The Druid Queen

by Douglas Niles

  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 s
hip 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 longship. 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 Myrkul, 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 t
ingled 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?”