Trek to Kraggen-Cor

by McKiernan, Dennis L. , 1932-

  TREK TO KRAGGEN-COR 157

  Dusk-Door, the Squad's mission: Kian spoke of it all; and the Sun rose high during his words And when he was finished with the telling, he spoke of that which now troubled him: 'This is our dilemma," Kian declared. "We have lost two of our Gatemasters to the ill fortunes of War; only one, Delk, remains, where we started with three. Yet, at the Council of Durek, it was said that two were needed to work on the Door; and though two are needed, we have but one. I now seek counsel on how to proceed."

  Delk responded, his voice a low growl: "Tobin spoke my mind: we must go on with our mission, for King Durek needs our aid. Grievous is the loss of Barak . . . and Tobin too; yet still we must try to succeed. Heed me: Anval and Borin have both taken part in the debates of how the Dusken Door may be repaired. They are both Mastercrafters, and though their skill has not heretofore been used on gates, still their aptness when joined with mine will be considerable. We must try to repair the Door! We must go on!"

  "But then," growled Borin, "who will defend the way 7 Who will mislead the Squam if we are discovered 7 That was the charge Anval and I accepted from Durek when we joined the Squad."

  "Regardless as to what your duty was then," responded Delk, "our larger responsibility is to get to the Door and repair it so that Durek can lead the Army through."

  "I can mislead the Yrm," interjected Kian. "Once we reach the Deeves, my task as guide is ended and Perry's begins. I had always planned on becoming a decoy, or holding the way with Anval and Borin as it became necessary; but now if we are discovered, I will mislead the Spaunen alone."

  Shannon glanced up at Ursor, who nodded in unspoken agreement. "What of us 7 " asked the Elf. "We are indirectly responsible for your predicament. Had we not driven the Rupt north, they would not have fallen upon your band. King Durek's plan is sound, yet it is a plan weakened by your unexpected losses here on the banks of the Argon. Hence, let the two of us— a Baeran and an Elf—go with you to act as warrior escort, to hold the way in time of need, for in this we have a debt and an obligation and a duty

  Ursor looked at Lord Kian. "Durek's mission, Sire, must succeed," rumbled the giant, and his hand went to his mace, "for with this one blow the Wrg will be crushed from the Black Hole forever "

  Lord Kian nodded and glanced around the circle, receiving nods of assent from each of the others. "So be it!" he declared. "Once we were seven strong, and so we are again. And though we cannot replace Barak or Tobin, still we can complete our mission."

  He stood and bade them all, "Let us now break our fast, and then speak of that which we have planned, for tomorrow we start for Kraggen-cor. and our new companions must be prepared."

  Perry spoke little that day. He had said nothing at council, and later responded only to questions put directly to him And he did not seem to

  want to be with the others, preferring instead to sit alone on a log down by the river near the point where Barak's funeral barge had been cast free. At the campsite Shannon glanced away toward the water's edge and the War-row, and Lord Kian quietly said, "It is his first brush with War. He is numb with the realization of what killing and slaughter and battle are truly like. But there is a sturdy spirit inside of him. I think that he and his gentle people are capable of withstanding much and contributing greatly in times of terror and distress. He will soon come to grips with his pain, and will emerge whole and sound from this shell he is in."

  Later the Elf went to the riverside to cleanse the smut from the arrows retrieved from the dead Ruck bodies. He squatted at the shore a step or two away from the Warrow and laved the shafts.

  "It was so confused," said Perry without preamble. "Nothing was as the tales and songs would have you believe. There were no long duels of sword-play or axe wielding. There were no glorious stands where one lone hero held an army of villains at bay with his flashing weaponry to emerge victorious over all. There were only sudden rushes and quick, grim slaughter, only slashing and hacking and friends being maimed; hurtling bodies, shoving, grunting, wild swinging and stumbling, and people falling down and being trampled . . . and Death." Perry buried his face in his hands only to see Hlok heels drumming against the ground.

  Shannon Silverleaf gazed with softness upon the weeping Waerling. "War is never glorious," quietly said the Elf. "Nay, glory has no part in it. Instead, it is a tedious, chaotic, repugnant chore: It is tedious because most of the time warriors are waiting for something to happen, or are days on the march, or are encamped and unengaged. It is chaotic, for during combat there is only slaying and struggle and confusion. And it is repugnant because the killing even of Spaunen and other fell creatures in time of battle is still the slaughter of living beings. Yes, War against the Rupt is abhorrent, but think how much more hideous it would be if it were Waerling against Waerling, or Man against Man. In this be grateful you are fighting a real and present evil that must be destroyed—for there have been times when the only evil was in the minds of .the opposing leaders of innocent, trusting followers." Shannon, his task completed, stood and turned to the buccan. "Master Perry, all War is terrible—even those that are Just—but though terrible and horrifying, this War must be fought and the foul wickedness in Black Drimmen-deeve eliminated, for to do anything less will allow the vileness to fester and grow and wreak more death upon the defenseless." Shannon touched his hand to that of the Waerling, and then turned and walked away; and with brimming eyes, Perry watched him go.

  That night Perry sat on sentry duty, staring without seeing into the darkness beyond the campsite; Bane had been drawn and was at hand, embedded in a log, sticking upright: a silent sentinel whose blue flame would blaze if

  Rucks or other Spawn came near, now shining with nought but reflected firelight.

  Huge Ursor came and eased his bulk down to sit beside the Warrow. In silence they watched the night flow by. Finally Perry spoke: "All the time I was making my copy of The Raven Book, my mind was filled with the sweep of glorious battles and visions of heroic deeds against dark forces. I thought, 'Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if I, too, could be caught up in such an adventure.' Well now I am in a like venture, and the reality of it is nearly more than I can bear.

  "I did not stop to think that a great battle is nothing more than large-scale butchery. But even in battle what it really boils down to is that someone with a weapon is trying to slash, hack, smash, or pierce someone else while at the same time trying to keep from being maimed or killed in return. And the incredible thing is that though the battle involves entire armies, each fight is just one against one, one against one a thousand or ten thousand times over: thousands of desperate pairs locked in combat. And in each pair one will fall and the other one will go on to find another and do it all over again until it is ended.

  "I never thought of it being that way. I never thought that someone I could see and hear and smell and touch would be trying to kill me, striving to snuff out my life, while I would be struggling to kill him in return." Perry's eyes widened in remembered horror and filled with tears, and he stared down unseeing at a point within the earth as remote as the stars, and his voice rose and trembled in distress. "But that's the way it really is: the enemy right there in front of you, face to face, grunting, sweating, straining, gasping for breath, trying to break your guard, and trying to keep from being hurt. It doesn't really matter whether you're in a battle, or in a skirmish, or are all alone when you meet your foe, it's all the same: just one against one. Even if you are outnumbered, still each is fleetingly met one at a time.

  "And none of my visions included staring across a sword blade directly into the eyes of an enemy. I always dreamed that battle would be clean and heroic and remote; but I've found that it is anything but heroic: the first Ruck I slew, I stabbed him in the back—that's how noble it is. It isn't pure and gallant and distant at all; instead, it is dirty and desperate and suffocatingly close.

  "And I'm frightened. I know nothing of weaponry. This company needs warriors, not dreamers and scholars. I don't belong he
re: I belong back at The Root or at the Cliffs locked away someplace among books, tediously copying ancient tomes. My Scholar's dream was to go awarnng—to be a hero —but in reality I am only a frightened Scribe.

  "I am a terrible, worthless liability to this company. Barak died beau me. He tried to save me, and instead he is dead." Perry begH to weep silently, his mind filled with chaotic visions of the desperate stand that red-bearded Barak had made above him while he scuffled ineffectuallv in the dirt

  below, and how Barak had finally fallen, crushed from behind by a Ruck cudgel.

  Giant Ursor shifted his weight on the log where he sat. "You are right, Waldan," he rumbled, "and you are wrong. You are right in your assessment of the reality of battle. You are wrong in the valuation of your worth. You are a warrior, for you slew a foe who was about to slay a companion. And though overwhelmed, you engaged the enemy when you gained your feet, with weapon in hand, until the enemy was routed. In your fear and revulsion, you are no different from any other warrior. Yet I believe if you think on it, you will find you suffered no fear during each engagement, only afterward; for while locked in a duel there is only time to act and to react and no time to quail.

  "As to your worth to the company: the mission cannot go on without you; if others fall, it will go on, but not if you fall. Only you can guide this group through the caverns; only you can deliver a Crafter to the Dusk-Door. Barak knew this. Of all those beset, he chose to fight by your side, for not only were you his friend, you are also the hope of this mission.

  "And this mission must succeed, for the growing evil in the Black Hole must be crushed" —Ursor's great hands made grasping, strangling motions, and his voice gritted out between clenched teeth—"for they slay the innocent and unprotected. My bride of two summers, Grael, and my newborn ..." but Ursor could say no more, and he stood and stalked to the edge of the darkness.

  Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, Perry watched the big Man walk to the distant limit of the light and halt. At last the buccan knew why the giant was at war with the Spawn; and Perry was crushed with the knowledge of the other's pain, the Warrow's own anguish diminished in the light of the Baer-on's grief. "Ursor," he called, "I'm so sorry. I didn't know . . ." Perry fell silent, his thoughts awhirl. How long he sat thus, he did not know.

  Finally the buccan rose and took up Bane—for he was still on guard—and walked to the side of his newfound friend, not knowing what to say, his heart reaching out to Ursor. Long the Warrow stood in silence beside the Man, peering out into the darkness at the vague black shapes of barren trees sleeping in the early-winter night. Then at last Perry spoke, his voice falling softly in the quiet: "Ursor, I feel your pain, and I grieve with you. But I do not know ..." Again Perry lapsed into silence.

  After a moment Ursor placed a huge hand on Perry's small shoulder. "It is enough, Wee One. It is enough."

  Again they stood quietly and looked out upon the night. Then once more Perry spoke, and firm resolve filled his voice: "You are right, Ursor, you are right about everything. The evil in Drimmen-deeve must be crushed—and our mission will see to that." The Warrow looked grimly to the west, as if willing his sight to fly far overland and pierce the darkness and see deep into the heart of the Black Deeves. "Tomorrow we start the final leg to Kraggen-

  cor, and beginnings are often times of oath-takings and predictions. Yet I'll not make a prediction, though I do have something to say. I said it once before when I knew nothing, but now I say it again: Beware, maggot-folk."

  CHAPTER 18 SNOWBOUND

  Cotton thrust his head from beneath the squat, snow-covered shelter and out into the howling grey morning. Still the blizzard moaned up the mountain slopes and toward the Crestan Pass, and the driven snow hid all but the nearby view. The Warrow peered but could see no movement of anyone, and there was little sign of the Host; only three other shelters were visible to him —small mounds in the snow.

  Last night, when the storm had worsened and the cold had become cruelly bitter, Durek had issued the order for warriors to pair up and spread out and gather pine boughs to make shelters. The entire Army of four thousand had then moved into the forest in couplets to collect the branches, to return and construct the tiny bowers—a form of snow refuge known to those who dwell on and within the mountains. Bomar had selected Cotton as his shelter-mate simply by grunting, "Come with me"; and they had taken up a lantern and some rope and had moved out through the drifts and into the woods.

  When Cotton had glimpsed through the flying snow that the Army was spreading out and separating during a blizzard, the buccan had protested: "Bomar, this is madness!" he had cried above the shrieking wind. "We'll all be lost in the storm; the Army will be destroyed, split apart. We'll never find the others again—and they won't ever find us, neither."

  "Remember, Friend Cotton," Bomar had shouted back, "you are with Chakka, and although we often do not know where we are going, we always know exactly where we have been—even in a blizzard at night." And Cotton and Bomar had waded onward through the swirling, moaning wind and knee deep snow.

  They had cut boughs, and lashed them together using the rope, they had dragged the bundle like a sledge back to the glen, and Bomar had made their shelter: First he had fashioned a frame of bent branches, and had pegged it

  to the ground with iron spikes he called 'rock-nails." Then he had lashed boughs thickly to the frame, so close that when he and Cotton had piled snow on, none sifted through the matting.

  Then the two had crawled inside, and there was just enough room for both of them. They had thus spent the night in snug warmth.

  And now it was morning, and still the blizzard enveloped them. "What's going to happen now, Bomar?" asked Cotton as he pulled his head back into the bower.

  Bomar reached for the lantern filling the refuge with a blue-green radiance, and dropped the hood so that the glow was extinguished; and grey morning light filtered down through the flying snow and into the shelter opening. "Nothing," he rumbled. "We do nothing til the storm abates."

  "I wonder when that will be," fretted Cotton in the dimness. "I mean, well, I don't know much about blizzards—especially mountain blizzards. In the Bosky we seldom get real mean snowstorms. Why, let me see, there's only been one bad storm that I can remember; only once has the White Wolf howled around Hollow End and The Root since I've been there. And it lasted for two days, and it put almost two foot of snow on the ground. But I hear mountain blizzards can last for weeks. . . .

  "Oh, Bomar, I don't know why I'm nattering on about that. What I'm really afraid of is that we're going to get caught here, and we won't reach the Dusk-Door in time for Mister Perry, and they'll be trapped in that black puzzle with all the Rucks and Hloks and Ogru-Trolls after them—"

  "Hush, Waeran," growled Bomar. "It does no good to a warrior's heart to think of his comrades in need of aid when that aid cannot be given. We have no choice but to wait for the blizzard to slacken. We cannot go on, for I have seen this kind of storm before: here in the protection of the thick forest it is not too severe; but out in the open the snow fills the air with whiteness— nothing can be seen more than a yard or two distant. And the cold wind is a terrible enemy: it sucks the heat away with its icy blast, and an animal will fall in midstride, to freeze in moments. We cannot go forth into that. We must wait."

  "Animals? Freeze? What about Brownie and Downy?" asked Cotton anxiously. "For that matter, what about all the horses? Are they going to drop in their tracks and freeze? We can't let that happen! We've got to do something!" And Cotton started to crawl out, but was stopped by Bomar.

  "Hold, Cotton!" demanded the Dwarf, gripping the Warrow by the shoulder. "The horses are all right. Aye, they are chilled, but they are not freezing. Only in the open blast would they be in danger; but here in the pines they are well protected from the wind."

  "Well let's go see anyway," insisted Cotton. "My legs need the stretch."

  Bomar saw how concerned the buccan was; and with a shrug of his shoulders he pulled h
is hood up snug, motioning the Waeran to do likewise. They

  crawled from the shelter and struck out for the pen where Brownie and Downy were held, Bomar leading the way.

  The snow came to Cotton's midthigh, though in places the drifts were deeper, but the sturdy Dwarf broke the path, and the smaller Warrow followed in his wake. They struggled through the swirling white, stopping frequently to rest, while the wind moaned aloft in the treetops. A blinding sheet of whiteness raced by overhead on its flight to the mountain crests, and only a portion of the howling fling fell swirling through the boughs to coldly blanket the forest below. But even the small part that came down was enough to curb vision and pile snow deeply, to be driven into larger drifts.

  At last Cotton and Bomar reached a thick grove of low pines; a large group of horses stood huddled within its protection where the snow was less deep and the wind did not cut. The animals seemed glad to see the two; and eagerly they pressed forward for a smell and a look, for they had seen no person since the previous night, when each had been fed a small portion of grain and then had been driven with the others to cluster in the simple rope pens among the thick, low, sheltering pines near the encampment glens.

  Cotton and Bomar spent a good while walking among the animals, patting their flanks and rubbing their necks and muzzles. Though they spoke to the horses, the wind drowned out their words; but their very presence seemed to reassure the steeds that all was well. Cotton finally located Downy and later Brownie, and they each nuzzled him; and thus Cotton, too, felt assured that the horses were faring well.

  The Warrow and Dwarf had worked their way through the herd when Cotton leaned over and called above the wind moan, "What we need is a hot cup of tea, but we'll never get one in this storm."

  Bomar snorted and declared, "Come with me; we will go make some."

  Breasting the snow, they toiled back to the glen, where they located a black waggon; from it they took a small-forge and a supply of black firecoke, and carried it to the lean-to beside their yellow waggon. Shortly they had a hot blaze going in the forge, and they melted snow in the large kettle to brew the tea. Leaving Cotton to tend the pot and make the drink, Bomar trudged out into the swirl and located other shelters and invited those within to join them. Soon Dwarves straggled to the fire, and Cotton served hot tea to go with their crue biscuits.