As Agron took the coin, just as suddenly Tip felt a sense of relief mingled with a sense of loss, as if he had laid down a weighty burden while at the same time had been cast adrift. The mission was done. The task accomplished. The coin passed on. His promise to a dying warrior kept. But now what? What would he do? Where would he go? Back to Twoforks? Back to his mill? With a war raging on? Agron sighed and softly said, "I hoped to never see this." The king stepped to a chair and seated himself, his face haggard. He looked at Tip, the Warrow yet waiting. " Tis from High King Blaine. A summons." "A summons?" asked Tip. "Aye, a summons; a call for aid." "But it is we who need aid," blurted Captain Brud. "Aye," agreed King Agron.
"I have brought aid," said Tipperton, and he gestured at the flagstaff in Brud's hand.
Brud looked at the furled standard he yet held and then stood the staff upright, the flag uncurling to loosely drape down, silver axes on black showing.
"Kachar," breathed King Agron, and with hope in his eyes he looked at Tip.
"Aye, Kachar. DelfLord Valk will be here with three thousand Dwarven warriors within the week, and well do I know his plan."
That night from each of Dendor's four gates, fire arrows sailed up in the air.
The beringing Swarm jeered and japed at this paltry show of arms.
But high on a ridge south of the city, four people shed glad tears, for at last they knew that Tipperton Thistledown, friend and companion, was not captured or dead, but had gone into Dendor instead.
Chapter 9
As they took a late private supper, Tipperton glanced at the coin lying on the table near the king's right hand and said, "Lord Agron, I have borne that penny for a full year trying to reach you, and now you tell me it is a summons. Yet surely there's more to the tale than that. 1 mean, because of the token my friends and I, well, our lives have been changed in ways none could have imagined a year back, and little of it for the better. Too, Kingsmen have died bearing that coin. Oh, not that the token is at the root of the ills besetting Mithgar-Modru and Gyphon bear the blame for that. Still, it is the penny and a promise which set me and my friend Beau Darby on our way to find you, and much has happened since then, and I would hear the full story behind the coin, if you please."
Agron nodded. "You deserve that and much more, Sir Tipperton."
"Tip," replied the buccan.
"Eh?"
"Please, lord, call me Tip, or Tipperton. 'Sir Tipperton' sounds so very formal."
The king smiled and said, "Would that I could do the same, Tip. -Simply to be called Agron, I mean."
Tipperton grinned and then suddenly and without volition yawned, then looked apologetically at Agron. "Your pardon, my lord, I assure you it's not the company, but the truth is I've not slept for nigh two days-lurking the night among Spawn and then crawling 'cross the land between as it were. Even so, I would hear of the coin."
Agron turned up a hand and said, "It is a simple tale, Tip, one begun some forty years past. You see, Blaine and I first met in the Greatwood when we were but lads. As is the custom, our sires had sent each of us there in the spring of our tenth year to live in the care of the Baeron throughout the summer, to learn how to listen to the land and to hearken unto its voice, to learn its ways and foster its well-being. And it was there in the Greatwood where we became fast friends, Blaine and I… blood brothers, more or less. But the summer, as all summers do, finally came to an end, and with the onset of autumn we were to part: he to Caer Pendwyr, I to Dendor. It so happened I had with me two Gjeenian pennies, the cheapest coin of any realm, and as the day of our parting drew nigh, I strung the coins on leather straps and gave one to Blaine and kept one myself. And we pledged that should one of us need the full help of the other, the penny is what we would send." Agron lifted a thong about his own neck, and on it dangled another of the plain pewter coins, holed in the middle. Then he took up the like token Tipperton had given him and gripped the leather cord tightly, his knuckles showing white. "As I said, 'tis a summons, this Gjeenian penny, a call for aid, a call to muster all forces and ride to war. And this cheapest of coins, this base pittance, this Gjeenian penny would pay for all."
"Oh my," said Tip. "Oh my. So that's what it's all about. Would that the Kingsman had been able to tell me, but he died by Spaunen hand ere I got back with aid." Tip shook his head in regret.
"Good men die in war," said Agron, then amended, "good people, that is." The king sighed and looked at Tip. "Still he gave the coin, the mission, over to you, and in that he chose well. -I wonder, did he have a name?"
"None he gave me, sire, but whoever he was, he saved my life. Would that I could have saved his."
They sat in silence for a while, and then Tip added, "Young he was, twenty-five or so I would guess, though when it comes to Humans, I am not the best judge of age. Still, he was young… slender… like you, my lord, and about your height, though once again I have trouble judging, you Humans being nearly double height to me. He had dark hair, nearly black and short-cropped, and pale blue eyes, pale as ice, so pale as to seem nearly-"
"White?" blurted Agron, bolting upright.
"Why, yes, my lord," said Tipperton in surprise. "Eyes so pale as to seem nearly white, a bit like yours, though more so."
"Marks, any marks?"
"Marks?"
"Distinguishing marks."
Tip frowned in concentration, trying to remember a year past. "N-no… -Oh wait! Yes, a scar above one eye, the left, I believe."
Agron's face drained of blood, and he gestured over his own left eyebrow, his finger jagging down, then up. "V-shaped?"
"How did you know?"
Anguish flooded Agron's face. "He took it in practice. I gave it to him." The king's voice fell to a whisper. "An accident."
"You know this man?"
"He was my son, Dular my son, my one and only heir."
Agron shoved back from the table and fled the room…
… leaving Tip alone shedding tears.
A time later a page came, and he led Tip to a bedchamber within the castle, where, in spite of the pulse of the Gargon running through his veins, the buccan fell asleep while undressing and slept the whole night through, his right boot lying on the floor, the left one yet on his foot.
After a hot bath, a page brought Tip clean clothes to wear, clothes outgrown by a child of the castle staff. Too, the page tied a black band about the buccan's left wrist. As Tip looked on in puzzlement, the youth somberly pointed to the band he himself wore, saying, "It is a mourning band, sir, worn on the left wrist, closest to the heart. The king, his son Prince Dular… word has come he was killed by the Foul Folk." The page sighed and stepped back and looked at the buccan. Apparently finding Tipperton passable, he then led the Warrow down to a great hall to break fast with the king and members of the court.
Tip came into a large chamber filled with people taking breakfast, and black wristbands of mourning were worn by each person there. At the high table sat Agron, his face haggard, as if he had not slept at all. And the air of the chamber was doleful. As the buccan stood looking, Mage Alvaron waved Tip to a vacant seat at hand.
"Here, lad, sit next to me and tell us of your ventures dire, for surely you had many a trial in coming here, and we need a bit of distraction."
Tip climbed onto the bench beside Alvaron and knelt on his knees to be at a height to eat comfortably.
Across the table sat a flaxen-haired lady of indeterminate age, though had Tip to guess he would have put her just beyond her young-maiden years. And although she spoke to Alvaron, her somewhat tilted blue eyes were upon Tip-perton. "Hush, Alvaron; let him be, at least until he gets some provender within." She smiled at the buccan, her face lighting up.