Douglas Niles - The Druid Queen

Alicia, on Brittany, surged back and forth. Inspired by her leadership, the men of Corwell had attacked with courage and uncharacteristic savagery. The first rush shocked the lumbering humanoids, and the valiant militia never gave them time to recover their balance or their fighting spirit.

Exhausted but elated, the princess rode up to Keane, swinging down from the saddle to seize him in a bear hug of fierce triumph. He hugged her back, flushed with his own sense of victory.

"Look!" called a grinning Parsallas, pointing across the field.

"There's Father! He's got prisoners!" shouted Alicia, elated at the outcome of the sharp, sudden attack. She saw the king and recognized Hanrald and Brigit among a company of bearded dwarves. The group prodded a half-dozen surly firbolgs before them, the entire group limping toward the wizard, the princess, and their company.

The battle had lasted only a few minutes for Alicia and the men of Corwell, but judging from the trampled look of the field and the weary, battered appearance of the human and dwarven survivors, she knew that combat had been joined here long before her own arrival.

"We were none too soon," Keane said quietly as Sergeant-Major Sands led a number of men forward to take charge of the prisoners.

Alicia ran to the High King, overjoyed to see his smile, however wan and exhausted his appearance. He swept her into his arms and embraced her while she hugged and held him with overwhelming relief.

"Father!" she gasped, after she found her voice. "I'm so glad….I was afraid we'd be too late."

"Not too late at all, though five minutes more might have been," he said cheerfully as the rest of his companions joined them. Alicia embraced Hanrald and Brigit in turn, and then Tristan called to her.

"This is an ally from a previous war, but she saved my life here as well. Finellen of Cambro, I present my daughter, High Princess Alicia."

The princess bowed before the bristling beard of the sturdy dwarf, who regarded her with a frank but friendly sparkle in her eye. "The image of your mother, except for the hair. It's a pleasure to meet you, lass."

"The brave Finellen is someone I've heard about in many tales," replied Alicia. "I'm grateful for everything you've done for my father… and the Ffolk."

The dwarf shrugged. "Probably exaggerated, though I'm surprised my name came up at all, given the way the Llewyrr usually hog all the glory!"

In the glow of the moment, even Brigit didn't have the urge to dispute the statement. And then another companion joined them, one who caused all of them to stare in shock.

"Brandon!" cried the princess, the first to voice their surprise. Bleeding from a dozen wounds but smiling in obvious joy, the northman joined them, accompanied by an equally battered knight.

"The good Prince of Gnarhelm!" boomed the king, clasping Brandon on the arm. "Good fight, lad-and Sir Koll as well! I might have known. So you were the fellows who came across the field at such a timely juncture!"

"A rash move it was, too, Your Majesty," Brandon explained, his smile fading to a grim sorrow. "Most of our men paid the price."

"Knaff…?" Alicia asked tentatively, and when the prince shook his head, she felt her throat tighten. She had to turn away.

"We are fortunate indeed to have such loyal companions as you," the High King said to all the assembled warriors. "Each, arriving as you did, kept the fight alive for the others, and together we knew triumph!"

"Riding off alone like that was a good way to get yourself killed!" his daughter retorted. "What sort of madness took hold of you?"

Tristan smiled tolerantly, though certainly no one else in the assemblage would have dared speak to the High King in such a tone. He sighed and looked back to the edge of the forest. He thought of the vast woodland that began there, where Winterglen merged with Myrloch Vale … and for a week, he might as well have drifted in a different world. Once again he longed to hear the cry of the wolf, wished that the great beast would signal its approval, if not its forgiveness.

"It was perhaps a rash move," he admitted. He drew Trollcleaver, allowing the gleaming blade to shed gentle light around the gathered humans and dwarves. "Still, this blade gave me a better chance than I'd ever have thought. Perhaps there was something to that priest's prophecy."

"Father, that priest was treacherous to the core!" Alicia objected. She quickly recounted the tale of the hallucinatory terrain Parell Hyath had used to try delaying the company from Corwell, while Tristan frowned in displeasure mingled with confusion.

"If it hadn't been for Keane," the princess concluded, "we'd probably still be wandering around in a swamp that doesn't even exist!"

"Then why would he give me such a sword?" asked the king. "This blade is truly as mighty as any weapon I've wielded since the Sword of Cymrych Hugh. I have dubbed it Trollcleaver, and it is aptly named. If he intended for us to fail, what purpose is served by such a gift?"

"The priest is a mysterious figure," Keane suggested. "Some of what he said-about the trolls and firbolgs, for example-proved to be remarkably accurate. Yet our army was surrounded by an illusionary expanse of water, clearly of the cleric's doing. It could only have been placed there to stop us."

"There's more than a hint of madness to this whole affair," Tristan observed somberly, suppressing an ominous shiver as he recalled his aimless wandering. "It's only good fortune, and perhaps the favor of the goddess, that enabled us to prevail."

"And prevail quite remarkably," Hanrald noted. "From the edge of disaster, we earned a victory that destroyed the foe!"

"The foe is not entirely destroyed," Sir Koll amended. His face fell ruefully. "A small knot of trolls escaped into the forest-a las, but the northman captain and I were too sorely pained to give chase."

"Did you note a great one among them, with a bronze-edged sword-jagged teeth on the blade, like a saw?" asked the king quickly. "I believe him to be their leader, and I'm not sure if he was slain by fire."

"I'm sorry, Sire. I couldn't say for certain," replied the knight.

"We'll break into companies and root them out soon enough," Alicia suggested. "The bulk of the horde has been broken."

"Others might have gotten away as well," Brandon said with a cautionary tone. "I assume that you didn't see the Princess of Moonshae in Codscove," he said to Tristan.

"No-nothing afloat. Even the fishing boats had been sunk."

"She was taken by firbolgs!" exclaimed the northman bitterly. "Some of them must have put out to sea!"

"Why would they do that?" Brigit asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Another thing," Finellen interjected. She had just heard the whispered report of dwarven warriors who had been scouring the battlefield. "The Silverhaft Axe isn't here. No one saw it during the battle, and it wasn't found on any of the bodies."

"Perhaps we'd better have a word with one of the prisoners," mused Tristan. He picked a particularly dejected-looking firbolg, a brute who sat on the ground with his head in his hands. "Bring that one over here!" he called to Sands.

The sergeant-major and a few of his men prodded the reluctant creature toward the king and princess. The giant-kin regarded the humans and their allies with suspicion and fear, though there seemed to be little threat in his manner. Low, beetling brows shaded his eyes from the bright moonlight, but the sagging expression of his jowls seemed far more tired than angry.

"Here," said Alicia, handing the brutish fellow a small sausage from a nearby knapsack. The giant sniffed it cautiously, then popped it into his mouth with a quick gesture.

"There was a ship here," Tristan began, speaking in slow, clear common tongue. "Where did it go?"