The Druid Queen

11

Tristan's sword flashed in his hand the instant he saw the springing trolls. Even so, he barely raised the blade as the first of the beasts reached wicked talons toward his leg. Chopping frantically, he hacked at the monster's wrists, sending it scuttling backward with a shriek of pain.

A pair of trolls closed from his left, and he lowered his shield. The buckler's tight straps, modified to secure it to his handless arm, held firm as he bashed the shield firmly into the face of the first troll. The second monster stumbled to the ground, borne downward by the leaping Ranthal. The great moorhound locked his jaws around the troll's neck while the other dogs tore into the creature's legs.

Shallot whirled through a full circle, lashing out with his rear hooves to crush the chest of a troll leaping at them from behind. Newt had vanished, either in sudden flight or, more likely, concealed by his power of invisibility. A bark of pain from one of the trolls as tooth marks appeared in its shoulder solved that mystery.

"Go!" Tristan barked to Shallot, and the stallion sprang forward immediately. The sword flashed brightly in the sunlight, and a bleeding head flew from the body of a suddenly lurching troll. The corpse fell to the ground in a moment, growing still as dark, greenish black blood pumped from the gaping wound onto the ground.

The hounds cried out a challenge and followed, abandoning their original victim to pounce upon another pair of the monstrous humanoids. One of the dogs yelped and fell to the ground, and in a quick glance, Tristan saw the gaping wound along her side.

His sword dropped again, cleaving into the shoulder of a muscular troll. Shallot whirled away as another lunging monster narrowly missed dragging the High King from the saddle. Desperately stabbing, Tristan drove the point of his sword through the creature's face, almost losing the weapon when the troll dropped to the ground. With a powerful heave, he tore the blade from the bony wound as the stallion charged into another troll.

A ball of fire flared in the air, sending trolls scuttling away in panic, though as Tristan rode past the apparition, he could feel no heat. Newt's illusion was realistic enough to momentarily scatter the trolls, however.

Shallot trampled a troll while the hounds dragged another to the earth. Tristan's sword slashed to the right, decapitating one of the creatures as its claws raked across the king's chest and belly. Pivoting in the saddle, the man chopped to his left, scarring the face and long nose of another attacker. The stallion plunged and bucked, driving heavy hooves into the writhing body below it, and then Newt popped into sight, hovering in front of Tristan's eyes and gesturing behind him in agitation.

"Look!" cried Newt, pointing over the king's shoulder. "Look at that!"

Twisting in alarm, Tristan propelled Shallot through a quick spin. The king raised his shield to ward off the anticipated attack, but he could see no threat there! Instead, he saw the wreckage of the fight, muddy hoofprints, the dying hound, and several dead trolls, including two he'd beheaded. But no attacker menaced him.

"What is it?" he demanded, spinning back just in time to see the remaining trolls bolt into the brush.

"Look!" blurted Newt again, his face twisting in sublime frustration.

And then it struck him. Stunned, Tristan looked back again, checking carefully-and it was true! The trolls he had killed were still dead! The import slowly dawned on him.

Then he saw one of the previously slain monsters move, carefully and stealthily drawing its legs and arms beneath it.

He remembered the beast-the dogs had torn its green skin to ribbons, leaving the creature dead in a pool of fetid blood. Now it was whole again, ready to attack or flee. Tristan readied his sword, intentionally riding closer to the monster.

With an ear-stunning roar, the troll sprang from a prone position into a flying leap toward the human rider. Tristan was shocked by the power of its arms and legs, the springing speed of its leap, but that didn't stop him from bracing in his saddle and raising the shield to meet the beast with a smashing clang. Lurching backward from the impact-the troll weighed at least twice as much as the man-Tristan nevertheless chopped savagely with his sword, cleaving the grotesque face from forehead to neck. The monster fell like a dead tree, slain again.

"Now do you see?" Newt persisted, popping into sight beside the king's ear.

"I think I do," he said softly, not entirely certain he could believe what he saw.

Once more Tristan looked around the scene of the skirmish. The two headless trolls lay still. Though the gaping neck wounds had ceased to bleed, they showed no sign of healing. Another troll lay dead nearby, killed by a sword cut through its neck and into the chest. That wound, too, showed no sign of regeneration. On the contrary, it had clearly been the mortal blow. And there was the one he had stabbed in the face, the tiny wound belying the severity of the thrust that must have plunged all the way into the evil brain.

"Hsst! Over here!" said Newt, in an exaggerated whisper. The faerie dragon hovered over a dense patch of underbrush, pointing down with a tiny claw.

A furtive movement beneath a screening bush drew Tristan's eye. He dismounted, more and more curious, wondering what prevented so many of the slain trolls from returning to life. Shield raised protectively, sword held at the ready, he approached the dense thicket. Ranthal, hackles standing on end, snarlingly advanced beside him, while Newt remained in his bouncing hover.

Before they reached the cover, a troll bounded upward, startling the king with his looming height. Though the creature towered several feet over the human's head, it whirled away in apparent fear, darting from the brush and sprinting, panic-stricken, into the woods.

Tristan called to Ranthal, who had started after the monster, and as the moorhound returned to his side, the king stared after the fleeing troll. The beast's hands flopped loosely at the ends of its arms, where the wrists had been almost chopped through. Now he remembered: This was the first troll the king had fought, the one that had leaped from the underbrush only to meet the keen edge of that gleaming sword.

The sword… There was no longer any doubt in his mind, but just to be sure, he looked at the last troll to die, the broken body that had been smashed by Shallot's crushing hooves. The beast was nowhere to be seen. While Tristan had examined the place where the fight had started, the creature had apparently regenerated to the point where it could skulk away.

Only the wounds caused by this sword had failed to heal. What was it that the Exalted Inquisitor had told him? That the blade had been blessed by the gods, and their will would be shown in its use? Standing here amid the gore of trollish corpses, Tristan admitted to himself that that will seemed pretty clearly displayed.

"That's some sword!" said Newt, settling to the earth for a moment. The dragon was too agitated to rest for long, however, quickly springing back into the air to drift around Tristan in a circle.

"It is, at that," the king agreed. As the fighting tension slowly drained from his body, he found himself possessed with a deep sense of wonderment.

"I will call it 'Trollcleaver,'" he said quietly.

Once again Tristan tried to imagine the creature leading these monsters onto a path of destruction. The sword in his hand tingled, as if eager to kill again. Why had that faceless monster broken the peace of twenty years? The question had begun to lose importance as the fact of the violence became indisputably apparent. All that mattered to the king now was that one day soon that creature would die.

But then a more dangerous thought occurred to him, made doubly menacing by the fact that it posed questions he couldn't answer. He remembered the madness that had sent him off on this quest by himself. And indeed, even with such a sword, it still seemed like madness to confront an entire army of trolls and firbolgs.

Yet why had he been given this weapon? Could it be that madness was exactly what the gods expected of him?

Once the Princess of Moonshae broke onto the rolling swell of the strait, Tavish remembered her cramped, frightening confinement dockside as a pleasant vacation from troubles compared to the danger and discomfort she experienced during the crossing.

For one thing, she had curled her ample body into a space she was sure would have made tight quarters for any decent-sized ship rat. Even so, her knees were barely inches away from the toes of a big firbolg who sat on the bench behind her. Because of the tiny size of her niche, excruciating pain wracked at least four parts of her body at any given time. She was poked by thwarts, she was raw where her body rested on crossbeams, and she suffered cramps from the awkward position of her limbs.

Firbolg grunts paced the efforts of the giant-kin to wield the oars, causing the ship to lurch and spin on a frequent but wholly unpredictable basis. Though the four rowers tried to stroke together, the awkwardness of their technique brought the blades into frequent collision. Firbolg temperament being what it was, these accidents were usually followed by several shouted remarks before the lone voice of command in the stern brought the straining giant-kin back under control.

And through it all, she dared not make a sound. Instead, she tried to distract herself with memories, and was often able to reminisce about some pleasant experience for several minutes at a time. Then, however, the cramps would grow too severe and, with pain shooting up her leg or through her shoulder, she would have to, ever so slightly, shift her position into another torturous posture.

Darkness closed over them, and the firbolgs ceased their efforts with the oars, allowing the ship to drift on the surface of the calm Strait of Oman.

For a time, Tavish slept. Yet this respite proved even more painful that her constantly shifting pain, for when she awakened after no more than twenty or thirty minutes of fitful dozing, she had lost all feeling in her legs, and her back felt as though it had been permanently twisted.

Somehow, in a succession of such agonizing moments, she made it through the longest night of her life. She even risked emerging slightly from below the bench when the snores of the firbolg behind her told the bard that her risk of discovery was minimal.

By the time dawn filtered through the darkness, she had turned herself completely around, so that her head lay closer to the keel and her leather boots were propped against the sloping planks of the side. From this angle, against the backdrop of slowly graying sky, she could see a pair of firbolgs sitting together, hunched in a low conversation in the stern. Apparently she wasn't the only one who had gotten little sleep during the night.

As the light improved, she recognized the two. One was the great warrior who had smashed the troll on the dock, and the other was the old female who had tended his wound. A shrewd judge of individuals and societies, Tavish had solidly concluded that the male was the leader of this clan, and the female some sort of spiritual adviser or counselor. She saw that the giantess rested a hand possessively on the gleaming silver shaft of a double-bitted axe. The blade itself gleamed supernaturally in the gray dawnlight.

For the first time, the bard wondered about the giant-kin's purpose in capturing the Princess of Moonshae. If they intended to pillage and plunder, it seemed to her that their chances were a lot better when the giants' feet were planted firmly on the ground. Why, then, would they commandeer a ship they couldn't steer and break apart an army that had, by all appearances, just won a grand victory?

She had no answers, but the questions made her study the two firbolgs that much more intently. Whatever had motivated this band, she suspected that the idea had originated with one of this pair.

The sun rose at last, and she saw that the big giant's eyes were fastened almost reverently on something that she couldn't see, something that lay beyond the bow of the long-ship. Abruptly his face grew taut, and with angry shouts, he jarred his slumbering crewmen into wakefulness.

Tavish pulled her head back under the bench just as the giant-kin behind her snuffled and raised his face to the leader. Once again she felt the ship lurch as big firbolg hands seized the shafts of the oars, driving the blades through the water. From the position of the sun, the bard quickly deduced that they sailed north, toward the island named for the ancient northman adventurer, Oman.

Her discomforts continued to expand while the minutes ticked by, as now thirst and hunger began to trouble her. Yet the questions surrounding this strange voyage began to dance through her mind, cavorting in a whirlwind of curiosity that drew her intellect and awareness. What were these firbolgs trying to do? And why?

Of course, they were questions that, for now at least, must exist without answers, but in their examination, the bard began to find relief from her pains.

Robyn screamed and stumbled backward, holding her hands over her eyes to block out the bright light and searing flame that suddenly burst through Deirdre's room. When she next tried to look, her vision was a series of glowing spots, brilliantly dancing before her eyes, blocking out the darkness of the room itself. Yet even with her shadowy vision, the High Queen could see that her daughter was gone.

Cries of alarm came from the hallway, and she heard persistent pounding at the door. She heard the echoes of her own scream ringing from the walls and understood that the spell of silence had vanished with Deirdre.

"My queen? Are you all right? What's happened?" She recognized the voice of a loyal sergeant-major, a man-at-arms who had served the family all his life and now had been entrusted the security of the royal apartments.

"It's all right, Kaston. I'm fine-just a little surprised, that's all."

"Can I get you something, Your Majesty? Shall I send for the healer?"

"No!" Robyn snapped, her own agitation hardening her voice. A cleric of the New Gods was the last person Robyn wanted to see right now! "I said that I'm fine!"

"Of course, my queen," Kaston replied, humbled. Nevertheless, she heard no sound of footsteps walking away and presumed the loyal guard had taken up station right outside her door. The feeling gave her a small sense of security as she wandered around Deirdre's room.

Something jutted from beneath the rug, and she knelt to retrieve it. It was a small medallion, platinum circling a golden image of Helm's All-Seeing Eye. She dropped the icon on the floor as if it had burned her. Looking around more carefully then, she noticed other objects-figurines of wax and clay, and tiny images of gems set on plates or discs. She recognized the rounded lute of Oghma, the tiny skull that was the symbol of Myriad, lord of the beasts.

She saw the bowls of liquid, only reluctantly admitting that the stuff was blood. Dimly she recalled the shout of alarm-"Murder!" — but her mind refused the implication. A shiver passed along her spine, and slowly, carefully the High Queen backed through the warped doorway, collapsing into a chair when she reached the apartment anteroom.

Where had the princess gone? That question, Robyn decided, was secondary to the central issue. At the core of Deirdre's disappearance, the queen now knew beyond doubt, lay her daughter's dangerous devotion to the gods of the other Realms, the deities who so wanted to overwhelm and suffocate the sublime will of the Earthmother.

For a long time, she sat still in the chair, her mind working feverishly while her body rested, storing physical strength and energy for the task she now inevitably faced. Her husband seized by madness, gone alone to war. By the goddess, she loved him! She felt a deep, mindless terror that he would face some unknown harm, some deadly fate, and she would not be there to help him. Deirdre, too, occupied much of her mind. Why had she killed? What had stolen her away? But all of her cogitation, all of her musing, couldn't give her the guidance she needed. They couldn't tell her where she would find her daughter.

Yet gradually, through the curtain of her despair, she began to sense that she was being tested by these onslaughts against her family. Mysteries assailed her, a thousand unknown questions that she could try to answer, but came instead upon still more enigmatic problems. Finally, in her heart, she began to suspect the truth. She might find comfort, but she would never gain the necessary wisdom, if she stayed here in the castle, in her home.

To answer these questions, the druid queen knew, she would have to seek her explanations upon a higher plane, at a different place. By now she knew this with certainty. Her body tingled with energy, and her spirit soared to the calling of the goddess who was mother to the Ffolk. Only the Earthmother could show her the course to follow, could provide her with the means to counter this threat.

And so once again the white hawk winged toward Myrloch Vale.

"One human chased you off your post?" Baatlrap snarled in astonished disbelief. He growled and blustered at the half-dozen trolls standing before him, cuffing each several times as he belittled their parentage and their courage. Nevertheless, the monstrous humanoid was considerably distressed by their arrival and their story.

As a lot, the warriors cowered before him, a craven remnant of a dozen savage brutes Baatlrap had left to guard the approaches to Codscove. Three of them had deep sword wounds, wounds that showed no sign of regenerating!

"And a pack of dogs-hounds from the Abyss itself!" one of the trolls jabbered in the trollish tongue.

"He rode a hell horse, too-a steed that bore me to the earth and rended my back with hooves of steel!" another bore witness.

"Wait here!" shouted the giant troll as the rest of his column of trolls and firbolgs meandered out of sight in its march along the northern shore of Gwynneth. The ragged army, still strong and belligerent despite the defection of Thurgol and his stalwart firbolgs, came to a halt, the trolls and the few dozen giant-kin who had ignored Thurgol's leadership flopping in the shade of trees and trying to understand the reports of the panicked rear guards.

"Did this human ride before an army?" demanded Baatlrap.

"Almost assuredly!" pledged one of the survivors.

"It must have been close behind," mused another. "Else why would he stand and fight us when our numbers should have put him to flight?"

"Your numbers should have slain him!" Baatlrap bellowed, smacking the speaker on the side of his head. "And you should have buried him beneath the bodies of his horse and his hounds! How is it that you can fail me thus?"

No answer came from the defeated trolls, though the creatures grew increasingly sullen in the face of Baatlrap's abuse. The hulking brute looked back and forth, along the assembled rank of his monstrous company. It was a potent band, he knew-two score giant-kin and five times that many trolls.

Of course, he would have liked to create still more trolls, but that scheme had been prevented when Garisa and the Silverhaft Axe had sailed to the north. Vaguely Baatlrap felt a desire to go after the weapon. Perhaps one day he would. As for now, he had a hard time imagining a human army that could stand against his present force, nor had he yet seen any evidence that the humans had mustered any men-at-arms even to challenge him.

Yet if there were such a force, it could just as easily be behind him as before him. And this human warrior, the one whose sword sliced the wounds that would not heal, could well be a harbinger of such an army. Indeed, the more Baatlrap thought about it, the more he became convinced: There could be no other explanation.

Certainly any lone human knight, well mounted, who found himself attacked by a dozen trolls would try to ride away from the fight, wouldn't he? Common sense would allow no other interpretation! Since this warrior had elected not to flee the battle, it could only mean that he was followed by many more of his own kind.

The prospect did not alarm the great troll. Instead, the thought of such a battle gave him a sense of pleasant anticipation, together with a self-congratulatory nod for his shrewd analysis of the enemy's situation. This way, Baatlrap's army would be ready to face the pursuing humans in a fair fight, at a place of the troll lord's choosing.

"Stop the march!" he shouted to the humanoid monsters of his command. "We meet the humans here!"

Finellen tried to conceal her worry from the rest of her troops and from her human and elven companions. She wasn't entirely successful in either case.

"It's going to be tough to catch them, isn't it?" Hanrald asked softly, leading his war-horse along the trail beside the dwarven captain.

"Aye," she grunted sourly. "They move so damned fast. Even a whole night's forced march puts us two leagues behind them!"

The column of dwarves had unquestioningly followed their leader's command, tromping grimly through the night. Hanrald had ridden or walked along with them in silent amazement, for the doughty warriors stumped along at an exhausting rate hour after hour, and yet not one of them raised a voice in complaint or showed any sign of faltering. Brigit's scouting report had indicated that the monsters camped at dusk, and this news propelled all of them into a steady, draining pace.

Before sunrise, the dwarves paused for an hour's rest. Some tried to nap for a few minutes, while others simply stretched muscles battered and bruised from long days on the trail. Brigit rode forth on her fleet mare, ready as always to scout the enemy force. Shortly after her departure, however, the druid Danrak entered the camp with news that alarmed them all.

The monsters, he told them, broke camp even before the coming of daylight. Once again they marched away from the dwarves, increasing the distance between the two forces faster than Finellen and her warriors could close it.

"Still, are you sure it's as bad as all that?" questioned the earl as he and Finellen made their way along the trail. "After all, Brigit hasn't gotten back yet. She might have some good news."

Finellen shook her head in frustration and disappointment. "You heard what Danrak said. They were already on the march an hour before dawn!"

The courageous druid, Hanrald knew, had been observing the camp of the trollish army from nearby vantage points in the brush and trees, no doubt concealed in the body of some fleet forest creature, perhaps a rabbit or squirrel, or maybe even a sparrow or jay. Such disguises had enabled him to give them excellent reports on each of the monsters' camps and their subsequent lines of march.

"Same direction as yesterday, I assume?" the Earl of Fairheight queried.

"Yup. They're heading for the Gray Headlands!" Finellen said disgustedly. "It looks like they'd take the axe all the way to the Sword Coast if they could swim!"

The day after the ravage of the town, the raiders had marched northeast, staying near the shore of Gwynneth. Though the beasts had looted a few small fishing villages-isolated huts and cottages, for the most part-there were no sizable villages in their immediate path. Still, the eastern shore of the island was populated far more heavily than was the north, so it wouldn't take long before the giant humanoids would begin to encounter victims aplenty.

Hanrald knew, too, that even the hardy dwarves couldn't handle another night of marching. It seemed that, by acting upon his advice, Finellen might have missed her chance for the fight that she so desperately wanted. The long-legged troops of the enemy were just too fast for the dwarves.

Something moved in the trees before them, and then, as she always did, Brigit and her mare materialized. Hanrald's heart jumped with relief as she shrugged away his helping hand to dismount on her own.

"How far ahead are they?" Finellen inquired grumpily. Then something on the sister's knight's face gave the dwarf-woman pause. "What is it? Do you have news?"

"I do, at that," the Llewyrr woman reported. She shook her head in amazement, as if she didn't believe what she was going to say.

"I saw them on the march. They kept on for several hours, into the midmorning. Then, for some reason that I can't figure out, they just stopped. They're waiting near the coast, barely a league and a half away."

"I don't like blundering along in this bottomland. It's too easy for it to drop into a bog," Alicia announced with concern.

Following behind her, Keane cursed as a thorny branch slashed back across his face. "And getting more tangled with every step!" he added sourly.

The two of them pressed forward, ahead of the main body of troops. They had been forced to leave their horses some distance behind but continued to explore in the hope that the ground would open up.

Abruptly Alicia stumbled, a loud sucking noise following her foot from the ground. She grasped a tree trunk for balance as Keane saw that she stood ankle deep in brown muck. Flies buzzed around them, and the air pressed close and humid.

"Help!" cried the princess, suddenly in real distress as her feet continued to sink.

Keane reached for her hand and pulled, but it took all of his strength to break the princess free of the clutching mire. Finally he jerked backward and Alicia came free, falling into his arms as he collapsed against the rough bark of a tree trunk.

Exhausted, he held her, and she was content to lie in his arms as they gradually caught their breath. Finally, in a regretful moment for Keane, she sat up and brushed the hair back from her face before she looked at her mud-stained boots.

"Thanks," she said, squeezing his hand. "That stuff surprised me." His heart swelled, and he wanted the moment to last forever.

"Let's rest a bit," Keane urged gently. I want to be here alone with you! his mind whispered. It was a selfish reason, but the mage told himself that the princess really did look exhausted.

"Yes. It's nice to sit still for a moment," she agreed softly.

She looked at him, and her deep, bright eyes filled his vision and his heart. Again he felt the urge to take her into his arms, to cover her mouth with kisses, but his innate reserve would not weaken enough for him to act.

And then, in the next instant, her thoughts had turned back to the men under her command. "It doesn't seem that we can go any farther this way," she said. "We'll have to chance the course to the east."

Keane nodded, reluctantly turning to practical matters. "I think you're right, though it surprises me to find this much of a swamp here. Are you sure eastward is the course you want to follow?"

"Father must have encountered this morass too," Alicia continued. "If we halt the men here and explore to either side, we'll probably lose a whole day!"

Keane nodded. Even if he used magic-a spell of flying, for example, to carry him birdlike over the tangled fen-he would need the remaining hours of daylight to complete a moderately thorough reconnaissance. Those would be precious hours when the men of Corwell would not be marching. He well understood Alicia's desire to keep moving. The welfare of King Kendrick had become a growing concern to the magic-user as well. Privately he grew increasingly concerned that they hadn't come upon any sign of the king's passage. It was a fact that did not bode well for their chances of eventually finding Tristan, the mage suspected.

"So all I can do is try to guess at his track," Alicia concluded. "Codscove must lie to the east of here, and that seems like the most logical place for him to go!"

They followed the tangled trail back to the main body of the troops. There, the Exalted Inquisitor, still clad in his immaculate white robe, greeted them with expressions of concern.

"This place looks dangerous," he said, clucking in reproval. "I was just about to come after you!"

"That wasn't necessary or called for!" Alicia snapped, discouraged enough to dispense with the niceties of diplomatic language.

"Forgive my overindulgent concern," the inquisitor apologized solicitously.

"We've got a problem," Keane interjected. "This swamp blocks our path to the north."

"So we're angling to the east," Alicia concluded. Stalking past the cleric, she went up to Sands and Parsallas, who had been lounging in the shade of a wide oak. The two sergeants quickly got to their feet when they saw her approaching.

"How are the rations?" Alicia asked Sands, who'd served as unofficial quartermaster.

"Enough for a couple days yet, Your Highness," replied the bowlegged veteran.

"Aye, a few more fine meals of beans and dry bread!" added Parsallas with a hearty chuckle. The lanky warrior seemed to remain cheerful about whatever irritating setbacks they encountered.

"We've got to start up in five minutes," she said quickly. "I'll lead the way. We need to find a path around this swamp."

Each of the sergeants saluted smartly and proceeded to gather the troops into column. They started to march exactly a minute earlier than Alicia had ordered.

Mounted upon Brittany, the princess scouted ahead for the best path through the tangle of underbrush. Keane rode behind her, not wanting to slow her up with his own clumsy horsemanship but ensuring that she remained within sight so that he could reach her side in seconds if need be.

Soon Brittany broke through a tangle of vines onto a narrow game trail, and Alicia guided the eager mare along the relatively straight pathway. Keane followed, and then came Sands leading the first company of Corwell. The spirits and step of the men picked up noticeably now that they had a trail to follow.

Keane prodded his old gelding into a trot, and the nag hastened to catch up to Brittany and the princess. Behind him, he heard the approach of other hooves and turned to see the Exalted Inquisitor also riding ahead of the footmen. It seemed that the open trail had infused them all with energy and enthusiasm.

Then Alicia reined in, uttering a crude sailor's curse. Keane galloped to her side, though he recognized frustration, not danger, in her tone. In another moment, he saw why.

The trail suddenly dropped away, dipping into a pool of fetid water and disappearing. All around them here, to the front and to both sides, stretched a seemingly endless expanse of rank swamp.

Sir Koll was a large knight, broad in the shoulders and the waist. Though he was probably twice the Prince of Gnarhelm's age, Brandon found in him a kindred warrior spirit. He was surprised to learn, however, that the knight's parents had been people of the north, originally settling upon Gwynneth after a successful raiding voyage. Only when Koll had been knighted by High King Kendrick had he fully adopted the manners and customs of the Ffolk.

"Lately, of course, there hasn't been much need for my sword," explained the hearty warrior. His horse had been slain in the final moments of battle. Now he walked along at a steady pace, accompanying Brandon and some two dozen men-at-arms, both northmen and Ffolk, as a rear guard for the fleeing townspeople of Codscove. "But I'm glad I had the sense to keep the thing sharpened!"

"I've had plenty of need for my ship," Brandon countered glumly. "You'd think I would have learned to keep a better watch on her."

"I'm the fool who lost her for you!" Knaff interrupted dejectedly. The helmsman bore the responsibility for the capture heavily. His shoulders slumped, and his footsteps were more of a shuffle than a march.

"No, old friend. Stop beating yourself with that!" Brandon countered, clapping Knaff on the shoulder. "The responsibility is mine. I came in to shore without scouting, without even considering the possibilities. The blame is mine."

"Pah-bad luck! Could happen to anyone," Koll allowed. "And, besides, we'll get her back!"

The prince wished he could share his companion's enthusiasm, but his current prospects looked less than ideal.

They had spent the afternoon after their defeat in steady flight, attempting to put as much space between themselves and the monstrous invaders as possible. Now, another day later, the women and children had been given time to find shelter in the secluded grottoes and groves of the woodlands. There they would await news.

The warriors, meanwhile, had debated what they should do. Most of the townsmen had no interest in trying to fight the monsters again. After all, they had already lost their property and many of their neighbors or kin, so unless their families' lives were at stake, they didn't see the point of suffering more death and injury.

With a few exceptions, such as Koll, the men of Codscove seemed all too willing to march to the next sizable cantrev, seeing if they could lure the humanoid horde into a long pursuit and then a fight on different ground than their own.

The northmen, and Brandon in particular, had no interest in moving too far from the place where the Princess of Moonshae had been captured. It was true that they had no assurances that the ship remained in Codsbay. The trolls had chased them several miles from the village after the battle, preventing any attempts to spy on the harbor. Still, even if the monstrous pirates had tried to embark, Brandon suspected that they wouldn't get terribly far. A related fear to that notion, however, was his constant apprehension that they would destroy his ship on some rocky shore or flounder in the surprise storms that were so common in the Moonshaes.

The final resolution had been the dispatching of this small rear-guard party, with Brandon's crewmen and an equal number of volunteers from the town, led by the redoubtable Koll. The men-at-arms advanced in scattered columns, preceded by several scouts. The latter were woodsmen, Ffolk who spent their days hunting in the forest. They knew its paths and prey and were adept at fast, silent movement.

Brandon and Sir Koll led their group back along the route of their flight, seeking to find out if the troll and firbolg army hastened in pursuit.

"One thing-it seems that they didn't come too far after us," Koll observed as they continued to move back toward the town with no sign of pursuing trolls.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they spent a long time drinking up your liquor stocks," Brandon pointed out. "That doesn't mean they won't be coming after us in a day or two."

"You're right about that. And even if a few of 'em took that ship of yours, I think there'd be plenty left on shore."

Brandon shuddered privately at the thought of numerous hulking firbolgs piling into his beloved ship. Any more than a score or so, he felt certain, and the Princess of Moonshae would inevitably capsize.

"Still," Koll added after another mile of undisturbed forest had rolled beneath their boots, "as quick as they came after us when we retreated, I think they'd want to hold on to their advantage. You know, keep us on the run."

"It does seem odd," the Prince of Gnarhelm admitted. Yet still another mile passed with no sign of the trolls. "We must be getting close to Codscove," he guessed.

"Not far at all," agreed the knight. Just then one of the scouts stepped into view, emerging from behind an oak trunk where he'd been completely invisible.

"No sign of 'em so far," reported the green-garbed woodsman. "I don't understand it."

"I don't either," groused Koll. "Somehow, though, I don't think they've just up and disappeared."

Deirdre walked the immortal paths of the gods, a sense of might growing, tingling within her. She heard the words of their counsels, learned the challenge of her being.

"You are the mighty one!" came the voices, smoothly urging, compelling her toward greatness. "You will bring us through this barrier with which the ancient shell, the withered hag called the Earthmother, would try to block us."

Talos formed the chorus of words, though others of the New Gods propelled him, eager to claim a place in the Moonshaes. But Talos moved carefully. He would not strike the goddess in Myrloch, in her place of strength. No, for this task, another place would serve.

"Yes!" pledged the princess, thrilling to the role and the power. The shards of glass brightened within her, like a flaming wick concealed by a thin curtain of flesh. "But how?"

"For that," replied the voices of Talos, "we shall grant you a tool."

The demigod had languished in an icy prison for the coming and going of many centuries. Most of that time had passed in cold, mindless blackness as, unknown to Grond, the ages had passed him by.

Now, for the first time in many, many years, that darkness began to lift. The demigod felt the warmth of the world at his feet, the chill of the sky against his skull. For all that time he had rested, in the earth … and of the earth. Now, as remembrance of another life returned, the Peaksmasher was reluctant to make any acknowledgment.

He had led his giants here in the distant past, and at the time, the will of the Earthmother had stood strong against him. The clash of immortal wills had been powerful and violent, and in the end, the goddess had vanquished the demigod.

Aware of his past defeat, Grond wasn't certain that the result had been such a bad thing.