Grimly the bard crept from her rocky niche, working her way from boulder to shrub for concealment as she surreptitiously advanced toward the princess and her gigantic allies.
Slowly, gradually, she narrowed the distance between them. The harpist cursed the infirmities of age; at nearly sixty, she was no woodland scout! Yet her limbs responded with alacrity to the needs of the moment, and the attention of her targets remained firmly fixed upon the party before Deirdre-the group that included her own father and sister.
Tavish heard the arrogance in Deirdre's tone as she spoke to her prisoners, saw the firm set of the young woman's shoulders as she braced herself against the Silverhaft Axe. The princess seemed every bit the cool conqueror, though the harpist couldn't hear enough of the words to understand the purpose of her conquest. Surely it wasn't vengeance or hatred that motivated her! But what then? Ambition? That, too, didn't seemed likely. Tavish would never have suspected the bookish Deirdre of attempting to usurp her father's throne.
She forced the thoughts, the questions, aside. This was not a time to wonder about why. Far more important to Tavish, and to the Moonshaes, was what. Specifically, what should she do now?
The axe, Tavish sensed, was the real key to Deirdre's power, the tool that enabled her to compel the obedience of Grond Peaksmasher and the firbolgs. The bard's eyes focused on the potent talisman as she squirmed into the scant cover beneath a dense cedar. She had reached a point only twenty paces behind Deirdre, but there was no further cover between herself and the princess.
Yet she had also reached the point of no return. Gathering her legs beneath her, calling on them for one more burst of speed, she concentrated on the Silverhaft Axe. She would try to wrest the weapon from Deirdre. Whatever happened after that would be up to the king, his companions, and the firbolgs. Tavish's own chances of survival, she believed, were slim. If one of the great firbolgs reached her before Tristan or Keane could come to her aid, the bard had no illusions about the outcome.
But she had no choice, as far as she could see. Tense and alert, she watched Deirdre, waiting until the princess began to speak.
Then, knowing no time would be better, Tavish broke from her cover in a mad dash toward the black-haired Princess of Callidyrr.
"It is your arrogance!" Deirdre sneered, speaking to her father. "Your blindness to the need for change! That desire, to hold your people back with a primitive religion and a hidebound fear of progress, that is the evil against which I strive!"
"The evil has been wrought by your own 'friends,' " the king replied, with a meaningful glance at the firbolgs flanking his black-haired daughter.
"Bah-they are mere tools, fit only to bear the axe to the place of its use. If their actions draw you here as well, so much the better."
"But think of your people, your kingdom!"
"They are not my people-not yet," Deirdre retorted. "Though they will be soon enough!"
"You're crazy!" cried Alicia. "What matter if you kill us? Do you really think-?"
"You will not necessarily die. All of you who serve the will of the New Gods will be spared," Deirdre explained, like a tutor trying to get a plain point across to a classful of thick-skulled students. "This is the way of the future, the destiny of the Moonshae Islands."
"You would betray the faith of your people, the goddess your mother has served all her life?" Tristan challenged. He struggled to understand, knowing that this was his daughter before him but not finding any part of her that he knew.
"My mother serves the enemy. My mother is the enemy!" Deirdre snapped. "That's why the rest of you will remain here as prisoners, significant only as bait to draw the true menace into my presence!"
The High King studied the crystal-bladed axe, with its gleaming haft of pure silver. The weapon must weigh a tremendous amount, yet Deirdre had twirled it around as if it were a toy. That artifact! Surely it must in some way be responsible for his daughter's unnatural behavior.
Then the king stiffened reflexively as he saw something moving behind Deirdre. Tavish! His heart pounded as he saw the bard break from the cover of her tree. The stout harpist's legs pumped steadily as she dashed toward the princess. At the same time, Deirdre's attention, and that of the firbolgs as well, remained fixed upon their captives.
He heard Alicia's intake of breath, knowing that she had seen the bard's desperate venture as well. Desperately he prayed that none of them would betray that knowledge before Tavish could wrest the axe from the princess.
"Bantarius-Helmsmite!"
The voice sent a tingle of alarm through Tristan's mind. Where did it come from? Who had spoken? The words, the tone, were both maddeningly familiar.
A glowing form instantly materialized in the air behind Deirdre. Solidifying quickly, it became a blunt hammer with a head of slate-gray steel and a haft of sturdy oak, suspended behind and above the princess.
But as Tavish passed beneath it, the hammer smashed downward, dropping that solid head straight onto the bard's scalp, bashing her with brutal force. The harpist dropped like a felled tree, collapsing, motionless, amid the rocks and grass.
Deirdre never even turned around. "Welcome, Exalted Inquisitor, to the dawn of a new era!" she said, holding forth a hand. To Tristan's bitter rage, Parell Hyath stepped forward from the concealment of a nearby clump of rocks, advancing to take his place beside Deirdre. Now Tristan recognized the voice of the spellcaster, too late to do any good.
"We suspected some trickery from you," the cleric explained condescendingly. "Therefore we decided it would be best if I remained concealed until your hand was revealed. Though I must admit," the inquisitor added, turning to Keane and clucking in mock disappointment, "I had expected the principal troublemaker to be you."
"This affront to the goddess will not pass!" Alicia shouted suddenly.
The priest and princess stood together on the knoll, regarding Alicia with amused tolerance. "We do not hope for it to pass … not just yet," explained the inquisitor. "For only when the goddess makes her will known shall that will be bent to ours."
Talos and Helm pressed close as the powerful demigod stirred from his age-long imprisonment.
Grond sensed the surrounding presence of his ancient enemy, the Earthmother. Beyond the cloak of the world, he felt other immortal beings-lords who promised mastery, power… and freedom. This promise to the Peaksmasher the New Gods sealed with the presence of the Silverhaft Axe, and against that ancient talisman, he could offer no resistance.
The pulse of the goddess was strong in the bedrock below him, but all of the demigod's might was focused on the surface of the world now, against the pitiful and helpless creatures within range of his crushing fists.
16
Robyn flew steadily northward, driven by consuming urgency. Her wings stroked the air in rhythmic cadence, and though cool wind streamed past her feathered skin, her entire body burned with a conflagration of fear.
Would she be too late? That question propelled her and terrified her, for she knew that the task before her was the most important of her life. For too long, worldly concerns had kept her content, even complacent. Now she knew the truth-the terrible vulnerability of the goddess, and the threats from within and without her realm. Gods such as Talos and Helm loomed, ambitious and mighty, while the demigod Grond Peaksmasher could tear her apart from within.