The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [125]
Carefully Tavish crept through the broken talus, working her way from rock to rock while she kept her eyes on the tableau below. She saw Deirdre climb down, clutching the axe. Then the princess passed through the band of firbolgs and stood still, her back to Tavish, as if she waited for something.
In another moment, the bard saw what that was: the end of the spell that had frozen the giant-kin in time. Tavish heard a popping sound in the air, and abruptly the firbolgs resumed the activities that had been interrupted. Those in the midst of taking a step concluded the gesture smoothly, as if there had been no spell, no delay of any kind.
The suspended blocks of ice tumbled around them, shattering and cracking down the slope. The sound echoed through the valley, but the dodging firbolgs avoided most of the shards. Indeed, they had already dodged the iceblocks several minutes before, moving out of the way and now watching the debris as if it had continued its plunge quite uninterrupted.
Only the chieftain, standing upon the rock and staring up at the glacier, noticed a change. He bellowed in alarm, spinning on the rock and shouting to his tribesmen, shaking his empty fists. Tavish sensed what had happened: No instant of time had passed for the giant-kin within the sphere of Deirdre's powerful spell. To the great firbolg warrior, it must have seemed as if the axe had vanished instantaneously from his hands.
Then the great giant-kin's eyes fell upon the human figure standing beyond his comrades below… the young woman who bore the Silverhaft Axe in her hands. His jaw fell in astonishment, but a moment later, fury contorted his face, and he sprang down from the mountainside in great, leaping bounds. The other firbolgs, sensing the focus of their chieftain's rage, turned in astonishment to regard the impudent human.
"Stop!" ordered the Princess of Callidyrr, her voice ringing in countless echoes from the surrounding cliffs. The tone of command was unmistakable, but Tavish was nevertheless astounded when the hulking giant, twice as tall and five times as massive as the woman, slowed his charge to a walk and finally came to a standstill, staring angrily at Deirdre.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice rumbling deep in the familiar words of the common tongue.
"I am your mistress-the one who holds the Silverhaft Axe and whose commands you will obey."
"I owe no fealty to the bearer of the axe," shot back the firbolg chief. He took another step toward the princess.
"Would you see it destroyed?" she demanded, raising the shaft and holding the crystalline edge over a chunk of solid granite.
"It would take one mightier than you to break that blade," the firbolg replied, confident again. He took another step toward Deirdre.
A sound rumbled through the valley like a thunderclap, and they all looked to the sky, expecting to see black clouds rolling in, perhaps bolts of lightning exploding toward the ground. Yet the heavens remained blue and pastoral, with a few puffy clouds the only harbingers of moisture. Surely none of these vaporous wisps had issued that mighty clap of thunder!
The sound was repeated, and like Deirdre's voice, the noise echoed over and over, rolling down the narrow valley like a volley of distant explosions. This time, Tavish could see the source, and it was a revelation that drained the blood from her face and set her stomach roiling.
The crack on the giant glacier grew! Now spiderweb fissures ran through the ice to the right and left, extending outward from the gash created by the chieftain's original blow. Once again the crashing sound rumbled through the vale, and this time pieces of ice broke from the surface to plummet dizzyingly toward the base of the glacier and the watching firbolgs and human gathered there.
The giant-kin hastily scrambled away from the tumbling debris as more and more sheets of compressed ice broke away and plunged downward. The first of these shattered against the rocks at the glacier's base, exploding upward in shimmering curtains of white frost. Others