Trek to Kraggen-Cor (29 page)

"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.

Cotton reached the head of the column where were assembled the Chief Captains. They gazed up at the linn high above them, now just a stark rock precipice over which no stream tumbled. As they looked, Durek stepped into view on the edge and motioned for them to mount up the steps.

When Cotton arrived at the top with the others, he stared uneasily at the flat, still, dark waters and thought, Well, now, there's something about this lake that isn't right. It's like the water itself is dead. And then he saw that neither cloud nor sky nor the towering Loom was mirrored in its depths; not even light itself seemed to reflect back from the dull surface. And as if to underscore the unpleasantness generated by this dark pool, several large bubbles rose to the surface nearby to burst with soft plopping sounds and release a foul-smelling reek of rotted matter, while the dark rings of passage writhed and intertwined and spread outward and quickly died to leave the sullen surface without motion once more.

"Over there," Durek rasped, pointing, "lies the Dusken Door. That pile of rock against the Loom holds within it the shattered edifice and columns spoken of in the Raven Book. We can see the facings whence they were sundered, shallow with age but still sign of where it all once stood flanking and capping the portal—a massive work, now destroyed. There, too, are uptom trees, rent from the drowned courtyard. Yet, even with all the stone and wood, Turin estimates that but one half and two days are needed to clear the way, which will put us at the Door on the twenty-fifth, as planned."

There was a general murmur of approval, and Cotton's heart leapt for joy; he had been worried about being late, and now his anxiety fled with the news.

"Turin has a plan," continued King Durek, "of how to array the stone workers to make short shrift of this labor."

Durek stepped down from the large stone upon which he had stood to address the Council, and Turin Stonesplitter, Masterdelver, mounted up in the Dwarf King's stead. "First, we shall divide ourselves into the same shifts as were used against the snow," he began, and then went on to describe how the pile would be reduced and what tools were needed.

And though Cotton tried to pay attention, his eye was irresistibly drawn to the darkling mere, its ominous surface lying dead and dull. And Turin's voice faded from the Warrow's consciousness as he swept the length of the lake with his sight, to see . . . nothing.

The westering Sun was low and the Great Loom bloomed orange with its setting, yet the tarn showed only dismal gloom in its bodeful murk And as

the Council came to an end, the planning over, and the Captains made their way down the stairs in the dusk, Cotton took a last look at the lake as he brought up the rear; he heard a soft plopping and saw out in the center large rings rippling shoreward, and he wondered if they, too, were caused by bubbles.

Work began early the next morning as hundreds of delvers lined along the base of the Loom on either side of the ramped rubble while many more scrambled up the face of the heap. With picks and mattocks and sledges and spikes and levers and ropes, they began loosening and breaking up the pile, freeing stone and tumbling it down for the others to carry or drag away. As Rand had noted the day before, much of the rock was already split and shattered, and great shards were toppled to slither down to those waiting below. Yet there were large fragments requiring many Dwarves hauling upon strong ropes to nudge them, grinding, away from the ramp. Slowly the workers uncovered one of the great trees, and they brought into play axes and saws to hew the branches and sever the trunk, and Dwarves dragged and rolled the hacked and sawn timber aside.

Amid all this activity, directing the work forces, white-bearded Turin Stonesplitter climbed and pointed and gesticulated—in command. The laboring Dwarves set to with great energy: shoving, rolling, pulling, hauling, pushing, and dragging the great stones and timbers away, while others hammered and pried and tied and chopped and sawed, tumbling the wood and rock down. Shifts changed, but the toil ceased not.

Across the lakelet, Cotton sat atop the dam and watched the work proceed; he was far enough away so that he marveled at how much like an anthill the activity seemed. All day he looked on, only taking time away for a quick lunch, watching the pile slowly diminish, measuring its fall by its height on the Loom.

It was nearly sundown when Rand, Durek, and Brytta mounted up the carven steps. "Ho, Cotton!" hailed Rand, "we are going around to see the progress made on this day. Care to join us?"

Would he? Yes indeed! Cotton eagerly jumped to his feet. He had been itching to go take a look, yet had not wanted to be in the way; but now it was an altogether different prospect, for he had an excuse: he was going with the King to inspect the work.

As they trudged through the sere grass and brown weeds, and around the clots of thorny, woodlike, dried brambles tangling through the stunted, twisted, withered trees along the scum-laden shore of the dull pool, making their way toward the north end of the Dark Mere, Durek spoke: "This vale seems utterly dead, unlike the tales of old when it was said that lush grass and slender green trees and fruit-laden bushes carpeted the land and stood upon the slopes; and the dell was a verdant emerald set among the towering Moun-

tains. But now it is Death-struck, as if this dark lake were a great strangling cesspool of choking black poison, and it seems as if the very earth of this once beautiful Ragad Vale has been slain by this evil.'*

Cotton looked around and shuddered at Durek's imagery, and Brytta added, "Aye, this vale indeed seems cursed, for Nightwind and the other steeds will not touch this foul pasturage. Yet there is not enough grain nor clear water to long support the herd, for there are more than a thousand of your horses, and forty-four of ours. We must move the steeds, and so I have sent a scout looking; shortly we will drive them south to the great winter grasslands of the western vales—that is, as soon as you succeed in uncovering the Door and enter the caverns."

Durek nodded and sighed. "Just so, Brytta, though I had hoped we would not have to take this step as you foresaw we might; for I have come to depend heavily upon the eyes of the Yanadurin, and the loss will be greatly felt—though we have little or no choice."

'"Even so," Brytta growled, "it rowels me to know that we will not be with you at the Wrg-slaughter, avenging the victims of North Reach and elsewhere. But we Sons of Harl are better suited to deal with the horses, and to watch the Quadran Col should Spawn come that way—though the high snows blocking the gap would seem to bar that event.

"Yet, the Rutcha and Drokha may have found the High Gate you spoke of, and may now have a way to march from that direction. But even though it is more likely that the Spawn will come at you through the dark passages of the Black Maze, I swear that they shall not strike at your back by coming down from the Quadran Pass and through this valley, for we shall keep sentinels posted at the gap, and they shall light a signal fire should the Wrg come, and we will abandon the herd and harass the Spawn to draw them aside and keep them from falling upon you from behind.

"And when you enter the caverns and the battle begins, should any flee your axes and escape through this west Door, ere they can debouch Ragad Yale, another of my guards posted here will strike a signal fire and summon the Harlingar from herd duty, and the craven Spawn will fall prey to our lances."

Here, Brytta flourished his spear, thrusting it forward as if he were lancing from horseback. "Perhaps we shall see some fighting yet—though it seems likely that it will not come to pass, and some of us will merely watch in vain for Rutcha and Drokha, while the rest of us keep the drove.

"Nay, galling or not, we must tend the herd and guard the vale, for it is better we do these necessary things we know than to flounder about in a dark crack in the earth, more a hindrance than an aid, for the Black Hole is no wan-ing place for a plainsman bred."

"Hah!" cried Durek, clapping the Man of Yalon upon the shoulder "Plainsman bred you are and plainsmen bred we need: to be our eyes, and to guard our flanks, and to speed tidings of our fortunes along the margins of

Valon where lies the mineholt of my kindred in the Red Hills, and thence to your King Eanor in Vanar; and to ride beyond Valon to Pellar and bear the news to High King Darion at Caer Pendwyr. And aye, we need you to ward horses, as Vanadurin have done throughout the centuries. And further, we need you to stand fast at our backs and guard against unseen assault. Yet think not that these are but small tasks, Brytta of the Valanreach, for without the Riders of Valon, much would go amiss."

And Durek clasped the forearm of the Reachmarshal, and the blond warrior smiled down upon the Dwarf King; and Prince Rand and Cotton the Waerling witnessed the final healing of the ancient rift between the Men of Valon and the Line of Durek, and they were glad.

The four strode up to the north end of the black pool and crossed over the torpid water, there to turn south along the Loom. Cotton did not like wading through the skirt of the stagnated mere, his boots sliding and sucking through the muck; and the clinging slime and yellowed scum made his feet feel befouled even though they were shod, as if something evil and unclean had defiled him. He tried to shake off this impression but did not succeed, and still his jewel-like viridian eyes strayed over the menace of the dull-black waters. He felt certain that the Krakenward was gone, for surely by now it would have attacked the workers; yet somehow the dark mere seemed to bode an ominous doom—a threat he felt growing with the coming of darkness.

The four of them crossed the bridge and came to the northern arm of the work force, and Durek nodded and smiled at the workers as he passed, saying words to a few. And then they came to the pile, and Turin jumped down to speak to his King. To Cotton and Brytta the remaining heap looked enormous at hand, but to Rand and Durek, who had seen it before, it was greatly diminished.

"We are doing better than I gauged," said Turin. "We may finish earlier than expected."

Durek smiled and said something in return, but Cotton did not hear it.

A great feeling of dread overwhelmed the buccan and he turned to look at the lake, the hair on the nape of his neck standing erect. He could see nothing, yet fear coursed through him and his heart pounded. The Sun was low and sinking, and work had been called to a halt. The Dwarves were retrieving their mail from the base of the Loom and donning it, slipping their broad-bladed axes back into their carrying thongs. Again voices around Cotton seemed to become muffled, and he felt an impending doom approaching.