the ground in even less time than Brigit had estimated. It was less than two hours before the Llewyrr woman held up her hand, bringing the whole column to a halt behind her.

  “Near here?” asked Finellen, squeezing her axe and peering anxiously through the wooded ground ahead of them.

  “We break into the coastal fields just up ahead,” Brigit replied. “Once we go a little farther, you’ll lose the advantage of concealment.”

  “Let’s have a look, then,” huffed the dwarf. The riders dismounted to accompany her as Finellen pushed her way through a tangle of underbrush, quickly reaching the trunk of a large tree. Peering around the bole, she saw that the elfwoman had spoken the truth. Fields of lush grain sprawled away before her, blowing gently in the breeze.

  But there was nothing lush about the scene drawing their eyes on the far side of the grainfield. There they saw dozens of green, hulking figures—trolls! The monsters had gathered in a large ring, though for the moment, the observers couldn’t see what they encircled.

  Then a flash of movement whirled beyond the trolls, and they saw a huge war-horse break into a gallop. The steed and its rider were trapped in a ring of savage trolls, and the trio could only stare in wonder at the futile courage of the human rider. His armor gleamed, but they couldn’t make out the seal on his dented shield, and he wore no banner, pennant, or other symbol of his identity.

  “The poor doomed fool!” Hanrald gasped, his voice tinged with admiration and sorrow.

  “By the gods, man, he’s giving us a great diversion!” Finellen barked. “Let’s get moving!”

  “You want to attack?” demanded Brigit, incredulous. “Why, look at the ground before you! You’d have to charge through that field for half a mile! They’d have plenty of time to get ready to meet you.”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?” barked the dwarf, regarding the Llewyrr knight belligerently.

  “Wait here and watch them for a little while. If you see them get ready to move, then you can take a defensive position in their path. You’ll have a better chance against them if you choose the ground and give yourself some cover!”

  “No good,” Finellen retorted. “If they do pick up and move, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to catch ’em. Nope, we’ve got them here in front of us. I say we’re going after them right now!”

  Hanrald looked back at the fight, where the lone human rider circled to face the surrounding legion of his attackers. The warrior saw something admirable and grand in the knight’s valiant stand. He wished they had a chance to help the man, but even if he and Brigit rode to the fight at top speed, they stood no chance of getting there before the lone rider must inevitably be slain.

  Meanwhile, Finellen darted back to muster her company, while the human lord and the elfwoman stared in pity at the doomed fight of the surrounded warrior. His great war-horse reared, raising the rider above even the towering bodies of his enemies, but everywhere the man and horse turned, they faced a closing ring of tooth, sinew, and claw.

  Along the fringe of trees, dwarves emerged from the woods silently, starting through the field in a long rank, though only their heads showed above the green, waving grain. And even these the bearded warriors held low, trying to take advantage of their concealment for as long as possible.

  Quickly the two riders returned to their horses. “Let’s give the dwarves a bit of a start,” Brigit suggested. “After all, we’ll catch them soon enough, and we’ll be a lot easier to see than they will.”

  “Agreed,” said Hanrald, privately chafing at the sensible suggestion. Now that the enemy was in sight, he wanted nothing so much as the chance to thunder across the field in a valiant charge. Though they would be too late to help, certainly, there was something in the doomed rider’s carriage and appearance that inspired a fierce and combative drive in the Earl of Fairheight. The rider’s battered shield had been through savage fighting, he could tell. Indeed, the insignia had been worn to a shapeless blur of brown. Yet somehow, against these phenomenal odds, that shield had kept the horseman alive.

  Then, in a flash, it came to him. That battered seal was the bear’s head of Kendrick! The rearing, plunging horse could only be Shallot, the king’s prized stallion.

  “Sire!” he cried, spurring from the woods, horrified to see no sign of the valiant knight—the knight who could only be the High King of the Ffolk. Now the horse scrambled to its feet, riderless, and a
horde of trolls swarmed in.

  * * * * *

  Ranthal stood over his master as Tristan gasped for breath, holding Trollcleaver across his chest and struggling, but failing, to sit up. The loyal moorhound bled from a dozen gory wounds where troll tooth or claw had rent skin and torn away bristling fur. Yet the dog spun this way and that, lunging and biting seemingly in many directions at once. Snarling, teeth bared in fanged savagery, the great moorhound tore the throat from a troll that leaned in too close.

  One of the large wolfdogs of the firbolg camp charged Ranthal from the side, but the hound whirled and broke the wolf’s neck with a single bite. Another troll dove, knocking the dog to the side, but Ranthal rolled quickly and came up biting, clasping iron jaws around the troll’s wrist until the creature shrieked to the snapping of bone.

  The shout of a voice from across the grainfield carried dimly through the fray. Immediately the trolls turned away from Tristan, gesticulating and barking in alarm. The king forced himself to a sitting position, astounded to see the Earl of Fairheight and Brigit Cu’Lyrran galloping at full speed toward the army of trolls and firbolgs.

  “No!” Tristan cried, his voice coming out as a strangled gasp. He saw something else then—plumes trailing from helmets, just above the level of the corn. Dwarves—a rank of them moving toward him.

  Sudden, wild hope infused Tristan’s body and soul. Where was Shallot? He climbed to his knees and whistled, drawing the horse toward him at a gallop. Seizing the pommel as the stallion raced by, Tristan awkwardly pulled himself off the ground, finally throwing a leg across the wide back and lifting himself fully into the saddle.

  The trolls, still jabbering about the sudden arrival of reinforcements, were taken by surprise when the king on his war-horse, the limping moorhound racing alongside, exploded toward the encircling beasts. One of the wolfdogs sprang at Ranthal, but the powerful hound sent the creature yelping back to its masters with a snap on the muzzle. In another moment, Tristan thundered free, Shallot flying toward the other two riders with Ranthal close on his heels. The other moorhound was nowhere in sight.

  Brigit and Hanrald halted their rush as the king broke away from the monstrous horde. When the High King reached them, the trio wasted no time on congratulation. Instead, they raced back toward the dwarves, while the trolls finally raised a great howl of indignation and leaped into pursuit.

  * * * * *

  Whirling through the ether, then plummeting with dizzying speed, the princess finally came to rest upon the world of mortals. Before her loomed the massive physical image of a legend. Grond Peaksmasher was encased in ice of deep, primeval blue. The giant’s craggy features might have been carved from stone. His great beard flowed down his chest like the distant whiteness of a pristine icefield.

  She stood at the base of a steep glacier, looking upward at the ice-chiseled form. But where others might gaze with reverence or even with awe, Deirdre studied the ice-encased image, as big as a small mountain in its own right, with a different eye.

  The gods would give her a tool, they had promised, and now she knew what that tool was to be. She couldn’t break the great avatar free, not yet, anyway, but she knew that it would only be a matter of time.

  Deirdre sat for hours, enthralled by the image of the great giant-god before her. Stars came into view above her, and for the first time, she realized that she was outside, yet she had no desire to leave, to seek any kind of shelter. A soft glow seemed to emanate from the great ice-clad figure before her. Whether or not it was her imagination, the glow seemed to warm her, insulating her flesh against the chill of the mountain night.

  The princess gradually absorbed the fact that she was in a high, rockbound vale. Towering ridgelines loomed near on the left and the right, while the giant—and the glacier that imprisoned it—stood at the southern terminus of this deep, U-shaped valley.

  Grond’s face looked to the north, and the enclosing walls shaded him from sunlight at all times of the year. No doubt this was one reason the ice could survive here, maintaining its constant pressure around the colossal prisoner.

  Or at least, it had been constant pressure. Staring at the mountainous form, Deirdre felt an overwhelming sense of pending power. Soon that power would be hers; this she knew by the commands of Talos.

  The closer she approached to the great statuelike form, the greater became Deirdre’s sense of awe. The huge body, nearly as tall as the high tower of Caer Corwell, loomed like an ivory obelisk amid the bluish cast of its icy bier.

  It would be hers!

  * * * * *

  The Earthmother felt a quickening in the flesh of her body, the Moonshaes. The source of that renewed vitality was known to her, though long ignored. Yet now she sensed a power awakening, one whom she had faced and vanquished in the past. What did it mean? How great a threat was it? She would have to wait, to face the problem as it arose.

  For she knew that she could do nothing to prevent Grond Peaksmasher from returning to life.

  13

  The Creeping Swamp

  Alicia was forced to dismount, leaving Brittany on a small hillock of dry ground while she probed forward for some sign of a trail. Instead of finding a path, however, she saw the plants growing thick behind her even as she passed, and water trickled from somewhere to pool around the trunks of trees. Pads of lilies lay flat upon the stagnant liquid where meadows of flowers and brush should be.

  Still the princess pressed onward, growing desperate in the few minutes since she had left her company of men. In fact, she suspected that the trail behind her was now inundated, since by the time she had left the troops, some of the men had already hoisted themselves into the lower branches of trees in order to keep their feet dry. The source of the water remained a mystery, but finding a path through the swampland formed a far more significant problem to Alicia.

  Codscove wasn’t far away, she sensed. Yet now her entire force threatened to bog down in this impenetrable swamp. Why now, of all times?

  The dark forest dripped around her, pressing close on all sides. She felt as though something watched her. Nervously, sword in hand, the princess spun through a circle. As far as she could tell, she remained alone.

  She wondered, with a flash of irritation, why Keane had been reluctant to accompany her. She hadn’t ordered him to do so, but when she had asked he had quietly dissuaded her, suggesting that it was best right now if he remained with the rest of the company. It surprised her and, if the truth be told, it annoyed her, too, this feeling that she needed Keane’s presence before she could feel comfortable. But, still, he should have come with her!

  “What’s he going to do, fly the men out of here?” she muttered, brushing strands of sweat-soaked hair back from her face.

  The trees around her seemed healthy and firmly rooted, not what she would expect to find in such a swampland. After her previous experience with the quicksand, she had learned to walk carefully, but even the ground felt surprisingly firm.

  Yet in every direction, she quickly found herself facing an expanse of placid, murky water. It pooled around the trees, dark and fetid, concealing the ground, deceptively obscuring any pitfall or irregularity in the terrain. Finally, with considerable disgust, she made her way back to the column of Corwellian men-at-arms.

  “Nothing—there’s no dry path out of here,” she said to Keane in disgust. “Not that you would have helped find it!” she added bitterly.

  Keane smiled thinly, ignoring her tone, which only made her more irritated. “What did you stay back here for, anyway? Checking to see if it’s going to rain?”

  “No,” he said, quietly. “No rain would make any difference in this flood.”

  “What do you mean? How can the water level be rising when there isn’t any rain?”

  “That’s the big question, isn’t it? If you’ll notice, there hasn’t been any rain for several days, yet the water flowed in behind us as soon as we passed a certain point.”

  “And now we’re surrounded,” Alicia ad
ded. “But I’m not so concerned with why the water got here as I am with finding a way around it!”

  “Then you’re making a great mistake,” Keane replied bluntly, meeting her indignant gaze with a thoughtful look of his own.

  Still annoyed, the princess bit her tongue and tried to understand what he meant. “Well? How did this water get here?”

  “As near as I can tell, it isn’t really here at all. It just seems to be.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Perhaps he means that the righteous wrath of the gods wishes to direct your faith in more proper directions,” said Parell Hyath, who had approached, unnoticed, to join in their conversation.

  “Speak plainly!” Alicia snapped, in no mood for theological discourse.

  “I mean this tired obeisance you show to an ancient and withered goddess! You tell us not to trample the grass in that ‘sacred’ place. You forbid the taking of game for food, and treat each wildflower as some kind of miracle! This goddess holds you in thrall, and by doing so, she holds you, holds your people, back!” replied the patriarch, his tone equally firm. “It is time for these isles to welcome the pantheon of deities that are known to all the rest of the Realms.”

  Alicia’s eyes blazed, and for a moment, rage swept through her, fomenting a torrent of angry words that nearly exploded from her. Instead, however, she remembered an early lesson of her mother’s: Such rage could only be destructive, and thus it should be conserved for those times when destruction was necessary.

  Drawing a deep breath, the princess felt the tension flow from her body, replaced by a serene calm that enabled her to meet the cleric’s arguments rationally. In the clarity that followed, she recognized the supreme arrogance that propelled him and knew that her own faith could be strong enough to prevail.

  “This ‘tired’ faith you deride is the lifeblood of my people,” the princess explained. “It flows in my veins, and in the veins of all the Ffolk, and it won’t wither or weaken in the face of your conceits!”