Douglas Niles - The Druid Queen

She raised her head and saw the Strait of Oman to the south, though there was no sign of Gwynneth beyond. It made sense. With no massif such as the Icepeak, the lowland of Winterglen lay below the horizon.

"So they sailed to Oman's Isle," she said aloud. Why firbolgs would do something so unalterably purposeful was a real mystery to the bard. Of course, if this island had been their destination all along, she understood why they'd been so determined to seize the Princess of Moonshae.

But this yielded no further light on the issue of why the giant-kin had wanted to come here in the first place. On that question, Tavish could only muse with steadily growing interest and curiosity. She recalled the stooped giantess, clutching that glorious axe so possessively, and she wondered if the explanation lay with that venerable female.

At length, sensation and control returned to her limbs. Twisting and stretching for a few more minutes, she finally felt ready to climb out of the leaning hull. Sitting on the lower gunwale, she crossed her legs over the rail and dropped the short distance to the smooth surface below, landing with a lurch and a jarring of harpstrings, but she suffered no injury.

Once she had checked her lute, determining that it needed a careful tuning but had suffered no damage, she started across the stones. Her curiosity had grown far beyond the realm of idle interest. She felt that, whatever drew these giants, there must be a compelling tale at the end of it.

The trail of the lumbering giant-kin wasn't hard to find. The firbolg band had followed a game trail, widening it frequently by breaking off branches or stomping small bushes underfoot. Hoisting her harp, the bard started along that same path, following the broad footsteps of the giants.

"How did you manage to stay alive the last twenty years without me to bail you out?" Finellen demanded gruffly, the tone of her voice not hiding the real affection she felt for the High King of the Ffolk.

"I've not been in many pickles like this over that time," Tristan allowed, leaning from his saddle to clasp Finellen's fists in his good hand. "But sure enough, when it happened, there you were! Many thanks, old friend."

"Enough about the last twenty years," Brigit said, not unkindly. "What about the next twenty minutes?" She pointed across the cornfield to the trolls who plunged toward them, furious at the escape of the king.

"Back to the woods! Quickstep!" barked Finellen, and the dwarves hastily reversed the course of their advance. With the monsters on the attack, the dwarven leader decided that her company should face the enemy with the benefit of some cover around it.

Fortunately the dwarven charge hadn't progressed far before Tristan broke free, so they quickly reached the shelter of overhanging oak limbs and tangled dogwood trunks. The obstructions would hamper the larger humanoids far more than they would the diminutive dwarves.

"Crossbows about! Fire at will!" cried the bearded captain, and those of her troops with the stocky missile weapons quickly loosed a volley of steel-headed bolts.

Immediately the archers began cranking their heavy weapons to reload, while the first rank of monsters faltered, many falling with the lethal bolts jutting from their bodies. Unlike an arrow from a standard bow, the quarrels from the crossbows struck with great punching power, sometimes with enough force to knock even a troll off its feet.

"Fires!" shouted Brigit. "We need fires to burn the trolls!"

From nowhere appeared the druid Danrak. "I've got tinder piled back here. I'll ignite it," he said to Finellen, "if you'll send some of your dwarves to carry the brands to the fight."

"Aye-good thinking." Finellen nodded and quickly dispatched several trustworthy veterans.

A second volley met the onrushing foe as the giant predators reared only a few paces from the edge of the forest. Following the shot, the archers dropped their missile weapons and all the dwarves, together with their human and Llewyrr allies, met the humanoids with sword and axe, hammer and shield.

Tristan stood near the center of the line, singling out a strong company of trolls for the attentions of his powerful sword. As the first of these sprang through the hedge at the border of the field, the High King split him from chin to pelvis with a slashing downward blow of Trollcleaver. Spewing gore, the monster collapsed beside him as Tristan already clashed blades with his next opponent.

All around he heard the gruff cursing of dwarves, the hissing shrieks of bloodthirsty trolls, and the bellowing cries of the giant-kin. Ranthal snarled and snapped beside him, while wolfdogs lunged at the mighty moorhound with slavering jaws.

Trollcleaver met a troll's heavy axe, the resounding clang driving daggers of agony through Tristan's bones, but he held firm, and as the troll recoiled for another blow, the king's sword snaked out, piercing the gristle of the monster's chest and finally puncturing the knotty ball of its heart.

Smoke wafted through the air. In other places, fallen trolls were charred by snapping flames, dry timbers piled upon the corpses to ensure that they wouldn't rise to fight again. Ranthal, ranging from side to side but always battling close by Tristan's flank, added his fierce snarl to the din, while cheering dwarves raised their voices in triumph each time another of the beasts succumbed to the blaze.

But amid the cheering, the king heard darker, more painful sounds. Dwarves groaned, and all too often he heard the piteous exhalation that Tristan recognized as the last sound of a dying warrior. Wounded dwarves tried to stifle their moans, but were not always successful. Too many of them, fallen amidst the chaos of the melee, expired simply because there was no one to help at hand.

Nearby, the king saw another familiar knight. The Earl of Fairheight, wielding his huge, two-handed sword with deadly precision, stood between two large oaks, anchoring a good portion of the line. The sister knight of Synnoria fought at his side, making certain two razors of sharp steel met any firbolg or troll foolish enough to try to press through.

Finellen moved back and forth along the line of battle, at times lunging forward to help out one of her hard-pressed countrymen, or else carrying flaming brands of dry timber to stack on the temporarily slain corpses of the trolls.

"Need some fire here?" grunted the stalwart dwarfwoman as Tristan carved a deep wound into the leg of a troll, crippling the beast. The monster dropped like a felled tree, scuttling crablike away from the fight.

Gasping for breath, the king shook his head. Already half a dozen troll corpses lay motionless around him, and in the lull, Tristan grinned at Finellen's look of astonishment.

"Good sword," was all she said as the High King raised the weapon to face another push, this time three trolls rushing him together.

Fortunately the tangle of trees kept two of them from coming fully to bear, and the third one danced quickly backward to avoid a thrust from Trollcleaver. As one of the others darted in, Tristan's blade chopped into the beast's arm and Finellen's axe carved a deep wound into its thigh. The monster fell, and Tristan stabbed it once in the skull, driving the tip of his blade deep into the fetid brain; the creature wouldn't menace them further. Ranthal, meanwhile, held the third troll safely at bay.

"Nice work," grunted the dwarfwoman as the ebb and flow of battle momentarily gave the pair a berth of space.

But then came a deeper sound, a growing roar of hoarse triumph from firbolg throats. At the same time, dwarven voices hollered in alarm. The scene of the commotion was perhaps twenty or thirty paces to their right, though the humans could see nothing in that direction because of the screening forest.