Bekki shook his head. "The cowardly enemy did not escape unscathed, for the Chakka threw twelve or thirteen thousand of the foe over the rim last night."
Rynna's face filled with distress. "You cast them over the brim?"
"Aye," replied Bekki, "by my orders as well as those of DelfLords Volki and Okar and Valk, they were thrown into the rift. Pah, unlike some we have battled in the past, these did not deserve the honor of fire or stone."
"But to cast them over the rim…"
"Fear not, lady, for most were dead by the time they were flung."
Rynna shook her head in fret but returned her gaze downslope.
"When will the King offer them surrender terms again?" asked Tip.
As Bekki snorted in disgust, Rynna said, "He proposes to do so at the noontide."
"Well then, that gives us some time to look over the terrain, just in case-"
Tipperton's words were interrupted by a horn call from below.
"Look!" cried Beau, pointing.
From the fore of the ranks of the enemy, a large party broke away from the main body and advanced onto the slope and up. In the lead strode a Chabbain bearing a grey flag, flanked left and right by more Chabbains, twenty-one warriors in all. In their wake rode some thirty or so horsemen-Kistanians, Hyrinians, Jungarians-with a score of black-robed Fists of Rakka striding upslope behind. Midst them all rode Lord Tain bearing the corpse of his daughter Jolet.
A half mile up the slope they came, to one of the level flats. And there they stopped and planted the grey flag and blew the horn again.
The surrogate had come to parley.
"My Lord King, again I say beware treachery," said DelfLord Bekki, even as he slipped a throwing axe into his belt and took up his war hammer and shield. "There is no honor in their hearts."
"Nevertheless," said King Blaine, buckling on his sword, "we will go to meet them. I had planned on doing so in the noontide." As he slid a plain helm over his red hair, he added, "This merely advances our plans by several can-dlemarks." He mounted his grey horse and took his embossed shield from an attendant, then turned to the others. "Ready?"
Armed and armored and mounted all, the Corons and DelfLords and Marshals and Captains and Mages and Kings and Chieftains and one Warrow Commander started down the slope, Vanidar Silverleaf at Blaine's right, Hros-marshal Linde to his left and bearing the High King's scar-let-and-gold standard, Dara Arylin dextral of Vanidar and bearing the flag of truce.
Tipperton watched as Rynna rode down and away, his heart hammering in his chest. "I do not trust these foe to honor the grey flag."
At Tipperton's side, Mage Imongar said, "Neither do I, Sir Tipperton. Neither do I."
Now Tip looked across at the other Warrows. "Mount up," he gritted. "Mount up just in case."
Behind the Warrow army, Elves and Dwarves and Baeron and Mages and men mounted up as well.
Down they rode and down, coming ever nearer the foe, and Rynna shuddered, for now she could see Lord Tain, with his unclean white hair stringing down and his filthy white beard reaching to his waist; and he sat madly murmuring unto the long-dead burden he tenderly cradled in his own gaunt arms. Desiccated she was, her skin like leather drawn tight. Her teeth protruded in a gaping, rictus grin, her eyes nought but dark hollows. Rotted silken garments clung to her wasted frame, her left leg missing below the knee, the yellowed thighbone above showing through, a bit of tattered hose yet clinging. Her other leg and arms were wasted, drawn thin like jerky meat, the bones of her hands and remaining foot skeletal. Lord Tain held her close to his breast and kissed her and stroked what was left of her dark stringy hair and whispered of a glorious future ahead after her child was born.
Horror filled Rynna's heart at such a sight, yet a poignant sadness, too, and she turned her head away, tears streaming down.
Now the King and company reached the flat to come before the foe, and some ten yards from the surrogate, Blaine held up a hand and stopped. Behind him the emissaries stopped as well.
A black-cloaked Fist of Rakka stepped to Lord Tain's horse and led it forth from the ranks. Then he turned unto the surrogate and hissed, "Gluktu!"
Lord Tain's prattle and whispering ceased, and his deranged gaze was displaced, to be filled with a malevolent glare. No longer did a demented old man look through these eyes, but a vile being instead.
Slowly the surrogate's gaze slid across each and every one of the emissaries, and when his glare came unto Coron Eiron he laughed. "How is your son, my lord, yet fetching a silver blade? Oh, but dear me, I did forget: 'twas lost in the Dalgor Fens." Again came the laughter, as Eiron's knuckles turned white on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
The surrogate's gaze slithered on down the line of emissaries, and when it came to Rynna, she shuddered under the malignant stare, and she knew 'twas Modru who glared out at her. Yet he looked upon Rynna in puzzlement, as if trying to determine just who or what she was, and where he might have seen her kind before.
His gaze finally left her and slid on down the line, passing over Dwarves and Baeron and Elves and men. But then he came unto Farrin and Dalavar, the Mages staring coldly back. "Bah! You bring neophytes with you, Dalavar? Novices above as well?"
Dalavar's Wolflike eyes bore into those of the surrogate, but neither he nor Farrin replied.
The surrogate glared at the Wolfmage and sneered, "That we are met for the third time bodes you ill, Dalavar, for two minor victories does not a war win. It is of no moment that you escaped me once at the Stones of Jalan and then again in the Gwasp, for this time I shall throw a collar about your mongrel scruff and bring you to heel. And think not to evade me by that bauble about your neck, for I am your master in concealment as you will see."
With a wave of hand the vile presence dismissed all the emissaries and turned its gaze upon High King Blaine.
Blaine stared back into the malevolent glare. "We did not come here to trade insults, Lord Modru, but to accept your surrender instead."
"Surrender? You fool. 'Tis you who should lay down your arms, for my victory here will be absolute. Did you not think it peculiar that when my forces left Gunarring Gap they seemed prepared to come straightly here? Here where all your petty kings and corons and chieftains and DelfLords and other such rabble could gather? And did you not wonder why I did not destroy your paltry bridge but instead left it intact? Oh, it was a clever move to use Dragonships as pontoons, yet through my agents I watched them being fitted in the harbor of Pendwyr there in Hile Bay and realized your plan. But I let it proceed unmolested. Why you ask? Bah! Is it not obvious? Know this, Fool Blaine. I drew you here to H?l's Crucible, you and your so-called Free Folk, for with but one blow at this place, I will eliminate all fools who oppose me, and when I have destroyed you entirely, Gyphon will rule, and I will be His regent."
Blaine looked grimly at the surrogate, but his words were for the one within. "You say such, Foul Modru, yet first you have to win, and at the moment, we hold the advantage."
"Advantage? Advantage? Imbecile Blaine!" The surrogate glanced at King Ranor in wrath, and then glared back at King Blaine. "That you hold the high ground is but an accident of these horse-lovers arriving unexpectedly, else you would be in the basin below, and I would hold the ground above. Even so, it is of no import, for you cannot prevail against that which I bring." Again the surrogate's face twisted in gloat. "What's that you ask? What is it I bring? Pah! Did you not know why the wind blows? Why my wind blows? It is to clear away the vapors in H?l's Crucible for the march of my dread Swarm!" Now the surrogate glanced at Dalavar and laughed and gestured out into the rift and cried, "Behold!"
Of a sudden out on the floor of the basin, at a distance a rippling purled the air and where before there was nought but runs of shattered black stone and sulfurous rock and bubbling pustulant pools, a great Swarm stood revealed: thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Foul Folk, a hundred thousand or more-Rucks, Hloks, Ghuls on Helsteeds, dark Vulgs, hundreds of monstrous Trolls, and a dozen or more dreadful Gargons-all boiling forward in a seething, monstrous mass. And in the air high aloft flew a great, dark shape, mighty and massive and black, its vast leathery pinions churning: it was a Dragon dire.