The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [118]
In Baatlrap's mind, that hatred began to coalesce into an image of an enemy. He thought of the man who bore that mighty sword, the one his entire army had attacked. They had almost slain him then! A deep growl rumbled from the troll's chest as his fury grew. The lone warrior never would have escaped the encircling ring if not for the appearance of his accursed allies!
But to Baatlrap, it was the lone fighter who came to personify all the hatred, all the frustration that the seething predator now endured. If he could blot out that life, he thought, some of that rage must certainly be mellowed.
And another thought occurred to him. If, in the process of besting the human lord-he knew that such a warrior must be a leader of men-Baatlrap could gain control of that deadly sword, than there would be no troll who dared to stand in the path of his rulership over the clan.
With this thought on the great troll's mind, his pace of retreat slowed to a shuffle and finally stopped altogether. Then, with only a barked command for his tribesmen to follow, he turned and started back toward the gathering of their enemies.
* * * * *
"All the boats were sunk?" demanded Brandon, trying to discover a means to pursue his beloved longship. "Not a curragh or rowboat left?"
"I didn't inspect closely," Tristan said, "but there was nothing afloat in the bay."
"I looked," offered a newcomer. Newt popped into view above them, hovering lower until he came to rest upon Tristan's shoulder. His cheeks bulged, and the little faerie dragon quickly swallowed a mouthful of raw fish.
"I got hungry," he explained in response to Tristan's look of amazement. "And besides, it looked like you guys had the battle pretty well taken care of. Nice work, too. Hi, Alicia!" he added.
"Hello, Newt," she said wryly, amused by her father's reaction.
"Did you see any boats?" Brandon persisted.
"Yup. All sunk, though."
Disgusted, the northman turned to stalk angrily across the trampled field. "There must be some way to go after them!" he fumed. Spinning back to the dwarves, he confronted Finellen. "They've got your axe, too. You can bet on it!"
"Thurgol took Axe of Silver Shaft," the captive firbolg explained helpfully.
"There is a way, if we can be sure that Oman's Isle is where they've gone," Finellen said cautiously.
"The paths of the Underdark?" Tristan guessed quietly, and the dwarf nodded. To the others, the High King explained. "Many of the Moonshaes are connected below the surface of the sea by the rockbound trails of the dwarves. Once those same trails enabled Finellen to come to my rescue on Alaron when I thought all the while that she was still quartered on Gwynneth."
"Aye-and there is reputedly a trail that connects to Oman's Isle as well," the dwarf agreed reluctantly.
"Can you take us there?" Brandon pressed. "Show me how to get across the strait?"
"These are the secret ways of the dwarves," Finellen protested. "They are the pride of our nation, and one of the keys to our survival!"
"And if we use them to recover the Silverhaft Axe?" countered the king. "Doesn't that serve the nation of dwarves as well?"
"Don't play word games with me!" snapped Finellen, but the king could see that the argument had taken hold.
"How far is the nearest entrance?" he pressed.
"The entrances to the ways are known to only a few of the highest-ranking elders among us," the dwarven captain replied. "But we could get there in a day's long march. Still, it would take most of two days to make the march under the strait, and they've already got a day's head start on us."
"Let's go after them!" roared Brandon. "What else are we supposed to do? We know where they went, and you know how to get there! What are we waiting for?"
"An important concession from our allies," King Kendrick said sternly. "Finellen's right. The tunnels beneath the isles are the sacred province of her people, their last line of defense and their secure trade routes. She takes some risk by revealing their location to outsiders."
"That's correct!" she barked, mollified that Tristan