A loud crashing rumble sounded through the Door.
“Wha . . . ?” cried Tuck.
“The edifice,” answered Brega. “The Madûk in its fury has torn down the columns. It has collapsed.”
Boom: Boom: Boom: A thunderous whelming sounded.
“The Hèlarms hurls stone at the Door in rage now,” said Gildor, “for you have thwarted him, cheated him of his victims.”
“Brega, can you try to open the doors again?” Galen looked grim. Boom: Boom!
“Aye, King Galen, but why: There is a mad Monster waiting to crush us on the other side.” Brega was dumbfounded by Galen’s request. Boom: Boom: Boom!
“Because we may be trapped, Brega,” answered Galen. “And Modru’s Dread dwells in our prison.”
Brega’s face blenched, and grimly he went to the Door. Boom: Boom: Once more he put his hand to one of the strange massive hinges and muttered words, and after a moment he cried, “Gaard!” But nought seemed to happen, though Brega held his hand to the portal and said, “It trembles, but whether from trying to open or from the fearful pounding, I cannot say. The hinges now may be broken or the Door may be blocked, but it opens not.” Boom: Boom: Boom: Once more Brega placed his hand on the hinge. “Gaard!” he barked, revoking the command to open.
“Did I not say, ‘I do not like this plan’: And now we are trapped. We cannot get out.” Brega’s voice was bitter. “We cannot get out.” Boom: Boom!
“Except perhaps through the Dawn-Gate,” Galen said grimly.
“But that is on the other side of the Grimwall!” cried Brega. “And I do not know the way.”
“Gildor has strode it,” said Tuck.
“That was long ago, and but once,” answered Gildor, holding a hand to his chest and breathing slowly. But Tuck could sense that the Elf suffered a distress beyond that of punished ribs, and the Warrow wondered at Gildor crying out his brother’s name, “Vanidor!”
Boom!
“Yet we have no other choice,” said Galen. “We now must try to pierce the length of the Black Hole and escape through the Dawn-Gate, for the Dusk-Door is closed to us. And we must be out and away ere the Ghola can ride over the Quadran Pass and carry word of us to the Gargon, else that evil Vûlk will seek us out.” Boom: Boom!
“What you say is true,” said Gildor, groaning to his feet and retrieving Red Bale from under the packs where Tuck had dropped them. Handing the blazing long-knife to the buccan, the Elf sheathed his own scarlet-flaming sword, saying, “We must attempt to go through, and quickly. In this we have no choice.” Boom!
And so the four shouldered their packs, and, after some thought, Gildor led them up the stairs, Brega at his side holding high the lamp, with Tuck and Galen coming after.
Into Black Drimmen-deeve they strode, into the halls of the Dread, while behind them knelling down the ebon corridors the enraged pounding went on: Boom: Boom: Boom!
3
The Struggles
Out through the sundered north gate of Challerain Keep fled the pony bearing double, past struggling Men and Ghûls, beyond screaming horses and grunting Hèlsteeds, away from the ring and skirl of steel upon steel and the howls of ravers and the cries of death. And Danner clasped Patrel tightly around the waist as west they galloped under the shadow of the first wall, turning across the foregate flats and bolting up and into the foothills.
On the slopes of a low hill they stopped and watched the battle boil out of the gate, raging in fury. Clots of struggling Men broke free only to be engaged again, and many fell dead unto the snow.
“Have you any arrows?” asked Patrel.
“None,” answered Danner. “I spent my last when I slew Snake-Voice.”
“Weaponless, we cannot rejoin the combat,” Patrel’s voice was grim, “for then we would be a hindrance rather than a help.”
They dismounted and looked down upon the seething battle: Patrel squatted before the pony, his gaze intent; Danner stood and glared, clenching and unclenching his fists.
This way and that the fighting raged, a swirling chaotic mêlée of riving swords and thrusting spears along the edge of a ravine. Helms were sundered and mail was pierced, and cries rang out through the air. Men fell dead, and Ghûls, too, and now and then a Warrow. Horses ran free, unchecked by their fallen riders, and at times ponies fled alone.
And Danner stomped back and forth in the snow, his teeth grinding in fury, his smoldering amber eyes never looking away, while Patrel squatted impassively, his viridian gaze glinting.
Suddenly Patrel sprang to his feet. “The King!” he cried, pointing to where combat swirled around grey Wildwind.
Aurion Redeye was surrounded and he smote mightily with his sword. Ghûls fell dead, skulls cloven, beheaded, yet others pressed inward, one to hurl a lance that pierced the King through. Still Aurion hewed and smote, and two more foe fell slain. Into the clot charged the Elf Lord Gildor, his blazing red sword slashing, a flaming blue long-knife fending tulwar strikes. To Aurion’s side he rived a path, and the Ghûls quailed back before the werelight of the two Elven blades. For a moment they faced the foe—warrior Elf and spear-pierced King confronting raver Ghûls—and neither side moved; but then Aurion slumped forward upon the back of Wildwind, and the howling Ghûls turned and spurred away.
Danner stood stock still, his face gone cold, his eyes auric ice, while Patrel now paced in fury, green fire in his gaze. And then they both stood without moving as they watched Lord Gildor ride away from the battleground leading Wildwind; when he was clear of the mêlée, the Elf dismounted and lowered Aurion to the ground and after a moment composed the King’s hands across his breast and laid his sword beside him.
“Aurion Redeye is dead,” said Danner, his voice flat and emotionless, while Patrel turned his face away, his emerald eyes full of tears.
“Hai, look!” called Danner. “Vidron breaks away!”
Patrel turned to see a force of Men burst free at last, led by silver-bearded Vidron: horses running east, Ghûls in hot pursuit. Gildor, too, spurred forth, Wildwind in tow, swinging wide to pass outside the pursuing Ghûls, Fleetfoot’s swift strides racing around and beyond the Hèlsteeds’ hammering pace.
Rûcks and Hlôks boiled out of the north gate, as well as an Ogru or two, and began looting the bodies of the slain. Ghûls, too, there were, standing athwart the path taken by the fleeing Men.
“They block our way,” gritted Danner. “Now we cannot follow without a detour.”
“The rendezvous is at the Battle Downs,” said Patrel. “We’ll circle west and go down the Post Road.”
Again they mounted Patrel’s pie-face pony, Danner behind, and made their way into the Shadowlight covering the foothills clutched unto Mont Challerain.
“Did you see aught of other Warrows who broke free?” asked Patrel.
“No,” grunted Danner. “Neither afoot nor on pony nor astride horse behind Man.”
“Only eight of us made it to the north gate,” said Patrel. “And I saw two, no . . . three, fall after that, though I am not sure who they were. Sandy, perhaps, but who else I cannot say.”
“Tuck?” Danner’s voice nearly choked.
“I don’t know, Danner,” answered Patrel. “It could have been Tuck, but I just can’t say. Listen, Danner, we’ve got to face the fact that we may be the last of the Company of the King. No one else may have survived.”
They rode in silence for awhile. “We’ll find out at the rendezvous whether or not any other Thornwalkers came through,” said Danner at last.
Onward they went, winding through the slopes.
“Look!” cried Patrel, pointing. Ahead in the vale before them stood a white pony, saddled and bridled—one of those ridden by the Warrows.
“Go easy,” said Danner, “for he still may be spooked by the battle, or the stench of Hèlsteeds.”
Slowly they rode down to the small steed, and Patrel’s pie-face pony whickered, and the white came trotting, as if glad to see another pony, and the Warrows, too.
“No more, Danner, no more,” responded Patrel. “Whoever had her before, she’s now yours to ride.”
Danner mounted and on they went, swinging southward now, edging through the hills.
Twenty miles they rode before making camp in a thicket on a rolling slope upon the plains south of Mont Challerain. Crue they had in their saddlebags, but no grain for the steeds. Danner dug under the snow and found quantities of prairie grass, still nourishing to the steeds for Modru’s early winter had preserved it.
At last they rebandaged Patrel’s wounded hand, the left one, cut shallowly by an enemy blade at the battle for the fourth wall. “Let us hope the edge was not poisoned,” grunted Danner.
Patrel took the first watch and Danner bedded down in the cold; they had made no fire, for they were yet too near the enemy.
~
Danner had not slept long when he was awakened by Patrel: “A rider bears south out upon the plains to the west of us.”
They stood at the edge of the thicket and watched as the far black steed hammered past through the Shadowlight, a mile or so to the west.
“Hoy!” exclaimed Danner, “I think that’s a horse, not a Hèlsteed. And look, mounted before: Is that another rider: A Warrow?”
Danner sprang forth from the thicket: “Hiyo!” he cried, waving his arms, but the distant courser hammered on, and ere he could call out again: “Danner!” barked Patrel, “Hail not: For even if it is a horse, and I think you are right, still we know not what other ears may hear your shout—and we are without weapons.”
Reluctantly, Danner held his call, for Patrel was right; and they watched the black steed drive onward into the Dimmendark, to disappear at last in the distant Shadowlight.
~
South they bore, two more ’Darkdays, heading for the Battle Downs, though neither knew just where they should ride, for as Patrel put it: “The Battle Downs is a wide place, easily fifty miles broad and more than a hundred long. An army could be lost in there; how we’ll find the remnants of the force from the Keep, I cannot say, yet they’ll need our eyes to guide them if no other Warrows have escaped at their side.”
“We’ll go on to Stonehill, then,” said Danner. “That was the next rendezvous point.”
And so southward they rode.
~
The next ’Darkday, as they broke camp, Patrel said, “If my reckoning is correct, it is the last day of December, Year’s End Day. Tomorrow is Twelfth Yule.”
“Ar, I don’t think we’ll be doing any celebrating tonight,” responded Danner, “even though the old year dies and the new one begins.” Danner looked about. “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever envision spending a Year’s End Day like this: weary, hungry, half frozen, and fleeing weaponless from a teeming foe through a dismal murk sent by an evil power living in an iron tower in the Wastes of Gron.”
Patrel finished cinching the saddle on his pony and turned to Danner. “Tell me, Danner,” said the diminutive buccan, “what are you going to do next year when things really get bad?”
Flabbergasted, his mouth agape, Danner stared at Patrel. Then gales of laughter burst forth long and hard, Patrel whooping and shrieking, Danner doubled over holding his sides, his shouting guffaws ringing out across the plains. The ponies turned their heads back toward the whooping Warrows and cocked an eye and an ear, and this set Danner to laughing even harder, and he pointed and fell backwards in the snow, while Patrel looked and dropped to his knees, tears running down his face.
Long they laughed, gales bursting out anew, and Danner walked on his knees through the snow and threw his arms about Patrel and hugged him and laughed. At last, wiping their eyes with the heels of their hands, they both stood and mounted up and headed southward once more. Each rode with a great smile on his face and now and again would explode into a fit of giggles or great belly laughs to be joined by the other; and weary and hungry and half frozen, they fled weaponless from a teeming foe through a dismal murk sent by an evil power in an iron tower in the Wastes of Gron—and they laughed.
~
They had ridden nearly ten miles along the Post Road, wending along the northern margins of the Battle Downs, when they came upon the ravaged waggon train, and the carnage appalled them.
“This is Laurelin’s caravan,” grated Danner, his fists clenched knuckle-white as they strode past the victims.
Down one side of the train they went and back up the other, searching for survivors, but there were only the frozen corpses of the slain.
“Oi: Look here,” said Patrel, kneeling in the snow. “A wide track beats east, cloven hooves: Hèlsteeds.”
“Ghûls!” spat Danner, and then as if to confirm it they saw the slain body of one of the corpse-people, head cloven in twain by sword. “How old is the track?”
“That I cannot judge,” answered Patrel, “at least five ’Darkdays, perhaps seven or more.”
“Wait,” said Danner, “this train left the Keep on First Yule and this is Eleventh Yule. They couldn’t have gotten here before late Fourth Yule even if they raced south, nor would they have dallied to pass here after Seventh Yule.”
“That would make it six ’Darkdays old, then,” said Patrel, “give or take a day.”
On they pressed back along the train, looking into the wains, and at the faces of the slain.
“She’s missing,” gritted Danner. “Prince Igon, too.”
“Either they got away or are hostage,” responded Patrel. “If they escaped, they’ve most likely headed south; if hostage . . . “ Patrel pointed east along the Ghûlen wake.
Danner angrily smacked fist into palm. “Ponies can’t catch Hèlsteeds.” His voice was filled with frustration.
“Even if they could,” said Patrel, “the Ghûls have got an insurmountable lead on us, and who knows where they’re bound: Besides, we know not whether Laurelin or Igon are hostage. Perhaps they escaped.”
Danner stood in brooding thought. Without warning, he shouted out a wordless cry of wrath. “Ar, what evil choices!” he spat, and then visibly tried to gather in his emotions. At last he grated, “You are right, Patrel, they ride Hèlsteeds, not ponies, and a six-day lead could as well be sixty for all we could do to catch them, whether or not the two are captive. Let us press on for Stonehill; when we tell this tale, Vidron or Gildor will lead fleet horses in pursuit of the Ghûls if need be—if there is still a chance, though I think it will have gone aglimmering.”
Patrel nodded. “Let us find some arrows, and grain, and perhaps other supplies from this whelmed caravan. Then will we push for Stonehill.”
An hour later, west they went following along the Post Road, leaving the butchered waggon train behind.
~
That night, angled far off the road, they sat trimming arrows by a small shielded campfire, the first one they had made since leaving Challerain Keep, and Patrel looked up to see tears aglisten in Danner’s amber eyes. Danner stared into the fire, unseeing, his voice breaking: “She called me her dancer, you know.”
~
The Post Road swung south again as it rounded the Battle Downs, and down it the ponies went, Patrel on the pie-face, Danner on the white, and all about them the Shadowlight streamed.
“This road certainly looks different now than when we first fared north,” said Patrel.
Danner merely grunted, and the ponies plodded on as snow began to fall. “Welcome to the new year,” growled Danner, looking upward into the Dimmendark at the eddying flakes. Then he looked at Patrel: “Welcome to the new year, Paddy, for it’s Last Yule. And remember: this is the year our troubles really begin.” And they managed wan smiles at one another.
~
On the night of the sixth ’Darkday since leaving Challerain Keep, they camped on a slope to the east of where the Upland Wa
y met the Post Road.
Danner stood looking down at that junction, and as Patrel brought him a cup of hot tea, the smaller Warrow said, “To think, Danner, it was but four weeks past that we came across Spindle Ford and out of the Bosky and up that road.”
“Four weeks?” Danner sipped his tea, his eyes never leaving the road. “Seems like years instead of weeks. At least I feel years older.”
Patrel threw a hand onto Danner’s shoulder. “Perhaps you are years older, Danner; perhaps we all are.”
~
Four ’Darkdays later, they rode onto a causeway over a dike and through gates flung wide in a high guard wall and into the village of Stonehill. Around them a hundred or so stone houses mounted up the slopes of the coomb, a great swale hollowed into the side of the large hill to the north and east. The ponies’ hooves rang hollowly upon the cobbles and echoed back from the closed and shuttered houses, and no movement at all could be seen on the empty village streets.
“It looks abandoned,” said Patrel, unshouldering his bow and setting arrow to string.
Danner said nought as he, too, readied his weapon, his eyes sweeping the dark doorways and closed-up windows. A thin wind sprang up, gnawing around corners, sending tiny twisting streamers of snow scurrying amongst the pave stones.
On through the vacant streets they went, coming at last to Stonehill’s one hostel, its signpost squeaking in the chill wind.
“If anyone’s here, they’ll be at the inn,” said Danner, squinting up at the sign displaying the likeness of a white unicorn rampant on a field of red, bearing the words: The White Unicorn, Bockleman Brewster, Prop.
~
Stonehill was a village on the western fringes of the sparsely settled Wilderland, a village situated at the junction of the east-west Crossland Road and the Post Road running north and south. It was a trading center for farmers, woods dwellers, and travellers. The White Unicorn, with its many rooms, usually had a wayfarer or two as well as a nearby settler staying overnight. But occasionally there would be some “real” strangers, such as King’s-soldiers from the Keep heading south, or a company of travelling Dwarves; in which case the local folk would be sure to drop in to the ’Unicorn’s common room for a pint or two and a look at the strangers and to hear the news from far away, and there’d be much singing and merriment.
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