Douglas Niles - The Druid Queen

The paths of the Rockbound Ways guided him, and he knew that he followed close upon the heels of those he hated, those who had rendered upon him the intolerable insult of his missing hand.

Accompanying him were the survivors of the battle in Winterglen. These, too, were hateful and driven trolls. None of them bore the wounds of the Trollcleaver, but all had suffered hurt and indignity during the fight, even to the point of being slain, before regeneration gave them the mobility to limp from the field and heal completely.

Pressing along the darkened passage, Baatlrap had no difficulty following the trail left by the human and dwarven party. Even if the dust on the floor hadn't been disturbed, the troll's keen nostrils would have been able to follow the hours-old scent of warm-blooded creatures in the dank air of the cavern, so long had it been since these corridors had seen the footsteps of such surface dwellers.

The trolls' fabled endurance and impressive speed didn't require them to rest as often as their quarry. Thus the one-handed humanoid and his companions were only a scant hour or so behind the king's party when they finally reached the long ascending stairway and the shimmering waterfall that screened the sunlit world beyond.

Here, sensing the nearness of his quarry, Baatlrap wouldn't allow his trolls to rest. Quickly the lanky creatures fell into file and continued the march to Icepeak Glacier.

They loped up the trail in the narrow valley, winding their way easily around switchbacks that had slowed the humans and dwarves to a trudging crawl. Finally, as they neared the end of the valley, Baatlrap discerned through the trees the huge bulk of Grond Peaksmasher, and the awesome reality of the living mountain almost halted him in his tracks.

"So the old hag was right!" he hissed, impressed in spite of himself. Yet the firbolgs weren't the ones who had drawn him this far, and the hatred for the man with the deadly sword hadn't begun to flag. He would continue on the trail of vengeance, though it seemed only reasonable to stay out of sight of the colossus.

The trolls dropped into a narrow gully, skulking along a shallow streambed in an effort to creep up the valley without exposing themselves to view. And then it seemed that the gods truly smiled upon Baatlrap, for as the monstrous troll came around a bend in the stream, he saw, not twenty feet away from him, the hateful man who had wounded him.

A snarl escaped from the troll's lips, and the man looked up, his eyes wide and frantic. Good-he knows his fate! The troll gloated silently. Then he noticed another fact, a thing that caused his craven heart to bubble with cruel glee.

Now the man was unarmed, and Baatlrap could see no sign of that cleaving, deadly sword!

Thurgol followed the riverbed, observing the figure of the human who had somehow floated from the great pit. He watched the man sneak between the shallow banks, looking outward at the pit and the strange woman who had come so easily to master the independent firbolgs.

The chieftain still wasn't exactly sure how that had happened. In the instant that the Silverhaft Axe had been taken from his hands, it was as if his own will had been taken at the same time. After the theft of that mighty artifact, he'd had no power to resist any command of the black-haired human woman. Indeed Grond Peaksmasher, immortal lord of giantkind, apparently willed it so.

The woman had told him to watch the humans, to see that they didn't escape, and so he had set to the task resolutely. He'd been smart, it seemed, to post himself back in the woods, where he could observe any break for freedom without being seen himself.

So now the one-handed man, the human who had seemed to be their leader, had somehow scaled the wall and tried to escape. Thurgol would simply have to see that this attempt failed. Unconsciously he tightened his grip on his club, picking up the pace of his own stealthy pursuit

Then he froze in his tracks, astounded, as he saw a large green shape springing up the streambed toward the escaped human and Thurgol. It was Baatlrap, leading a company of his savage humanoids! The giant-kin chieftain thought he must be going mad, but the troll was certainly real, for just then the human saw him, too.

The one-handed man immediately reversed course at the sight of the troll, spinning so quickly that he saw Thurgol before the giant could even try to hide. The human leaped from the streambed, breaking through the underbrush and sprinting toward the clearing where Deirdre and the cleric stood.

The troll sprang after him, but a sudden explosion of flames crackled through the woods, blocking Baatlrap's path. The monster twisted out of the way as a small, brightly colored little dragon popped into sight, shouting shrill insults at the troll and pleading with the king to run faster.

Bulling through a stand of pines, Thurgol charged forward to cut the man off. Firbolg, human, and troll all broke into the clear at once, and the man stumbled to a stop, too shrewd to get run down by the fleet-footed trolls.

Thurgol felt a flash of pity for the human. It seemed that his valiant effort deserved something better than this. The firbolg watched as Baatlrap raised his sword and stepped closer to the unarmed human. The duel looked increasingly incongruous, the troll every bit of ten feet tall, with that evil-looking weapon reaching like a tree limb over his head. The human crouched, ready to dodge to either side, but without a weapon or shield, his situation was desperate in the extreme.

Other trolls emerged from the trees, following Baatlrap to gather in a semicircle around the giant troll and his victim. The appearance of the green-skinned humanoids inflamed Thurgol. Just when he thought he was rid of his noxious comrades, they had arrived to dog his presence again. He shook his head and growled in frustration.

"Wait!" Thurgol barked. "Put down your sword!" he commanded Baatlrap.

"What?" objected the troll, pausing long enough to glare at Thurgol. "Shut up!"

"No. Put down the sword and fight him fair-only you fight him," commanded the firbolg, hefting his club for emphasis and advancing slowly on the troll. Perhaps Baatlrap remembered the fight on Codscove's dock. Whatever it was, the troll's brows lowered in an expression of sullen fear.

Baatlrap snarled again while the man's eyes flicked from one humanoid to the other. Finally, with a scowl of irritation, Baatlrap threw down his sword. Without another word, he sprang at the one-handed man.

Robyn's body changed in the instant before she collided into the stones at the base of Grond Peaksmasher's mountainous torso. Her shape shifted, as it had so many times before, but this time it did not assume the form of an animal. Instead, her wings tucked backward, her head outstretched, and she became an arrowhead of stone, driving toward bedrock. The transformation was instantaneous and complete, fusing the power of the goddess and the will of the druid queen.

The Earthmother reached out, grasping Robyn's physical shell and melding her into the raw, elemental power of the ground, joining them in a linking of power and will. The queen met the face of slate and merged, sinking through layers of rock to become one with the earth. Her soul remained intact, centered below the bulk of the Peaksmasher, but the physical reach of her body expanded to encompass the entire narrow valley, its sheer ridges, and even the massif of the high peak.

Like a fundamental force of the earth, Robyn surged through dirt and stone and deeper layers of sand and shale. She seized the bedrock of the highlands with wrenching might, using every bit of her power-power expanded by the fresh presence of the vengeful goddess.

The strength of the Earthmother, transmuted through mountain and hill and vale, twisted the surface of the world with violent, wracking force. Grond Peaksmasher bellowed like a continuous, booming thunderclap as the quaking earth took hold of him and tore at his vitals.