The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [129]
Grond Peaksmasher had stood aloof from this project, looming over the valley bottom, his eyes gazing away to the north, as if he could see something a thousand miles away that triggered his deep, primeval memory. Yet while he took no part in the activities around his feet, Tavish had the feeling that he simply awaited Deirdre's command.
No sooner had the giant-kin completed their great, precisely oriented square hole in the ground than one of the lookout firbolgs hastened back from the mouth of the valley. Watching his gestures, Tavish understood that the fellow warned the princess about the approach of intruders-dwarves or humans, the bard guessed from the crude gestures.
She wondered idly who the newcomers were, but from her position of cover, there seemed to be little that the bard could do to influence events. So, instead, she waited.
* * * * *
For the moment at least, the colossus hadn't seemed to notice Tristan and his companions. The group gathered underneath the screen of several tall pines. The king, the dwarven captain, and the princess advanced cautiously to peer through the densely needled branches.
"Legend said that he was frozen in the ice years before the coming of humans to the isles," Finellen explained in a hoarse whisper.
"It's moving!" Alicia hissed.
The giant turned slowly, sweeping its gaze downward, past the silent observers and into the bowl of the valley before its flat, slablike stomach. A low hillock of ground blocked their view into this bowl.
Then a figure came into view, a small human-sized shape that stood on the grassy knoll and looked directly at the three watchers in the woods.
"Father-and you, too, my sister-come here," commanded an imperious voice, a voice that the king and princess recognized at once, even as the wind gusted out Deirdre's long black hair. "And bring the dwarf as well!"
Instinctively Alicia and Finellen pulled back farther into the shadow of their cover, astonished that their presence had been discovered. The High King, however, pressed the branches back to either side and stepped into the daylight. He was stunned by his daughter's appearance here, his first reaction a genuine explosion of relief because she looked so strong, so robust.
But very quickly that relief was tempered by puzzlement and a growing suspicion. The looming form of Grond Peaksmasher rose to the sky behind his daughter, yet now it stood like some placid manservant awaiting its master's whim.
"What do you mean, giving me orders?" Tristan demanded, approaching the young princess.
Deirdre regarded her father with an expression of aloof, icy disdain. For the first time, he noticed her hands. She carried a huge axe, the blade balanced on the ground while she leaned a hand easily against the base of the shaft. "Not just you-I order all of your companions forward as well."
When no one emerged from the tiny grove, Deirdre snapped her fingers once and pointed at the trees. Immediately a shadow fell across Tristan as the gigantic figure leaned forward.
"No!" he cried. "You can't! That's your sister in-"
But he was too late-or rather, Deirdre took no notice of his objection. Instead, she watched impassively while massive fingers closed around the treetops. Wood splintered, and the incongruously pleasant scent of pine filled the air through the entire valley as the Peaksmasher lifted the trees from the earth as a gardener might pluck some annoying weed.
Tumbling figures were clearly visible amid the gaping holes of dirt left behind. Alicia and Keane crawled from the debris, then a sputtering Finellen followed. Slowly, one by one, the others appeared, uninjured for the most part, though one of the dwarves had suffered a broken arm in the upheaval of the grove.
In the meantime, Tristan looked back to his daughter, amazed at the cool air she exuded-the air of the conqueror, he decided. Then he saw other figures moving behind her, and his astonishment grew to a numbing kind of disbelief as this rank of new arrivals moved forward