“Arg! That infernal drum!” cried Danner, his voice filled with ire. “If nought else comes of this, I’d like to stuff that Rûck drummer inside his own instrument and pound it to a fare-thee-well.”
They all burst out laughing at Danner’s words, especially Vidron who found the thought of a Rutch trapped in a drum being whaled by a Waeran hilarious.
Their humor was interrupted by a cry from Patrel: “Ai-oi! What’s that? A fire. Something burns.”
Far to the north, visible as yet but to Warrow eyes, a blaze burned. Even as they watched, the flames mounted upward and grew brighter, winging light through the Dimmendark. Higher leapt the fire. (doom!)
“Look!” cried Tuck. “Around the blaze, riders race.” Silhouetted by the flames, the Warrows could see a mounted force raging to and fro in battle, but who fought with whom, they could not say.
“Ai! Now I, too, see the fire,” said Lord Gildor, “but not the riders.”
Bitterly the King and Vidron and other Men on the wall stared with their Man-sight to the north, as if willing their vision to pierce the murk. Yet they saw nought but shadow.
“What size the force?” barked Aurion. “Men or Ghola?”
“I cannot tell,” replied Patrel, “for only fleeting silhouettes do we see.”
Higher leapt the flames, and brighter. “It burns tall, like a tower,” said Danner, “a tower where none stood before.”
“Hola!” cried Vidron. “Now I, too, see the blaze—yet faintly, as a far-off candle in a dark fog.”
“Or a dying coal from the hearth,” breathed Aurion, who now at last could dimly see the fire.
“Hsst!” shushed Gildor. “Hearken below.”
The blatting sound of Rûcken horn was mingled with the harsh calls of Ghûls, and there was a great stir among the Horde. Tuck could see Ghûls springing upon the backs of Hèlsteeds and riding to the hornblats, gathering into a milling swarm. And then with a hideous cry, they raced away to the north, toward the swirling blaze.
“They ride as if to defend something, or to intercept a foe,” said Vidron. “What of the other riders, the ones at the fire?”
“Gone,” answered Patrel. “They’re gone.” (doom!)
And Tuck realized that Patrel was right. For nought did he see but a far-off blaze threading upward in the distant shadow, and no longer did the fleeting silhouettes race past the flames. Tuck looked up at the King who seemed lost in thought. And even as the Warrow watched, a flicker of understanding seemed to pass over Aurion Redeye’s features, and he smacked a fist into the palm of his hand and a gloating “Hai!” burst forth. Yet what his thoughts were, he did not say, but instead turned his gaze once more unto the dim red glow.
Below and racing north rode the Ghûls through the Winternight. Swift they were, passing through the foothills toward the prairie, and ere long they had ridden beyond Warrow vision into the Dimmendark, streaking toward a distant fire that shone like a solitary beacon through the blotting murk. Still the Warrows watched and the flames grew dimmer, but at last the silhouettes of the Ghûls could be seen as they arrived at the waning blaze. (doom!)
~
“I can no longer see it,” growled Vidron, and the King, too, nodded, for the fire now was too dim for Man sight to detect. Yet the Warrows and Lord Gildor continued to watch the light fail. At last the Elf turned away, and not long after, the Warrows, for even their gem-hued eyes could see the fire no more.
“Well,” said Patrel, “what do you think it was?”
“Perhaps . . .” Gildor started to say, then: “Hsst! Something comes.” Once more the Elf’s hearing proved sharper than that of Man or Warrow, for they heard nought. Again Gildor leapt upon the wall and listened intently, turning his head this way and that. “I cannot say what it is, yet I sense that it is evil.” (doom!)
“There!” cried Danner, pointing. “Something looms in the dark.”
“What is it?” Vidron’s voice was grim. “What comes upon us?”
“Look there, in front!” cried Tuck. “Ogrus! They must be Ogrus!”
And out upon the plains came giant plodding Ogrus, hauling upon massive ropes, and behind, on great creaking wheels turning upon protesting iron axles, they towed a mighty ram, and catapults, and giant siege towers.
“Ai!” cried Gildor upon hearing the news, “now we know what it is that the Horde awaits: the siege engines needed to assault the Keep. What an evil day this is.” (doom!)
King Aurion stared through the ’Dark, and though he now could hear the grinding wheels and turning axles, still he could see nought. “Sir Tuck, what see you now?”
“Teams of Ogrus still pull the engines toward us,” answered Tuck. “In the fore is a great ram, and then three catapults come next. But behind are four . . . no, five tall towers—each high enough to o’ertop the walls. ‘Round them all rides an escort of Ghûls.” (doom!)
The King’s face was pale in the Shadowlight, yet the look in his eye more resolute than ever.
“Hey!” cried Danner. “That’s what we must’ve seen burning out on the plains.” At Tuck’s blank look, Danner explained, exasperated that Tuck did not see it for himself: “The towers, Tuck, the towers. One of them must have been what we saw burning.” Then a puzzled expression came over Danner’s face. “But who would burn the tower? Surely not the Ogrus, for they would not torch their own engine of destruction.”
“Lord Galen!” burst out Tuck, the pieces of the puzzle suddenly coming clear.
“Aye,” said Aurion Redeye, a look of fierce pride upon his features. “’Twas my son Galen and his company who did that deed, striking from the cover of the Enemy in Gron’s own foul darkness, turning Modru’s own vile cover ’gainst his lackeys, then melting away into the shadows ere the foe could strike back.”
“Then it must have been Lord Galen and his Men we saw silhouetted by the flames of the burning tower,” said Tuck. “And, too, now I think that the glimpses we’ve had of distant riders slipping in and out of shadow at the limit of our vision also were of Lord Galen’s band.”
“Just so.” Gildor nodded, for he had sensed that the shapes seen afar only by the Warrows were not foe, yet he had said nought.
“I wonder how many towers they burned beyond our seeing?” asked Tuck.
“We know not, yet I would that it had been five more,” answered Patrel, inclining his head toward the five great towers creaking toward the Keep.
The King called heralds to him and said, “The machines of the Enemy have come, and now they will assault the walls of the Keep. Go forth unto all of the companies and have them make ready their final preparations, for the Horde will not long wait.” And as the messengers sped away, Aurion Redeye turned to the Warrows. “I am told you are archers without peer. Have you enough arrows for the coming days?” (doom!)
“Sire,” Captain Patrel answered, “many a bolt have we fletched, for the arrows of Men are too lengthy to suit our small bows—though we could use them in a pinch. Little else have we done both on watch and off, yet the numbers of the Horde are such as to make me wish we had ten times the quarrels.”
“We simply shall have to make every one count,” said Tuck, “for as my instructor, Old Barlow, would say, ‘The arrow as strays might well’er been throwed away.’”
“Hmm,” mused Gildor, “your instructor had the right of it.”
“Sire!” exclaimed Vidron, “Look! Now I see them come from the darkness.”
At last the siege engines lumbered into the view of Man, and Marshal Vidron shook his head in rue, for they were mighty, and cunningly wrought to protect those using them. Forward they creaked, axles squealing: ram, towers, catapults.
“Ai! What a vile bane is that ram!” cried Gildor, pointing at the great batter. Now they could see that it had a mighty iron head shaped like a clenched fist mounted on the end of a massive wooden beam. “It is called Whelm, and dark was the day it rent through the very gates of Lost Duellin. I had thought it destroyed in the Great War, but now it seem
s that evil tokens have come upon us again.” (doom!)
Though Gildor seemed dismayed by the ram, it was the siege towers that frightened Tuck. Tall they were, and massive, clad with brass and iron. He did not see how Lord Galen’s company could have set one afire. Yet inside was wood: platforms; a frame with stairs mounting up; ramps set to fall upon the besieged battlements—bridges for the foe to swarm across.
“’Tis well that this castle is made of stone,” said Vidron, “but I fear that the catapults will prove the undoing of the city below, for they are terrible machines and will fling fire; much will burn to the ground.” (doom!)
Vidron’s words made Tuck realize that they each had looked upon a different engine as being most dire: ram, tower, and trebuchet. Tuck wondered if Man, Elf, and Warrow—or other Folk for that matter—always viewed the selfsame scene through the eyes of their own People; or did each person instead see things through his own eyes? Tuck could not say, for he knew that individual Warrows saw a given event differently, yet he also suspected that each Folk shared a common view.
Slowly, the siege towers and catapults were drawn by the mighty Ogrus to places spaced ’round the mont, while the great ram, Whelm, was aimed at the north gate. The sound of the Rûcken drum pounded forth: Doom, boom, doom! and the ranks of the Horde readied weapons: for the most part, cudgels and War-hammers and crescent scythes and great long dirks were brandished by the Rûcks, while the Hlôks held flails and curved scimitars, wicked and sharp, and the Ghûls upon Hèlsteeds couched barbed spears or bore fell tulwars, and great Troll War-bars were clutched in the massive hands of the Ogrus.
Yet the Horde did not attack. Instead, a blat of horns sounded, and a Ghûl and one other rode forth upon Hèlsteeds, while at their side loped a Rûck bearing the Sun-Death standard. Toward the north gate they paced.
“They come to parley,” said Lord Gildor.
“Then I shall go forth to meet them,” responded Aurion, turning to the ramp.
“But, Sire, I must protest!” cried Vidron. “There are two upon ’Steeds. It is a trap to lure you forth.”
Aurion looked to Gildor, who in turn gazed long out upon the field with his sharp sight. “One is no Ghûlk,” he said at last, “and he bears no weapon.”
“Then he is Modru’s messenger and speaks for the Evil One,” said Aurion, “and the Ghol is his escort.”
“Sire, let me go in thy stead.” Vidron dropped to one knee and held the hilt of his sword forth to the King. “If not that, then at thy side.”
“Nay, Hrosmarshal,” answered Aurion Redeye. “Put thy sword away, until it is needed defending these walls. This I must do for myself, for I have been pent here too long—and I would have words with Modru’s puppet.”
“But, Sire, I beg thee, take one of us.” Vidron’s hand swept wide, gesturing to all the warriors upon the rampart.
Aurion turned. “I shall need sharp eyes at my side: Sir Tuck, you shall bear my colors.” And as Vidron looked on in dismay, the King strode down from the wall with a wee Warrow running behind, legs churning to keep the pace.
And thus it was that Tuckerby Underbank was chosen to accompany the King; and he rushed to the stable and saddled his grey pony and rode down with Aurion, the young buccan bearing the High King’s colors: a golden griffin rampant upon a scarlet field.
Down the mont they rode, passing through the gateways of the upper walls. To the north gate of the first wall they came at last, and King Aurion bade the Warrow to give over his bow and quiver of arrows to the gate guard—for standard bearers at parleys are honor-bound to carry no weapons, else treachery would be suspected.
A small side-postern was opened, and the two rode forth: Aurion upon grey Wildwind, prancing and curvetting, the horse’s proud neck arched, hooves stepping high, and Tuck upon a small grey pony plodding stolidly at the War-steed’s side. And scarlet and gold flew from the staff held by the buccan.
As they approached Modru’s emissaries, Tuck’s blood ran chill at the sight:
In the Rûck he saw what Gildor had described: swart, skinny-armed, bandy-legged, wide-gapped mouth with needle-teeth, bat-winged ears, yellow viperous eyes, a hand or three taller than Warrows; though repelled by the Rûck, Tuck felt no fear, yet the Sun-Death standard planted in the frozen snow gave the buccan pause.
But it was the Ghûl that set the Warrow’s heart to pounding: corpse-white he was, with flat, dead-looking, ebon eyes; like a wound, a red mouth slashed across his pallid face, and his pale hands had long grasping fingers; tall he was, Man-height, but no Man was this malignant being, clothed in black and astride a horse-like creature.
As to the Hèlsteeds, Tuck was prepared for the cloven hooves, but when the great rat tails lashed about, the buccan saw that they were scaled; and the eyes of the beasts bore slitted pupils. Yet neither Tuck nor his grey pony nor even Wildwind was prepared for the foetid miasma that the creatures exuded—a foulness that made Tuck gag, and caused his pony and Aurion’s horse to shy and skit. Only the firm hands of Warrow and King kept their mounts from bolting.
Last, Tuck’s eye settled upon the third emissary: a Man, dark, as if from Hyree or Kistan. Yet he was strange, for spittle drooled from the corner of his mouth and his features were vapid, empty-eyed and slack-jawed, holding no spark of intelligence.
All this Tuck saw as they approached Modru’s trio, standing midway between the Horde and the north gate. The Warrow and the King drew up facing the emissaries, and the Ghûl looked from one to the other, his dead black eyes briefly locking upon Tuck’s gem-like sapphire-blue ones, and dread coursed through Tuck’s veins. The Ghûl escort then turned to Modru’s messenger, and in a dreadful voice, Like the dead would sound, thought Tuck, the Ghûl spoke a word in the harsh, slobbering, glottal Slûk speech: “Gulgok!”
And the vacant features of the swart Man’s face writhed, a malignant look filled his features, and his lips twisted into a cruel mocking snarl. With a cry, Tuck threw up his hand, and the King turned pale, for a great malevolence lashed out at them. And Tuck shuddered to hear the voice that followed, for it sounded like the hissing of pit adders:
“Aurion Redeye. I had not expected you,” the voice gloated; and the vile gaze turned to Tuck and glittered. “This is even sweeter, for you draw mine other enemies into the trap with you.” And Tuck felt the hackles on his neck rise, and his grip upon the staff showed white knuckles.
The malevolent gaze turned back to the King. “Look around you, fool. With your feeble one eye see the might that has come to throw you down, and think not to oppose it. This great boon I offer you: lay down your arms, surrender now, and you shall be permitted to exist in slavery, serving me for the rest of your days. Think upon this with the wisdom you are reputed to have, for no second chance will be offered. But you must choose now, for time slips swiftly through your grasp. What will you have, slavery or Death?” The sibilant voice fell silent, and glittering eyes stared from mocking face.
“Pah!” spat Aurion. “Say this to your vile Lord Modru: Aurion Redeye chooses freedom!”
A bone-chilling shriek of rage burst forth from the swart emissary, and hatred blasted down upon Tuck like a vile living force. “Then, Redeye, you choose Death!” screamed the voice, and the cruel mouth screeched a harsh command at the Ghûl and Rûck—“Gluktu!”—using the guttural Slûk speech.
The Ghûl flung up a tulwar and spurred his Hèlsteed forward, while at the same time the Rûck tugged at his cloak and drew a bow from concealment and fumbled at a black-shafted arrow to aim at the King.
“Treachery!” cried Tuck, clapping heels to his pony and riding at the Rûck, and out of the corner of his eye he saw King Aurion draw gleaming sword from scabbard and spur Wildwind forward. But then only the Rûck commanded Tuck’s view, for the swart maggot had set his black arrow to string and was drawing aim upon the King, the barb dripping a vile ichor. Raising the standard, Tuck brought it crashing down upon the Rûck’s head as the pony raced by, and the force of the blow was so great that the
pole snapped in twain, leaving Tuck gripping a jagged shaft. The black arrow hissed wide of the mark as the Rûck fell dead—skull crushed, neck broken.
Tuck wheeled the pony around, and heard and saw the clang of sword upon tulwar. And the Ghûl was skilled, for his blade slashed through Aurion’s guard and skittered across the King’s chain mail. But again, Tuck did not see more, for he rode his pony to come between the battling pair and the other emissary, placing himself in harm’s way to fend off a charge by the third foe. Yet the Hèlsteed moved not, and Tuck looked up into the visage of the enemy, but the eyes were vacant and the mouth slack and the face now void of wit, as if the malevolence had fled.
Clang! Chank! sword and tulwar clashed. Thunk! the King’s blade bit deeply, cleaving a great gash in the Ghûl, yet he did not bleed and fought on as if unwounded. Ching! Thock! now the tulwar slashed across the King’s forearm and blood welled forth. Chunk! again Aurion’s sword rived, once more the Ghûl’s flesh gaped, yet it was as if nought had happened. “His mount!” cried Tuck, and Aurion’s sword slashed through the throat of the Hèlsteed, and black gore spewed forth as the creature fell, flinging the Ghûl off. Tuck heard the snap of breaking bones, yet the Ghûl rose to his feet as if unharmed and slashed his tulwar up at Aurion, but the blow was caught by the King’s blade. Now the Ghûl emitted a chilling howl, and like cries answered from the Horde, and Hèlsteeds bearing Ghûls raced out from the ranks. Tuck saw them gallop forth, and in desperation he clapped heels to his pony and charged at the Ghûl, couching the splintered flagstaff like a spear, as he had seen Igon do at practice. Forward raced the pony. With a hideous Thuck! the jagged shaft caught the Ghûl full in the back and punched through, the splintered end emerging from his chest, and the jolting impact hurled Tuck backward over the cantle and to the frozen ground as the pony ran on. Dazed, the Warrow could hear the King calling his name, and he floundered to his feet, only to be jerked up off the ground and flung on his stomach in front of Aurion Redeye across Wildwind’s withers. And Tuck could not catch his breath as the King’s grey horse thundered for the north gate, and the pounding gallop caused Tuck to retch and lose his breakfast. Toward the gate they sped, with Ghûls in pursuit, but Wildwind was not to be headed, and he raced under a canopy of arrows shot from the walls at the pursuers. With howls of rage, the Ghûls sheered off the chase as Wildwind came to the side-postern and through, closely followed by Tuck’s free-running pony.
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