Carefully, cautiously, staying well back from his quarry, Baatlrap led his trolls along the moonlit coastal trail.
The dwarven captain led the way along the coast for the better part of six hours as the dawn grew into a cloudless, bright morning. The heat began to increase, untempered by any breeze off the strait.
"I still can't figure out why they wanted to steal the axe," Finellen groused. "What use is it to them? Why, the dolts didn't even use it in battle!"
"And why did they break a peace of twenty years?" Tristan added, puzzled himself.
"I think the answer to both questions lies with these firbolgs, and the sooner we catch them and beat the truth out of them, the happier I'll be!"
Tristan shared his old companion's eagerness to conclude their pursuit, but he was surprised to find that his own sense of grim determination had begun to flag somewhat. He wanted to answer these questions as much as ever, but the lust for vengeance no longer burned quite so hotly in his heart. It had been replaced by a kind of wondering curiosity.
By midday, true to Finellen's prediction, the bearded dwarfwoman announced that they must turn inland. Tristan noticed a large split rock, jutting from a promontory on the shoreline, and assumed that this was some kind of landmark.
Indeed, after no more than a quarter-mile of hiking, they reached an apparently impenetrable clump of thornbushes. The branches were interwoven so thoroughly that any attempt to push through, or even to hack a passage, would have been painful if not impossible.
Nevertheless, the dwarf ducked low, lifting heavy branches lined with jagged, prickly thorns out of the way. Tristan followed, using his shield to part the thorny branches, but still he and the other humans had to crawl on their knees to make their way through.
Then abruptly the thicket gave way to a small, grassy clearing, completely surrounded by the thorny hedge. Finellen stepped to a broad stump, the only feature of the meadow, and twisted it once. Tristan wasn't surprised when it fell away, revealing a spiraling stone staircase descending into the earth.
Following the High King, Keane produced a small pebble and, with a snap of his fingers, caused it to burst into bright illumination. "Here you go, Sire," he said, passing it to Tristan.
The king lifted the stone as he followed the dwarf into the dank, tightly circling stairwell. Cool white light splashed along the walls and steps before him, clearly showing him the passage. In the confining space, with the ceiling low overhead and the walls constantly pressing against one shoulder or another, the king was profoundly grateful for the illumination.
The others followed, aided by several additional enchanted pebbles. The dwarves, with their natural night vision, had no need of such aid. After twenty or thirty steps, the stairway became a tight-walled, steeply descending corridor. In places, Tristan had to turn sideways just to make the passage, and he began to wonder if it would be possible to follow such a passage for any number of miles.
"It opens up before too long," Finellen said, as if reading his mind. "As soon as we join up with the main passage."
"Good news!" broke in a familiar voice.
Tristan whirled in surprise as Newt popped into sight behind him, hovering in the corridor that was so narrow his gossamer wings nearly brushed the sides. "Let's get going," said the faerie dragon, settling on the king's shoulder.
"I'm glad you're here, old friend," Tristan said, warmly touched by the little creature's courage.
True to the dwarf's prediction, a few hundred paces, all of it steeply descending, brought them to an intersection with a much wider tunnel. Finellen wasted no time in starting down this passageway, where Tristan was relieved to see that he could walk upright with no difficulty. Still perched on the royal shoulder, Newt nonetheless stretched out his wings, enjoying the extra space.
Keane and Alicia followed behind them, with Brandon, Hanrald, and Brigit next. The remainder of Finellen's dwarves marched silently in the rear. The tunnel drew them deeper into the underground world, the darkness seeming to thicken around them with each step.
As they continued on, the descent was much less noticeable, though it was still there. Onward they trudged, through the darkness of the underearth, while the humans became more and more conscious of the weight of seawater overhead.
For long, dark hours, they made their way along these dank passages. Pillars of stone draped from the ceiling overhead or jutted upward from the floor. In places, they did both, looking to Alicia uncannily like great jaws ready to snap shut on unsuspecting prey.
They talked little, listening instead to the sounds of their footsteps scuffing along the smooth stone floor, or else listening to the vast, unfathomable silence of the Underdark. When they paused to listen carefully, they heard only the echoes of their own passage slowly drifting into the infinite distance and darkness.
The lone dwarf stood guard at the thicket of thorns, assigned to wait there by Finellen as a simple precaution. The dwarfwoman had no reason to suspect that the route might be discovered, yet her natural diligence had required the posting of the sentry.
Now the warrior ambled around the periphery of the hedge, noting nothing unusual in the surrounding woods. He turned back to the thicket, where his captain and her companions had disappeared no more than thirty minutes before. He would have liked to have accompanied the war party, yet he pragmatically accepted the necessity of his current post.
In his musings, he failed to hear the faint crackling of undergrowth behind him-at least, not until it was too late. When the guard finally sensed a presence, he whirled, raising his axe. But here again his reactions were a fraction of a second too slow.
The great, jagged-edged blade of bronze dropped into the dwarf's shoulder, nearly severing his head. Instantly slain, the poor fellow tumbled to the ground while his attacker crept past his crumpled body.
The killer was a huge troll, and he had to bend nearly double to force his way into the thicket. He was further handicapped by the fact that he lacked one hand, the left, which had been chopped off above the wrist. A file of ragged trolls followed him through the tangled path.
Nevertheless, the hulking creatures soon reached the central clearing. They tore at the earth and shrubs, seeking something, and it was only a matter of moments before the great, one-handed troll pried open the tree trunk to reveal the passage leading into the ground.
A flaming chariot came to rest beside Deirdre Kendrick, and she welcomed the arrival of her ally. The Exalted Inquisitor joined the princess at the base of the Icepeak, knowing that the schemes of the gods approached fruition.
In preparation for their ultimate triumph, it was necessary for the princess to master a new aspect of clerical might, the enchantment that would enable them to clear the path for the entry of the New Gods. The magical mastery was beyond even the patriarch's skill, yet with his knowledge and experience, coupled with the clear favor of the gods, the man taught the woman what she needed to know.
Deirdre learned a spell reserved for gods and those of near godly power, for it affected the very fundament of the worlds. Through the immortal core of her body-the core formed by the shards of the shattered mirror-the ability came to her from the vastness of the cosmos. The princess was more than an agent to the gods; she was a part of them, an extension of their might in the world.
Thus they gave her the key to control-the thing that would allow her to master those who would, who must inevitably serve her. The spell they gave her offered control of the cadence of life, of the grand progression of events and existence that wove itself into the tapestry of life and history.
For Deirdre had been given the power to bring time itself to a stop.