| Chapter 14: Runnik's Tale |
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The mission had made its way eastward through Grimmerdhore, and then for three days had ridden in rain. But no rain could halt the Ranyhyn, and this was no great storm. On the eighth day of the mission, when the clouds broke and let sunlight return to the earth, Korik and his party were within sight of Mount Thunder.
It grew steadily against the sky as they rode through the sunshine. They passed twenty-five leagues to the north of it, and reached the great cliff of Landsdrop late that afternoon. They were at one of its highest points, and could look out over the Lower Land from a vantage of more than four thousand feet. here Landsdrop was as sheer as if the Lower land had been cut away with an ax. And below it beyond a hilly strip of grassland less than five leagues wide lay Sarangrave Flat. It was a wet land, latticed with waterways like exposed veins in the flesh of the ground, overgrown with fervid luxuriance, and full of subtle dangers--strange, treacherous, water-bred, and man-shy animals; cunning, old, half-rotten willows and cypresses that sang quiet songs which could bind the unwary; stagnant, poisonous pools, so covered with slime and mud and shallow plants that they looked like solid ground; lush flowers, beautifully bedewed with clear liquids that could drive humans mad; deceptive stretches of dry ground that turned suddenly to quicksand. All this was familiar to the Bloodguard. However ominous to human eyes, or unsuited to human life, Sarangrave Flat was not naturally evil. Rather, because of the darknesses which slumbered beneath it, it was simply dangerous--a wild haven for the misborn of the Land, the warped fruit of evils long past. The Giants, who knew how to be wary, had always been able to travel freely through the Flat, and they had kept paths open for others, so that the crossing of the Sarangrave was not normally a great risk. But now something else met the gaze of the mission. Slumbering evil stirred; the hand of Corruption was at work, awakening old wrongs. |