The Iron Tower Omnibus

by Dennis L McKiernan

  ~

  Captain Darby called the Thornwalker Fourth together at the Spindle Ford, and a service was said for Tarpy, and for the unnamed herald. And through it all, Tuck’s eyes remained dry, although many others wept. And then Captain Darby spoke to all the Company:

  “Buccen, though we have lost a comrade, life goes on. The High King has called a muster at Challerain Keep, and some from the Bosky are duty-bound to answer. I will send couriers to start the word spreading, and others then will respond to the call. Yet some must go forth now and be foremost to answer. It has fallen our lot to be the first to choose, and these are the choices: to remain and ward the Bosky, or to answer the King’s summons. I call upon each now to consider well and carefully, and then give your answer. What will it be? Will you Walk the Thorns of the Seven Dells, or will you instead walk the ramparts of Challerain Keep?”

  Silence descended upon the Thornwalkers as each considered his answer—silence, that is, except for one who had already made up his mind: Tuck stepped forward five paces until he stood on the ice alone. “Captain Darby,” he called, and all heard him, “I will go to the High King, for Evil Modru has a great wrong to answer for—Nay! two wrongs: one lies atop the Rooks’ Roost, the other sleeps ’neath this frozen river.”

  Danner strode forward to stand beside Tuck, and so, too, did Patrel. Arbin, Dilby, Delber, and Argo joined them, and so did all of Patrel’s squad. Then came others, until a second squad had formed. More began to step forward, but Captain Darby cried, “Hold! No more now! We cannot leave the Ford unguarded. Yet, heed this: when others come to join our Company, then again will I give you the same choice. Until that time, though, these two squads will be first, and the High King could not ask for better.

  “Hearken unto me, for this shall be the way of it: Patrel Rushlock, you are named Captain of this Company of the King, and your squad leaders are to be Danner Bramblethorn of the first squad and Tuckerby Underbank of the second. Captain Patrel, as more squads are formed, they shall be dispatched to your command. And this is the last order I shall give you: lead well. And to the Company of the King, I say this: walk in honor.”

  ~

  The next morning, forty-three grim-faced Boskydell Warrows rode forth from the Great Spindlethorn Barrier and into the Land of Rian. They came out along the road across the Spindle Ford, each armed with bow and arrows and cloaked in Thornwalker grey. Their destination was Challerain Keep, for they had been summoned.

  4

  Challerain Keep

  North then east rode the young buccen, the Warrow Company of the King, along the Upland Way, the road into Rian. They were striking for the Post Road, some twenty-five miles hence, the main pike north to Challerain Keep. Tuck spent much of the time riding among the members of his new squad, getting acquainted. Some he knew from days past, others he did not. Quickly he found that they had come from all parts of Eastdell: from the villages of Bryn and Eastpoint, Downyville, Midwood, Raffin, Wigge, Greenfields, Leeks, and the like, or from farms nearby. Other than Tuck, no one else in his squad was from Woody Hollow, or even its nearby neighbor, Budgens, though one young buccan was from Brackenboro. Yet soon the Warrows were engaged in friendly chatter and no longer seemed to be strangers. Why, Finley Wick from Eastpoint even knew Tuck’s cousins, the Bendels of Eastpoint Hall.

  They rode through a snow-covered land that slowly rose up out of Spindle Valley to become a flat prairie with but few features. Behind, they could see the massive Barrier clutched unto the land, looming sapless and iron hard in winter sleep, waiting for the caress of spring to send the life juices coursing through the great tangle, to set forth unto the Sun a green canopy of light-catching leaves, to send the great blind roots inexorably questing through the dark earth again. Immense it was, anchored from horizon to horizon and beyond, a great thorny wall; yet as the Warrows rode, distance diminished it until it took on the aspect of a vast remote hill stretched past seeing. At last it sank below the horizon, and although Tuck rode in the company of friends, still he felt as if he had been abandoned, yet whether it was because the loss of the Thornwall meant that he’d truly left the Bosky behind, or whether he felt exposed and vulnerable because he now rode upon an open plain, he could not say.

  Ahead, here and there, lone barren trees or winter-stripped thickets occasionally appeared, but they, too, were slowly left behind on the snow-swept prairie. A thin chill wind sprang up, gnawing at their backs, and soon all cloak hoods were up and talk dwindled to infrequent phrases and grunts. On they went, stopping once to feed the ponies some grain and to take a sparse meal. At times they walked, leading the steeds, giving the animals some respite.

  On one of these “strolls in the snow,” as Finley called them, Tuck found himself trudging between Patrel and Danner. “I hope this blasted cold wind whistling up my cloak is gone by the time we make camp,” said Danner. “I don’t fancy sleeping in the open in the wind.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be in the open, Danner,” said Patrel, “if we reach the point where the Upland Way meets the Post Road, as planned, for that’s at the western edge of the Battle Downs, and we should be able to find the lee of a hillside there, out of the wind, and make the best of things.”

  Tuck nodded. “I hope so, but if we don’t and if the wind doesn’t die down, it doesn’t give us much to make the best of, does it now?”

  Patrel shook his head and Danner looked at the sky. The wind mouthed at the edges of their hoods, and the ponies patiently plodded beside them. “Say,” asked Danner, “how long will it take us to reach the Keep?”

  “Well,” answered Patrel, “let me see: one day to the Battle Downs, and then six more along the Post Road north to Challerain Keep. If the weather holds—by that I mean if it doesn’t snow—we’ll be seven days on the journey. But, with snow, it could be . . . longer.”

  “Seven days,” mused Tuck. “Perhaps that’ll give me enough time to get skilled with my new bow—if I practice every morning before we set out, and every evening before bedding down.” Tuck’s bow had been swept away, lost under the ice of the Spindle River when the Kingsman’s horse had crashed through and Tuck had been dragged down by the whelming current. Another bow had been drawn from stores, one that most nearly matched Tuck’s old one in length and pull. Yet Tuck would need practice to get the feel of it and regain his pinpoint accuracy.

  “Look, Tuck,” said Patrel, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something, but I just haven’t been able to muster my courage to the point where I could. But it’s just this: I’m dreadfully sorry about Tarpy’s death, and I know how close he was to you. He was a bright spirit in this time of gloom, a spirit we will sorely miss in the dark days to come. But I just want you to know that I’ll try with all my being to make up for the horrible mistake I made, the mistake that got Tarpy slain.”

  “What?” cried Tuck, dumbfounded. “What are you saying? If any is to blame, it is I. I shot the Vulg. The horse would not have fallen but for that. Had I only acted quicker, the Vulg would have been slain ere he sprang.”

  “Ah, but you forget,” answered Patrel, “had I but ordered the gate shut immediately after the Kingsman rode through, then that Vulg would have been slain outside the barricade as were the three beasts that raced but Vulg strides behind.”

  “Nay!” protested Tuck, “’Twas not your fault. If I had—“

  “Ar!” interrupted Danner, scowling, his voice harsh. “If this and if that, and who’s to blame. If I’d only ordered the gate shut; if I’d only listened to the Man’s warning; if I’d only watched the road instead of the Man; if I’d only seen the Vulgs sooner; if I’d only shot sooner. If! If! If! Those are just a few of the ifs I’ve heard, and without a glimmering doubt there’s many a more where those came from. Tuck, you had the right of it yesterday, though you seem to have lost it already, so I’ll remind you: the only one to blame is Modru! Remember that, the both of you! It is Modru’s hand that slew Tarpy, none other, just as he slew Hob.” With that, Danner leapt upon his pon
y’s back and spurred forward to the head of the column, shouting, “Mount up! We’ve a ways to go and little time to do it in!” And so went all the Company, eastward along the Upland Way.

  ~

  The Sun had lipped the horizon when the Warrows came into the margins of the hill country called the Battle Downs, a name from the time of the Great War. They made camp on the lee of a hill in a pine grove and supped on a meal of dried venison and crue, a tasteless but nourishing waybread, and they took their meal with hearty hot tea. After supper, Tuck cut some pine boughs and lashed them together in a large target bundle, and long into the evening, by flickering firelight, the pop of the fire and the sigh of the wind was punctuated by the sounds of bow and arrow.

  ~

  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; they say Cap’n Patrel is a splendid shooter, but he’d be pressed to best you.”

  “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 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 and it was afternoon and 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 first 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 we’ll 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, and, 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, as like,” 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, horseborne 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 scrutched 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 myriads of 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 looks 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 mountin
g 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!” And 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 down the hill and 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 mont 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 of approaching armies, or to signal muster call, or to celebrate victory, or to send messages to distant Realms via the chain of signal fires 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.