The Iron Tower Omnibus

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “Yes, the King has given over the green rooms to me,” answered the Elf. “Here, I’ll walk with you as you go, for it is on the way.”

  ~

  The next morning at breakfast, again the Warrow Company chattered like magpies as they ate, for they had much to talk about. Tuck, Danner, and Patrel had spoken to all at length the previous day upon returning from the King, and the news they bore fired the furnaces of speculation, but though the ore they smelted was high-grade, much dross was produced for every pure ingot. The gathering War dominated all thought, and the conversations turned ever to it, as iron pulled by lodestone.

  Patrel’s meal was interrupted by a page, summoning him to attend Hrosmarshal Vidron. As before, Patrel took Tuck and Danner with him. Again they were led through a maze of passages in the labyrinthine Keep, yet this time Tuck paid more attention to their route, recognizing parts of it. They were brought up the steps of one of the towers and left on a bench at the door outside the Kingsgeneral’s quarters. They could hear angry voices behind the door, muffled, but the words were distinct:

  “I say, Nay!” cried a voice. “I remind you, I and my Men are not in your command; instead I take my instructions directly from the King and none else. And we are sworn to but one duty, and that is to protect the person of the High King. I will not remove any from that charge and place them at your behest, Fieldmarshal.”

  “And I tell you, Captain Jarriel, it is already decided!” thundered the voice of Marshal Vidron. “You will reassign forty Men from the duty of guarding Challerain Keep to field duty under my command.”

  “And what? Replace the forty with those pipsqueaks? With those runts?” Captain Jarriel shot back. “You lief as well just hand the King over to Modru himself, for all the good those mites will do under an attack.”

  “Hey, he’s talking about us!” exclaimed Danner angrily, leaping to his feet; and he would have stormed through the door except he was restrained by Tuck and Patrel.

  “May I remind you, Sir,” boomed Vidron, “that these Folk are renowned for their extraordinary service to the Crown; or have you forgotten their role in the history of the Ban War, the Great War itself, when last we faced the Enemy in Gron, the very same Enemy, I might add?”

  “Faugh! Hearthtales and legends! I don’t care what fables you might believe about these Folk, for I intend to take this matter up with the King, himself. Then we shall see!” The door was flung open and a warrior in the red and gold tabard of the Kingsmen strode angrily out and past the Warrows to disappear down the tower steps.

  Just as angrily, Danner strode through the open door and into the Fieldmarshal’s quarters with Patrel and Tuck behind. Vidron was sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling on a boot while an orderly hovered nearby. “Pipsqueaks and runts are we?” Danner demanded.”Just who was that buffoon?”

  The Kingsgeneral looked at the spectacle of a fuming Warrow: feet planted wide apart, clenched fists on hips, jaw out-thrust, all three-feet-seven-inches aquiver with rage. And then Vidron burst out laughing, falling backward on his bed, his foot halfway into the boot. Great gales of laughter gusted forth, and every time he tried to master his guffaws they would burst out again. Tuck and then Patrel and finally Danner could not help themselves, and they laughed, too. At last Marshal Vidron struggled upright. “By the very bones of Sleeth, each time I meet you three, humor drives ire from my heart. It is not every day that I am brought to task by an angry Waldan, bearded in my very den, as it were. Ah, but you are good for my spirit.”

  “And you, Sir, are good for ours,” replied Patrel. “Yet Danner’s questions remain, and I’ll add my own: Why have you summoned us?”

  Grunting, Vidron pulled the boot the rest of the way on and stood. The orderly held the Fieldmarshal’s jacket as Vidron slipped his arms in. “Well, Wee Ones, for your information, that ‘buffoon’ is Captain Jarriel; his Company wards the Keep, the castle itself, that is, and guards the person of the King. A loyal Man, he is, and one I would gladly have in my command, but he stubbornly sees only one way to perform his charge of office. Because of his duty, he disagrees with the assignment I have for your Company of Thornwalkers, yet had he but listened, I would have told him that High King Aurion himself suggested your assignment.”

  “And what, prithee, is it that we ‘pipsqueaks’ and ‘runts’ are to do?” asked Patrel, smiling.

  “Why, patrol the Keep. Guard the King. Keep watch from the ramparts of the castle,” answered Vidron.

  “Just a moment, now,” objected Danner, “we are here to tackle Modru, not to hide away behind the walls of some remote castle.”

  “Ah, as much as we all would like to brace that foe, each and every one of us cannot,” said Vidron. “Heed me, Danner: think not that there is but one way to perform a duty, for to do so would make you the same kind of ‘buffoon’ as is Jarriel. Hearken unto this, too: by your Company of Waldfolc warding the castle, forty Men can be freed to take the field against the Enemy, and forty Men on horseback can range farther faster than forty Waldana on ponies, whereas forty Waldana on Castle-ward, clear of eye and skilled in archery, are as good as, nay, better than forty Men in the same assignment. It is as simple as that.”

  Danner seemed unwilling to accept the argument until Patrel spoke, “Well said, Marshal Vidron. And if I have understood you aright, the King has so ordered, correct?” At Vidron’s nod: “Then it is settled. To whom shall we report for duty, and when?”

  “Why, to Captain Jarriel, of course, and this morning at that,” answered Vidron, pulling a bell cord. “Now, now, before you object, Jarriel is a fair Man, just stubborn. Give it a try. Should it become unbearable, try harder—then see me. After all, by then I’ll need a laugh or two. Ah, here is your page now.”

  With misgivings, the Warrows left Hrosmarshal Vidron’s quarters, following the page to Captain Jarriel’s command post, located centrally within the castle at the junction of two main corridors. They had to wait a short while, for Captain Jarriel was not there. “Perhaps he is seeing King Aurion,” suggested Tuck, but there was no way of knowing. At last the Captain arrived, and the Warrows were summoned. Tuck expected Danner and the Man to exchange angry words, but, true to Vidron’s appraisal, Captain Jarriel spoke only of duty to the King when he met with the Warrows, dealing with them as if the dispute had never occurred.

  A page was assigned to show all the members of the Waerling Company the ins and outs of the Castle. They were to become familiar with its layout, at least the major corridors and rooms as well as the ramparts and battlements, then they would take on duties alongside the Men of the Castle-ward.

  ~

  All that day and the next, every moment was spent learning the environs of the Keep. Also on the second day they visited the King’s armorers to be measured for corselets made of boiled leather platelets affixed to padded jerkins to wear as armor while guarding the walls of the Keep. On the third day, the day watch on the north wall was assigned to Tuck’s squad, while Danner’s took on the south rampart.

  “Har!” barked Argo as they overtopped the ramp alongside the bastion gorge and came upon the banquette behind the crenellated battlement. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: these walls were not meant to be patrolled by Warrows. Cor, I can’t see over the merlons at all, and only by walking along the weapon-shelf can I look out through the crenels.”

  “Ar, but what would you see?” asked Finley, then answered his own question: “Nothing but that black wall out there, and who wants ter see that? Nar, we’re here to feather the Horde, if and when they try to climb these walls.” Finley walked over to a set of machicolations, sighting through the holes where they would rain arrows down along the ramparts should an enemy attempt to scale them.

  Tuck spaced the young buccen along the stone curtain, relieving the Men warding the north wall. True to Argo’s word, they walked along the weapon-shelf to see out upon the land. And far to the north darkness loomed.

  Even though the Sun marched across the sky, still
time seemed suspended, for nothing moved upon the snowy plains beyond the foothills, and it seemed as if the Land held its breath, waiting . . . waiting. And Tuck’s eyes were ever drawn toward the far Dimmendark.

  In midwatch, Patrel came to take the noon meal with Tuck. And as they sat eating, Tuck said, “I keep thinking about Captain Darby’s words back at Spindle Ford, when he asked for volunteers to answer the King’s call: ‘Will you walk the Thorns, or will you walk instead the ramparts of Challerain Keep?’ That’s what he asked us. At the time I didn’t consider his words prophetic, yet here I am, upon the very walls he spoke of.”

  “Perhaps there’s a bit of a seer in each of us,” answered Patrel, taking a bite of bread. He chewed thoughtfully. “The trick is to know which words foretell and which don’t.”

  They ate in silence and gazed upon the land. At last Patrel said, “Ah, it looks so dangerous, that black wall out there; and who knows what lurks in the darkness beyond? But this we must do: tonight, and every moment off duty that can be spared, have your buccen fletching arrows, for there may come a time when we will need all the bolts we can get.” Tuck nodded without speaking as he and Patrel watched the brooding land.

  The Sun continued its slow swing across the sky, and in late afternoon Princess Laurelin and one of her Ladies came to the north battlement and stood gazing far over the winter snow, her eyes searching along the edges of the foreboding black wall, the distant Dimmendark. She was wrapped in a dark blue cloak, its hood up, concealing her face so fair, though a stray lock of her flaxen hair curled out. She seemed to shiver, and Tuck wondered if the cold stone chilled her or was it instead the far dark loom.

  “My Lady,” he said approaching her, “there is a warm charcoal fire along the wall a bit, yet the view to the north is the same.” He led her and her Lady-in-waiting to the brazier where the hot coals burned. Laurelin warmed herself and then stepped to a nearby crenel. Long she looked and Tuck stood on the shelf at her side gazing northward, too. At last she spoke:

  “There was a time, a happier time, when on clear days a low range of hills could be seen to the north. The Argent Hills, my Lord Galen called them. Often we stood upon this very wall and spoke of living alone in a cottage by a stream in the pines there. Daydreaming. Now the Argent Hills can be seen no longer, for they have been swallowed by that terrible blackness; yet I know that they are still there, behind the dark wall, just as is my beloved.” Laurelin turned and she and her Lady went back to the narrow span leading into the castle, and Tuck said nought as he sadly watched her go. And behind to the north the land waited in airy silence.

  ~

  The next evening, Laurelin again came for her sunset vigil along the north wall, searching the plains and horizon just before the dusk, while Tuck stood quietly by.

  Long moments fled, and the plains were empty of returning warriors. At last Laurelin spoke: “Ah, but I do not like looking for my Lord out over the barrows of dead heroes. He stands in harm’s way, and gazing past graves would seem to portend no good.”

  “Graves, my Lady?” Tuck’s voice was filled with puzzlement.

  “Aye, Sir Tuck, graves.” Laurelin pointed down into the foothills near the north wall. “Do you see that tumbled ring of stone jutting up through the snow? It stands in the center of the barrows of nobles and warriors felled in Wars apast.”

  Tuck looked, and in the deepening shadows he saw snow-covered rounded mounds of elden turved barrows; but his eye was drawn to the center of all mounds where an ancient ruin of fallen stone lay ajumble—a ruin that once was a ring of tall standing stones. And in the midst of the ring . . . “My Lady, what is that in the stone ring’s center?”

  “A crypt, Sir Tuck, a crypt: hidden in summer by a tangle of vines and in winter by a blanket of snow.” Laurelin’s eyes grew reflective. “Lord Galen took me once to see it: the ancient tomb of Othran the Seer, according to legend: Othran who came from the sea, they say, a survivor of Atala lost forever. But that is only legend, and none knows for certain. Yet the worn carvings in the stone are arcane runes of an elden time, and only the Lian Guardians are said to have read them, for the Lian are skilled at tongues and writings.”

  “Runes?” Tuck blurted, drawn by the mystery of a lost language.

  “Aye.” Laurelin thought a bit. “My Lord Galen says that there is an eld inscription:

  “Loose not the Red Quarrel

  Ere appointed dark time.

  Blade shall brave vile Warder

  From the deep, black slime.

  “Those are the words the Elves are said to have ciphered from yon stone.”

  “What do they mean?” asked Tuck. “Red Quarrel, vile Warder, appointed dark time.”

  “I cannot say,” said Laurelin, “for it is a riddle beyond my knowing. Sir Tuck, you ask me to answer an enigma that has stumped the sages ever since Elf first came upon the crypt in elden times, since Man first settled these lands and chose to place his barrows around an ancient tomb, even then a ruin, in the hope that the wraith of the mystic seer of Atala would give guide to the shades of Man’s own fallen heroes.”

  Tuck looked down upon the tower in wonder as Laurelin spun forth the eld tale. Slowly the shadows mustered unto the low foothills, and when the Princess fell silent, darkness covered the land. Finally Laurelin bade Tuck goodeve and disappeared into the castle. Tuck watched her go, and then his vision was drawn again toward the darkness where stood the jumbled ring of stone. And he pondered the riddle of the carven runes, etched words of a long-lost tongue.

  ~

  On the third evening: “Do you have a beloved?” Laurelin asked Tuck, looking down at the small Warrow. “Oh, I think you must. Do I see a sweetheart’s favor around your neck?”

  Tuck fumbled at Merrilee’s silver locket, lifting the chain over his head. “Yes, my Lady,” he answered, “only in the Boskydells a sweetheart is called ‘dammia,’ er, I mean, I would call her ‘dammia’ while she would call me ‘buccaran.’ That is what we Warrows name each other, uh, Warrow sweethearts, that is. And yes, this is my dammia’s favor, given to me on the day I left my home village of Woody Hollow.” Tuck handed her the locket and chain.

  “Why, this is beautiful, Tuck. An ancient work. Perhaps from Xian, itself.” Laurelin pressed a hidden catch and the locket sprang open. Tuck was dumbfounded, for although he had touched the locket often, he had not known that it actually opened. “My, she is very pretty,” said Laurelin, looking closely. “What is her name?”

  “Merrilee,” said Tuck, his hands atremble, yearning to take the locket back to see what face it held.

  “A lovely name, that.” Laurelin glanced to the brooding north. “My Lord Galen wears mine own golden locket at his heart, but no portrait has it, just a snippet of my hair. It must ever be so that warriors in all times and all Lands have carried the lockets of their loved ones upon their breasts. If not lockets, then other tokens do soldiers bear into danger, to remind them of a love, hearth, home, or something or someone else dear to their hearts.” Laurelin clicked shut Tuck’s silver locket and handed it into his trembling hands, and turned once more to look beyond the abutment and across the winter plains.

  Tuck eagerly fumbled at the locket, discovering at last that it opened by pressing down upon the stem where attached the chain. Click! The leaves of the locket fell open in his hand: mirrored silver on the left, and a miniature portrait of . . . it was Merrilee! Oh, my black-haired dammia, you are so beautiful. As he stood upon the cold granite rampart, all of his loneliness, his longing for quiet evenings before the fire at The Root, and his love for Merrilee welled up through his very being, and his vision blurred with tears.

  “Ah, Sir Tuck, you must miss her very much,” said the Princess.

  Blinking back his tears, Tuck looked up to see Laurelin’s sad grey eyes upon his blue ones. “Yes, I do. And, you know, I didn’t realize just how much until I saw her portrait just now.” Tuck shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “You see, until you opened the locket, I didn’t know sh
e was there, all the time secretly next to my heart.”

  Laurelin’s laughter had the ring of silver bells chiming in the wind, and Tuck smiled. “Ah, but Sir Tuck, did you not know?” asked the Princess, “We Women and dammen do practice our secret arts to remain in the hearts of our Men and buccen.” And they laughed together.

  Yet in the waning light of day and by candleflame throughout the night, again and again Tuck gazed at Merrilee’s likeness, for now it seemed she was closer to him, and he could not seem to get his fill of her image. The young buccen of his squad smiled to see him peering at the locket, but Danner merely snorted, “Faugh! Moonstruck calf!”

  ~

  The next afternoon when Laurelin came to the north wall, there was a deep look of sadness about her, and desperately she scanned the sullen horizon.

  “My Lady, you seem . . . disturbed.” Tuck looked out over the remote snowy plains.

  “Have you not heard, Sir Tuck?” Laurelin turned her gaze to him, her grey eyes pale. “The waggons arrived yestereve. Even now a first caravan presses south, and a second one forms. A train will leave each day, bearing Women and children, oldsters and the infirm, until we are all gone. And my beloved ranges far north, and I fear I will not get to see him ere I must board the last wain of the final caravan.”

  “And when might that be, Princess?” Tuck turned to Laurelin, and her face was shadowed within her hood.

  “The first day of Yule,” said Laurelin, forlornly. “That day, too, I become nineteen.”

  “Ai!” exclaimed Tuck. “The last of Yule is my dammia’s birthday, and for her it is an age-name change birthday, too. It’s when Merrilee turns twenty, no longer a maiden but a young damman she becomes. Oh my, but neither she nor you have been given much cause to be merry.”

  “High King Aurion has granted me but one more day of vigil after this eve. But on my birthday, the shortest day of the year, First Yule, just two days hence, the last waggon train departs, bearing south to Pellar. And I go with it, to Caer Pendwyr.” The Princess looked crestfallen.