Trek to Kraggen-Cor by 1932- Dennis L. McKiernan Read Free Book Online

his pack, and as he unshuttered it, the four heard a loud crashing; they surmised it to be the great edifice collapsing, torn down by the maddened Helarms.
    "Boom! Boom! Boom! The pounding of hurled stone shook the Dusk-Door, and though Brega tried, he could not get it to reopen even a crack so that they could see what was happening.
    "Now they had no choice but to attempt to traverse the Deeves and escape out the Dawn-Gate. And as they left the West Hall on that fated journey through Black Drimmen-deeve, the hammering of the enraged Monster echoed in their wake."
    "Tchaaa!" hissed Borin, "I wonder if the foul Maduk yet lives."
    "I cannot say," answered Perry, "but the Raven Book tells that the creature had been Dragon-borne in the black of night by the Cold-drake Skail and dropped into the old Gatemoat nearly five hundred years earlier. That was back before the Dragons began their thousand-year sleep. It is now believed that the Krakenward was a tool of Modru, placed there as part of his preparation for the coming of the Dragon Star."
    "Living or no, tool or no, continue the tale," bade Anval, "for now we come to the nub of it, the part that may aid our quest."
    "You are right, Anval," agreed Perry. "The time has come for me to read from the Raven Book. "And at last Perry opened the great grey tome, turning past the part of the book that duplicated Tuck's Unfinished Diary —as the 'Stone Slayer had originally recorded it during his venture—and thumbing

    well into that part of the 'Book Tuck later told to the scribes, recalled in full by him from his own terse journal. Finally Perry reached the proper page of the Account. "This is the tale of the four who fared Black Drimmen-deeve," he said, "the story of their flight through that dreadful place. Let me now read it to you."
    And, pulling a candelabrum close, from the huge grey book he began to read of that fearful dash through Drimmen-deeve as the four sought to reach the eastern portal—Dawn-Gate—ere the Ghuls could cross back through Quadran Gap to bring word of the intruders to the dreaded Gargon and its Spaunen minions. Not all of Perry's words need be repeated here, for the tale is now famous and recounted elsewhere, and the full story of all the companions is long and takes many days to tell. But that evening in Trie Root, Perry read only that part of the story concerning the journey through Kraggen-cor, the journey of the four persons who became known as the Deevewalkers:
    Perry began at the point where the four had fled from the Krakenward through the Dusk-Door and could not get back out. And from the West Hall, Gildor led them up the stairs and easterly; Gildor led, for in his youth he had gone on a trade mission through Drimmen-deeve while it was still a mighty Dwarvenholt—ere the Gargon broke free of the Lost Prison. Far they went, without encounter, for the western caverns were deserted of maggot-folk. Yet finally they had to stop to rest, the first they'd had in nearly two days.
    Perry read of their pause in the Grate Room, where at last they felt a foreboding fear beating at them, and they knew then that the Ghuls had finally come to the Gargon with word of the four, and now that dreadful creature was bending its will to find them. And the halls became infested with Spaunen squads searching for them.
    Onward they fled, deeper into fear, for they had to come nearer to the Dread in order to reach the Dawn-Gate. And as they went east, many times they eluded discovery.
    Again they rested, for the way was arduous. At last they came to the Hall of the Gravenarch, and there they found the remains of Braggi's Raid, that ill-fated Dwarven mission to slay the evil Gargon.
    Now the four Deevewalkers could feel the Dread approaching, for at last it could sense them—and it stalked them. Yet Brega thwarted it, for with a broken War-hammer he sundered the keystone of the Gravenarch, and the Hall collapsed, blocking the way. Through the fallen stone the Gargon's