The Druid Queen

by Douglas Niles

  * * * * *

  The Moonwell looked much the same as Robyn remembered it, thought the last time she saw it seemed more than a lifetime ago. Cool white water glowed with health amid a setting of bright lily pads and brilliant, dew-glistened flowers. Nearby, through a gap in the trees, the crystalline waters of the Myrloch sparkled like diamonds in the sun.

  Great, flat-topped arches of stone surrounded her, for this Moonwell had a special significance. Once, for a period of many centuries, it had been the well at the center of the Great Druid’s grove. Then, during the Darkwalker War, this well had been corrupted. As the Darkwell, it gave birth to the Darkwalker itself, the young king’s mightiest foe.

  Now vines of ivy climbed those stone obelisks, some of which had toppled during the intervening years. The druid queen found a stone bench where she remembered it would be, though she had to clear it of fallen leaves before she could use it to rest.

  When she had made herself comfortable, she sat there for a very long time. The sun slipped below the western horizon, and the stars broke into the sky. Then the full disc of the moon came into sight, rising into the night and spilling its creamy rays across the waters of the Moonwell.

  For a time, Robyn’s mind drifted across the people she loved, those who had given her joy and to whom she had tried to return happiness and affection of her own. Tristan … Alicia … Deirdre … The images and faces began to swim together in the waters, and then they grew indistinct, muddied by the Moonwell into a vague blur. The water … the moon … the earth beneath her … all these images swept across her conscious mind. They did not supplant the memories of the people, but they took on a life of their own, and in that life, they demanded her love every bit as jealously as any member of her family.

  Slowly, over a tranquil period of several hours, Robyn felt the waters of the Moonwell grow warm, powerful. At first, the glow within them was something like a pearly luster, a vague illumination originating somewhere deep within the well, viewed as if through a thick, translucent filter. The sensation grew stronger, the warmth turning to a solid heat so definite that the queen half expected the liquid to bubble into steam.

  Yet this was not that kind of heat.

  Instead, she saw the whirling turmoil of anger, even of killing rage. She sensed that the goddess recoiled, under siege, surrounded by menace and incapable of fending off those threats with her innate power. The druid queen opened her heart and her soul, and the might of her goddess mother slowly began to concentrate, to gain focus.

  Robyn’s heart slowed to a calm, steady cadence, and she felt the pacing of her life slow to match. And as she watched and meditated through the long night of the full moon, the will of the goddess began to appear.

  * * * * *

  Thurgol led his band on the course he had chosen for them, and as night fell and moonlight washed their mountaintop vantage, his mind was occupied by one overriding thought: It was unbelievably, unthinkably, cold up here!

  They had marched up such a barren ridge that they could find no stick of wood for a fire, though it hadn’t been until nearly dark that this thought occurred to any of the giant-kin. Naturally, then, it had been Garisa to acidly make the observation.

  But there was nothing to do but curl up in their furs and wait for the dawn. Outlined in a clarity of moonlight that astounded him, Thurgol even spent much of the night staring in awe at the vista of the island below him, or the icebound, aloof grandeur of the peak that still loomed high above.

  When he finally slept, it was fitfully, as if he understood that his life had reached the edge of the future. Tomorrow they would reach the summit and, if the legends were true, the icy bier of Grond Peaksmasher. Garisa still carried the Silverhaft Axe, and the firbolgs remained willing and determined to chop their immortal founder from his icy prison.

  Then, Thurgol mused, everything would fall into the hands of the gods.

  * * * * *

  By nightfall, Tristan knew that the battle was lost, but the knowledge only infused him with a greater will to resist. He fought with a small knot of fighters—Hanrald, Brigit, and Finellen among them—anchored in a crude bulwark formed by four stout oak trunks.

  He had seen the brave charge of a few humans into the grainfield, though he hadn’t known who they were. It had been a courageous gesture, but the men had been too few to make a difference in the battle’s outcome. Now, out there, only a few survivors of that valiant band stood amid the trampled crop, courageously facing the doom that must inevitably claim them. Two warriors in particular stood back to back, outlined in brilliant moonlight, surrounded by a ring of trolls and firbolgs. The pair wielded battle-axe and sword so effectively that they held the horde at bay for long, desperate minutes.

  In this spirit of bleak despair, the High King raised his sword and charged out of his rude shelter. Three trolls felt the fatal kiss of Trollcleaver before the monsters even realized that one of the humans had been so rash as to abandon his shelter. They swarmed around him like bees, but when Finellen darted out to cover his back, the king and the dwarf were able to fight their way back to the clump of trees.

  Then, when the humanoids closed in once more to attack, the braying of silver trumpets sounded across the field. Looking up with renewed hope, the warriors of Finellen saw fresh banners unfurl over the muddy terrain. Some two dozen riders appeared off to the left, charging into the field and smashing into the flank of the attacking humanoids’ formation. As Tristan stared in disbelief, watching the eerie attack unfold in the moonlight, he saw—or did he imagine?—a familiar, golden-haired head above the charging troops.

  “Hail the Princess of Moonshae!” shouted four hundred hoarse voices. Banners of Corwell and Llyrath, of Dynnatt and Koart, waved overhead as rank upon rank of armed men marched toward the horde of monsters.

  “For the kings of Corwell!” they added, shouting the standard battle cry of that venerable kingdom until their voices could shout no more.

  Arrows filled the sky overhead, the missiles appearing like sleek ghosts against the full moon, until they fell among the monsters like the stinging, deadly darts that they were. Tristan heard sergeants-major bark profane commands—was that Sands’ voice? And Parsallas, too! He recognized his two veteran leaders, and when the sharp crack of a lightning bolt sizzled into the ranks of the beast horde, he knew that Keane was there as well.

  The monsters, this time struck in the flank by a force that was much larger than their own, howled and milled about in confusion, a confusion that proved fatal for many of them as Alicia led the men of Corwell in a vigorous charge. Firbolgs fell before the lances of the horsemen, while trolls, slain in melee combat, were quickly doused with oil and set afire. Within a few minutes of Alicia’s arrival, the entire horde was reeling in confusion that verged upon panic.

  Tristan’s heart swelled with elation. In the instant of their deliverance, he charged once more out of the sheltered clump of oaks.

  Then one lanky humanoid moved in front of him, snarling in venomous hatred, looming like a stout but misshapen tree before the tip of the High King’s blade. Tristan recognized the brute by the monster’s own sword. This was the troll the king had attacked earlier, only to be thwarted when many other monsters had swarmed to this one’s aid. Then, as now, Tristan felt quite certain that this was the monster commanding the whole ravaging horde.

  Raising its massive, saw-toothed sword, the troll blocked Tristan’s path, holding the blade ready to parry any attack the king made. The surge of charging Corwellians rushed closer, and the troll’s attention wavered for just a moment as the monster turned its black, emotionless eyes toward the rank of Alicia’s charging troops.

  Seeing his opening, Tristan lunged in a quick, savage attack, chopping downward with Trollcleaver and aiming for the beast’s momentarily unprotected chest. Sensing the attack, the monster whirled back, raising its forearm and that massive, serrated blade to block the charge.

  The High King twisted his attack, missing the troll’s weap
on but also missing the black, corrupt heart. Instead, the keen sword blade bit into the beast’s arm at the elbow, slicing through skin and sinew and bone. The monster shrieked—a hideous, bellowing sound of awful pain and agony—and then, still holding its great blade in the other hand, the troll turned and bolted into flight.

  * * * * *

  Deirdre reached a hand outward, touching the smooth, pale surface of ice. At that moment, the moon crested the towering ridge of the Icepeak, washing the vale in the cool light of the silver orb in all its summer fullness.

  The illumination imparted a magical glow to the imprisoned giant, spilling through the valley and washing the princess in a warmth that was the rightness of the gods.

  Her past was gone now. A vague part of her mind remembered her murder of the guard at Corwell with a certain sense of curiosity. It was insignificant, that death, except that it clarified for her the stakes, tied her destiny to the battle of the gods.

  Reverently, knowing that she served the masters who would grant her ultimate, undreamed of power, Deirdre sat down to wait for that destiny to take shape.

  Yet she could not sit for very long. Impatient, she glanced at the sky and rose to stalk across the shallow vale. It was time now! She was ready to act, but the pieces of the puzzle were not yet complete. Angrily she cursed, and studied the horizons. They should be here by now, and yet they were not.

  Where were the firbolgs—the giants who would bring her the Silverhaft Axe?

  * * * * *

  The Earthmother beheld her great druid through the window of the Moonwell, and the goddess found the mortal wanting. For too long Robyn had dwelled among men. No longer did her heart beat the deep, fundamental pulse of her faith. The goddess feared that Robyn now lacked the passion, the keen understanding and self-sacrifice that would have blazed a trail of, if not triumph, at least hope.

  Instead, the High Queen had enjoyed good food, company, and drink … she had languished within the protection of stone walls, used the fire of a rock-walled hearth to negate the winter chill. Could she muster the strength required for this desperate, final battle?

  Whether she could prevail or not, necessity forced the choice, for the druid queen was the only weapon that the Earthmother possessed.

  14

  The Rockbound Ways

  “Incendrius!” cried Keane, pointing his finger toward the target of his deadly spell. The lanky mage stood on his feet, his loyal mount having fallen to a firbolg rock early in the attack. A deceptively small pebble of glowing light drifted outward, angling toward the knot of green-skinnned humanoids before him.

  In moments, a searing globe of fire erupted amid the rank of fleeing trolls, and when the crackling flames dissipated, it revealed columns of thick, oily smoke smudging upward from nearly a dozen charred corpses. In the moonlight, the smoke resembled solid pillars of dark rock.

  Alicia, on Brittany, surged back and forth. Inspired by her leadership, the men of Corwell had attacked with courage and uncharacteristic savagery. The first rush shocked the lumbering humanoids, and the valiant militia never gave them time to recover their balance or their fighting spirit.

  Exhausted but elated, the princess rode up to Keane, swinging down from the saddle to seize him in a bear hug of fierce triumph. He hugged her back, flushed with his own sense of victory.

  “Look!” called a grinning Parsallas, pointing across the field.

  “There’s Father! He’s got prisoners!” shouted Alicia, elated at the outcome of the sharp, sudden attack. She saw the king and recognized Hanrald and Brigit among a company of bearded dwarves. The group prodded a half-dozen surly firbolgs before them, the entire group limping toward the wizard, the princess, and their company.

  The battle had lasted only a few minutes for Alicia and the men of Corwell, but judging from the trampled look of the field and the weary, battered appearance of the human and dwarven survivors, she knew that combat had been joined here long before her own arrival.

  “We were none too soon,” Keane said quietly as Sergeant-Major Sands led a number of men forward to take charge of the prisoners.

  Alicia ran to the High King, overjoyed to see his smile, however wan and exhausted his appearance. He swept her into his arms and embraced her while she hugged and held him with overwhelming relief.

  “Father!” she gasped, after she found her voice. “I’m so glad.… I was afraid we’d be too late.”

  “Not too late at all, though five minutes more might have been,” he said cheerfully as the rest of his companions joined them. Alicia embraced Hanrald and Brigit in turn, and then Tristan called to her.

  “This is an ally from a previous war, but she saved my life here as well. Finellen of Cambro, I present my daughter, High Princess Alicia.”

  The princess bowed before the bristling beard of the sturdy dwarf, who regarded her with a frank but friendly sparkle in her eye. “The image of your mother, except for the hair. It’s a pleasure to meet you, lass.”

  “The brave Finellen is someone I’ve heard about in many tales,” replied Alicia. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for my father … and the Ffolk.”

  The dwarf shrugged. “Probably exaggerated, though I’m surprised my name came up at all, given the way the Llewyrr usually hog all the glory!”

  In the glow of the moment, even Brigit didn’t have the urge to dispute the statement. And then another companion joined them, one who caused all of them to stare in shock.

  “Brandon!” cried the princess, the first to voice their surprise. Bleeding from a dozen wounds but smiling in obvious joy, the northman joined them, accompanied by an equally battered knight.

  “The good Prince of Gnarhelm!” boomed the king, clasping Brandon on the arm. “Good fight, lad—and Sir Koll as well! I might have known. So you were the fellows who came across the field at such a timely juncture!”

  “A rash move it was, too, Your Majesty,” Brandon explained, his smile fading to a grim sorrow. “Most of our men paid the price.”

  “Knaff …?” Alicia asked tentatively, and when the prince shook his head, she felt her throat tighten. She had to turn away.

  “We are fortunate indeed to have such loyal companions as you,” the High King said to all the assembled warriors. “Each, arriving as you did, kept the fight alive for the others, and together we knew triumph!”

  “Riding off alone like that was a good way to get yourself killed!” his daughter retorted. “What sort of madness took hold of you?”

  Tristan smiled tolerantly, though certainly no one else in the assemblage would have dared speak to the High King in such a tone. He sighed and looked back to the edge of the forest. He thought of the vast woodland that began there, where Winterglen merged with Myrloch Vale … and for a week, he might as well have drifted in a different world. Once again he longed to hear the cry of the wolf, wished that the great beast would signal its approval, if not its forgiveness.

  “It was perhaps a rash move,” he admitted. He drew Trollcleaver, allowing the gleaming blade to shed gentle light around the gathered humans and dwarves. “Still, this blade gave me a better chance than I’d ever have thought. Perhaps there was something to that priest’s prophecy.”

  “Father, that priest was treacherous to the core!” Alicia objected. She quickly recounted the tale of the hallucinatory terrain Parell Hyath had used to try delaying the company from Corwell, while Tristan frowned in displeasure mingled with confusion.

  “If it hadn’t been for Keane,” the princess concluded, “we’d probably still be wandering around in a swamp that doesn’t even exist!”

  “Then why would he give me such a sword?” asked the king. “This blade is truly as mighty as any weapon I’ve wielded since the Sword of Cymrych Hugh. I have dubbed it Trollcleaver, and it is aptly named. If he intended for us to fail, what purpose is served by such a gift?”

  “The priest is a mysterious figure,” Keane suggested. “Some of what he said—about the trolls and firbolgs, for exam
ple—proved to be remarkably accurate. Yet our army was surrounded by an illusionary expanse of water, clearly of the cleric’s doing. It could only have been placed there to stop us.”

  “There’s more than a hint of madness to this whole affair,” Tristan observed somberly, suppressing an ominous shiver as he recalled his aimless wandering. “It’s only good fortune, and perhaps the favor of the goddess, that enabled us to prevail.”

  “And prevail quite remarkably,” Hanrald noted. “From the edge of disaster, we earned a victory that destroyed the foe!”

  “The foe is not entirely destroyed,” Sir Koll amended. His face fell ruefully. “A small knot of trolls escaped into the forest—alas, but the northman captain and I were too sorely pained to give chase.”

  “Did you note a great one among them, with a bronze-edged sword—jagged teeth on the blade, like a saw?” asked the king quickly. “I believe him to be their leader, and I’m not sure if he was slain by fire.”

  “I’m sorry, Sire. I couldn’t say for certain,” replied the knight.

  “We’ll break into companies and root them out soon enough,” Alicia suggested. “The bulk of the horde has been broken.”

  “Others might have gotten away as well,” Brandon said with a cautionary tone. “I assume that you didn’t see the Princess of Moonshae in Codscove,” he said to Tristan.

  “No—nothing afloat. Even the fishing boats had been sunk.”

  “She was taken by firbolgs!” exclaimed the northman bitterly. “Some of them must have put out to sea!”

  “Why would they do that?” Brigit asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “Another thing,” Finellen interjected. She had just heard the whispered report of dwarven warriors who had been scouring the battlefield. “The Silverhaft Axe isn’t here. No one saw it during the battle, and it wasn’t found on any of the bodies.”

  “Perhaps we’d better have a word with one of the prisoners,” mused Tristan. He picked a particularly dejected-looking firbolg, a brute who sat on the ground with his head in his hands. “Bring that one over here!” he called to Sands.