The Dark Tide

by Dennis L McKiernan

  The next dawn, many were awakened by the Shock! Shwok! of Tuck's practice, and they wondered at his dedication, for they could see that his arrows struck true. "Cor," breathed Sandy Pender of Midwood, helping to retrieve the bolts, "but you're a fine shot. Perhaps even as good as Captain Patrel."

  "Danner's the one you ought to see shoot," said Tuck. "He'd put us all to shame." Back went Tuck and continued his drill, standing far and near, uphill and down. He stopped to eat breakfast while his pony took some grain, and then he resumed. But at last it was time to get under way, and the Warrows mounted up, urging the ponies out of the grove to take up again the journey, now travelling north along the Post Road.

  Midmorn it began to snow, though there was no wind, and the horizon was hidden behind a thick wall of falling flakes. The Warrow column pressed doggedly on, the hill margins of the Battle Downs off to their right, and the long flat slope of land toward the far Spindle River on their left. Dim grey silence fluttered all about them as they rode.

  Still the flakes fell as the blear day trudged into the afternoon. Tuck was riding at the head of the column when he looked up to see horses and a waggon loom up through the snow. It was the fore of a refugee train, and the young buccen rode off to one side heading northward while the horses plodded and the wains groaned southward. Both Men and Warrows eyed each other as they passed, and Patrel spoke briefly with the Captain of the escort. The waggon train was nearly two miles long, and it took almost an hour for them to pass one another, for the last wain to disappear south in the snow as the last Warrow vanished north.

  "They're headed for Trellinath," said Patrel. "Old Men, Women, and children. Across the Bosky, then south through Wellen and Kael Gap. Ah, me, what an arduous journey for them." Tuck said nought, and north they rode.

  Four days later they camped for the evening in the last northern margins of the Battle Downs. They had ridden north for two days, swung east for two more, and now the road had begun to swing north again. They had settled up in a stand of cedar, perhaps a furlong from the road. The Sun had set, and a full Moon rode the night sky. Tuck had finished his archery practice and was sitting by the campfire writing in his diary.

  "Two more days, perhaps three, and well be there, eh, Patrel?" he asked, pausing in his writing. At Patrel's nod, Tuck jotted a note in his journal and snapped it shut, putting it into his jacket pocket.

  Shortly, all except the sentinels had bedded down. But it seemed to Tuck that he had no more than closed his eyes when he was awakened to a darkened camp by Delber. "Shhh," cautioned the Warrow, "it's mid of night and something comes along the road."

  Tuck silently moved through the campsite and awakened others, and bows were made ready. Now could all hear the jingle of armor and clatter of weaponry amid the thud of many hooves. Below, a cavalcade of mounted soldiers cantered north through the bright moonlight. The Warrow company watched them pass, and made no signal. When they were gone, a new fire was kindled, and the young buccen went back to sleep.

  All the next day they rode, and there was much speculation about the night riders. "Nar, I don't think they were forces of Modru, even though they did ride at night," said Danner. "Men they were, riding to the Keep."

  "Yar, answering to the King's call, like us," said Finley. "Besides, were it Modru's forces, I think as we would'er sensed it. They say as the Ghûls casts fear."

  "Oh, it's not the Ghûls that cast fear," chimed up Sandy, contradicting Finley, "it's Gargons. Turn you to stone, too, they say." At the mention of Gargons, Tuck's blood ran chill for they were dire creatures of legend.

  "Wull, if it's Gargons as cast fear, what is it that the Ghûls do?" asked Finley. "I've heard they're most terrible."

  "Savage, horse-borne reavers they are," answered Sandy, "virtually unkillable, for it is said that the Ghûls are in league with Death."

  "Ar, that's right," said Finley, "now I remember. But I seem to recall that they ride beasts like horses but not horses. And don't the Ghûls just about have to be chopped to shreds before they die?"

  "Wood through the heart or a pure silver blade," murmured Tuck, remembering fables.

  On they rode, all through the day, stopping but briefly for rests. The Sun swung through the high blue sky, but the land below was cold. The snow scratched under the ponies' hooves, and the Warrows put up their hoods and looked upon the bright white 'scape through squinted eyes and saw only unrelieved flatness.

  Slowly the Sun sank, and when night came they camped in a small ravine on an otherwise featureless plain of Rian.

  The next day the land slowly changed into rolling prairie as the Warrow column went on. Occasionally they passed a lonely farmstead, but only one— a mile or so east of the road—had smoke rising from the chimney, and they did not ride to it.

  That night they camped in the southern lee of a low hill where stood a copse of hickory, the thickset small trees harsh and grasping in the winter eve. The young buccen had settled in but an hour or two when drumming hoofbeats ran toward the north and a lone rider hurtled past on the nearby road. Again they did not hail. Yet, Finley was dispatched up the hill to the crest to watch the rider in the bright moonlight, to see him on his way.

  "Ai-oi!" cried Finley from the hilltop. "This way, buccoes. We've arrived!"

  All the company scrambled up to Finley, and he was pointing to the north. "There she be." And a hush of awe befell them.

  The land fell away before them, beneath the light of the Moon. Along the road sped the rider, now but a fleeting dark speck on a shadowy blanket of silvered white. Yet off to the north all eyes were drawn, for glimmering there, perhaps ten miles away, like a spangle of stars mounting up a snow-covered tor springing forth from the argent plains, winked the myriad lights of their goal—Challerain Keep.

  "Lor, but it's big. Look at all those lights," breathed Dilby in the silence as they stood and gazed in wonder at the first city any of them had ever seen. "Why, there must be hundreds, no, thousands of them."

  "Mayhap we look upon the campfires of an army as well as the homelamps of a city," said Patrel.

  "More like several armies, if you ask me," said Danner. "See, to the right are what look to be three main centers, and to the left, two more. I make it to be five armies plus a city."

  "Well, we will find out tomorrow when we ride in," said Patrel. "But if we are going to be bright for the King, then it's to bed we must go."

  Tuck reluctantly turned and went with the others down to the hickory thicket, to the Warrow encampment. His being was filled with the excitement of watching distant fires and speculating upon the Folk gathered about them. His mind was awhirl with thought, and he paused to scribe in his diary. Yet when he set it aside and took to his bedroll, sleep was a long time coming.

  All the young buccen were eager to set out the next day, to gaze upon Challerain Keep, and to move through its streets. "Coo, a real city," said Argo as they broke camp and mounted up and rode over the crest of the hill to see from afar the terraced buildings mounting up toward the central Keep. "What will a village bumpkin like me, straight from the one street of Wigge, do in a great place as that is like to be? No matter where you turn, there'll be streets running every which way. And shops and buildings and everything. What with this, that, and the other, it'll be as confusing as the inside of the Barrier, and like as not we'll be lost before it's over."

  Tuck felt as if Argo had voiced the silent thoughts of each and every Warrow. "You're right, Argo, it will be confusing to us all, but exciting, too. Hoy! Let's kick up this pace a bit!" They clapped heels into pony flanks, and, shouting with laughter and anticipation, the young buccen raced galloping down the white slopes, powdery snow billowing and pluming up from the ponies as they plunged through the deep drifts onto the great long flats leading toward the distant city. The pace slowed once they regained the Post Road, and steadily they went north. Slowly, ever so slowly, the distance diminished, but their excitement grew.

  Long ago, in very ancient times, there had been
no city of Challerain; it was merely the name given to a craggy mount standing tall amid a close ring of low foothills upon the rolling grassland prairies of Rian. Then there came the stirrings of War, and a watch was set upon Mont Challerain. Various kinds of beacon fires would be lit as signals, to warn off approaching armies, or to signal muster call, or to celebrate victory, or to send messages to distant Realms. These tidings were sent via the chain of signal fires that ran down the ancient range of tall hills called the Signal Mountains and south from there over the Dellin Downs into Harth and the Lands beyond. War did come, and many of those signal towers were destroyed, but not the one atop Mont Challerain.

  After the War, this far northern outpost became a fortress—Challerain Keep. And with the establishment of a fort, a village sprang up at the foot of Mont Challerain. Yet it would have remained but a small hamlet, except the High King himself came north to the fortress to train at arms; and he established his summer court there, where he could overlook the approaches to the Rigga Mountains, and beyond, to Gron.

  Year after year the King returned, and at last a great castle was raised, incorporating the fort within its grounds. It was then that the village grew into a town, and the town into a city. The city prospered, and it, too, was called Challerain Keep. This it had been for thousands of years.

  As the Warrow column gradually drew closer, they began to discern some details of the city. The mount shouldered up broadly out of low rolling foothills upon the prairie and rose eight or nine hundred feet above the plain. At its peak stood a castle: rugged it looked, even from afar, not at all like an airy castle of fable, but rather like one of strength: crenellated granite battlements loomed starkly 'round blocky towers. The grey castle stood within grounds consisting of gentle slopes that terminated in craggy drops stepping far down the tor sides until at last they fetched up against another massive rampart rearing up to circle the entire mount. On these Kingsgrounds there were many groves, and pines growing in the crags, and several lone giants standing in the meadows, many trees bereft in winter dress. There, too, were several buildings, perhaps stables or warehouses—the Warrows could not tell—and, of course, the citadel itself.

  Below the Kingsgrounds began the city proper. There stood tier upon tier of red, blue, green, white, yellow, square, round, large, small, stone, brick, wooden, and every other color, shape, size, and type of building imaginable, all ajumble in terraced rings descending down the slopes. Running among the homes, shops, storehouses, stables, and other structures were three more massive defense walls, stepped evenly down the side of Mont Challerain, the lowest one nearly at the level of the plain. Only a few permanent structures lay outside the first wall.

  Out on the crests of hills to the east and west sprawled the encampments of massed armies, yet there seemed to be less activity than could be expected from the extent of the bivouac—fewer Men and horses, as it were, for the number of tents.

  All this and more the Warrows saw as slowly they came toward the hills and unto the city. Finally, in late morning, the company rode up among the sparse buildings flanking the Post Road to come at last to the open city gates, laid back against the first wall with a portcullis raised high. Fur- and fleece-clad, iron-helmed soldiers from the nearby camps streamed to and fro. Atop the barbican stood several Men in red and gold—the gate guard—and one leaned on his hands on the parapet and looked down upon the Warrows with wonder in his eyes. And he called to his companions, and all looked in surprise at the small ones below.

  "Ho!" called up Patrel. "Which way to the castle?" he asked, then felt very stupid, for, of course, the castle was at the very top of the mount. Yet the guardsman merely smiled and called back that all they had to do was stay upon the Post Road and it would bear them there.

  In through the twisting cobblestone passage under the wall they rode, looking up at the machicolations through which hot oil or missiles could be rained down upon an enemy. At the other end of the barway another portcullis stood raised, and beyond that the Warrows rode into the lower levels of the city proper, and the smells and sounds and sights of the city assaulted them, and their senses were overwhelmed, for they had ridden into an enormous bazaar, the great open market of Rian at Challerain Keep.

  The square was teeming with people, buyers and sellers. Farmers from nearby steads were selling hams, beef, sausages, bacon, geese, duck, and fowl of other sorts. They offered carrots, turnips, potatoes, grain, and other commodities. And many customers crowded around the stalls, purchasing staples. Hawkers moved through the crowds selling baskets, gloves, warm hats, brooms, pottery, and such. A fruit seller peddled dried apples and peaches and a strange orange fruit said to come from far south, from Sarain or Thyra or beyond. The odor of fresh-baked bread wafted o'er all and mingled with that of hot pies and other pastries. Jongleurs strolled, playing flutes and harps, lute and fifes, and timbrels, and some juggled marvelously. Here and there soldiers and townsfolk warmed themselves over fires of charcoal set in open braziers and talked among themselves, some laughing, others looking stern, some nodding quietly, others gesticulating.

  Through the ebb and flow of the crowd rode forty-three Warrows on ponyback, hooves clattering on the cobbles. The eyes of the young buccen were filled with the glory and marvel of it—why, this was perhaps even more exciting than the Boskydell Fair—and they looked in wonder this way and that, trying to see everything. They were so overwhelmed that they did not note that townsfolk and soldiers were staring back at the Warrows in amazement, too, for here come among them were the Wee Folk of legend with their jewel-like eyes.

  At last the column rode out of the market square. Now they moved between the shops of crafters—a cobbler's shop, a goldsmithery, mills, lumberyards and carpentries, inns and hostelries, blacksmitheries and ironworks and armories, kilns, stoneworks, and the like. And above many of the shops and businesses were the dwellings of the owners and workers. And the cobbled Post Road wended through this industry, spiraling up and around the mount, climbing toward the crest. Narrow alleyways shot off between hued buildings, and steep streets slashed across the Road. But for the signs at each corner, the Warrows easily could have been lost in the maze of the city. Following the well-marked Post Road, they clattered through the streets of shops and warehouses and workyards, yet as they rode they noted that many of these businesses stood abandoned.

  Again they came to a massive wall and followed the road as it curved alongside the bulwark. At last they came to a gate, and it, too, was guarded but open. Through it and up they rode, now among colorful row houses with unexpected corners and stairs mounting up, and balconies and turrets, too, their roofs now covered with snow, bright tiles peeking out here and there. Yet here also, buildings stood empty. But where there were people, they stopped in the streets or leaned out of windows to watch the Wee Folk ride by.

  Here there were but a few hawkers: a knife sharpener; a charcoal vendor; a horse-drawn waggon hauling water from the prairie wells up to households on the mount to augment the fluctuating supply provided by frequent but highly variable summer rains and winter snowmelts, caught by the tile roofs and channelled into catchments.

  Once more they passed through a barway under a great rampart—the third wall—and again they wended among houses, now larger and more stately than those below, yet still close-set. Again there was an aura of abandonment, for people were sparse and homes unattended.

  "Hey," said Argo to Tuck, "have you seen all these empty houses?" At Tuck's nod, Argo went on. "Well now I ask you, how can the market down at the first gate be doing such a brisk trade in an almost deserted city?" Tuck, of course, had no answer, and on they rode.

  At last they arrived at the fourth wall, the one encircling the Kingsgrounds. When they came to the gate, the portcullis was down, although the massive iron gates themselves were laid back against the great wall. Up to the portal they rode and stopped, the clatter of pony hooves on cobbles ceased, and in the airy silence Patrel hailed the guard atop the barbican: "Hoy there! Gu
ardsman!"

  "State your business," called down one of the Men.

  "We are the Company of the King," cried Patrel, and all the Warrows sat proud, "and we've come from the Boskydells in answer to his summons."

  Impressed though he was by the very fact that he looked upon Wee Folk, still the Man atop the wall smiled to himself that such a small ragtag group would give themselves the auspicious title "Company of the King." Yet from legend he knew that another small group of these Wee Folk, these Waerlinga, had played a key part in the Great War; thus he was not at all prone to scoff at them. "One moment," he called. "I'll get my Captain."

  The Man disappeared behind the merlons, and the Warrows sat calmly waiting. Shortly, another Man appeared, calling down, "Are you warriors come to serve the King in this hour of need?"

  "Yes," called Patrel back up to the tower, but in a low voice he said to Tuck and Danner, "though warrior is perhaps too strong a term." Then again he called up, "We are the Company of the King, Thornwalkers of the Boskydells, Land of the Barrier. We answer to the King's call, though the herald who bore us that message is dead, Vulg slain."

  "Dead? Vulg slain?" cried the tower commander. "Enter. I shall meet you." He turned to the guard, squad and ordered, "Open the waybar," and disappeared from view as Men rushed to winches. With a clatter of gears, slowly the portcullis was raised until at last it was up.

  The column rode into the passage under the wall and waited until the second portcullis was raised, too, and at last rode out into the Kingsgrounds, where waited the guard Captain. "I will take you to Hrosmarshal Vidron, Kingsgeneral, Fieldmarshal. He must be told of the death of the herald. It is he you want to see, in any case, for he commands the Allies if the King himself cannot take to the field. Now, follow me, we go to the Old Fort." The Man leapt upon the back of a dun-colored horse, and along the cobbles of the Post Road they clattered, at times mounting up along craggy bluffs, drawing ever closer to the Keep.