An unwilling look swept over Beau's features, but he stood, though reluctantly, and laded his sling with a nearby pebble and said, 'If we must.'
The Pysk spoke again to Rynna, and she in turn said to Linde, 'Leave your horses behind. Their heavy tread might anger the Stones. And walk softly, please.'
Linde nodded, then said, 'It is dark down there and unlike Waldana and Pyska, Sten and I will need light to see by.'
Beau took a small hooded lantern from his pack and lit it, raising the shield a crack. 'Here,' he said, and held it out to Linde. But Sten stepped forward and took the light.
Then Tip, Rynna, and Farly all nocked arrows, and Linde and Sten each took a saber in hand.
And so, stepping lightly, down into the aggregate they went-six shadows, four Warrows, and two Jordians- while all about them arose a dolorous collective groan.
'Oh my,' said Rynna, disheartened, as she looked through the starlight at the huge, vine-covered Stone, the great long monolith broken in twain where it had fallen to the ground. Lying on its side, some eight feet up and eight feet across it was, and nearly sixty feet in length altogether, including the ten feet or so that had ripped out of the valeside when it had pitched forward and down. And now it lay sundered-like a toppled broken obelisk from an ancient age unknown.
And the vale was filled with a low moaning, grievous in tone and timbre.
No longer enshadowed, Pysks had dismounted to step to the Stone and touch it and lay their cheeks against it, and tears coursed down their faces. One looked at Rynna and spoke awhile and then turned back to the monolith. Rynna then stepped to Tip and Beau, and above the doleful groaning she said, 'Tynvyr tells me that this was one of the greater Stones. She named it the Grandsire of the Vale, saying it always seemed to be the patriarch of this aggregate, standing as protectorate over all. She tells me that many a warning did this Stone relay, many a summons too-musters, rallyes, conclaves, assemblies, forgatherings. It will be sorely missed by all the Hidden Ones and by those it sheltered so well.'
'Sheltered?' asked Beau.
'In its covering of vines,' replied Rynna, gesturing at a half-formed nest a pair of springtime birds had begun.
'Oh,' said Beau.
' 'Round here!' called Farly above the lamenting of Stones, the buccan and Harlingar on the opposite side of the broken monolith.
To the near end and around went Tip, Rynna, Beau, and the Fox Riders, to find Farly and Linde and Sten staring by lanternlight at the remains of the Gargon, the monster crushed by the fallen Stone, only its head and shoulders and one arm out from under. And the smell of vipers rose up all 'round, foxes snorting as if to rid themselves of the foul odor.
'Lor' but it's ugly,' said Farly, peering down at the dead creature.
'Huah!' exclaimed Beau. 'It looks just like the one Tip and Imongar slew back at Dendor.'
Farly looked at Tip in wonder. 'You slew a Gargon?'
Tip shook his head. 'Imongar did. Shot it with a great ballista. Put a spear through its heart.'
'She couldn't have done it without Tip, though,' said Beau.
'And it looked like this one, you say?' asked Farly, peering back at the creature.
'Yes,' said Tip, 'ugly thing that it is.'
'King Agron put its head on a pike and carried it into battle,' added Beau. 'It seemed to dishearten the Foul Folk to see such a powerful one of their own be reduced to nought but a pate on a pole.'
Linde glanced at Rynna. 'Would you like to do such?'
'Oh no,' replied Rynna, looking at Tip and Beau and Farly, the buccen all shaking their heads, No.
'Well then, if you have no use of it…' said Linde.
'Please…' responded Rynna, stepping aside and sweeping a hand at the remains not crushed.
Linde waved them back and with Sten holding the lantern nigh, she took her saber to the monster, with little effect. She looked at her blade and then back at the creature. 'Hmm, this is like hacking a log.'
'It took a Dwarven battle-axe to lop through the other one's neck,' said Tip.
Linde turned to Sten and took the lantern and said, 'Ride and tell the others what we have seen, that the Gar-gon is slain by this Stone. Tell them as well the Spawn have fled, though some did not live to escape this vale. When that is done, fetch Thurl. He yet has an axe. Though not Dwarven, mayhap 'twill do.'
Sten nodded and turned to make his way up and out from the vale, the man stepping softly as deep lamentation rose up all 'round.
'Over here,' hissed Rynna.
Tip stepped to her side and looked where she pointed.
'I think this one is a Human,' said Rynna, no longer flinching from the sight of those slain by the rage of the Stones.
Bones and organs shattered, blood oozing over ruptured flesh, a man lay dead among several Ghuls, the Foul Folk slain as well. Limp they lay, somewhat formless, like split bags of mush-filled skin. As to the man, he had been pale white with long white hair, and like all the other dead, he reeked of blood and feces and urine and vomit.
'A surrogate, I think,' said Tip.
'Surrogate?'
'Someone whom Modru can possess. I think they are all without wit, and this gives Foul Modru a way to see and hear and speak. He commands his far-flung armies through the use of such empty men.'
'Oh my,' said Rynna, her hand flying to her mouth. 'How dreadful.'
On they went, continuing their count of those felled by the wrath of the Stones.
After a while Rynna said, 'Madness.'
'Madness?'
'Modru. Instead of such a hideous means, I would think he would choose those wise in the ways of war to lead his armies.'
Tip shook his head. 'I think he does not trust command to anyone but himself.'
Rynna frowned, then said, 'Either that, or he believes but for him all others to be fools.'
Tip nodded and said, 'Madness indeed.'
'With your count and ours,' said Tip, 'if I've toted it right, some seven hundred Spawn did not escape this vale.'
'Oh my,' said Beau, looking back down into the valley from the ridge where they all now stood. 'No wonder the Foul Folk fear the Groaning Stones.'
Rynna spoke with Tynvyr, then turned to the others. 'She tells me that never have so many been slaughtered by Eio Wa Suk, yet never before has a Stone died to kill a Spawn.'
'How did he do it?' asked Beau. '-Grandsire, I mean. How did he manage to move at all? It isn't as if rocks or such can stir about under their own power.'
Tears came into Rynna's eyes. 'As to how he managed to move, that I cannot say, yet Eio Wa Suk are not ordinary rocks as you well can see.'
'As I can see and hear,' said Beau, the sad groaning rising up from the vale.
'Aye, and hear,' agreed Rynna. 'As to Grandsire, I believe he forfeited his own life to save those of the Pysks we were with; had we been alone, Beau, you and Tip and I, then perhaps he would yet be… alive. See here, I am not certain at all the Groaning Stones sense aught but Fox Riders and other Stones and the trembling of the land. Mayhap he knew of the Gargon by means other than its heavy tread, but I do believe he sensed the fear of the Pysks and thought them trapped, not knowing even as he pitched over, that we had broken free and were turning to run. Yet no matter the which of it, he is dead, the Gargon is dead, and the remaining Foul Folk are gone.'
Tynvyr spoke to Farly, and he in turn said, 'The Fox Riders will hold a funeral within a day or so.'
'Not for the Foul Folk, I would hope,' replied a Vana-durin man, striding up the slope toward them, a bloody axe in hand. Following came Sten, the Gargon's head on a spear.
'Nay, Thurl,' said Linde. 'They mourn the broken Stone, as we will mourn our own slain, though how we will
