The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [130]
Firbolgs! Serving his daughter, as loyally obedient as any guard of honor, they arrayed themselves along the grassy hillock as the remainder of Tristan's party dusted themselves off and came forward to join the king. Alicia, he was relieved to see, had suffered no injury except to her pride. Her eyes flashed rage at her sister, but surprisingly she held her tongue.
Keane, Brigit, and Hanrald followed the princess, and they, too, regarded Deirdre with suspicion and silent hostility, since the overwhelming presence of Grond Peaksmasher was more than enough to stifle any obvious resistance.
* * * * *
Tavish risked emerging from her cover as the princess and the firbolgs hurried down the valley to the grassy hillock where Deirdre confronted Tristan and his companions. At last the bard understood what she had long suspected: Deirdre was working against the wishes of her father and family, and hence to Tavish, against the good of the Moonshaes. Furthermore, she had the High King and his companions at a severe disadvantage.
Grimly the bard crept from her rocky niche, working her way from boulder to shrub for concealment as she surreptitiously advanced toward the princess and her gigantic allies.
Slowly, gradually, she narrowed the distance between them. The harpist cursed the infirmities of age; at nearly sixty, she was no woodland scout! Yet her limbs responded with alacrity to the needs of the moment, and the attention of her targets remained firmly fixed upon the party before Deirdre-the group that included her own father and sister.
Tavish heard the arrogance in Deirdre's tone as she spoke to her prisoners, saw the firm set of the young woman's shoulders as she braced herself against the Silverhaft Axe. The princess seemed every bit the cool conqueror, though the harpist couldn't hear enough of the words to understand the purpose of her conquest. Surely it wasn't vengeance or hatred that motivated her! But what then? Ambition? That, too, didn't seemed likely. Tavish would never have suspected the bookish Deirdre of attempting to usurp her father's throne.
She forced the thoughts, the questions, aside. This was not a time to wonder about why. Far more important to Tavish, and to the Moonshaes, was what. Specifically, what should she do now?
The axe, Tavish sensed, was the real key to Deirdre's power, the tool that enabled her to compel the obedience of Grond Peaksmasher and the firbolgs. The bard's eyes focused on the potent talisman as she squirmed into the scant cover beneath a dense cedar. She had reached a point only twenty paces behind Deirdre, but there was no further cover between herself and the princess.
Yet she had also reached the point of no return. Gathering her legs beneath her, calling on them for one more burst of speed, she concentrated on the Silverhaft Axe. She would try to wrest the weapon from Deirdre. Whatever happened after that would be up to the king, his companions, and the firbolgs. Tavish's own chances of survival, she believed, were slim. If one of the great firbolgs reached her before Tristan or Keane could come to her aid, the bard had no illusions about the outcome.
But she had no choice, as far as she could see. Tense and alert, she watched Deirdre, waiting until the princess began to speak.
Then, knowing no time would be better, Tavish broke from her cover in a mad dash toward the black-haired Princess of Callidyrr.
* * * * *
"It is your arrogance!" Deirdre sneered, speaking to her father. "Your blindness to the need for change! That desire, to hold your people back with a primitive religion and a hidebound fear of progress, that is the evil against which I strive!"
"The evil has been wrought by your own 'friends,' " the king replied, with a meaningful glance at the firbolgs flanking his black-haired daughter.
"Bah-they are mere tools, fit only to bear the axe to the place of its use. If their actions draw you here as well, so much the better."
"But think of your people, your kingdom!"
"They are not my people-not yet," Deirdre