The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [116]
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