Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [54]
"Me?" Alicia wondered. She looked around the shore, saw the smooth shaft of blond wood, and went to retrieve it. "A druid's staff? But how? All my life I've studied as a warrior!"
"Still, you are your mother's daughter," Tavish reminded her.
"And my father's, too!" the princess snapped, more fiercely than she intended. She felt something vaguely threatening about the long staff in her hands and quickly put it down. "Besides," she continued, tempering her tone, "the faith of the goddess has passed from the Moonshaes. The druids have no might, no power."
"Ahem," Keane cleared his throat. He nodded at the thick, lush verdure around them. Wild flowers, brilliant blossoms that they knew had not been there when they had awakened minutes earlier, danced among the trees, brushed by the light morning breeze. "Perhaps your last statement is no longer the obvious truth it has been for so long."
"Indeed, this is nothing short of miraculous," agreed the bard. "It is a Moonwell as I remember, in the age before the New Gods ruled the land."
"Wait." Alicia shook her head, stubbornly refusing to accept her companion's arguments. "That iron thing, the golem. You said that it was made by powerful sorcery. Well, now it's gone. All that power must have gone somewhere. Maybe that's what wanned the water and brought life to this place!"
Keane smiled with a smugness that inflamed the young woman's temper. He spoke with a patronizing kindness. "It really doesn't work that-"
"How can we know?" she demanded. "Tavish called this a miracle. Doesn't that mean we don't have a good explanation?"
"Well, yes…"
"And how do you know what an iron golem can do? Have you ever made one?" She regretted her tone as soon as she saw the hurt look on his face.
"No," he said stiffly.
"Speaking of that," Tavish interjected, "where did that thing come from?"
They both looked at Keane, who seemed ready to snap back a reply. Instead, he sighed and pondered for a moment. "I have to admit I don't know. I don't know of a sorcerer in all the isles who could do such a thing."
"It had a helm," Alicia remembered. "Horned, like a north-man's."
"In truth," Tavish agreed thoughtfully. "It looked like a northman warrior."
"But there's not a one of them with that kind of knowledge," objected Keane. "The northmen value brawn and courage far above sorcery!"
"And another thing," the princess realized with a sudden stab of fear. "How did it know we were here? Was it random, or directed at us specifically?"
"At you," Keane said softly. Suddenly Alicia was very glad he was here. "The High Princess of Moonshae."
"An assassin?" Tavish asked, gaping at the two of them. Very swiftly she, too, saw the likelihood. "That leads us to the next question: Who would send such a one?"
They looked back and forth, not wishing to follow their speculations. It was Alicia who broke the silence.
"I think we had better go see the Earl of Fairheight."
* * * * *
The crew of the Vulture wasted no time in carrying out their orders. The morning following their departure, they made their first landfall, a raid against a small farming cantrev near the southern shoulder of Whitefish Bay's long shoreline.
"Put them all to the sword," ordered Kaffa, without a moment's hesitation. His men leaped ashore, wading through the shallow surf to rush onto the beach. Already the peasants fled their homes, but they would be too slow.
"Spare the comeliest wenches!" Kaffa amended, catching sight of a blond-haired girl who stumbled and fell in her efforts to escape. "We'll bring them aboard ship for the pleasure of the crew!"
Eagerly, like bloodthirsty savages, the outlaws of Kaffa's band raced among the wooden houses and small, neat corrals. Men and women, even children, fell before the slashing bite of their steel. Firebrands were tossed to the roofs, animals seized and butchered, crops trampled in the fields where they had barely