The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [58]
He pictured the scene in the fields, imagining the methodical advance of the trolls. The steel-headed arrows would fly as thick as rain, in volley after volley. Perhaps the humans would raise a ragged cheer when the trolls seemed to falter, the monsters pausing to pluck the missiles from their skin, snap them in two, and cast them to the ground. More and more arrows would fly, to be pulled out and cast aside as the patient trolls allowed their wounds to heal, though doubtlessly growing increasingly irritable and bloodthirsty in annoyance.
That was the plan, anyway. All Thurgol could hope was that the trolls stuck to their part of it. Huffing from the exertion of his pounding gait, the firbolg pushed his way through the woods with growing urgency, knowing that he had no time for delay. Fronds and ferns tickled his legs, but fortunately there was little dense underbrush to obstruct their passage.
Garisa hobbled beside him. The old shaman, with her woolen banner of the Silverhaft Axe fluttering in the wind, moved with surprising speed. She hissed and cackled encouragement to the other firbolgs, waving the pennant with unflagging enthusiasm. Though she hadn't been eager to make this attack, she had embraced the assault wholeheartedly once it had been ordered.
Thurgol heard a soft sound before him, but at first he was uncertain whether it was the wind in the trees or the breaking of waves on the coast coast. Then, in another moment, the trees abruptly gave way to a stark, rocky shoreline. Thurgol slowed cautiously as he saw blue water between the gaps in the trunks, staying back from the sea's edge to avoid exposing himself to discovery.
Though he didn't know his exact location, he knew that he would reach the village if he followed the shoreline to the right. Cautiously now, taking more care with silence and concealment than with speed, the firbolgs crept through the verdant woods. Soon patches of sunlight came into view ahead, and in another moment, they had reached the edge of the forest. Barely three hundred paces away, they saw a collection of ramshackle fishing huts, and beyond, the larger houses of Codscove.
Nevertheless, the defense of this side of the town hadn't been neglected, Thurgol saw. Perhaps a hundred men-at-arms stood or sat in the shade along the town's edge. Some of them stared toward the woods, but most seemed to listen intently to the sounds of the battle raging in the field. Buildings obscured the trolls from Thurgol's view, but he heard bellows and taunts and cries of battle. The snarls and savage barks of the wolfdogs punctuated the chaos, and the firbolg chieftain knew that the great canines pressed savagely forward beside their trollish masters. Judging from the sounds of the fighting, which grew louder with each passing second, Thurgol suspected the gangly monsters had already charged into the town.
Knowing the time for his own attack was ripe, the firbolg chieftain nevertheless paused for a moment's nagging doubt. Once again he couldn't entirely convince himself that this was necessary. He looked longingly at the waters of the strait. The rising bulk of the Icepeak on Oman's Isle was visible in the clear morning air, less than a score of miles away but separated from them by a seemingly uncrossable barrier of water.
More shouts-shrill screams of human agony and bloodcurdling cries of trollish triumph-rang from the nearby battlefield, and the men-at-arms before the firbolgs became more agitated. The snarling of the wolfdogs increased in fury, and a hideous shriek of terror signaled another human falling to those implacable jaws. Abruptly, as Thurgol watched in astonishment, most of the humans before him picked up their weapons and ran toward the sound of the fighting. Barely two dozen stood in place now, shouting