"Bah! The king merely wanted both Brandt and Tain out of the way-to have Lady Jolet to himself."

"Goodness, Bekki. Are you saying that King Enrik sent his sons and Lord Tain into peril just so he could have a tryst?"

Bekki turned his dark gaze toward Tipperton, then looked back down the ridge and muttered, "Again I say, a pox on all humans, with their ungoverned appetites and petty intrigues!"

Tipperton sighed, and sat without speaking. After long moments more, Bekki said, "We can go now, for it seems Lord Loden prevented Counsellor Tain from sending agents skulking after."

Tipperton stood and shouldered his pack and lute. "Lead on, Bekki. Lead on."

Together they set out along the ridge, and wended their way among the ever increasing boulders and crags while, behind, a dark figure slipped through the shadows and after.

"We turn here," said Bekki, and he stepped into a rushing stream.

Tip's eyes widened, yet in the starlight he followed Bekki into the rill, the water clear, the bottom rocky.

Upstream they trod and up, with stone slopes rising left and right, the chill bourne cascading down ledges and steps from the high snows above. Finally, in the depths of night, Bekki turned aside and scrambled up a stone rise. As he came to the top he halted, and guardedly peered over the ridge.

" 'Ware, Waldan," he cautioned as Tipperton came alongside.

Carefully, Tip raised up just enough to look beyond the crest, and far down below in the wide vale burned the fires of the besieging Horde.

Bekki pointed leftward and up, where immediately at hand a ledge ran along the mountain face to disappear into a wide, dark crevice. "We must go a short way in the open. Take care, for I would not have any of the Grg spy us."

Moving slowly so as not to draw enemy eyes, along the ledge they sidled, Tipperton alternately puffing and holding his breath, for although he had practiced at climbing in Arden Vale, still he was unsettled by heights.

On the slope behind, a figure in shadows watched.

At last they entered the fissure, and in the blackness Tip hissed, "Wait, Bekki, I can't see a thing."

"Here," grunted Bekki, "take my hand." And he reached out and grasped the buccan's fingers.

Leading Tipperton, Bekki stepped along the passage, and after a hundred Warrow-paces or so, he stopped.

"Why are we-?"

Tip's words were interrupted by a soft rhythmic tapping on the stone.

Silence.

Again sounded the tapping, the rhythm changed.

"Kha tak?" came a whisper.

"Shok Chdkka," murmured the response.

Stone on stone grated softly, and Bekki tugged Tipper-ton forward several strides.

Again stone whispered against stone.

There came a click of metal on metal, and of a sudden a phosphorescent blue-green glow lighted all, and Tip saw that he was in a carved chamber of stone, and a handful of armed and armored Dwarves stood glaring at him, the edges of their axes glinting wickedly.

"Lord Bekki," growled one in the fore, "to our secret entrance you bring a-"

"He is Sir Tipperton Thistledown," interrupted Bekki, "Waeran of the Wilderland, and emissary of the Lian, the Dylvana, the Baeron, and the Daelsmen, and I trust him with my life. Take heart, Kelk, for this Waeran brings an army to our aid."

A time later, a shadowed figure came over the ridge and past the pickets and down into the encampment, quietly making its way to where the Elves were bedded, in the midst of which slept Beau.

Removing his boots, Loric slipped under the blanket with Phais. Awakened, she turned and looked into his eyes.

"They are safely within the Drimmenholt, chier," he said. "I followed all the way."

She smiled and kissed him lingeringly, a kiss which soon burned with heat. And they made heady love as in the east the sky grew pale in the dawn.

Chapter 37

"An army?" growled Kelk, cocking an eye at Tipperton.

"Well, it's not exactly my army," said Tipperton, "though they did appoint me as their representative, did the Elves, the Baeron, and the men of Dael."

A mutter of approval rumbled among the Dwarves, and Kelk grunted, "Good. At last we will drive the Grg from our doorstone."

As Bekki caught up a brass and glass lantern, Tipperton glanced behind where stood the secret entry, yet he could see nought but a blank stone wall with no evidence whatsoever of a doorway in the rock. Tip's gaze swept on about the chamber. Through an archway immediately to the right stood a carved room, and among the shadows therein Tip caught a glimpse of cots and chests and a table and chairs.

The guards' quarters, I would say.

Straight ahead and beyond another archway a dark corridor clove into the stone of the mountain.

"Come," said Bekki, raising the hood on the lantern, and though no flame was kindled, a phosphorescent glow streamed forth. "We have a ways to go."

Kelk held up a staying hand and said, "Lord Bekki, tell your sire we would join in the fight."

His statement brought a chorus of Ayes from the others.

"I will," replied Bekki.

Kelk smiled and slapped the blade of his axe and then stepped aside, as did those arrayed behind, opening the way into the dark passage and the mountain beyond.

Through the archway strode Bekki, Tipperton on his heels, and from behind, the buccan could hear the voices of the warders speaking to one another in Chakur as they moved back into their quarters. What they said he knew not, though he supposed they talked of the coming battle.

Down a gentle slope Bekki and Tipperton went, fissures and splits branching left and right as well as an occasional corridor. Down carved stone steps, and 'round sharp turns they tramped, and in one place they followed alongside a dark chasm, a cold drift of air upwelling and smelling of dampness and stone. Through carved chambers they trod, and archways stood darkly here and there, passages bored away to unknown destinations deep within the mountain stone. They strode down a long tunnel, and somewhere water fell adrip, its tinking echoes sounding within the shadowed hall. And Tip knew if something happened to Bekki, he would be hopelessly lost, and his chances of ever finding his way out would be completely in the hands of Dame Fortune and not within his own.

"Lor', Bekki, my head is spinning with all these twists and turns and I can hardly tell up from down. Do you truly know where we're going, or are you lost arid confused as well?"

Bekki laughed and stepped onto a low bridge made of square-cut blocks of stone, and Tip could see they were fitted together with no mortar between. Below raced a wide stream of water.

"We Chakka cannot lose our steps, Waeran," said Bekki.

"Cannot lose your- What do you mean by that?"

"It is a gift from Elwydd. When She made the first Chak, She-"

"Elwydd made the Chakka? The Dwarves?"

Bekki paused at the cap of the bridge, his face eerie in the blue-green light of the lantern. Water tumbled beneath.

"Aye, we do believe it so."

"Oh. Hmm. You know, Bekki, as to who made the War-rows, I haven't the faintest idea. Perhaps Elwydd… or Adon… or someone short."

Bekki laughed, and they took up the trek again.

"You were saying, Bekki, about not losing your feet…"

"It is a gift all Chakka have: wherever we travel on or within the land, be it on foot or by pony or even in a drawn cart or wagon, we can ever after retrace that path exactly."

"Exactly?"

"Aye, exactly. Be it in driving rain or blinding snow or even total darkness, whether or not we can see, still we can step out the path again, without error. Elwydd wove this gift into the very fabric of Chakkacyth, for She knew without it, we could not dwell within the living stone."

Tipperton looked at the crevices and corridors splitting away from the path they followed and driving into blackness. "Well I for one am certainly glad of it, as twisted about as I am."