"Well then," said Tip, "we need ride back to King Agron."
"Not yet, Tipperton. First let us see what else we can."
And so they waited and watched as the sun edged down the sky.
"A company, we think," said Auly.
"In the gape of the pass?"
"Aye, my lord."
King Agron looked to Tipperton, and the buccan nodded. "Thirty or forty, we saw, Lord Agron. If there are others, they are well back in the slot. Even so, given five we did not see for each one we counted, then a company in all stand ward. Yet that is but a guess; there could be many more within."
Agron sighed. "Then a brigade, or segment, or even a full Horde could bar the way."
"My lord, if it is a segment or Horde," said Captain Brud, standing at hand, "the pass is strait, and it will be difficult winning through."
"Aye, captain, yet we cannot expect to reach Modru without a skirmish or two." Agron paused, then said, "Call my council of captains. We have a battle to plan."
Dressed in white and stealing through the moonlight, across the snow came Agron's vanguard afoot, nigh invisible in the alabaster night. Behind a mile or so, the cavalry awaited the signal, and more soldiers afoot stood ready.
Far to the left and ahead of those advancing moved Tip-perton and Auly, guiding a small force of raiders. Their assignment was to negate the lookouts atop the southern ridge.
Across the snow the raiders glided, quiet in their approach, and they came at last to the stone flank of the mountain. Then north they turned and up a slope they advanced, Tipperton in the lead, his bow at the ready, the Warrow silent upon the land.
At last they reached the crest of the ridge, and in the moonlight Tipperton could see, down among the boulders, dark forms lying upon the ground. Holding a hand out to stop those following, Tip took a deep breath to calm himself and slowly let it out, then surveyed the scene below.
A squad of maggot-folk. Asleep. But wait!
He espied one of the Rupt on ward, peering southerly.
Silently, Tip signalled the men behind to advance, but quietly. Auly came up alongside the buccan. When it seemed the raiders were in place, Tip's whispered command was relayed down the line, and carefully he raised his bow, arrow nocked to the string.
Inhale full; exhale half; draw and aim and loose.
The Ruck was completely unaware.
Even though reluctant to slay an unsuspecting foe, Tip-perton's mind flashed back to a similar time at Rimmen Gape, recalling Dara Lyra's words: Think of all who have been slain by his ilk. thun! The arrow whispered through the moonlight to take the Ruck in the neck, and gargling inarticulately he fell sideways to the snow. Yet in that same moment a second Ruck stepped from behind a boulder. And ere Tip could load and loose another arrow, "Waugh!" cried the Ruck and raised a horn to his lips.
Even as the signal blew, Auly's shaft took the sentry under the arm, slamming the Ruck aside to fall unmoving to the snow; but the alarm had sounded, and more Rupt sprang to their feet as arrows sleeted down from above.
With cries of dismay and fear, maggot-folk dodged behind boulders, and again a Ruptish horn blatted, to be answered in kind by a blare from the narrow pass below.
And yet out on the plain another bugle blew, and with a cry of For king and Dular, men rose up from the snow and came rushing into the gape, their weapons slashing. And a mile or so away, clarions sounded amid the hammer of hooves.
Still Tipperton and Auly and the men above nocked shafts and let fly, and the Spaunen squad below was devastated, shrieking Rucks running, only to be brought down as they fled.
"Quick, now, let us see if we can help the king," cried Auly, and the raiders scrambled down the slope and to the ground formerly held by the sentries.
They came to the drop into the gap, and below, men and Rupt fought savagely. Tipperton could not loose an arrow down into the battle for fear of hitting his own, yet Spawn at the back pressed forward, and there did Tip and the men above wing their shafts.
And still the bugles out on the plains blew, and the thunder of hooves hammered across the hard-frozen land, and farther back came men running, a wordless howl on their lips.
And just as the riders arrived, down in the gape the king and his men parted left- and rightward, to let the horses thunder through, the cavalry to smash into and over the Rupt here in the mouth of the gap.
Screaming in fear, the Foul Folk turned to flee toward the strait, yet many were felled as they ran, though some did scramble up the slopes to escape the warriors on horses, only to be pursued by men on foot.
And then the main army arrived, men running and shouting, to find the battle nigh ended, for it was but a small company warding the way.
"I'm sorry, my lord, but I did not see the Rupt behind the boulder, and so the signal was sounded."
King Agron pushed out a negating hand. "Hush, Sir Tip-perton, the fault lies not with you. Besides, you said it yourself some months back as we set forth to slay the Gargon: the moment the battle begins is the moment all goes wrong."
"Aye, my lord, but in this case-"
"Nonsense. Our casualties were light, and the Spawn yet caught in the dregs of sleep even though a horn did cry."
"Would that all our victories come at such a cheap price," said Captain Brud. "But I fear we will not escape so lightly in the days to come."
King Agron frowned at Brud. "You and I know that, captain, but for now say nought and let the men celebrate."
"Aye, my lord."
Eyeing the snow-laden steeps above, Tip and Auly rode along the slot of the pass between confining walls, the defile twisting this way and that, jinking in the near distance ahead, angling in the distance behind. No more than a quarter mile aft came the vanguard, yet often Tip and Auly lost sight of any followers as the two point-scouts twined beyond turns in the zigzags of the channel. Farther back and lagging, came the bulk of the army along with the wagons and much of the cavalry, for Agron and the vanguard would ride ahead and clear the foe before them, striving to win completely through and ward the far end until the slower wagons and men afoot could arrive. And so, through the pass rode scouts in the lead, the vanguard and others following. And at the fore of this twisting strait fared Tip-perton and Auly on point.
At times the walls were sheer, rising four or five hundred feet or more; at other times but a bit less vertical, sloping upward at steep angles to either side. Yet always the walls were close, no more than a hundred feet apart, narrowing down to twenty-five feet or a bit less for long stretches at a time.
"Lor', Auly, I feel like we're in a vise."
"We are, my lad, we are," said Auly. "And should we meet an army within, it will be quite dreadful."
Snow lay in the slot, in places three or four feet deep, though in other places the rock was bare. In the white-laden stretches, Auly would lead the way, his horse broaching a path for Tip on his pony to follow.
And always there were maggot-folk tracks in the snow. "Fleeing, I ween," said Tipperton, kneeling and examining the trace, "running somewhere ahead of us." Tipperton stood and mounted the black again.
Occasionally they came to rubble and scree ramped against the walls and running out across the slot. Here they would pick their way carefully and then ride onward, the vanguard in their wake, all outstripping the remainder of the cavalry and the wagons and the men afoot. Yet often a horn signal came drifting along the passage from behind, noting to those who understood its code that the supply train was temporarily stopped, waiting for a path to be cleared of drifts or loose rock so that the wagons could roll on.
The sun rode beyond gathering clouds in a glum winter sky, its rays but rarely reaching the floor of the twisting slot here and there, and a chill drift of air flowed up the passage. As they rode toward a turn in the channel, Tip said, "Huah, but I thought Agron said that warm air from the Gwasp in Gron kept this passage clear, but you know what? It seems to me-"