"McKiernan, Dennis L - Silver Call 02 - The Brega Path UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKiernan Dennis L)

To the memory of my father: Burton Edward McKiernan
"I have walked in Kraggen-cor, a bygone Realm of might; but its light is gone, and dread now stalks the halls."
Brega, Bekki's son January 18,4E2019
Copyright й 1986 by Dennis L. McKiernan
All rights reserved. For information address Doubleday & Co., Inc., 245 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10167.
This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by Doubleday & Co., Inc.
SIGNET TRADEMARK BEG U.S. PAT OFF AND FOREIGN COUNTRJEt REGISTERED TRADEMARKЧMARCA REGETR^DA KECHO EH CHICAGO. U.S.A.
SIGNET, SIGNET CLASSIC, MENTOR, ONYX, PLUME. MERIDIAN and NAL BOOKS are published by NAL PENGUIN INC., 1633 Broadway, New York, New York 10019
First Signet Printing, July, 1987 123456789
PRINTED IN THE UNTOD STATES OF AMERICA
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Synopsis
1 The Great Deep
2 Flight Under the Mountain
3 The Words of Barak
4 Wizard Word
5 The Spears of Valon
6 Trapped Again
7 Into the Black Hole
8 The Silver Call
9 The Journey Back 10 The Heroes Appendices Glossary Afterword About the Author
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This is the second part o/The Silver Call.
The first part, Trek to Kraggen-cor, told of how the hearts of Peregrin Fairhill and Cotton Buckleburr, two of the Wee FolkЧthe WarrowsЧwere stirred to excitement as rare visitors, a Man and two Dwarves, came on a mission to Sir Tuckerby's Warren in Woody Hollow in the Boskydells. Perry, the present curator of the Warren, was asked to show the visitors his copy of The Unfinished Diary of Sir Tuckerby Underbank and His Accounting of the Winter War, a chronicle more commonly known as The Raven Book.
The Dwarves were seeking to glean from the 'Book whatever detail it held of Kraggen-cor, the ancient undermountain homeland their ancestors had fled more than a thousand years earlier when the dreaded Gargon was inadvertently set free. But the Gargon had been slain during the Winter War, and the Dwarves now sought once again to take possession of their ancestral Realm.
But Kraggen-cor remained infested with SpaunenЧevil maggot-folk that had begun once more to raid and pillage nearby steads, and to slay the innocent.
Enraged, the Dwarves planned to invade Kraggen-cor to root out the evil; but their knowledge of their ancient homeland was fragmentary at best. However, 231 years in the past, during the Winter War, four heroesЧa Man, an Elf, a Dwarf, and a WarrowЧhad passed through Kraggen-cor from Dusk-Door to Dawn-Gate, and their tale was recorded in The Raven Book. Hence, to increase their knowledge of the ways in Kraggen-cor and thus improve their odds in the coming struggle with the Spawn, the two Dwarf visitors,"Anval and Bonn Ironfist, guided by the Man, Lord Kian, had come to the Boskydells to read the account for themselves.
The Raven Book did indeed contain the tale of the Four
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Who Strode Through Kraggen-cor, but the story was of marginal help to the visitors. Oh, the tale did yield valuable information, telling that the condition of the two known ways into Kraggen-cor would make the invasion most difficult: On one side of the Grimwall Mountains, the western entranceЧ the Dusk-DoorЧmay have been broken and buried under tons of rubble by a hideous Kraken living in a black lake warding the portal. And on the opposite side of the Grimwall, the eastern entranceЧthe Dawn-GateЧappeared all but impossible to invade because the drawbridge over the Great Deep had been burned by the four heroes during their escape more than two centuries agone; and to try to win over that virtually bottomless chasm in the face of an enemy army seemed an insuperable task. Yet, although the visitors had learned of the chief difficulties they would initially face in the invasion, The Raven Book had not given them what they sought: step-by-step knowledge of the heroes' trek through Kraggen-corЧ knowledge needed to wage a War upon familiar ground.
On learning of this need. Perry showed the visitors a scroll said to have been recorded years after the Winter War by one of the four heroesЧBrega the Dwarf. The scroll detailed the path the heroes had taken on their perilous journey through the undermountain Realm. Anval and Borin authenticated the scroll, for they saw that it contained secret Dwarven marks; further, they vouched for its accuracy, saying that the Dwarves have a special gift: once they have trodden a path, it is within them always.
But Dwarves must actually tread a path in order to master it; they are no better or worse than others at memorization. And the Brega Path was long and complex; and for Anval or Borin to have to memorize it for the Dwarves to invade Kraggen-cor would take monthsЧtime the Dwarves could ill afford; for the strength of the Spawn had continued to grow, and each night they extended the range of their murderous raids.
Yet all was not lost, for with Cotton's help, Perry had been studying the scroll, and he had committed the path to memory; and as a stripling, Perry had always wanted to be caught up in an adventure, and at last an adventure had come to him. Hence, even though Perry felt unprepared to accept the role suddenly thrust upon him, the buccan nevertheless volun-
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