The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [53]
"How could he do something so stupid?" Alicia demanded, bound by no such sense of restraint as her mother. "Does he intend to fight a hundred firbolgs alone?"
Robyn sighed. It seemed that her daughter's fury gave her the vent she needed to relax, at least slightly. "It's not stupid," she chided Alicia gently. "Never dismiss actions that are motivated by faith as mere lack of intelligence-and remember as well, your father is not a stupid man!"
"I know!" Alicia declared in exasperation. "But at least he could have let me go along with him-or Keane, or somebody!"
"It may as well have been an army then," Robyn replied with maddening calm. "For reasons understood only by him, he had to do this alone."
"But do we have to let him?"
"Yes… and perhaps no," Robyn replied. At Alicia's look of frustration, she continued: "I have to respect his wish to travel without an army. Much as I would like to fly above him, watching, perhaps assisting him from a distance, I cannot. It would be too much of a betrayal."
"What can we do, then?" demanded Alicia.
"I'm getting to that," Robyn responded, with a calm in her voice that seemed, at least slightly, to settle her daughter's agitation. "First we will raise an army. In fact, I've ordered Earl Randolph to start the criers through Corwell Town and onto the nearby cantrevs. The full companies are to assemble below the castle by tonight."
"Will you lead them?" asked the princess.
"As long as Deirdre remains in need of care, I'll have to remain here. So no, I won't lead them. That duty, my daughter, will have to fall to you… and to Keane."
For a moment, Alicia was speechless. Never had she commanded, or even given thought to commanding, troops in the field. Yet as the idea took hold, she felt growing confidence gained from recent experiences, and she found that the notion seemed quite natural. Too, it would be a comfort to have Keane's intelligence to rely on. The fact that he would be there with her gave her a bright flare of confidence.
"Do you want us to follow the king?" asked Keane.
"Not in so many words. That would be impossible, anyway, given how quickly I expect him to travel. But if you march northward with all speed, it may be that you can reach Winterglen before all is lost."
"Mother… the route of our march… it will take us through the heart of Myrloch Vale."
Robyn bit back her emotions again. The others could see that this fact troubled her deeply. Yet here she saw no alternative. "Any other route would take at least twice as long," she admitted. "And we don't have enough seaworthy ships in the harbor to transport a large number of men by sea. It breaks my heart to send armed men through the heart of the Earthmother's domain, but if this mission has any hope of success, it lies in a speedy march to the north. I'll try to give you a map of the easiest route-and the one least likely to leave permanent scars on the wilderness."
Robyn paused, thinking, before she continued. "You'll have to carry provisions with you. Take no game in Myrloch Vale itself. Do you understand?"
Alicia nodded. The command was no more than what she had already planned.
"Also, we know that you'll face trolls. Be sure to carry a good supply of oil."
Again the princess agreed. She knew that fire was the only way to permanently destroy the regenerating monsters, and the flammable liquid was the best way to incinerate the green-skinned corpses.
The queen continued. "Another thing-Newt's back on Gwynneth, in Myrloch Vale. At least, that's where he was when I flew out there a couple of days ago. Naturally he disappeared when I got to Cambro, and I was in such a hurry to get home that I didn't look for him on the way back."
"That's… news," Alicia said guardedly. She couldn't exactly call it good news. The faerie dragon's pranks and unpredictable, if well-intentioned, illusions