Trek to Kraggen-Cor

by McKiernan, Dennis L. , 1932-

  They continued this swift pace for two more days, going some sixty miles more. But on the next day it rained, slowing progress, for the roadbed was ancient and did not drain well, and by the time the latter part of the train came, the pathway was a sea of mud, churned to muck by all the tramping Dwarf boots and turning waggon wheels and driving horse hooves that had gone before. At times the late wains became mired beyond the strength of the horses to pull them free, and spare horses and Dwarves would then help wrest the waggons out.

  Being at the very last of the train, Cotton and Bomar's yellow cook-waggon was often bogged down, and their usual good tempers suffered as a result. "You know, Bomar," complained Cotton, nettled, "the trouble with being at the tail end of things is not only do we get stuck a lot, but also we're the last ones to find out what's going on. I mean, here we are, just as important as anyone else in this army, but we never seem to know what's going on. It's either stand around and wait, or rush to get ready, and we never find out what's happening til we fall in a hole, or get stuck, or what have you. I don't

  much like it, Bomar, this not knowing, and I don't like all of this hurry up and wait either."

  "Hah! Friend Cotton," laughed Bomar, "now I know that you are at last a true campaigner, for you have just voiced the warrior's eternal plaint. It has ever been so in armies since time began and shall be so for as long as they exist. It is the soldier's lot to 'never know' and to 'hurry up and wait.' " Dwarf and Warrow, they both laughed long, and thereafter their spirits were high, even though the waggon often mired and one or the other had then to jump down to help roll it free.

  Trie column stretched out in length for nearly eight miles as the front of the train made good time while the last did not. Thus it was that when it came time to stop, although the front halted, the rear was far behind and had to keep travelling to close up the line; and Cotton and Bomar did not arrive until three more hours had elapsed.

  That day the column moved only twenty-two miles.

  The next day was clear, and as the Legion marched, the roadbed dried out, and so good progress was made. Far ahead they could see an arm of the mountains standing across the land to block their way, but as they drew nearer, the Old Rell Way swung out on a southwesterly course to go around this spur. They forced march this direction for three more days, and on the fourth day the Way again swung back to the south and east as they rounded the side-chain and at last headed on a line for the Quadran and Drimmen-deeve. It was the sixteenth day since they had left Landover Road Ford and the ninth day of march from the Crestan Pass, the Host was weary, yet on this day Rand dropped back the pace, for he reasoned that they had drawn nearly even with their original plan.

  Trie way began rising up again through the foothills as the Army tramped toward the Quadran; and finally there hove into view the four great mountains under which Kraggen-cor was delved: Greytower, Loftcrag, Grimspire, and mighty Stormhelm. The Legion's goal, the Dusk-Door, was carved in the Loom of Grimspire, a hard day's trek south of Stormhelm's flanks. Yet now that the four soaring peaks were in sight, all of those striding south along Old Rell Way felt that they could nearly see their destination; their spirits lifted and new vigor coursed through their veins.

  That night, Rand estimated that four more days on the march would bring them to the Door.

  Two days later, just at sundown, the column pitched camp at an old fork in the road. Rand and Durek and Brytta looked at the ways before them. "'I he left-hand course—Quadran Road—goes up to Quadran Pass," said Rand climb over the Grimwall and come down the Quadran Run to the Pitch

  below. We can no longer cross over; the entire saddle is white; the way is barred by snow. The right-hand course bears south to the Dusk-Door; it is the continuation of the old trade route between the Elves of Lianion—called Rell by Men—and your ancestors in Kraggen-cor, King Durek. By this route —the Old Rell Way—we will come to the Door in a half and one day."

  "It is as I feared back at the ford/' rasped Durek, his sight leaping up the stone ramparts to the snowbound gap above. "The way over the Mountain is blocked. The blizzard that nearly thwarted us at the Crestan Pass had wide wings, and here the slot is closed. Yet but had we the knowledge of the Elden, even now the col might still afford entry into Kraggen-cor: Chakka lore has it that a secret High Gate opens into the Quadran Gap. Yet in these latter days we know not where it lies—whether this side or that, or in between, in the clear or buried under snow, we know it not. But, though we here are ignorant, perhaps it has been discovered by the foul Squam since their occupation of Kraggen-cor; and even now hostile eyes may be upon us, spying out our every move." At these words Brytta's hand strayed to his spear, and Durek grimly smiled at the warrior's reaction. "Yet I think not, Reachmarshal, for the High Gate was secret, and even Gatemaster Barak may find it hard to discover its location, much less the manner of its working."

  Durek's words did not soothe Marshal Brytta, for his sharp eyes continued to search the upward slopes.

  "And so," continued Durek, "with the pass closed, if we fail to open the Dusken Door, then we must go far south through Gunar Slot to the Gunar-ring Gap to come to the other side of the Mountains. But let us not speak of failure; instead, let us go to sit with Friend Cotton at the last fire." And they strode to the far yellow waggon, arriving in time to eat.

  The waxing Moon had risen in the early afternoon and passed overhead two hours after supper. Speculatively, Cotton gazed up at the silver orb. "I wonder what Mister Perry and Lord Kian and Anval and Borin and the others are doing right now. Do you think they're looking up at the same Moon and wondering what we're doing?"

  "Perhaps, Cotton, perhaps," answered Rand. "If I have reckoned correctly, this is the twentieth day of November, and they are drawing nigh to the Pitch. Tomorrow they should fare up the slope and arrive at Dawn-Gate. And the next day, they enter the Deeves."

  At these words Cotton's heart gave a lurch, for with the Quadran at hand the dire mission of the Squad took on grim reality.

  "If all has gone aright with them, they will be in the caverns and on the Brega Path when first we come to the Door," said Durek, and Cotton's heart sank even further. "It is we who are late—by one day," growled the Dwarf King, a dark look upon his face. "Let us hope that there is enough time to uncover the portal, once we arrive."

  "We are not a full day behind, King Durek," amended Rand, "but only

  one half a day instead. We should arrive by mid of day the day after tomorrow."

  Still, even with these words, the Dwarf King's heart did not seem eased, and the conversation dwindled to a halt. At last, Brytta, Durek, and Rand bade good night to Cotton and returned to the front of the train to settle down for the eventide.

  Yet, for much of the rest of that night, Brytta's thoughts dwelled upon the ancient, secret High Gate somewhere in Quadran Pass, a Gate lost by the Dwarves in eld times, but perhaps now known to the Wrg. And he could not banish the specter of skulking Rutcha slipping in and out of that hidden portal, of treacherous Droken eyes spying out their every move, of sly Wrg mouths whispering to Cruel Gnar word of the Dwarves' mission. And by the light of the westering Moon and the wheeling stars overhead, Brytta's own gaze turnedever and again toward Quadran Col, searching up the high slopes for sign of the enemy but seeing none; and sleep was a long time coming.

  Thus it was that at dawn, as the column came awake and plans were made for the day's march, the Reachmarshal called Eddra, Arl, and Wylf to him to confer with Prince Rand. Acting upon Brytta's wary suspicions, those three riders were to set watch upon the Gap. As Brytta explained, "I would rather set a ward against a danger that never comes than to pay in blood for an unseen thrust." And so, Rand described the lay of the land between the col and Dusk-Door, and plans were made to light a balefire at the top of Red-guard—one of the lesser mountains overlooking the road to the gap—as a warning beacon to the Legion should an army of Spawn issue from the secret High Gate to fall upon the Dwarves' back. Hence, as the column got under
way, tramping to the south toward the Dusk-Door, three silent riders of the Valanreach detached themselves from the Host and cantered to the east toward Mount Redguard.

  Cotton had looked forward to another day of swift march; but early in the morning the Legion came to a place where the old road had been washed away over the years by heavy rains and melting snows, and a narrow but deep ravine blocked the route. Brytta's mounted scouts rode east and west and soon a way was found around the channel; yet the detour took several hours to negotiate because of the roughness of the trail.

  The next day, the Army finally came along the ancient Rcll Way to the deep channel through which the Duskrill once flowed, but not even a thin trickle could be seen down among the stained rocks, though a few standing pools showed the glimmer of water. Here the way forked, and the Host took

  the leftward path—the Spur—following a route that wound along the edge of the empty stream bed for several miles.

  As they marched now to the east, the land around them rose, and soon they were travelling in a deep valley—the Ragad—that shut off their view of all but the highest peaks of the mountains ahead. At last, as heralded by the black-oxen horns of the Valonian point scouts, the fore of the column wound to journey's end; the Old Way Spur rounded a foothill near the head of the valley to turn eastward again where the road cut upward along the face of a high stone cliff, a cliff down which the Duskrill had once tumbled in a graceful waterfall to drop into a wide basin in the deep ravine beside the Spur. Here the Host ground to a halt, facing the bluff.

  Carved in the jut of the cliff was a steep stairway leading up beyond the rim, continuing on up to a sentinel stand atop a high spire overlooking the valley where in days of old Chakka warders had stood watch o'er the vale. And beyond the rampart and dwarfing it was a great massif of the Grimspire mountain rising into the sky.

  Up the stairs Durek, Rand,' and Turin Stonesplitter climbed. As they mounted upward they began to see before them a stonework dam across the width of a ravine above the lip of the linn and blocking the Duskrill. 'The Raven Book may be right, for this dam is not Chakka-made," noted Turin, looking at the bulwark. "Nor does it look Ukkish. The stones are too great; powerful energy was needed for this, it is the vile work of Troll-folk, I deem."

  On up the stairway they continued, and above them, hovering over, was the great natural hemidome of the Loomwall. Up beside the dam they mounted, til they came to the top of the bluff, and behind the dam and embraced by the cavernous Loom lay a long, narrow, black lakelet, running a half mile to the north and nearly two miles to the south. The massive stone flank of the hemidome sprang up along the distant shore to arch upward and overhead; and delved somewhere along this massif was the Dusk-Door, ancient trade entrance and way into Grimspire and the caverns of Kraggen-cor.

  "Across this foul black lake and south of the old Sentinel Falls shall be the Dusken Door carven in the Loom," declared Durek, peering over the still, dark mere at the great flank.

  "Look!" cried Turin. "There is the old bridge! And see, below!" And he pointed at a place a short distance southward along the base of the hemidome and beyond the ruins of an old drawbridge; and there rubble, boulders, and other debris were piled high against the Loom. "That must be it. If so, the Raven Book is right, and the way is blocked. I must cross over to see what needs be done to uncover the portal. It does not appear to be more than two days' labor, from here; but ere I say for certain, I must give it close scrutiny, for we are some distance away."

  "I judge it to be slightly more than a quarter mile across this dark tarn," said Rand, gauging the distance by eye, "but we must walk around the north

  end to come to the pile, and that is a trek of more than a mile but less than two."

  Durek called down to one of the Valonian scouts and bade him to ride back along the train and tell the Host that they had arrived at the long-sought goal and to make camp along the north flank of the valley. He also instructed the scout to herald the Chief Captains to the Sentinel Falls to see the Loom and await a Council. Finally, he bade the scout to ask Friend Cotton to gather his belongings and move to the head of the train and then to join the Council.

  As the rider sped away, Durek, Rand, and Turin tramped northward along the barren shoreline. They crossed the place where the Spur wound on upward; here the road topped the bluff and started across the swale toward the Door, only to plunge under the ebon surface of the Dark Mere, blocked by the black lake in the desolate, water-filled valley. Neither bird nor beast nor small furry thing did they see in the tangles of the brush and stunted bushes and brown grass on the slopes; and no fish or frog or watersnake or creature of any sort was seen in the dismal water under the ocherous scum that lapped the shore, nor among the brown strands of dead waterplants reaching up from the unseen depths to clutch at the dull lake surface. But it was winter, and much life elsewhere had gone to warmer climes, or had denned to sleep through the cold, and plants had browned and lost leaves and would not green again until spring; thus the lack of living things was not remarkable. Yet this lifeless vale was somehow . . . ominous.

  Hundreds of feet overhead arched the Great Loom, and the two Dwarves and the Man strode below the black granite burden. Soon they reached the far north end of the Dark Mere, where they stepped through shallow, weed-infested, stagnant water that barred the way; the torpid swash of their passage sluggishly seeped through dead reeds, and the bottom sucked at their boots with slime-laden silt. The trio crossed over and walked south on the narrow strip of rocky land trapped between the water, dark and forbidding to their right, and the Loom, stern and towering to their left. They came to the Spur again, now a causeway, sundered by time; here the shattered roadway lay along the Loom and ran south to an ancient drawbridge, ageworn and weatherbeaten. The bridge was lowered and could not be raised, for its haul was broken.

  "This bridge was once a Kraggen-cor defence," stated Durek "It wis raised in time of trouble. It is said that once the span remained up for three years, never lowered. Ah, but it is down now, and ancient. Yet look! Still it will bear the weight of an army." Durek stamped his foot on the bed, proud of his ancestors' crafting. Then he peered over the side at the nearby black water. "Lore tells us that here should begin an arc of a moat, hemming in .1 courtyard—a moat, not this . . . this dark blot."

  Across the bridge they strode and south, finally to come to the steps rising up from a drowned courtyard, and to the pile ramped high against the Loom

  face. Up close they saw that the rubble consisted of large broken stone columns, and the work of a great edifice, cracked and split in shards; and among the rock were huge uptorn trees with broken roots and splintered trunks.

  "Aie!" moaned Turin. "The destruction of such a work." And he fell into silent, anguished study.

  "Some of these stones are larger than I gauged from the far shore; moving them will be a chore, indeed," reflected Turin after a time, his manner now that of a Crafter with a task. "Yet I deem we can remove all of this in one half and two days."

  ii Kala! ,J replied Durek, pleased, "for it is now the afternoon of the twenty-second of November; you will finish on the twenty-fifth, exactly on time to meet the Seven." He turned and looked at Rand, who was studying the ramp with a brooding look. "Something disturbs you, Prince Rand?"

  "These stones, King Durek, these broken columns," replied the Man, his manner intense. "Look at how huge they are, and at how they are split and cracked—as if flung by some awful power, to shatter in the smash of their impact. The strength of the Krakenward was greater than I imagined; to-hurl stones this enormous, even in hatred, takes incredible power."

  At mention of the monster's name, the two Dwarves uneasily eyed the dark expanse of motionless water just a few paces away.

  When word came down the line that they had arrived, like a wave a cheer washed along the column. Thus, Cotton suspected the news even before the herald came to confirm it. But when the horseman also informed the Warrow of Durek's request that Cotton move to the
head of the column, the buccan felt both eager to be there and reluctant to go: he was eager because he was anxious to get the Door open and see Perry again, and reluctant because he would be leaving his friend, Bomar. But Bomar put things in perspective for Cotton by clapping him on the shoulder and rumbling, "Aye, Friend Cotton, I would that you could stay with me and be at my side when we take on the thieving Grg; but your mission is up front, guiding the Host into the ancient homeland, whereas my duty is at the hind as part of the trailing rearguard. Set forth, Pathfinder, for King Durek needs you to point the way."

  Cotton leapt down from the waggon and hurriedly donned his armor and buckled on his sword and dagger and gathered up his pack. "Well, Bomar," he said, "we've come a good long way together, and I expect to chat with you after this is all over. So, as you said to me that first day, store up the memories of the time we're apart, and I'll store up mine, and when we get together again we'll have some tales to tell."

  Then Cotton stepped to the horses and patted them; they nuzzled him, and he gave them each a carrot. The buccan called to Bomar, "Take good care of Brownie and Downy," then turned and started for the head of the column.

  As Cotton walked up the line, horses were pulling waggons off the Spur, and warriors bustled to prepare campsites upon the slopes. Dwarves were retrieving their iron-mail corselets from their temporary storage in the green wains and armoring themselves again. Cotton nodded to many as he strode by, and they smiled or nodded back, some hailing this doughty golden warrior who was to lead them through the caverns.