Douglas Niles - The Druid Queen

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."