The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [134]
"Gravatius… deni," muttered Keane, touching a hand to the king's arm. Immediately Tristan started to rise from the ground. "Be careful, Sire!" the wizard whispered after him.
The High King kept his hand close to the wall, looking over his shoulder. As he rose higher, he saw several firbolgs across the pit, but fortunately their eyes were inevitably drawn to the scene above them. When he looked up to follow their gaze, he understood why. The queen, his wife, flew in the body of the white hawk, circling and diving at the mountain that was Grond Peaksmasher. The struggle would have seemed ludicrous to the king, if not for the fact that he understood the stakes.
The Peaksmasher reached outward with craggy fingers of granite at the bird, which seemed to swirl effortlessly away from the blunt, sweeping hand. Robyn screeched again, and the sound was a jarring note that rocked the giant backward. Grond threw his hands over his ears with a thunderclap of noise and bellowed his outrage against the affront of the Earthmother's cry.
The bird came to rest upon a high outcrop of rock, a spire that approached the very crown of the Icepeak, beyond the reach even of the colossal giant. The Peaksmasher reached down and grasped a huge shoulder of rock, breaking it free from the mountainside in a showering landslide of rubble. Hoisting the solid chunk, the size of a large house, he hurled it at the spire where Robyn perched. Moments before impact, however, the great druid once again sprang into the air.
Still rising gently, Tristan soon reached the top of the pit wall, checking to see that the firbolgs remained raptly engaged in the battle above. His feet on the ground again, the king sprinted for the cover of some nearby trees, tumbling over a low hummock and seeking the shelter of a streambed. He lay there for a moment, his mind whirling with tension-not for himself so much as fear for his wife and daughters.
Where was his weapon? The question jerked him up to spy over the bank of the shallow stream. He looked around, cursing as he saw the gleaming pile of armaments that the firbolgs had piled on the ground-across the pit from him.
Desperately, knowing that speed was as important as stealth, Tristan started down the rocky creek bed. The waterway twisted through a thick stand of trees, offering a modicum of concealment from the firbolgs. The king decided that he would try to circle the pit and somehow get to his weapon before the giant-kin reacted.
The king failed to see, as he slipped along, that one of the giants had already observed him. Carrying a stout club, the firbolg moved into the woods not far away and started stalking carefully along the king's tracks.
Instead of checking behind himself, Tristan looked above, watching a piece of massive rock soar through the air, hurled by the colossus toward the flying druid. The chunk of mountain missed the hawk to shatter against the ridge, sending shards arcing through the air, showering into the valley below, and obscuring the shape of the gleaming white bird. Then Robyn screamed again and dove, plunging like an arrow toward the broad, mountainous surface at the base of the Peaksmasher's back.
* * * * *
Hatred and rage burned in Baatlrap, flaring like a black flame in his evil, tortured mind. The shock of his wound expanded until it climaxed in a monstrous outrage, like a great wrong done not only to him, but also to the entire race of trollhood. Now vengeance awaited!
The paths of the Rockbound Ways guided him, and he knew that he followed close upon the heels of those he hated, those who had rendered upon him the intolerable insult of his missing hand.
Accompanying him were the survivors of the battle in Winterglen. These, too, were hateful and driven trolls. None of them bore the wounds of the Trollcleaver, but all had suffered hurt and indignity during the fight, even to the point of being slain, before regeneration gave