The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [140]
Destructive magic whirled forth, commanded and controlled by the wizard's grim enchantment. The force ripped into the cleric's body, working in the space of a deadly instant, tearing flesh and bone and blood into insignificant fragments, scattering those pieces toward the four winds. When the violent spell expired, there was nothing left to show where the cleric had stood.
This was the power-and the grim, ultimate finality-of the disintegration spell.
* * * * *
"You had no choice," Tristan said, numb with shock as he held his daughter in his arms.
"What happened to her?" demanded Alicia, her voice almost a wail. "Why did she do it?"
"It wasn't Deirdre," Robyn said softly, her own voice numb with grief and shock. "It was all the enemies of the goddess… all those jealous deities who wouldn't let her survive in peace. They were the ones who killed Deirdre, and the only thing we could do was try to stop the monster she'd become."
"But why?" Alicia persisted, shaking her head in disbelief.
"That's not a question we can answer-but at least it's over now," Robyn said.
Slowly the others came limping back. Hanrald, his face blanched with his own grief, bore a slight form in his arms. Ranthal dragged a twisted leg, while even Newt settled, unspeaking, onto Tristan's shoulder. The earl brushed Brigit's golden hair, now streaked with blood, back from her face, and when he laid the sister knight gently on the ground, it almost looked as though she slept. Even the gruff Finellen couldn't hold back her tears at the sight of her old rival's lifeless body.
Brandon, too, came up to the king. The northman's battle-axe was stained with green trollish blood. "Where's Alicia?" he asked Tristan, and the king looked around in surprise.
"I don't know-she was just here."
"There she is," Brandon said, his voice falling. Following the northman's gaze, Tristan saw his daughter run into Keane's arms as the wizard slowly approached them. The lanky magic-user held the sobbing princess silently, allowing her grief to fall against him, soothing the pain that she felt.
The Prince of Gnarhelm turned away, his face tinged with the sadness of his own loss, when Brandon's eyes fell on someone else. "Tavish!" he cried. "I thought you were lost with the Princess of Moonshae!"
"No," chuckled the bard ruefully, rubbing a bruised lump on her head where the priest's spiritual hammer had struck. "And your ship's not lost, either. That big giant had the sense to pull it up onto the shore."
"He's a shrewd one, that firbolg," Brand agreed as several of Finellen's dwarves approached with the surviving giant-kin under guard. "I wonder what made him do it."
"You know, they didn't fight at the end," Tristan remarked thoughtfully. "They could have turned the tables by joining the trolls, but they just stood there and watched."
"The firbolgs?" Finellen asked grimly. "What should we do with 'em?" The tone of her voice indicated that she favored a quick and permanent disposal of the captives.
"This one saved my life," Tristan said, picking out Thurgol among the dejected giants. "He made the troll put down his sword when I was unarmed. Otherwise I'd have been dead before the earthquake."
"They deserve a pardon," Robyn noted.
"I don't want them back in the vale!" Finellen protested.
The king looked around at the wilderness of rocks and trees that surrounded them. No firbolgs lived on Oman's Isle, so far as he knew, but perhaps that could change. There were far fewer humans here than on Gwynneth.
"Can you make a home here?" Tristan asked Thurgol. "Can your people live in these highlands and stay away from the settlements of humans?"
The giant-kin blinked in surprise, obviously having expected a more brutal suggestion. "Yes-we stay," he agreed with a jerk of his head. The king saw an old hag of a giantess nodding at the chieftain. The new community would get off to a solid start, he suspected.
"I have learned