"Oh my," exclaimed Beau, taking Linnet's hand. "Have any been hurt? -Any of our watchers, that is."
"Not so far," replied Farly, "though there's been one or two close calls."
Nix frowned and looked at Rynna. "I wonder what it all means?"
Rynna paused in thought and then said, "Perhaps they do not want a repeat of what happened at Rimmen Gape, their trap being sprung and all."
Slowly, Tip shook his head. "It seems to me that something greater may be afoot, but what it might be I cannot say."
"Who knows the mind of Modru?" muttered Beau.
"All we can do," said Rynna, "is keep a wary watch."
Three days later, Rynna stood at the map table in the ward camp, Warrows gathered 'round. A handful of Pysks stood on the table itself and looked at the map Tip had sketched on a broad sheet of vellum. Rynna looked across at Tynvyr and said, [The news is grim.] Picyn and Tynvyr glanced at one another, their features giving way to dismay.
[Tell us,] said Tynvyr.
Rynna sighed and spoke on: [When the siege of Drim-men-deeve was lifted, Coron Eiron sent heralds across Quadran Pass to find High King Blaine. Though there were many foe along the way, some of the couriers managed to get through-and back as well. This is what they learned:
[In the opening days of the war, Modru's forces swept out from Gron and 'round the northern end of the Rigga Mountains. Down through Rian they came, and assaulted Challerain Keep. It fell in a pitched battle, but not before the balefires were lit. The High King and some of his forces managed to escape, and they fought a series of running skirmishes as they fled south and west.]
Beau stabbed a finger to the map. [Here near Stonehill there were several battles in a set of downs, and it was here Blaine and his forces smashed the foe, for here the High King won. But more Foul Folk marched down through Rian, and still more came from the east, and so the King and survivors went west, past the Bosky and into Wellen beyond.] Beau grinned. [Eiron said the Boskydells themselves are yet safe, for the maggot-folk can't breach the Thornwall ringing it all 'round.]
Rynna's finger traced a route on the map: [The maggot-folk who came at the King from the east had marched through Gruwen Pass and into Drearwood and then west, for Modru hoped to catch the King between this force and the Spawn to the north.]
[These were the ones we saw when we came through Drearwood,] said Beau, looking at Tip.
Tip nodded but did not reply as Rynna continued:
[Still in the north, the maggot-folk took Crestan Pass, and Quadran Pass, and set siege upon Drimmen-deeve.
[Too, they blocked the Gunarring Gap.]
[As we found out,] muttered Beau, looking at the map.
[Is there no end to Modru's vile greed?] asked Phero, stepping across the map to view it from the other side.
[You've not heard the half of it,] said Linnet, gesturing for Rynna to go on.
Rynna jabbed a finger to the map at several points: [Here they set siege upon Mineholt North, and here they occupied Rimmen Gape. And here they set siege on Dendor in Aven, and as Tip and Beau have reported]-her hand swept across the Boreal-[from the sea the Spawn invaded the Steppes of Jord.]
Rynna looked up from the map. [Of course, the sieges of Rimmen Gape and Mineholt North and Drimmen-deeve and the city of Dendor have all been broken, and it seems that the Jordians have the maggot-folk on the run, though that news is old and may have taken a turn for the worse.]
[Yes,] said Tynvyr, [but what of the High King, and what of the Hyrinians and Kistanians and Chabbains?]
Rynna's hand swept south and west. [Eiron's own forces have reported that in the south the Lakh of Hyree were ferried across the Straits of Kistan by the Rovers, and up through Vancha and Tugal they came, ravaging as they went.
[The Kistanians themselves, after burning the ships in the harbors of Arbalin, landed a force in Hoven, though for the most, their ships block the Straits of Kistan.
[And also to the south, across the Avagon Sea came the Chabbains, and they invaded Jugo and Pellar.
[Meanwhile, the Fists of Rakka have revealed themselves once more, and they swept out from Sarain to take Hum and Alban.]
Phero looked up from the map. [Fists of Rakka?]
[A religious sect,] said Rynna. [Put down long past when a woman from Ryodo rallied the oppressed.]
[And this Rakka…?]
[Another name for Gyphon,] replied Tip, [or so the Lian say.]
[Ah,] said Tynvyr. Then she looked back at the map as Rynna continued:
[Together, these four nations-Hyree, Kistan, Chabba, and Sarain-control the Karoo, Khem, Thyra, Hum, Alban, Vancha, Tugal, and parts of Hoven, Jugo, Valon, and Pellar.] As she named them off, Rynna's hand swept 'round the whole of the Avagon Sea.
[Oh my,] said Picyn, [can things be worse?]
[Things are worse,] said Tipperton. [Atala has been destroyed, and the silver sword is lost.]
[That's right,] said Beau. [And Gyphon has invaded the High Plane, and the ways between are sundered-all but the bloodways-yet that seems neither here nor there to Warrows]-he turned to Tynvyr-[although it might to Pysks.]
Tynvyr shook her head. [We fled from our home to Mithgar and will never go back to our own Plane.]
[Oh?] said Linnet.
All five Pysks nodded grimly, but none added more.
Tynvyr turned to Rynna. [Can you answer my other question? What of the High King?]
[He is hard-pressed in the west. Still, the men of Wellen and Dalara and Thol, of Jute and Gothon and Gelen, and the warriors of Fjordland-who've sailed across the Boreal Sea and 'round to the Ryngar Arm to join Blaine in the fight-they all stand fast, in spite of bad blood between nations.]
[Old adversaries unite against a common foe,] said Farly.
[Enemy of my enemy, enemy of mine,] affirmed Nix.
Rynna frowned at this statement but shrugged and then said, [And the High King prepares a great fleet in the harbors of the shipbuilders along the Weston Ocean-]
[A great fleet? What for?] asked Nia, looking at her mate, Kell. He, in turn, looked at Rynna.
Rynna turned up a hand. [I think he plans on breaking the Rovers' blockade of the Kistanian Straits and invading the occupied lands from the south.]
[If and when he does,] said Nix, [that's the time we War-rows need to rally to his banner and take the fight to these Hyrinians and Kistanians and other men.]
[As well as to the Rucks and Hloks,] added Farly.
Her voice aquaver, Linnet said, [And Ghuls on Helsteeds-and Trolls.]
[And Gargons,] Rynna added, memory drawing her face grim.
Recalling Quadran Pass and Dael, Tip looked 'round at the others and quietly said, [And perhaps a Dragon or two.]
Awed by the enormity of the task, they fell silent a moment, until Beau asked, [And after we've done them all in, then what?]
"Uh oh," whispered Tip, "I think he's got our scent."
Downslope, a horrid being stood among the crags: twelve feet tall, like a giant Ruck, it seemed, but massive and brutish and with a green-scaled skin. But no Ruck was this; instead it was an Ogru, and it snuffled the air, as if to catch the scent of a quarry. And now its glare seemed locked upon the heights above, where lay Tipperton and Beau.
"We've got to get out of here," hissed Tip.
"What about the Rucks?" whispered Beau, pointing rightward, where was sited a maggot-folk sentry post on the ridge crest some two furlongs away.
Still the Troll snuffled the air drifting down from the heights.
"We can only hope they don't spot us," said Tip, glancing up at the February moon, full in the sky above.
The Ogru began climbing up among the crags.
"Let's go," breathed Tip, and down the back slope of the ridge they crept, down toward their ponies waiting in the shadows below.