"Then do so."
"Are we no better than Rucks and such to rob the dead?" whispered Beau to Tip aside.
"They have no use for it," sissed Tip back. "Besides, the maggot-folk are the cause of all this, not us."
Phais looked at the buccen. "Aye, Beau, Tipperton is right. Were we to slaughter merely for plunder, then would we be no better."
Beau frowned but held his tongue.
In midafternoon the Baeron came back from the woodland funeral, and they drove the remainder of the great horses with them, horses which had been corralled in Darda Erynian for safekeeping. And among those huge steeds were the lighter horses of the Elves, for their spare mounts had been corralled in the wood as well.
The next morning, with outriding scouts far in the lead, the vanguard and cavalcade and wagon train moved easterly through Rimmen Gape, leaving behind the field of slaughter, leaving behind the city of the dead, leaving behind two leaf-covered bowers in the fringes of the Great Greenhall and a circle of scorch in the mead.
And even as they rode, an Elven rider on swift steed and trailing three remounts overtook the train and the cavalcade and galloped past and away, riding in haste for the vanguard a mile or so ahead.
Tipperton, Beau, Vail, Melor, Loric, and Phais were in the rank following Ruar when the courier rode alongside the Coron's file, her horses lathered and blowing.
"The Hidden Ones, my Coron," she called, "they've driven the Horde from the ruins of Caer Lindor. The Swarm fled from Darda Erynian and Darda Stor in terror, and ere they won free of the dardas, fully half of the Spaunen were slain, ne'er to answer Modru's bugles again."
Ruar clenched a fist. "Well and good, Dara Cein. Is there aught else?"
"Nay, my Coron. Eio Wa Suk report no more."
"And Caer Lindor, it is in ruins?"
"Aye, my Coron, or so the Pyska who relayed the message say."
Ruar shook his head in regret as Cein added, "The caer betrayed is a mighty strongholt no more."
Phais turned to Tipperton and Beau. "Thy kith are avenged."
"The Hidden Ones, they should have killed them all, all the Spawn," said Tipperton, his face stormy.
"But fully five thousand lie dead, Tipperton."
"Nevertheless, these Hidden Ones, they should have pursued until all the maggot-folk were dead."
Phais looked at him as if to ask how many dead would it take to satisfy his thirst for revenge, but instead she held out a hand of negation and said, "The Hidden Ones will not go beyond the bounds of their dardas."
"On occasion one or two will," said Vail.
Phais nodded. "Aye, even a handful, but not the nation itself."
Ruar called to Cein, "Ride awhile with us, and this night we will relate all that has happened since we left, and thou canst bear word back unto Birchyll."
A look of disappointment fell over Cein's features, yet she said, "I was hoping to ride with thee into battle, my Coron. Yet, as thou wilt."
That night they camped at the far side of the gape, some twenty-five miles away. And Ruar and Eilor called the scouts together and once again laid out the maps. And they were attended by Gara and Bwen as well. Another Baeran was there, too, a tall, dark-haired man. So too was Cein in attendance, to carry word back to those behind in Darda Erynian.
When all had settled in place, Ruar said, "We are at a point of choosing the route we follow from here. I have called ye all together so that scouts and war leaders alike will know." Ruar turned to the dark-haired Baeran. "Uryc has traveled within the Ring of Riamon, and so has come to give us his advice."
Eilor handed an arrow to Uryc, and the big man touched the point of the shaft to the map to illustrate: "Mineholt North is some forty leagues northerly along the Rimmen Range. Yet the land 'tween here and there is one of rolling foothills, broken at times by washouts and chasms and gullies. It will be difficult going for the wagons. If that's the way chosen, the task for the outriders will be to find the easiest route through."
Tipperton and Vail, because of their small stature, had been given places up front, and Tipperton looked up from one of his own sketches to the big map and then raised his hand.
At Uryc's nod Tip said, "Isn't there an easier way to go? A road or some such? I mean, I thought the Dwarves were crafters and traders, and it would seem unlikely they would isolate themselves without having a road."
Uryc grunted, and then touched the map with the arrow. "Aye, they are crafters and traders, yet the road they made leads east from the mineholt to Dael, and there another runs southerly to the Landover, where they go east and west to do their trading. Or from Dael they ride the flow of the Ironwater down through Bridgeton and Rhondor and past Hel's Crucible and on to the Avagon Sea."
Tip glanced at the map and then thumbed through his own scout-book sheaves to a similar sketch. "Well, then, this road up to Dael and the one across, why not use them?"
Vail reached out and her finger traced a route over Tipperton's sketch. "To do so, Tipperton, we would ride east for thirty or thirty-five leagues thus, and then north another thirty or so, and finally back this way westerly thirty more. That's three sides of a square rather than one should we go straightly north instead."
Bwen cleared her throat and then said, "Even so, wee Tippy may be right and the road a deal better, for if there are ravines standing across our way, going the longer may be shorter overall."
Gara nodded. "Indeed there is that, but there is this too: likely the roads are watched, whereas by coming at them through the foothills we will come upon the foe unawares."
Bwen looked up at Uryc. "How rough is the knd?"
The big man peered down at the map. "A deal. Yet it was in the higher land I ran my traps. Down lower it seems bisiu-better-yet I didn't travel it all."
Bwen canted her head, then turned to Gara. "Well, Chieftain, it seems it's a hundred and some miles over rough ground or three hundred and some by road. If the land is too ugly, we'll be all the later for it, but if fair, then all the better."
The discussion lasted many candlemarks longer, but finally the decision turned on the fact that they bore a greater risk of being spotted if they followed the roads, for would not Modru set his own patrols along these ways? Whereas overland, though a harder pull, they were more likely to reach their goal without alerting the Spawn.
When Tip carried his blankets to the campfire where Beau was bedded down and told him of the decision, Beau grunted and then said, "Goin' overland, eh, and not on a packed road? Well then, Tip, tell me this: with these great big wagons, heavy as they are, what'll it be like if it rains?"
For two days the wagon train rolled cross-country, the great horses drawing the heavy wains after, Dylvana and Baeron escort riding alongside and a rear guard following. Directly out front fared the cavalcade, and farther ahead by a mile or so rode the column of the vanguard, Elves and men alike, but for a lone Warrow: Beau on his pony down among the great horses. And ranging farther out still, by two leagues or three or more, fared the scouts, some to the fore, some aflank, some bringing up the rear. Tipperton and Vail now rode point.
As late afternoon drew down on the day, Beau turned to the Dylvana riding alongside. "I say, Melor, just how far do you judge we've come? I mean, I've been trying to track our progress by sighting on the cap of that mountain over there, and it seems not to have changed at all."
"The mountain moves not, for we but plod," replied the Elf. "A better measure of progress might be the number of steps thy little steed takes."
"Perhaps better, Melor, but it would be a measure dull beyond measure."
Melor laughed, then said, "Six leagues at most, my friend."
"Six leagues?"
"I gauge that to be the measure of how far we've rolled overland-seven by the end of this day."
"Seven leagues, twenty-one miles altogether. Let me see, at this rate we should reach Mineholt North in, um…"