departed, precious few humans had even entered Myrloch Vale, much less tried to live there. The few rash enough to try the latter, of course, the trolls quickly found and devoured.
Suddenly Thurgol scratched his head. The druids, he knew, had begun to return. His eyes gleamed with the fervor of insight. Could there be a connection to the revitalized forest and the men and women who had once tended and preserved it? Grunting in frustration, the firbolg chief shook his head as the cognitive link proved to be too much of a mental challenge.
Still, the unease agitating him remained. He thought of the dwarves, spitting loudly as the image of the small, bearded pests filled his mind. Hateful runts, every one of them! Another thought occurred to him: The game eluded his tribe around Blackleaf, but did the dwarves continue to have plenty? In his heart of hearts, Thurgol became convinced that they did.
Perhaps the dwarves had stolen the game that rightly belonged to the tribe of Thurgol! The more he considered this possibility, the more he became convinced it was the truth. The complacency of twenty years of peace had lulled him and his people, and his ancient enemies had taken advantage of that lapse! The question of how the dwarves lured away his game did not trouble the giant-kin's dim intellect. It was enough that he had found a focus for his discontent
Finally-or perhaps foremost-there was the matter of the Silverhaft Axe. The priceless artifact had been the grand treasure of the firbolg clan during the first decades of Thurgol's life. The hallowed object was attributed a major role in the creation of the firbolg race and had been a wonder to look at.
Then, twenty years earlier, following the giant-kins' defeat in the Darkwalker War, the axe had been claimed by the victors, specifically the dwarves. Those short folk also revered the axe as a legendary artifact, and had regarded its possession by firbolgs as nothing short of heresy. The Myrloch dwarves had been only too glad to seize the axe as the spoils of war. Nevertheless, to Thurgol, it was his own tribe who had been wronged.
And then the gods, or fate, gave him further proof when he turned back toward the village, stepping roughly on a lush lilac. A rabbit scampered away from the foliage, and he swung mightily with his club. The knobbed weapon bounced from the ground scant inches from the terrified creature's puffball of a tail. The hare disappeared as Thurgol grunted in anguish, the rude shock jarring his elbow and wrenching his shoulder. Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously as he understood the import of the event
For the rabbit had fled eastward, toward the vale of the dwarves.
Day provided no respite for the weary Princess of Callidyrr. Deirdre lay awake, but for the most part unaware. Her eyes remained open, staring vacantly about the room. Occasionally she allowed her mother-but no one else-to feed her broth or water. Other than that, she took no nourishment, responding listlessly or not at all to companionship.
A sense of complete weariness possessed her, an apathy that her mother and attending clerics suspected grew from her troubled nights.
Yet her mind remained alive and active. She knew fear, remembered desire. She felt an unspeakable horror of something that awaited her beyond the curtain of nightfall. Yet there was power there, and a certain allure that she couldn't deny.
Thus, at the same time as her terror grew, she found herself yearning for sunset
Talos the Stormbringer seethed in his rage. At every turn, it seemed, the revitalized goddess of the Ffolk thwarted and aggrieved him. Yet in his frustration, his immortal will congealed into a last grim purpose: He would strike at these impudent mortals; he would wound and dismay them.
For that task, he had one tool-a tool that was singularly suited to his purpose.
2
'Please, Alicia, reconsider! Sail with me to the north!' Brandon's arms held the princess against his brawny chest. Though the pressure of his grip was gentle, she felt suffocated, and gently she broke free.
Alicia looked up while the wind blew her bright golden hair back from her face. Her eyes of green searched the ice-blue gaze of the proud northman prince. Framed by high, proud cheekbones, her face tore at Brandon's heart so intensely that it hurt him to see it. At the same time, he found it absolutely impossible to look away.
Only a trace of this anguish showed on the sailing captain's own stern face. Dressed for sea, the northman had tied his long hair into twin braids, donning leather sandals to protect his feet. The day was warm, and so he wore merely a strap of bearskin across his loins.
'I must stay here in Corwell, at least for now, until Deirdre's better or…' She didn't want to voice the alternative.
'The goddess has a way of watching over her own, and your mother is the Earthmother's favored child. Deirdre is in very good hands.' The words, soothingly spoken from behind her, told Alicia that Tavish had arrived at the waterfront. The princess felt a measure of relief as Brandon stepped back slightly, reluctant to display his feelings before anyone but his beloved.
The harpist wrapped an arm around Alicia's shoulders and pulled the younger woman close in a hug. Though Tavish neared sixty years of age, she remained as robust as, and a good deal stronger than, most women half her age. The bard's round face was split by her almost constant smile, her ever-present harp slung casually over her shoulder.
'It will be a delight to have music accompany our voyage,' Brandon said, warming to the harpist's smile.
'And for my part, I look forward to seeing the lodges of the north again. I've always enjoyed the hospitality of Gnarhelm!'
'My father, I know, will be delighted with your return,' the prince said sincerely. 'King Kendrick couldn't hope for a more able ambassador!'
'Oh, I'm more of a tourist than an ambassador,' the bard said modestly. Though she spoke the truth in bare fact, her presence in the northern kingdom would indeed serve to cement the bonds of peace that had survived for two decades between the disparate human cultures of the Moonshaes.
'Well, you two make your farewells,' Tavish said genially. 'I'll try to get myself loaded into the boat.'
Beyond them, the Princess of Moonshae sat in the calm waters of Corwell Harbor. The planks of the graceful long-ship's hull had been scrubbed until they gleamed, the scrapes from her recent trials fully obliterated. Tavish crossed to the edge of the dock, where a small boat waited to take her and the captain out to the sleek vessel.
'Will her keel hold?' Alicia asked the prince, addressing Brandon's greatest concern during the past week.
'As strong as ever, and six inches wider in the beam!' The northman nodded, his mind reluctantly but inevitably turning to the longship that was his other great love. 'But… your staff. Are you sure you want to leave your staff as part of the hull? I know it's a treasured artifact….'
'Yes … it's only right that the blessing of the goddess ride with the Princess of Moonshae,' Alicia replied sincerely.
The enchanted shaft of wood, a druid's changestaff given to Alicia by her mother, had become a part of the great vessel when she used it to seal an otherwise fatal breach in the hull. Grown to the size of a small tree trunk, it remained wedged into a wide crack beside the longship's keel. Invisible to outside observation, it provided a smooth outer surface and a perfectly watertight seal beside the central timber of the hull. The ship had suffered grievous damage as Brandon captained the quest to rescue King Kendrick, and she couldn't help but feel that a gift of the staff would begin, in some small way, to restore the balance between her gratitude and guilt.
Yet all of her reflections, even her gift of the staff, Alicia knew, were simply means of avoiding the central issue confronting her now on this dock.
Tell him the truth, a voice whispered inside her head-a voice she forcefully ignored. She couldn't admit even
