Trek to Kraggen-Cor Read online

  "Even as brother spoke to brother, to the Refuge came the Elf Lord Gildor bearing word that Galen's sire, King Aurion, had been slain and that Galen was now High King of all Mithgar.

  "Galen was sore beset, for his heart told him to go north and somehow deliver Laurelin out of the enemy stronghold; yet his duty told him that as King he must turn south and come unto Pellar to gather the Host to face Modru's hordes.

  "The next morning, with heavy hearts, Galen and Tuck bore southward, leaving Igon behind in Arden in the care of Elvenkind. With them rode Gildor, now Elven advisor to Galen as he had been to Aurion before. The three were making for Quadran Pass and beyond to the Larkenwald, Darda Galion. Gildor sought to warn his Elven kindred, the Lian, that it was almost certain that the Larkenwald, too, soon would be under attack. The companions planned to give warning and afterward to fare onward to Pellar and the Host.

  "Through the Dimmendark the trio rode, ever bearing southward. They overtook a Swarm of Modru's forces also bearing south, marching toward Black Drimmen-deeve to make it into a vile fortress whence the Spawn would launch their attack upon Darda Galion.

  "Silently passing by the Horde, southward rode the trio of Galen, Tuck, and Gildor, in haste now, to warn the Lian of the coming enemy. Far they rode, but at last came to a defile where they heard the sound of single combat, and happened upon a lone Dwarf and a solitary Hlok, fighting amid a great slaughter of Dwarven and Rucken dead—"

  "Brega, Bekki's son!" burst out Anval, fiercely, raising a clenched fist; and Borin cried, "Warrior, hai!"

  "Yes," confirmed Perry, "it was Brega, Bekki's son; and he slew the Hlok. Then Brega alone stood, the last of a force of forty Dwarves from the Red Caves, marching north to join in the battle against Modru. Altogether, the forty had slain nearly two hundred maggot-folk; yet at the last all had fallen but Brega."

  Here Anval and Borin cast their hoods over their heads. "Chdkka shok (Dwarven axes)/' rumbled Borin; "Chdkka cor (Dwarven might)" added Anval.

  In respect, Perry paused a moment, and then continued: "Now the great southward-bound force of the Spaunen Horde was drawing nigh, and Brega stood ready to face them alone. Yet he was at last persuaded that to gain revenge for his slain brethren he must go south with Tuck and Galen and Gildor to join the Host to battle Modru. And so, somewhat reluctantly it

  seems, Brega mounted up behind Lord Gildor to ride to the Larkenwald and then beyond.

  "Now, at last, you see, the Wheel of Fate had turned to bring the four together, and toward Quadran Pass they rode. Cross it they did, and had come partway down Quadran Run, down the flank of Stormhelm, heading for the Pitch and the Larkenwald beyond. But here they were thwarted, for a large force of mounted Ghuls—advance eyes for the Horde—was returning over the range, coming up the Run toward them..

  "The four were forced back over the Gap, ahead of the Ghuls. Yet they planned to slip aside at first chance and hide until the Ghuls were beyond them and gone. But before they could do so, Vulgs from the Horde discovered them, and ahead of Modru's riders through the Dimmendark the companions fled."

  "Wouldn't you just know it!" blurted Cotton, frustrated by the turn of events even though they were more than two centuries in the past, and despite his having heard the tale many times before. Then, embarrassed by his outburst, the buccan took a sip from his mug and studiously peered at the alefroth, and avoided catching the eyes of the others.

  "Southward they ran," continued Perry, "til their horses were nearly foundered, for each was carrying double. And so, out of necessity, the four at last turned east into a valley, hoping to elude the Winternight pursuit. As they neared the head of the valley, Gildor recognized the land: it was Ragad Vale —the Valley of the Door—and they were coming toward the Dusk-Door, the abandoned western entrance into Black Drimmen-deeve. And the Door had been shut ages agone and had not been opened since.

  "On they rode, forced ever eastward ahead of tracking Vulgs, finally to come to the great hemidome in the Loomwall of Grimspire; and a black lake was there. Along a causeway they went, til they reached a drawbridge, and it was up, raised high. While the others waited, Gildor swam across, and a great swirl in the water came nigh, for something lurked in the black depths.

  "Yet the Elf safely gained the other side and began to lower the bridge; but the haul broke, and down the bascule came with a great crash. The sound boomed down the vale and brought the searching Ghuls riding at speed. The remaining comrades dashed across the bridge and joined the Elf, and all went past the sunken courtyard and to the great edifice of the Dusk-Door.

  "Black water from the Dark Mere lapped at the steps rising up to the huge columns. Between these pillars the four ran, drawing the two horses behind, coming to the great portico.

  "The Ghuls rode to the causeway, but then shied back, as if afraid to ride its length to get at the four.

  "Brega, remembering the lore words, managed to open the Dusk-Door; yet the four were loath to enter Black Drimmen-deeve, for therein lived foul maggot-folk—but even more so, therein ruled the evil Gargon, Modru's Dread. Yet Fate offered them but two courses: to face the immediate threat

  of a great number of Ghuls standing athwart the path along the causeway, or to enter the Spawn-filled, Dread-ruled halls of Drimmen-deeve.

  "But then all choice was snatched from them, for the lurker in the Dark Mere—the Krakenward—struck: hideous ropy arms writhed out of the black water and clutched the horses; and screaming in terror the steeds were drawn down the steps and under the dark surface. Gildor sprang forward to save Fleetfoot, but the Lian warrior was struck numb—for at that very moment, Vanidor, Gildor's twin, was slain at the Iron Tower, and Gildor felt his brother's death. A tentacle grasped Gildor as he fell, stunned, to his knees; but Galen, using the Atalar Blade, hacked at the arm, cleaving a great gash in it, and in the creature's pain it flung Gildor aside.

  "Through the Dusk-Door the four fled, the enraged Monster clutching at them with slimy tentacles, lashing at them with a dead tree, pounding at the Door with a great stone, and wrenching at the gates.

  "Into this nest of snakes Brega leapt and slapped his hand against one of the hinges and cried the Wizard-word to close the portal, leaping back to avoid the Monster's clutch. And slowly the doors ground shut, all the while the creature struggling to rend them open. And as the gates swung-to, Bre-ga's last sight was of the Krakenward wrenching at one of the great columns of the edifice, grinding it away from its base.

  "The Door closed— boom! —and the four were shut inside Drimmen-deeve, in the West Hall. Brega had a lantern in his pack, and as he unshuttered it, the four heard a loud crashing; they surmised it to be the great edifice collapsing, torn down by the maddened Helarms.

  "Boom! Boom! Boom! The pounding of hurled stone shook the Dusk-Door, and though Brega tried, he could not get it to reopen even a crack so that they could see what was happening.

  "Now they had no choice but to attempt to traverse the Deeves and escape out the Dawn-Gate. And as they left the West Hall on that fated journey through Black Drimmen-deeve, the hammering of the enraged Monster echoed in their wake."

  "Tchaaa!" hissed Borin, "I wonder if the foul Maduk yet lives."

  "I cannot say," answered Perry, "but the Raven Book tells that the creature had been Dragon-borne in the black of night by the Cold-drake Skail and dropped into the old Gatemoat nearly five hundred years earlier. That was back before the Dragons began their thousand-year sleep. It is now believed that the Krakenward was a tool of Modru, placed there as part of his preparation for the coming of the Dragon Star."

  "Living or no, tool or no, continue the tale," bade Anval, "for now we come to the nub of it, the part that may aid our quest."

  "You are right, Anval," agreed Perry. "The time has come for me to read from the Raven Book. "And at last Perry opened the great grey tome, turning past the part of the book that duplicated Tuck's Unfinished Diary —as the 'Stone Slayer had originally recorded it during his venture—and thumbing

>   well into that part of the 'Book Tuck later told to the scribes, recalled in full by him from his own terse journal. Finally Perry reached the proper page of the Account. "This is the tale of the four who fared Black Drimmen-deeve," he said, "the story of their flight through that dreadful place. Let me now read it to you."

  And, pulling a candelabrum close, from the huge grey book he began to read of that fearful dash through Drimmen-deeve as the four sought to reach the eastern portal—Dawn-Gate—ere the Ghuls could cross back through Quadran Gap to bring word of the intruders to the dreaded Gargon and its Spaunen minions. Not all of Perry's words need be repeated here, for the tale is now famous and recounted elsewhere, and the full story of all the companions is long and takes many days to tell. But that evening in Trie Root, Perry read only that part of the story concerning the journey through Kraggen-cor, the journey of the four persons who became known as the Deevewalkers:

  Perry began at the point where the four had fled from the Krakenward through the Dusk-Door and could not get back out. And from the West Hall, Gildor led them up the stairs and easterly; Gildor led, for in his youth he had gone on a trade mission through Drimmen-deeve while it was still a mighty Dwarvenholt—ere the Gargon broke free of the Lost Prison. Far they went, without encounter, for the western caverns were deserted of maggot-folk. Yet finally they had to stop to rest, the first they'd had in nearly two days.

  Perry read of their pause in the Grate Room, where at last they felt a foreboding fear beating at them, and they knew then that the Ghuls had finally come to the Gargon with word of the four, and now that dreadful creature was bending its will to find them. And the halls became infested with Spaunen squads searching for them.

  Onward they fled, deeper into fear, for they had to come nearer to the Dread in order to reach the Dawn-Gate. And as they went east, many times they eluded discovery.

  Again they rested, for the way was arduous. At last they came to the Hall of the Gravenarch, and there they found the remains of Braggi's Raid, that ill-fated Dwarven mission to slay the evil Gargon.

  Now the four Deevewalkers could feel the Dread approaching, for at last it could sense them—and it stalked them. Yet Brega thwarted it, for with a broken War-hammer he sundered the keystone of the Gravenarch, and the Hall collapsed, blocking the way. Through the fallen stone the Gargon's hatred beat upon them, and great waves of dread engulfed them, but the creature could not come at them. And onward they fled.

  Perry read of them coming to the drawbridge over the Great Deep, and the bridge was lowered and unguarded. There, too, was oil and pitch, and they made ready to burn the wooden span and prevent pursuit. But ere they could fire it, the Gargon came upon them once more, and at last paralyzed them with its dire gaze.

  And as the creature came to kill them, it made a fatal mistake, for it

  considered Tuck to be beneath its contempt, and the Warrow proved to be the key to the slaying of the Dread—for slay it they did.

  Perry read of the fiery destruction of the bridge, and its collapse into the Deep, and the escape of the four out through the Dawn-Gate and onto the Pitch, coming at last to safe haven under the eaves of Darda Galion.

  The candles were low and guttering when Perry finished reading. The room was silent as each reflected upon that which had just been recounted. Cotton got up to fetch some fresh candles to light, but at that moment Holly popped back in through the door. "Dinner is served," she announced, and led them all off to the dining room.

  CHAPTER 4 THE BREGA PATH

  Dinner was superb; Holly had outdone herself. Mounds of steaming mushrooms were heaped upon large platters; and she had prepared her special recipe for rabbit stew: thick and creamy and filled with delicious morsels of tender coney and chunks of potatoes, parsnips, and other vegetables, all perfectly seasoned with her own blend of tangy spices and aromatic herbs. Dark ale in deep mugs sparkled in the warm, yellow lamplight, and the talk turned to things other than Rucks and such.

  "It must be a long way from Dael to Pellar to Woody Hollow," remarked Perry, popping another mushroom into his mouth. "Surely you didn't walk all the way."

  "No," laughed Lord Kian. "That indeed would be a longsome stroll. Let me see, I deem we covered more than three thousand miles just going from Mineholt North to Pellar and back. Of course most of that journey was by boat on the Rissanin and Argon rivers. Then from the Mineholt to your Boskydells is nearly another thousand miles: we travelled the Landover Road to the Grimwall Mountains, where we crossed over Crestan Pass to come down near Arden, and then we followed the east-west Crossland Road to come to the Seven Dells."

  "Goodness," breathed Perry, eyes aglitter. "Why, you've travelled four

  thousand miles in the past few months alone, and I've barely exceeded a hundred in my entire life—when I travelled from the Cliffs to here—and I am three years past my 'coming of age.' The wonderful sights you must have seen . . ."His voice trailed off in breathless speculation.

  "Horses!" burst out Cotton, banging his mug of ale down on the table, some foam sloshing out. "I'll bet you rode horses to the Bosky!"

  "Ride horses?" snorted Anval. "A Chak ride a horse? Hmphh! A pony, mayhap, but not a full-grown horse. We have better sense than to climb aboard one of those great lumbering beasts. Aye, Cotton, we did use horses on the roads to the Boskydells—but we drove them, we didn't ride them. We travelled sensibly—by waggon."

  "Well, if you rode in a waggon, where is it now?" asked Cotton, chagrined for not remembering the idle tavern talk that occasionally turned to the subject of Dwarves, and the hearsay that Dwarves, though brave at most things, for some reason seemed to fear being borne on the back of a horse. "You didn't arrive at Woody Hollow Hall ridin' in no waggon."

  "You are right, Waeran," rumbled Anval, amused by Cotton's embarrassment, "we trod the final miles on foot. The waggon is in Budgens with a rock-broken wheel being mended by one of your Waeran wheelwrights. It will be ready ere our return journey to the Landover Road Ford."

  "The Landover Road Ford?" asked Perry, vaguely remembering that the ford was somewhere on the River Argon beyond the Grimwall Mountains.

  "Aye, Waeran," responded Anval, "a fortnight and a week hence, King Durek and the Army arrive at the ford; so it is there that we will await them."

  "It is at the ford where Durek must decide how to enter Kraggen-cor," added Lord Kian, responding to Perry's puzzled expression. "Here, let me show you: If I line up these mushroom platters . . . there, now . . . then they can represent the Grimwall Mountains, as they run down from the Steppes of Jord and on toward Valon and Gunar in the south ere curving away westerly. Along the eastern flank of the range runs the Argon River, flowing southward toward the Avagon Sea . . . and here where I put my spoon is the ford where the Landover Road crosses the river. The road goes on up the east flank and into the mountains where it then runs through Crestan Pass, crossing over the range to come back down at Arden on the west side. Now let this saltcellar represent Mineholt North, where Durek's army started their march. . . . Mineholt goes up here—nearly three hundred fifty miles of marching to the east and north of the ford. And finally we'll put this pepper mill down here, another two hundred miles south of the ford, where lies Drimmen-deeve, with its Dawn-Gate on the east side of the mountains and the Dusk-Door on the west.

  "Now you can see it is at the ford where Durek, coming down from the north and east, must choose which way to invade the Deeves: he can cross over the mountains at Crestan Pass to Arden, march down the west flank of

  the range, and invade by Dusk-Door; or he can stay on the east side of the mountains, tramp south along the banks of the river Argon, then come over the wold . . . about here . . . and march up the Pitch to attack into Dawn-Gate. You can also see that his choice is crucial, for these two ways lie on opposite sides of a mighty wall of mountains, and he must decide at the ford, for there is the Crestan Pass—the Army's path across the range." Lord Kian lapsed into silence, taking a long pull from his mug.

 
; "What about Quadran Pass?" asked Perry after a moment. "It is near Drimmen-deeve. The Raven Book says the western reach of the pass is less than a day's march north of the Dusk-Door, and the eastern end of the pass comes down onto the Pitch itself. I repeat: what about Quadran Pass? Couldn't Durek cross over there?"

  "A good question, Perry," replied Kian, "and the answer is—perhaps. Durek might be able to cross there, but he is faced with two problems: First, the gap in the Quadran, at least on the Pitch side, may be guarded by Spaunen, and crossing there would alert Gnar and all his forces, and our edge of surprise would be lost. Second, early winter is nearly upon us, and by the time the Army can get to that pass, Quadran Gap in all likelihood, will be snowed in and impassable. No, Durek must choose at Landover Road Ford, so that the Crestan Pass can be crossed if his choice is to attack by the western door, or so that he can turn south and follow the river if he chooses to invade through the eastern gate. And our mission now is to meet him at the ford with the information gleaned from your Raven Book, so that he can use that knowledge in making his decision." Again Lord Kian fell silent, and each stared at the problem laid out before him as the Man took another long pull from his mug.

  "Wull, Dusk-Door or Dawn-Gate, it's a poser all right," said Cotton at last, eyeing the alignment of the mushroom platters. "But be that as it may, please pass me some of those Grimwall Mountains, and I'll have a bit of Mineholt saltcellar and Drimmen-deeve pepper mill, too, to make 'em more tasty." With a strangling cough, Lord Kian choked on his beer in laughter, and the others guffawed heartily as the Warrow piled mushrooms on his plate and salted and peppered them and began popping them into his widely grinning mouth, saying, "Mmmm, good mountains! Delicious peaks!"

  The table talk continued in this fashion for two hours as the Warrows, the Dwarves, and the Man stuffed themselves with Holly's wonderful food. In time, all were satisfied, including Cotton, who had a reputation even among Warrows as an awesome trencher in spite of his slimness—slim for a Warrow, that is, for they tend to roundness. But Cotton had at last met his match, for at this table Anval had surpassed the hard-eating Cotton, having put away not one but two more pieces of apple pie than the doughty Warrow. It had been a superb guest meal, with rich and wholesome food, excellent ale, and much interesting talk.