Then, of course, she, too, had reversed her course, following the plain trail of the giants as they returned to the lowlands and made the long, circuitous passage around the base of the mountain. Her steady pursuit had left the bard little time for food gathering, and she hadn't dared light a fire that might reveal her position, so she had grown progressively weaker, colder, and more miserable during the course of the trek.
Then had come the final, terrifying climb up the steep approaches of this cliff-walled vale, until she once again reached a vantage over the giant-kin. Now she crouched among the rocks on the mountainside, half a mile from the glacier but high enough for a clear view of the ice sheet and the firbolg party gathered at its base. And yet, as fatigued and uncomfortable as she was here, she wouldn't have been anywhere else in the world, given the fascinating nature of the events going on before her.
First came the astounding effect of the axe's blow against the glacier as the gaping crack shivered its way upward across the face of the ice. In the immediate following moment, some kind of magic seemed to halt the firbolgs in their tracks.
Tavish stared in astonishment as the giant-kin froze like statues, immobile and apparently unaware. They remained fixed in the actions they had been engaged in, some who had been walking growing rigid to the point of having one leg raised, ready to take the next step, though not yet coming into contact with the ground. Even more strange, several blocks of tumbling ice hung suspended in the air, their plummeting descent halted by the unseen force.
But Tavish's surprise grew to astonishment as she saw the black-haired young woman emerge from concealment and walk boldly among the unaware humanoids. Squinting-her eyes were not the keen tools of observation they had been twenty years earlier-she studied the flowing hair with its suggestion of familiarity, and she thought that she recognized the woman's confident gait.
Tavish saw the great chieftain, the one who had bested the troll on the dock and who had guided his ship across the Strait of Oman, now bearing the great, diamond-bladed axe in his hands. He stood as though in thoughtful repose, observing the jagged, narrow crack that shot up the face of ice following the impact of his blow, the axe held loosely at his waist.
As the tiny female figure clambered up the boulders, Tavish saw that her target was the giant wielding the great axe. With some difficulty, the woman scrambled up the last high boulder and tugged the Silverhaft Axe from the frozen hands of the rigid firbolg. The weapon was huge, and appeared to be quite heavy, yet the princess drew it free without apparent effort.
She turned, her black hair swirling around her head as her face exploded into an expression of fierce triumph, and the bard recognized her for certain: This was Princess Deirdre Kendrick! Why the woman, youngest daughter of her friends, should be here remained a mystery to the harpist, yet Tavish sensed something very wrong, dangerously evil, in the scene she currently witnessed.
Carefully Tavish crept through the broken talus, working her way from rock to rock while she kept her eyes on the tableau below. She saw Deirdre climb down, clutching the axe. Then the princess passed through the band of firbolgs and stood still, her back to Tavish, as if she waited for something.
In another moment, the bard saw what that was: the end of the spell that had frozen the giant-kin in time. Tavish heard a popping sound in the air, and abruptly the firbolgs resumed the activities that had been interrupted. Those in the midst of taking a step concluded the gesture smoothly, as if there had been no spell, no delay of any kind.
The suspended blocks of ice tumbled around them, shattering and cracking down the slope. The sound echoed through the valley, but the dodging firbolgs avoided most of the shards. Indeed, they had already dodged the iceblocks several minutes before, moving out of the way and now watching the debris as if it had continued its plunge quite uninterrupted.
Only the chieftain, standing upon the rock and staring up at the glacier, noticed a change. He bellowed in alarm, spinning on the rock and shouting to his tribesmen, shaking his empty fists. Tavish sensed what had happened: No instant of time had passed for the giant-kin within the sphere of Deirdre's powerful spell. To the great firbolg warrior, it must have seemed as if the axe had vanished instantaneously from his hands.
Then the great giant-kin's eyes fell upon the human figure standing beyond his comrades below… the young woman who bore the Silverhaft Axe in her hands. His jaw fell in astonishment, but a moment later, fury contorted his face, and he sprang down from the mountainside in great, leaping bounds. The other firbolgs, sensing the focus of their chieftain's rage, turned in astonishment to regard the impudent human.
"Stop!" ordered the Princess of Callidyrr, her voice ringing in countless echoes from the surrounding cliffs. The tone of command was unmistakable, but Tavish was nevertheless astounded when the hulking giant, twice as tall and five times as massive as the woman, slowed his charge to a walk and finally came to a standstill, staring angrily at Deirdre.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice rumbling deep in the familiar words of the common tongue.
"I am your mistress-the one who holds the Silverhaft Axe and whose commands you will obey."
"I owe no fealty to the bearer of the axe," shot back the firbolg chief. He took another step toward the princess.
"Would you see it destroyed?" she demanded, raising the shaft and holding the crystalline edge over a chunk of solid granite.
"It would take one mightier than you to break that blade," the firbolg replied, confident again. He took another step toward Deirdre.
A sound rumbled through the valley like a thunderclap, and they all looked to the sky, expecting to see black clouds rolling in, perhaps bolts of lightning exploding toward the ground. Yet the heavens remained blue and pastoral, with a few puffy clouds the only harbingers of moisture. Surely none of these vaporous wisps had issued that mighty clap of thunder!
The sound was repeated, and like Deirdre's voice, the noise echoed over and over, rolling down the narrow valley like a volley of distant explosions. This time, Tavish could see the source, and it was a revelation that drained the blood from her face and set her stomach roiling.
The crack on the giant glacier grew! Now spiderweb fissures ran through the ice to the right and left, extending outward from the gash created by the chieftain's original blow. Once again the crashing sound rumbled through the vale, and this time pieces of ice broke from the surface to plummet dizzyingly toward the base of the glacier and the watching firbolgs and human gathered there.
The giant-kin hastily scrambled away from the tumbling debris as more and more sheets of compressed ice broke away and plunged downward. The first of these shattered against the rocks at the glacier's base, exploding upward in shimmering curtains of white frost. Others cracked into larger pieces, sending blocks the size of boulders tumbling through the air, falling and smashing among the fleeing firbolgs.
Only the princess stood firm, facing the breaking glacier and bearing the axe easily in her hands, as if it were a talisman that could protect her from all harm. In fact, Tavish wondered if that might be the truth. Certainly the plunging debris and deadly flying rocks gave the young princess a wide berth, while the panic-stricken firbolgs had been driven well back from the glacier.
Again the crack sounded through the valley, and this time the gap in the glacier widened visibly, revealing in clarity the granite-featured form imprisoned there. More rubble spewed outward, crashing around the figures below. Now the Peaksmasher appeared, and for the first time, Tavish could see that only the giant's torso was visible. The body from the waist downward was sunk into the ground, as if part of the bedrock itself. Though the giant flexed its chest and shoulders, sending more debris tumbling and crashing, it seemed to be firmly rooted in place. Even only half-visible, however, Grond Peaksmasher loomed like a small mountain overhead!