The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [81]
Tavish almost shouted a suicidal warning, so certain was the blow and so unprepared seemed its lumbering target. The assembled humanoids grew silent in that instant, the collective breath of the monstrous army held in tense anticipation of the duel's outcome. Ignoring the impulse to close her eyes, Tavish watched in spellbound horror, waiting for the fatal penetration.
But suddenly it was the giant who, with lightning speed, dropped out of sight. In that instant, before even the monsters roared their approval or dismay, she understood. He had feigned his weakness.
The troll shrieked in agony and, though she couldn't see the firbolg, this time Tavish heard that mighty club smash into trollish bone. The horrid attacker fell, and the firbolg rose into her line of sight, lifting the club above his head and then driving it downward onto the unseen form below.
Again the troll howled, and for excruciating moments, the hidden bard watched the club rise and fall, hearing the piteous cries grow weaker, until finally they ceased altogether. Even then the club fell brutally three more times before the firbolg finally lowered the weapon to the dock. No sound emerged from the unseen form at his feet. In fact, Tavish couldn't imagine that the troll was anything more than a gory pulp.
At once, the firbolg stumbled, and several of his fellows dashed forward to support him. Tavish saw a stooped old female firbolg, who nevertheless stood at least eight feet tall, step forward to dab something at the giant's wound. Red blood continued to gush from the small slice, and finally the healer insisted that the warrior lie down.
Tavish drew back into her niche, intrigued enough by the scene she had witnessed to forget momentarily the painful cramps that had once again started to numb her legs. There seemed to be precious little unity in this monstrous army, for unless her guess was way off the mark, she had just observed a battle between the leaders of separate factions.
She wondered what would happen next. The possibility of waiting until dark and then trying to slip onto the dock began to have its appeal. Perhaps she could get ashore and disappear into the night.
Sunset was still many hours away, however, when firbolg after firbolg began to climb into the ship. As the bard drew back from clumping, intrusive feet, she hardly dared to breathe, cringing against the backbreaking thwart and pressing as far as she could under the low overhanging bench. She forced herself to be absolutely silent. At the same time, she wanted to scream her dismay, for she had no doubt as to what was going on.
And in fact, a few minutes later, her suspicions proved correct. The firbolgs pushed the Princess of Moonshae away from the dock and floated toward the rolling waters of the Strait of Oman.
* * * * *
Princess Deirdre stalked through Corwell Town in the dark of the night, wearing the guise of her magic as an impenetrable disguise. Those who passed her saw nothing save a ripple in the blackness. Perhaps they felt a shiver of disquiet as they hurried on their way, rationally certain that there was nothing there, yet spiritually unconvinced.
Thus undiscovered, she entered the hutch of a farmyard, finding a proud rooster slumbering peacefully on his roost nearby. With a sharp twist of her hands, she wrung the bird's neck, quickly dropping the feathered body into her large leather sack.
Next she came upon a dog, slumbering before its master's doorstep. The screen of nothingness was so impermeable that the hound didn't sense the young woman's approach, nor did it see the keen dagger that slit the coarse fur of its throat. Withdrawing the dripping blade, the princess lowered a small cup, collecting the blood that flowed from the severed artery.
She repeated the ritual with a great draft horse that stood slumbering in a livery yard, gathering the dying steed's blood in a larger container. Finally, then, she was ready to return to the castle on the knoll, which she did on the wings of her magic, disdaining the winding road that