Linnet shook her head.
And so they watched and waited, and some candlemarks later, they slipped back downslope and retrieved their ponies and rode eastward after the marchers as the day waned.
In the night nigh the bridgehead the cries and moaning among the wounded Fists of Rakka dwindled and dwindled to finally cease altogether, and Dwarves came back into camp and cleaned their knives of blood.
And still a cold wind blew from Garia and across the legion and host.
Chapter 37
"Oh my," hissed Tipperton in the dawn. "Look ahead." "Adon," breathed Linnet, "H?l's Crucible." They lay bellydown atop a ridge and peered easterly past the encamped Fists of Rakka below. Under the overcast sky they could see a vast rift in the earth, the near side nought but a jagged edge running out of the northwest and disappearing into the southeast, all obscured by a darkling haze. Even so, dim in the distance and steeply rising lay the far side, hills atop, with mountains looming vaguely beyond. From where the pair lay, they could not see the floor of the basin directly below the nearside brim, but two or so leagues outward and deeply down a thousand feet or so the bottom hove into view; leftward the floor plunged down and away, the bottom entirely beyond sight. Where they could see the floor of the rift, jumbles of jagged black stone ran in long, long stretches, and ragged fissures vomited dark smoke up and out, to be caught by the chill wind and spread wide in layers of grey, while elsewhere yellowish vapors belched forth to mingle with the dusky vapors and turn the westerly flow an ill-seeming, sickly brown… and the stench was nigh staggering. Under this cast of foul smoke, little else could be discerned, yet there was no question that this was indeed H?l's Crucible.
"Lord, but what must it smell like in the bottom below when the wind doesn't blow down from those mountains afar," said Linnet, her face wrinkled in disgust.
"Bloody awful, if you ask me," said Tip. "Ryn says the vapors are deadly when the air in the basin is still."
"Oh my, but I would hate to have that reek in my nostrils if I were to die."
"Well then, let's take a pledge to remain out of H?l's Crucible," said Tip, grinning.
They watched and waited for the Fists of Rakka to break camp, yet the black-robed men stayed put. And the day grew on toward the noontide, yet little below changed.
But then Linnet said, "I say, look there. Is that the King's host coming?"
Tipperton peered westerly where Linnet pointed. In the distance along the rim of the rift a mounted force stretched away for miles, with some men on foot trotting alongside the riders. Long did Tip look, his suspicions growing, and finally in the fore he could see "A flag, black and red," Tipperton gritted. "This is no host of the King."
"Then who?" asked Linnet.
"I think it may be the Southerlings-Hyrinians and Kis-tanians and Chabbains."
"How can you know?"
"I saw such in Valon, when Beau and Phais and Loric and I crossed that wide land. Too, I think the flag they bear is Modru's own."
Steadily the long column neared, and at last Tipperton could clearly see the standard they bore as it blew in the wind: it was a ring of fire on black.
"It is Modru's banner, Linnet. One of us is going to have to take this news back to-" began Tipperton -but Linnet hissed, "Movement behind and below."
Tipperton turned, and slipping uphill from rock to rock came "Nix!" sissed Linnet.
The buccan was clearly heading for their position. And now hoving into view behind Nix came Dinly… and then after him came Farly.
Nix flopped down next to Linnet and said, "You are going to have to take more care, sister of mine."
Linnet raised an eyebrow, and Nix added, "You were seen."
"Seen? By whom?"
"Well, not exactly you, Linnet, but your pony downslope instead. I believe it was Dara Vail who spotted it."
"Vail?" said Tipperton, looking about. "Where?"
Nix pointed westerly. "On the back side of yon hill, with Alor Flandrena and Dara Arylin. Their own horses are among the crags below."
Tipperton looked long and at last saw the concealed horses.
"They have been tracking the army you see coming yon, and have asked us to bear the word back to King Blaine," said Nix.
"All of us?" asked Tipperton.
Nix shook his head. "I told her that we were trailing the Fists of Rakka, and that we would continue to do so. Besides, Ryn assigned Dinly to be the courier of news."
"Moreover," said Farly, "if the Fists hie in a direction elsewhere from the army the Elves are tracking, well then, someone needs to follow, and that is our task."
Tipperton nodded.
"Should I go now?" asked Dinly.
Tipperton shook his head. "Not yet, Dinly. Let's see what happens when these lackeys of Modru come together."
And so they waited as the multitude neared, closer and closer, until from below came the flat call of a ram's horn, to be answered by a horn from within the approaching ranks.
And still the long columns came on.
Moments passed and moments more, and of a sudden Tipperton groaned.
"What is it?" asked Linnet.
"See riding in the fore ranks?" said Tipperton.
"See what?" asked Nix.
"That man, the one on the dark horse."
"The one carrying a ragged bundle?" asked Farly.
"It is no bundle," said Tipperton, "but the corpse of his daughter instead."
Linnet gasped. "Corpse of-?"
"-His daughter," repeated Tipperton. "It is Mad Lord Tain, a Daelsman, a surrogate of Modru."
Tipperton turned to Dinly. "This news must reach King Blaine. For if Lord Tain is here, then so is the presence of Modru." As Dinly's eyes widened in understanding, an ephemeral thought flitted through Tipperton's mind, but ere he could capture it, it was gone. Nevertheless he said, "Something most foul is afoot, and I would have the King beware." Now Tipperton looked at Farly. "This news is too important for one alone to bear it."
Farly nodded and said, "I will also go."
Again they turned their attention to the army, and now it came in among the Fists of Rakka, the men of Hyree and Chabba and Kistan greeting those of Hum and Sarain and Thyra.
And a score of men-Chabbains, Hyrinians, Kistanians, and several Fists of Rakka-gathered around Lord Tain as he whispered unto the remains of his daughter, the corpse seeming no more than a bundle of twigs to the Warrows afar. Yet in moments Lord Tain turned unto those around him and clenched a fist and seemed to be hissing orders. After a while, again Lord Tain turned to the corpse he bore, yet just ere he did, he looked long at the hills above and seemed to laugh.
"So they have joined forces, have they?"
"Aye, my lord," said Farly, Dinly at his side nodding. "Right about here, or so Tipperton gauges." In the early-morning light, Farly pointed to a place on the map.
"And they marched off southeasterly along the rim of H?l's Crucible," added Dinly.
King Blaine's eyes widened. "Southeasterly?"
"Aye, my lord. Southeasterly," said Dinly.
King Loden looked at the map and then at DelfLord Bekki. "You know more of this region, Lord Bekki. What could be their goal?"
Bekki shook his head. "They march toward the shield wall."
"They also march toward the sea," said Coron Eiron.
"Ships," replied Skipskaptein Arnson. "There may be ships awaiting them at the shores of the Avagon."
"We must not let them escape," growled DelfLord Volki.
King Blaine nodded and glanced at the others and finally at Linde. "Sound the horns. We will pursue."
"My lord," said Arth of the Wilderland, "forget not what these Waldans have said: the foe has a surrogate among them-"