The Druid Queen - Douglas Niles [99]
He had led his giants here in the distant past, and at the time, the will of the Earthmother had stood strong against him. The clash of immortal wills had been powerful and violent, and in the end, the goddess had vanquished the demigod.
Aware of his past defeat, Grond wasn't certain that the result had been such a bad thing.
12
The Face of the Enemy
Tristan camped a short distance from the scene of his fight with the trolls. Finding a low, tree-covered knoll where he could see reasonably well to all sides, he picketed Shallot within a screen of evergreens and ordered the hounds to remain silent and vigilant.
Not daring to risk a fire-even Newt agreed that they didn't want to bring the trolls back just yet-the High King and the faerie dragon ate a cold supper. The loquacious serpent shared his companion's somber mood, talking little while they ate.
Then Tristan found himself a comfortable tree. Laboriously climbing a dozen feet from the ground, using his one hand and his feet to pull himself up the rough bark, he found a wide notch between a pair of sweeping limbs. He leaned back against the trunk, secured by a wide limb encircling his left side. Newt buzzed up to him and then found a stout limb a little higher up the trunk. Here he curled up, catlike, and promptly fell asleep.
Laying the blade he had dubbed Trollcleaver across his lap, the High King watched and waited throughout the remaining hours of evening and fading twilight. The hounds had found places to sleep under the tree, but they, too, remained alert and restless. Still there was no sign of any troll returning to the scene of the skirmish, nor did the corpses show any inclination to regenerate.
Finally, after dark, Tristan slept, though he jolted awake at the sound of any scampering creature of the woodland. He longed to hear the cry of the wolves, but his wishes were met with silence, except for the rustling of the small animals. His hounds, under the example of the well-disciplined Ranthal, didn't even growl at the rabbits and squirrels. They, like their master, waited for bigger game.
Yet during the course of the night and the dawn, that bigger game never materialized. Stiffly climbing down from his perch before the sun had fully cleared the horizon, Tristan began to wonder if he had sent the band into flight. The latter possibility seemed pretty unlikely, given the fact that he was only one man, but why hadn't they returned to the scene of their watch?
It was time, Tristan decided, to find out what the trolls had been guarding. Climbing easily again into the saddle, with Newt curled up in his position on the pommel, the king urged Shallot into an easy trot. With Ranthal leading, the four remaining hounds loped in a protective screen before the horse and riders.
Almost immediately Tristan noticed that the forest opened up into wide grainfields. He skirted a low hill and at last saw water gleaming before him. By the time he had passed the hill, he could make out the towers of the manor house and temple of a good-sized town.
Codscove! Spurring the powerful war-horse into a canter, Tristan approached the community, sensing immediately that this was a scene of trouble. The great tracks through the grain indicated the advance of a large force, and as he drew closer to the town, he saw the blackened ruins of burned buildings.
Yet, for all the signs of life meeting his eyes, it might have been a ghost town. A few piles of charred timbers still smoldered, casting thin wisps of smoke into the morning air, but the damage was at least a day or two old, Tristan knew. As he neared the first buildings, he saw human corpses, bloated and surrounded by flies, and from them he knew for certain that the battle had been two days before.
It was a sight he had witnessed all too often before, though it had been many years since he