“You would stay?” hissed the sibilant voice at him. “You say you would stay?” Now the voice rose in a scream and shrieked, “Then stay!” And for the first time, Laurelin saw the Naudron move when the Evil One was present: he raised his arm and reached toward the Ghol and his hand made a clutching, squeezing motion, and the Ghol fell, flopping face down into the snow, dead.
The Naudron’s arm dropped limply back to his side, the malevolence flickering weakly in his eyes: “Thus to all who obey not my will. Nabbu gla oth.”
~
North and east the column rode, passing through five or so miles of Drearwood before coming into the open. Twenty more miles they went, the land rising steadily; and although she could not see afar through the murk of the Dimmendark, Laurelin had been raised in Dael in the ring of the Rimmen Mountains, and she knew that the slant of the land around her bespoke of tall peaks ahead.
They came to a high-faced bluff stretching out beside them, and the Ghola spurred up the pace as they rode alongside the cliff, as if to pass by this place as quickly as possible. Seven more miles they rode at this swift gait along the wall, and the agony jolted and jabbed through Laurelin like hot lancing flames. And deep breaths hissed through her clenched teeth, but no groans escaped her lips.
Then they were beyond the long butte and the pace slackened, and they came into a stone-walled valley, yet still they did not stop, but rode eighteen miles more, until at last they reached the beginning rise of Grûwen Pass, and mountains loomed upward into the Dimmendark.
Fifty miles they had ridden, and Laurelin knew not when they stopped. Rough hands dragged her down from her mount, and she could not stand, but lay gasping in the snow where they dropped her. Inside her mind she shrieked in agony, but no sound of pain did she make.
~
Grûwen Pass was nearly thirty-five miles in length, and northward through the long slot the Gholen column rode. Great buttresses of ice-clad stone mounted up perpendicular cliffs into the Shadowlight, and rime glistened along their path. Bitter was the cold of the Winternight, and the iron-grey stone looked black in its light. Hard frozen snow lay packed in shadowed crannies, and the echoing ring of cloven hooves juddered down the tall rocks.
When they stopped at last to camp, Laurelin was chilled to the marrow, and she could not seem to stop shuddering with the cold. Once more a Ghol brought her the leather flask, and he bruised her lips as she drank, for her left hand was too numb to hold the bottle. Yet the vile fiery liquid brought a measure of warmth to her veins, and the campblaze made from wood they had borne with them and the hot gruel warmed her even more.
They had ridden the full length of the Pass—the slot where the Rigga Mountains met those of the Grimwall and the Gronfangs. And now the column had come down into the wastes of Gron—Modru’s Realm of old—and Laurelin despaired, for this Land was dire.
~
From the edge of the Pass, down the length of Grûwen Vale they rode the next ’Darkday, the stone of the valley dropping toward the plains of Gron below. Nothing seemed to grow in this land: no trees, no brush, no grass, no moss: not even lichen clung to the rock. Only ice and stone and snow could be seen about them, and sharp-edged darkness where the Shadowlight fell not.
They camped three leagues beyond the mouth of the Vale, out upon the desolate plains of Gron. Though her arm throbbed dreadfully, that was not what caused Laurelin concern: it was instead that now that she was in Gron, a great bitterness clutched at her heart, and she was distressed by its sting.
~
Two ’Darkdays they rode north through the Winternight across a barren wasteland, and still no sign of life did they see. Laurelin knew that off to the left rose the Rigga Mountains, and to the right the Gronfangs. But they were too distant to see in the Dimmendark, though were the Sun to shine they could have been seen far over the plains. But there was no Sun, only cold Shadowlight, and Laurelin could have wept.
On neither day was there wood for a campfire, but dead tundra-moss made a feeble flame, and Laurelin ate cold gruel for her meals.
~
At the end of the third ’Darkday upon the plains, the Ghola made camp along the southern edge of the Gwasp, a great swamp squatting in the angle of Gron. This sump was reputed to have midges beyond number and mire beyond depth in the summer, yet now it stood frozen in Winternight, looking to all like a lifeless morass. It was said that in days of yore Agron’s entire army had disappeared within the sucking environs; but Agron’s unknown fate merely added to the dire legends of the Gwasp, for it always had been a place of dread.
~
All the next ’Darkday they rode along the Gwasp’s eastern flank, crossing frozen rills and seeps feeding the great bog, once passing across the ice of a river that descended down from the unseen Gronfangs.
When they finally reached the far northern flank of the Great Swamp, they again made camp.
As she ate, Laurelin looked upon the vacant-eyed Naudron. It had been eight ’Darkdays since he had last spoken, and then it was to slay a Ghol; twelve days since he had last spoken to her; thirteen days since she had last said aught, and that was to tell the Evil One to go to Hèl; sixteen days since she had been captured: sixteen ’Darkdays since she had last heard a friendly voice; twenty-one days since she had last been happy: at her nineteenth-birthday party. When Laurelin slept at last, tears ran silently down her cheeks.
~
They crossed another frozen river and rode north. Some six hours later they passed close by tall black crags to their left as the column rode through Claw Gap and onto the flats known as Claw Moor, a high desolate land.
Upon the Moor they rode, going some eighteen miles farther before making camp.
~
Once more Laurelin was kicked awake; once more the column rode north. Now their pace grew swifter, for they neared their goal. Agony jarred through Laurelin’s arm with every stride the Hèlsteed took. They had ridden for hours and her pain-dulled mind no longer held coherent thoughts. But unbent she sat in the saddle, straight as an iron rod, a rod now tempered in the very forge of Hèl. Miles had passed beneath the cloven hooves, nearly thirty-five this ’Darkday alone, nearly six-hundred-twenty since her capture eighteen ’Darkdays past.
Groggily, she saw black mountains loom up ahead, and in the face of the rock was clutched the towers of a dark fortress. Massive stone tiers buttressed turreted walls, and one central tower stood above all. Laurelin struggled with what she was seeing, and suddenly snapped awake, and fear coursed through her, for now she realized that she gazed upon the dreaded Iron Tower: Modru’s strongholt.
Across an iron drawbridge above a rocky chasm the column clattered, riding past a great scaled Troll guarding the gate. Raucous horns blatted, and Lôkha screamed harsh orders as the Hèlsteeds came on, and Rukha leapt forward to winch up an iron portcullis with a great rattle of gears.
Into a stone courtyard the Gholen force rode, and Rukha ran forth snarling and elbowing one another, jostling for position to see and jeer at the prisoner.
To the central Iron Tower they rode and stopped before a great studded door. Laurelin was dragged down from her mount and led up steps to the portal. A leering Rukh hauled it open, and the Princess was shoved stumbling inside. And but one Ghol came after, and the great door boomed shut: Doom!
A torch-lit hall stood before her. A Rukh thrall scuttled down the passage toward Laurelin and the Ghol and motioned for them to follow, croaking, “Uuh: Uuh!” for he had no tongue.
He led her along the cold black granite hall to another massive door warded by two Lôkha, who cringed away from the approaching Ghol. Fearfully, the tongueless Rukh raised the iron knocker and let it fall on the metal doorplate, once—tok!—the sound muffled, as if swallowed by the pools of gloom clustered in the angles of the stone hallway. Then slowly, cautiously the Rukh opened the heavy portal and stood back for Laurelin to pass through. With a hard shove from behind, the Ghol thrust her into the chamber, the door to ponderously swing shut behind and
slam to with a thunderous Boom!
The room she stumbled into was large and lighted by flickering, cresseted torches, and at one end dark wood burned in a gaping stone fireplace, casting writhing shadows throughout the gloom-clutched chamber, though what little heat and light it gave off was swallowed by the chill silence within; heavy wall-hangings and massive furniture burdened the room. But none of this did Laurelin see. Instead her eyes were drawn toward a great clot of blackness sitting on a throne on a ebon-dark dais. And the shadows seemed to stream inward to gather unto the throne and coalesce thereon, until they formed a black-cloaked, black-clad figure. And then the figure stood and stepped down from the dais and stood before her, his arms folded across his chest. A Man he seemed, for Man-height he was, yet an immense vile aura of malignancy exuded from his very being. As to his face, it could not be seen, for he was masked with a hideous iron-beaked helm, like the snouted face of a gargoyle of legend. But from the visor, cruel eyes stared: the same merciless eyes she had seen upon the face of the Naudron, the same vileness that had looked forth from the eyes of the Chabbain. Yet no distant puppet was this baneful figure; instead it seemed the quintessence of utter Evil.
And then the maleficent reptilian voice hissed out at her: “Welcome to my Iron Tower, Princess Laurelin. Though we have spoken many times, we meet face to face at last. I am Modru.”
Malignancy washed through the room, and Laurelin reeled under the impact. A woeful bale, a crushing desolation, reached out to clutch at her spirit, and her heart fell to the nadir of despair.
He stepped forward, and, although inwardly she shrank back, outwardly she did not flinch. And he took her by the hand as he drew her into the room. She wanted to scream in horror, for his very touch made her feel violated, as if his essence invaded her and made her unclean, polluted by a hideous corruption.
“Ah, my dear, why do I feel you shrink from me?” his sibilant voice hissed.
“If you feel me shrink from your hand,” her clear voice answered, “it is because you are foul to the touch and vile to the eye: an abomination.”
“I?” His voice rose in anger, and rage burned in the malignant eyes behind the hideous iron mask. “I: You say I am foul to the touch, vile to the eye?” Jerking her roughly after, he strode to a black-velvet-covered panel and wrenched her before it; and he stood to one side and ripped away the black cloth. It had covered a great mirror. “Behold, O Beautiful Princess, what an abomination truly is!”
Laurelin gasped at the apparition reflected in the glass: a grimy, gaunt, filthy drudge with a broken arm in a soiled sling stood before her, dressed in foul, stained, quilted, Rukken clothing; she stank of Hèlsteed and of human waste, and there were dark rings under the sunken eyes set deep in her grime-streaked face; and dirty, tangled, lice-ridden hair matted down on her head.
Long this haggard wretch stared at herself in the mirror, and then she turned and spat in Modru’s face.
2
Grimwall
Tuck looked from Talarin to Gildor to Galen to Igon, the young Prince now asleep, his face flush with the dregs of fever. South to Pellar or north to Gron: Which way to turn: Rescue the Princess or lead the Host against Modru’s minions: In despair, Tuck put his face in his hands, and tears welled from his sapphirine eyes.
Galen held the red eye-patch in his hands, smoothing out the scarlet tie-cords.
“I took the patch so that the Rûpt would not defile Aurion King’s body,” said Gildor.
Galen nodded without speaking or looking up.
Long moments passed, and Igon’s breathing lost its ragged edge. “His fever is gone,” said the Elven healer. “He has cast off the poison from the enemy blade at last. When he awakens he will be weak but his mind will be clear; yet it will take a fortnight or more for his full strength to return, and he will bear a scar for the rest of his days.”
Galen now turned from his brother and looked up into the face of Talarin: “We are four, perhaps five ’Darkdays behind the band of Ghola fleeing north with the Lady Laurelin. I deem they fly towards Modru’s strongholt. Where think you that they would be now?”
Talarin turned to Gildor, and Tuck looked and saw that these two Elves were much alike. “In other times you and your brother Vanidor have been upon the angle of Gron,” said Talarin, “even unto Claw Moor and the Iron Tower, itself. What say you?”
Gildor thought but a moment. “If they are five true days to the north, then they have come to the Gwasp; if but four instead, then they are one ride short of that morass, Galen King. And in three or four ’Darkdays at most, they will come to the Enemy’s fortress.”
Galen’s voice was bleak: “You confirm my thoughts, Lord Gildor. This then is my dilemma: Ere we can overtake the Ghola, Laurelin will be locked in Modru’s strongholt, and nothing short of a great army—the Host—will e’er break down those dire doors; and even the Host would be hard pressed to do so. In any event, foul Modru may maim or even slay the Lady ere the Host can throw down his Tower.”
“Slay the Lady?” Tuck gasped, jumping to his feet. “Can he be so vile?”
“Her life is as nothing to him,” answered Gildor.
“Hold, my son,” said Talarin, raising a hand in thought. “What you say is true, yet Modru has gone to great lengths to bring her to him. Perhaps he has a purpose for her.”
“Purpose?” cried Tuck.
“Aye,” answered Talarin. “Hostage perhaps . . . or worse.”
“Worse?” Tuck’s voice dropped to a desperate whisper. “Something . . . we must do . . . something.”
Galen spoke, setting forth the seed of a perilous plan: “Perhaps a few can succeed where an army would fail. It can be no more than a hand of people: to gain the walls of Modru’s holt, to slip unseen within, and to draw her free.”
No one spoke for moments, then Gildor broke the silence: “Galen King, such a plan might prevail though I think it unlikely, for the Iron Tower is a mighty fortress. Yet you have spoken of only half of your quandary: the plight of the Lady Laurelin. The other horn of this dilemma is even sharper: the Realm is beset, for Winternight and Modru’s Spaunen rave down the Land, and the Host must be led to stop them.”
“But Lord Gildor,” answered Galen, anguish in his voice, “Pellar lies more than one-thousand miles to the south. To journey there and return with the Host will take weeks, months!”
Again long moments fled in silence, and Igon stirred, then opened his eyes. Clear they were now, not wild, and in the yellow lamplight he saw those around him.
“Galen,” Igon’s voice was thready, weak, “know you of Laurelin?” At Galen’s nod, tears welled in Igon’s eyes, and he squeezed them shut, the drops to run down his cheeks. “I did not succeed,” he whispered. “I did not succeed. I failed in my sword-oath to see her to safety. I looked for her among the slain and found her not. Yet there were traces of her along the enemy track, for she is in the Enemy’s clutch.” The Prince fell silent.
Time stretched, and just as Tuck thought that Igon had gone back to sleep: “They were so many, the Ghola, and they cut us down as if we were but sheep led to the slaughter. I was felled, and knew nought thereafter. Next I remember, Rust stood over me, nudging with his muzzle; how he was spared, I cannot say. So cold, I was so cold, yet I managed to start a fire from a coal still red in the ashes of a smoldering wain.” Again The Prince fell silent a long while, mustering his strength to continue:
“Their track was a ’Darkday old, yet I took food and grain and followed. I remember not much of that chase, though it did snow once and I recall despairing I’d ever find their tracks—yet Rust knew, he knew, and bore me on: Drearwood, perhaps.
“Dead Ghol next to the forest: was he real?
“North from there . . .
“I remember nothing more, Galen, nothing more.” Igon’s voice had fallen to a faint whisper. “Grûwen Pass . . . Gron . . . Modru Kinstealer . . .” The Prince sank again into unconsciousness, the effort spent to eke out his report exhausting his feeble streng
th.
The healer turned to Galen: “I do not know where he found the will to speak, for his life ebbs dangerously low. You must leave ere he wakes again, for it drains him beyond his limits to give over his words to you.”
“Galen King,” said Talarin, “you must eat and bathe and rest, and renew your own strength, for on the morrow you must choose the course you will follow.”
~
As Tuck drifted to sleep, in his mind Talarin’s words echoed again and again: ‘On the morrow you must choose . . . On the morrow . . .’
~
Tuck awakened once to see Galen standing at a window looking out into the Shadowlight: in his hand he held a scarlet eye-patch; at his throat was a golden locket.
~
Their clothing had been washed clean and dried before a fire as the two slept. Now Tuck and Galen dressed, yet the thoughts of neither dwelled upon the freshness of his garb. At last Tuck broke the silence:
“Sire, perhaps it is not my place to speak, and the words I am about to say are like to choke me unto death, yet still I must say them, be they right or wrong:
“The Lady Laurelin I hold dear; she stands near the center of my heart, next to my own Merrilee. And I would follow my heart unto the very Iron Tower itself, to batter down the gates or to creep in stealth to win her free. And I will shout with joy if that is the course you choose.”
Tears began to stream down Tuck’s face. “Yet my head and not my heart tells me that the grasp of Modru strangles the Realm, and a King is needed to lead the Host, to hurl back the Horde, to rescue the Land. And you are King now, none other.
“I think a squad must enter Gron and perhaps even attempt to penetrate the Iron Tower, to bring forth the Lady Laurelin. Yet neither you nor I should ride north with that squad: her fate must be put in the hands of others, for you must go south to lead the Host, and I,” Tuck’s voice now broke, “I must go with you to be your eyes.”
Tuck turned to the window and looked forth into the Shadowlight, but his vision swam with tears and he saw nought. His voice was now low, and he spoke haltingly: “When we stood at the slaughtered waggon train, you swore an oath as a Prince of the Realm to run these kinstealers unto the ground. But you swore that oath as a Prince; yet again I say, now you are King . . . and a higher duty here calls, and you are honor-bound to answer . . . no matter what your heart cries out to do. Even though it will take . . . weeks . . . months . . . still our course should be south . . . to Pellar . . . to the Host. You must crush Modru Kinstealer, at the last, but crush his Horde ere then, for it lays waste to the Land.
The Iron Tower Omnibus Page 28
