The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [135]
Pressing along the darkened passage, Baatlrap had no difficulty following the trail left by the human and dwarven party. Even if the dust on the floor hadn't been disturbed, the troll's keen nostrils would have been able to follow the hours-old scent of warm-blooded creatures in the dank air of the cavern, so long had it been since these corridors had seen the footsteps of such surface dwellers.
The trolls' fabled endurance and impressive speed didn't require them to rest as often as their quarry. Thus the one-handed humanoid and his companions were only a scant hour or so behind the king's party when they finally reached the long ascending stairway and the shimmering waterfall that screened the sunlit world beyond.
Here, sensing the nearness of his quarry, Baatlrap wouldn't allow his trolls to rest. Quickly the lanky creatures fell into file and continued the march to Icepeak Glacier.
They loped up the trail in the narrow valley, winding their way easily around switchbacks that had slowed the humans and dwarves to a trudging crawl. Finally, as they neared the end of the valley, Baatlrap discerned through the trees the huge bulk of Grond Peaksmasher, and the awesome reality of the living mountain almost halted him in his tracks.
"So the old hag was right!" he hissed, impressed in spite of himself. Yet the firbolgs weren't the ones who had drawn him this far, and the hatred for the man with the deadly sword hadn't begun to flag. He would continue on the trail of vengeance, though it seemed only reasonable to stay out of sight of the colossus.
The trolls dropped into a narrow gully, skulking along a shallow streambed in an effort to creep up the valley without exposing themselves to view. And then it seemed that the gods truly smiled upon Baatlrap, for as the monstrous troll came around a bend in the stream, he saw, not twenty feet away from him, the hateful man who had wounded him.
A snarl escaped from the troll's lips, and the man looked up, his eyes wide and frantic. Good-he knows his fate! The troll gloated silently. Then he noticed another fact, a thing that caused his craven heart to bubble with cruel glee.
Now the man was unarmed, and Baatlrap could see no sign of that cleaving, deadly sword!
* * * * *
Thurgol followed the riverbed, observing the figure of the human who had somehow floated from the great pit. He watched the man sneak between the shallow banks, looking outward at the pit and the strange woman who had come so easily to master the independent firbolgs.
The chieftain still wasn't exactly sure how that had happened. In the instant that the Silverhaft Axe had been taken from his hands, it was as if his own will had been taken at the same time. After the theft of that mighty artifact, he'd had no power to resist any command of the black-haired human woman. Indeed Grond Peaksmasher, immortal lord of giantkind, apparently willed it so.
The woman had told him to watch the humans, to see that they didn't escape, and so he had set to the task resolutely. He'd been smart, it seemed, to post himself back in the woods, where he could observe any break for freedom without being seen himself.
So now the one-handed man, the human who had seemed to be their leader, had somehow scaled the wall and tried to escape. Thurgol would simply have to see that this attempt failed. Unconsciously he tightened his grip on his club, picking up the pace of his own stealthy pursuit
Then he froze in his tracks, astounded, as he saw a large green shape springing up the streambed toward the escaped human and Thurgol. It was Baatlrap, leading a company of his savage humanoids! The giant-kin chieftain thought he must be going mad, but the troll was certainly real, for just then the human saw him, too.
The one-handed man immediately reversed course at the sight of the troll, spinning so quickly that he saw Thurgol before the giant could even try to hide. The human leaped from the streambed, breaking through the underbrush and sprinting toward the clearing where Deirdre