Seeking to find a way 'round, Tip was shunted aside by a tramping squad of Rucks.
Stepping leftward, Tip passed nigh the rear of the tent. And from inside he could hear a whispering and hissing in a tongue he did not know.
Modru in council?
Again Tip turned aside as a Ghul came walking near.
"It means, Beau, that someone he knows has died." Beau looked up at Loric in alarm. "Oh no. Do you think it could be Tip?" Beau stared down at Dendor, as if willing his sight to fly overland to wherever Tip might be. Yet though false dawn glimmered in the sky, only shadow 'round the city met his gaze, darkness relieved but slightly by the brittle stars high above and the campfires of the Foul Folk below.
Loric turned up his hands. "All Drimma believe that falling stars foretell of fallen friends."
"Wull, let's just hope it's nothing but wild superstition," said Beau, the buccan pacing back and forth while peering down at the city. "Oh, Loric, I told Tip it was a harebrained scheme, and now we have falling stars. And you tell me the Dwarves-oh, surely it can't be true. I mean, stars fall all the time." Beau turned to Loric for confirmation, but Loric was looking at Bekki sitting beneath a tree some distance away, the Dwarf with his hood cast over his head in mourning.
At last Tipperton reached the inner fringe of the Swarm. Ahead some quarter mile or so stood the west gate of Dendor. His heart yet pulsing with the distant dread of the Gargon, Tip looked for a way across. Yet this perimeter was more heavily patrolled, maggot-folk marching the verge. Too, sentries stood watch along this periphery.
Oh lor', but I'll never get out unseen.
Tip glanced at the sky above. False dawn glimmered.
Elwydd, show me the way.
And then to the left, a figure, a Ruck, walked past a sentry and out and down into a shallow gully, while another came trudging back, fastening his breeks as he came from the meager draw. The picket paid little heed.
Tip moved closer and the reek of feces and urine wafted on the air.
Sucking in a deep breath and making certain that his hood was well about his face, Tip hefted the standard and with his stomach squinching he walked past the warder and into the draw, past a Hlok voiding his bladder, past a Ruck defecating, past them all and to the distant end of the gully -where he squatted behind an outcropping of rock and waited, trying with little success to ignore the reeking fumes.
In the last of the darkness before dawn, Beau sat on the ridge with his back to a tree, the dread of the Gargon pulsing in his veins, his stomach roiling with anxiety. He cast his eyes to the night sky above, winter-bright stars coldly glittering.
Oh, Adon, Elwydd, Garlon, Fyrra, and anyone else who cares, watch over Tip. Keep him safe. He's my best friend, you know.
Staying low and taking advantage of every fragment, every fraction, every scrap of cover-dips in the ground, scatters of rock, ditches alongside the road-Tip crawled through the snow toward the west gate, still hundreds of yards away. Pausing by a winter-dead bush, Tip caught his breath and looked back toward the Swarm. He found he was more or less halfway between death at the hands of the Rucks who would kill him for a Warrow and death at the hands of the men who would kill him for a Ruck.
Gritting his teeth, Tip crawled on, the sky in the east turning pale.
"Watch the south gate with your eagle eyes, Phais," said Beau, the buccan's own eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, his face haggard. "Surely you'll see if-no! surely you'll see when Tip goes in."
"I will," replied the Dara.
"As will I," said Loric.
And the four of them stood atop the ridge and peered down at the south gate, as dawn came to the sky.
Moments passed and moments more, and the gate remained shut.
"Oh no," groaned Beau. "He's been captured, he's been captured… or something worse."
Phais knelt and placed an arm about the buccan's shoulders and drew him to her. "Take heart, wee one."
"Huah!" grunted Bekki. "Look left. Something stirs."
" 'Tis Ghuls on Helsteeds," said Loric, staring. Then his eyes widened. "Ai, look now, but they do race through the shadows aslant and toward the west gate of Dendor."
Chapter 8
Ding! Dng! Tip, his hood cast back, hammered the butt of the flagpole against the iron of the enshadowed west gate deep-set in the stone walls of Dendor.
"I'm not a Ruck! I'm not a Ruck!" he shouted in Common over and again as-Dng! Dng!-he pounded on the metal door, flakes of hoarfrost scaling down.
Iron scraped on stone left and right and above, and dimly Tip saw the steel points of crossbow quarrels aimed at him from unshuttered dark arrow slits to each side, and murder holes overhead now yawned wide in the gloom above.
"I am not a Ruck! I am not a Ruck!" cried Tip, waving the standard back and forth-a black flag bearing crossed silver axes-the emblem of Kachar.
A slot in the iron gate slid aside. Eyes peered out to see the fluttering banner sweeping back and forth.
"Vad ar det heir?" growled a voice, and then the eyes shifted down. "Jo, jo! Ar det a Rutch?"
"I am not a Ruck!" shouted Tip in the dawn shadows, turning his head left and right so that the warder might see his features. "I'm not a Ruck, I'm not a Ruck, and I bear a token for King Agron."
The eyes left the small portal, and a voice shouted, "Kap-ten, jag behova dig!"
"King Agron, King Agron, I need to see King Agron." Tip jerked the coin out from under his jerkin. "I bear a token for King Agron."
Atop the wall a horn sounded.
Tip stepped back a dozen or so paces out from under the wall and to the stone bridge, and still waving the flag he peered upward.
But the men above were not staring down at the buccan but instead were looking out toward the Swarm.
Tip turned to see two Ghuls on Helsteeds hammering through the slanting dawn shadows and toward the gate where he stood, snow flying from cloven hooves.
Tip spun back toward the shut portal and ran to the frost-laden steel doors. "Let me in, let me in!"
"Nej! Det ar skoj!"
The iron panel slammed shut and crossbows in arrow-slits were raised and pointed at Tipperton, while Helsteeds thundered toward the gate and cruel barbed spears glimmered in the dawn.
Tipperton whirled and dropped the standard and whipped off his cloak, revealing the Elven bow fastened crosswise over chest and back. Quickly he looped it free and snatched an arrow from the quiver at his thigh.
But even as he did so, a hail of arrows hissed out from the wall above, most to miss, though some struck the Ghuls, piercing arms and legs and necks… and they howled in glee and thundered on.
And trapped outside the gate, Tip aimed and loosed his arrow to strike the lead Helsteed square in the chest, the beast to grunt in pain and run another handful of strides ere tumbling down dead and hurling the Ghul over its head as it crashed into the snow.
Yet as the following Helsteed hammered by, the downed Ghul gained his feet and came running on, his deadly barbed spear in hand.
Now a second flight of arrows hissed out from the wall above to strike at the remaining Ghul and Helsteed; quilled, the cloven-hoofed beast reared up squealing, while the rider cursed in Sluk and cruelly sawed on the reins, fighting for control.
"Let me in! Let me in!" shouted Tipperton, even as he strung a second arrow.
And down through the murder holes-"Open the side postern, you fools!" snapped a voice. "Can you not see he's a Warrow! Oppna den sma port! Skynda dig!"
Even as the Ghul afoot ran forward, arrows hissing all
'round, to Tipperton's left a side postern clanged open. Tip-perton risked a sideways glance and saw an armored man frantically gesturing him inward and shouting, "Skynda pa! Skynda pa!" while three warriors stood farther back, their crossbows leveled at the Warrow.