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 prev
ented 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 eve
ntually 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.
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