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masterghandalfWarning: This chapter contains violence and deaths.
This is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Dennis L. McKiernan’s The Iron Tower! Last time, we were introduced to a group of Warrows (who totally aren’t hobbits) preparing to join the Thornwalkers, the militia of the Boskydells (which totally isn’t the Shire) in response to rumors about the return of Modru (who totally isn’t Sauron). Today, we’ll be picking up with our new recruits as they set out on their mission, bring each other (and us) up to speed on some relevant backstory, and also suffer their first setbacks.
First off, before we begin our journey, there is something I feel like I need to point out. Just last week, I was reminded that Dennis McKiernan is one of those authors who is strictly opposed to other people writing fanfic of his own work, to the point that he has been (and, AFAIK, remains) on FF.net’s ever-shortening list of creators who have requested the site not host fic related to their work. Though he has explained his reasons for it (mostly legal, related to the fanfic kerfuffle Das Sporking’s old nemesis Marion Zimmer Bradley got herself involved in in the early 90s, see here for more details)) considering McKiernan’s own career got started with him being a fanfic writer made good, in his case in particular it can’t help but feel incredibly hypocritical, like he got his and then tried to pull the ladder up after him. Honestly, it lowers my opinion of him as a person quite a bit… and considering Mithgar’s own origins as reskinned LotR fanfic, it felt like it was something worth bringing up here and worth reminding everyone about before we go any further.
Anyway, on a lighter note, let’s meet the sporkers who’ll be joining us today!
*two figures materialize in the spork chamber; the first is a half-orc man in late middle-age, in a black and red uniform and with a soldier’s bearing; the other is a scrawny, grey-skinned tiefling girl in her late teens, wrapped in tattered robes and with unusually bright and piercing gold eyes*
And so, say hello to Tharkos, former officer of the Ragesian Empire turned renegade…
Tharkos: I did not abandon the Empire; the Empire abandoned me when the great emperor was killed and that witch of an inquisitor and her cronies took control.
MG: Who is somewhat touchy about his exact status, and Thalia, a warlock in service to powers that… well, we’re not quite sure what they are, exactly, but “beyond mortal comprehension” seems about right.
Thalia: It’s not so bad! Admittedly, the visions can be distracting, and the nightmares mean I rarely get a good night’s sleep, and there is the way most people cross the street to avoid talking to me or bumping into me *glances down at her filthy robes* which admittedly might not be because I’m a warlock – but aside from that, I have no complaints!
MG: And so, with introductions out of the way… onward!
Chapter 2: Retreat to Rook’s Roost
Tharkos: And so, we begin our chapter with a description of the territory through which our intrepid heroes are traveling:
The bright light of the mounting Sun fell aslant across the white, glistening snow, and from the glitter, tiny evanescent shards of sparkling color winged to the eye, as if reflected from diminutive fragments of shattered jewels nestled among the fallen flakes. The cold crystalline air was calm, and in all the wide Dinglewood nothing seemed to be astir except for a jostling flock of noisy ravens squabbling over a meager breakfast up among the barren trees on Hawthorn Hill, while down below wending slowly along the North Trace were five Warrows astride five ponies, leading two more of the animals laden with gear.
Tharkos: …this strikes me as rather overwrought, though perhaps it is a matter of taste. I shall withhold judgment for now. We learn that the group has been silent and sullen for miles, which is unusual for Warrows, so Patrel, in the lead, decides to remedy the matter. He takes out his lute and starts strumming, and Tarpy calls for a cheery song. Tuck also wants one, but Danner isn’t in the mood. Tuck things that’s all the more reason for a song to cheer them up, and Danner finally gives in. Patrel decides it’s high time for the others to learn what being a Thornwalker means (something they should have perhaps considered before they enlisted…) and launches into a song.
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we;
We walk around the miles of bounds
To keep the Bosky free
Of Wolves and Vulgs and great wild dogs
And other enemy
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we.
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we;
We’ve trod the Thorns from night to morn
Through Bosky history.
Our ears can hear, and never fear,
For keenly do we see;
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we.
Tharkos: The song continues in that manner for several more verses, until by the end all of the “young buccen” are singing happily along with Patrel, with Danner ironically being the loudest of them. The song ends with Patrel playing a loud twang, and everyone collapsing into laughter, their somber mood gone.
MG: I’m tempted to note this as another point of comparison between Iron Tower and LotR, considering Tolkien was fond of including songs and poems in his text, including hobbit walking songs. But, probably at least in part as a legacy of Tolkien, including songs and poems is pretty common in fantasy fiction, so McKiernan is hardly alone here. In general, I’d say this song is serviceable, though certainly not as memorable or catchy as Tolkien’s poems tend to be.
Thalia: Hob finally asks if that’s really what Thornwalkers do (I have to side with Tharkos here – surely he should have learned that before he signed up?) and if so, he thinks they’ll be busy; Danner says they won’t if they’re stuck guarding Spindle Ford where nothing is likely to happen. Tarpy thinks that doesn’t sound so bad to him, but Tuck is curious about the song, wondering where it came from, since he’s never heard it before, and what it means by “other enemy.” Hmm; if the song somehow manifested spontaneously as a warning of evil times, that would be a cause for worry, wouldn’t it? It turns out Patrel composed it himself, as he sheepishly admits he was still working on it when he came down to pick them up. Tarpy is amazed and asks if this means Patrel is a real minstrel, while Hob says his Aunt Oot – Oot? – used to make up songs too. Tuck asks more about the song, so Patrel decides it’s time for a history lesson!
“There’s not that much to say,” answered Patrel. “You all know that the Thornwalkers help to protect the Bosky; a big responsibility that is, too, for it’s a wide Land: Seven Dells: North, South, East, West, Center, Up, and Down. Ringed ’round by the Great Spindlethorn Barrier. Bounded by two rivers, the Wenden and Spindle, and by the Northwood and the Updunes.”
MG: The Seven Dells of the Bosky are not, of course, to be confused with the Four Farthings of the Shire.
Tharkos: Notably, Danner complains that he is not in the mood for a history or geography lesson, which I would sympathize with in his position as this is no doubt going to be full of things he already knows, but it does seem like this is the means, clumsy as it may be, by which McKiernan has decided this information is to be conveyed. At the urging of the others, Patrel explains he doesn’t know where other singers get their songs, he only knows about his, which explains the mission of the Thornwalkers. Hob still wants to know about Vulgs and “other enemies,” which Danner teases him for, since he doesn’t’ know what “other enemy” could be a threat (were we not told last chapter that people are disappearing? Perhaps you could start there!). And so, we come to this exchange:
“How about Vulgs?” shot back Hob.
“And Rûcks, Hlôks, and Ogrus,” chimed in Tarpy.
“Ghûls,” added Tuck.
Danner looked disgusted. “You left out Cold-drakes! And Modru! And bloody Gyphon himself!” he snapped. “And it seems you’ve also forgotten High Adon’s Ban! And that’s why there isn’t any other enemy: the Ban!”
Thalia: *shaking her head* Ah, for such a world where one’s only foes are monsters and not the evil which lurks in the hearts of one’s fellow beings! In my experience, that is far too often the more dire threat… but Danner, at the urges of the others, launches into his own version of a history lesson they all already know (my, that is seeming to be a trend this chapter, isn’t it?). In any case, Danner explains that long ago, the god Gyphon challenged Adon for rule of the cosmos, and war broke out across the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds. For a time Gyphon had the advantage, for Modru, servant of Gyphon, ruled in Mithgar. Finally, a Grand Alliance of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Utruni, Wizards and Warrows turned the tide against Gyphon and Modru and their armies of Vûlks, Ghûls, Hlôks, Ogrus, Rûcks, Vulgs . . . and some Dragons. The Alliance won and with Modru’s defeat, the balance of power on all three planes turned against Gyphon. And so Adon cursed all who followed Gyphon with the Ban, barring them from the sunlight on pain of death, and from the dragons he took their fire, turning them into cold-drakes. Gyphon himself was also banished beyond the Spheres, though no one knows what that means (I can guess! It does not sound pleasant…). Modru in turn was exiled from his homeland of Gron and fled even further north, to lands where it’s dark half the year so he can range freely at that time… for the price that he has to hide himself away during the other half of the year, when it’s always day.
MG: This seems like the time to have some further elaboration on things that concern the Mithgar books overall, so strap in. Gyphon is the overarching antagonist of the Mithgar series as a whole, and he’s quite blatantly the Morgoth to Modru’s Sauron, though as you might have already guessed he’s going to be more important to Iron Tower than Morgoth is in LotR (where Morgoth only gets a handful of vague mentions and is never really relevant to the plot). I remember when I first read these books I was confused as to why McKiernan named his archvillain “Gryphon” with the “R” removed (for the record, Gyphon has nothing to do with griffons of any description or spelling!) though it occurs to me now that the intended reference might be “Typhon,” with a G instead of a T. But do note that just as Morgoth was banished to the Void following his defeat, so too was Gyphon banished “beyond the Spheres” to the Great Abyss. “Utruni” are the stone-giants, and though they’re not identical to the ents, they fill the same basic niche that the ents do in the Legendarium’s narrative. Don’t expect them to show up in Iron Tower, though – in another case of his shifting elements of the Legendarium around, McKiernan did include the Warrows recruiting them to fight against the enemy, but pushed it back to his take on the War of the Last Alliance. Speaking off, that appears in Mithgar’s history here barely changed as the “Great Alliance.” D for effort on that one, McKiernan.
To take a closer look at Gyphon’s minions listed here… they’re all pretty familiar fantasy monsters, just with different names. “Vûlks” is an umbrella term for demons of all sorts (Gyphon himself is sometimes called “The High Vûlk,” in fact). Ghûls you might think are Mithgar’s version of the Ringwraiths, and to a certain extent that’s true, but they’re also notably different in some ways… more on that when we see them. Hlôks are orcs or hobgoblins, and Rûcks are smaller goblins (or, to get back to Middle-earth, it’s just the Uruk-hai/common orc divide). Ogrus are just Tolkien style trolls, and are literally sometimes called trolls outright (or, inexplicably, Ogru-Trolls, as if we’d forget they were the same creature if we didn’t hyphenate the name). Vulgs we’ve already been over last time; they’re wargs. Dragons are kind of interesting, because as noted here in contrast to Tolkien, where dragons were in their origins creatures of Morgoth, only some of Mithgar’s dragons fought for Gyphon – dragons in general are depicted as being more like amoral forces of nature than anything, and not really friendly to either side of the divine conflict (cold-drakes do exist in Tolkien, but aside from the fact that they don’t breathe fire and the “long-worn” Scatha mentioned in LotR’s appendices was one, they’re not much elaborated on). Interestingly, Danner’s little spiel here implies that all Wizards fought against Gyphon, which isn’t true (and, for further context, Wizards or Mages – the two terms are used interchangeably – are presented as their own species in Mithgar, neither humans nor elves but something kind of in-between and the only race with the power to perform most actual magic; they’re not the same thing as the Maiar from Middle-earth, but sort of end up in the same general niche); a number of Black Mages (who are different from regular Mages in that they power their spells vampirically by feeding off the life-force of other creatures) served Gyphon and suffer the Ban. It’s an especially egregious oversight because Modru himself was the most powerful of those Mages; then again, I don’t believe Iron Tower goes into much detail about Modru’s origins, so maybe McKiernan just hadn’t worked that part out yet.
A bit more to discuss before we move on. For one, we get our first look at Mithgar’s cosmology and how it differs from Middle-earth’s here, with its structure of the three planes (technically there’s more than that – Mages, Dragons and the Fae, who don’t appear in
Iron Tower but play important roles in several of the later Mithgar books – are all from their own separate planes as well) and the struggle for control on them (supposedly, if you control two of the three main planes, you rule the whole cosmos, but it’s never quite clear what that means, IMO – Adon holds two, the gods’ world of Adonar and Mithgar, which makes him the top god, and clearly is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and neither is he so powerful he can’t be challenged). The other planes will get explored some in some of the later books, particularly Silver Wolf, Black Falcon; I remember being pretty underwhelmed by them.
And then… there’s the Ban. Clearly, the Ban exists as a riff on something from Middle-earth – that the most ancient of the creatures bred by Morgoth, such as orcs and trolls, can’t stand the light of the son (though it’s only fatal to trolls, who it turns to stone; orcs can endure the sun, but it weakens them and they hate it, and won’t go out in it except in dire need). This is presented more as a side-effect of their making and corruption than anything, and Morgoth’s later creatures, including dragons (and the Uruk-hai his various successors would later breed) don’t have this same weakness. The Ban, OTOH, is fatal, instantly (most of the time; IIRC we have one instance in a later book of a Ghul just barely managing to get out of the sun in time and getting off with “just” half his face burned off) and was directly imposed as a punishment by Adon. But, well… look how it works. The Spawn, or Foul Folk (the various creatures of the underworld who serve Gyphon) get hit with it universally, despite the fact that, being native to Gyphon’s underworld they were born into slavery and never chose to serve him – but nope, their world happened to have the wrong god, so their whole species get condemned. OTOH, with dragons and Mages the ban only fell on the specific individuals who chose to fight for Gyphon, so Adon is clearly capable of aiming with greater precision. Meanwhile, no humans suffer the Ban at all, even though many humans have fought for Gyphon and there are a number of religions on Mithgar that outright worship him under various names as the true and supreme God. So, uh… good work, Adon! Notably, that Adon, the god who preaches freedom or choice and opposes Gyphon the tyrant, would damn whole races for all eternity for the actions of their masters while sparing others in a fairly arbitrary manner, seems to be something that McKiernan eventually realized was supremely hypocritical, as Adon gets called out on it in Silver Wolf, Black Falcon and the Ban is ultimately lifted after Gyphon’s final defeat. But that doesn’t really affect this book much (and admittedly, Adon himself is barely a character in most of the Mithgar books and almost never appears directly).
Tharkos: …I might say that the orcish people bear an unfair stigma of barbarism and violence (as if our human neighbors were any better…) in my own homeland, but at least the Four never saw fit to curse our entire race for it. In any case, Danner ends his speech by declaring that the Ban would destroy “any other enemy” – I must echo Thalia that it seems terribly naïve he can only conceive of an enemy being one of Gyphon’s servants and not of purely mortal evils – though Patrel reminds him the Ban only applies in daylight and Gyphon’s minions can still commit their evil at night. He reminds them that Warrows have reported seeing glimpses of creatures like great black wolves, which could be Vulgs, though they can only come out at night – however, he doubts that any of the other creatures Danner names are active in the Boskydells, and the mountains where most such creatures live, the Grimwall, Gronfang and Rigga ranges, are far away. Tuck wonders why Vulgs have returned to the Boskydell now, and Danner still thinks it’s probably regular wolves – it’s been two Eras since Modru was overthrown, so he cannot imagine why evil would be stirring now. Alas, considering that this is merely the opening section of a longer novel, I fear the boy who is so certain of himself here is merely tempting fate.
Thalia: The Warrows ride on in silence for some time, musing over the question, until Tuck recalls an old legend he heard of the words Gyphon spoke just as Adon tossed him into the Great Abyss. Danner also heard it, and doesn’t buy it.
“‘Even now,’” Danner quoted, his voice sepulchral, “‘Even now I have set into motion events you cannot stop. I shall return! I shall conquer! I shall rule!’ That’s what the old tales say Gyphon last spat at Adon, then He was gone, beyond the Spheres, banished. But He was wrong, for He hasn’t returned. In four-thousand years He hasn’t returned. That’s how long they say it has been. And for those same four-thousand years, no Rûck, no Vulg, ah, fie! Nothing! Nothing suffering the Ban has threatened the Bosky! Ever!”
Thalia: Ah, to assume that just because things have always been so, they must always be so! I have to agree with Tharkos; Danner is clearly tempting fate most unwisely! Patrel says Danner may be right, but that doesn’t explain why rumor says that Vulgs have returned to the Boskydells, and the scene ends there.
MG: Before we move on, a couple of more notes. First off, another point regarding the timeline – the Boskydells is more than four thousand years old and has remained largely unchanged in character for all that time. Contrast the Shire, which is less than half that age and has undergone some fairly significant upheavals in that time (most notably, going from a protectorate of Arthedain to an independent country), despite hobbits’ reputation for being resistant to change. And this also makes it worth noting that, in contrast to hobbits who had been long overlooked by all the powerful movers and shakers of Middle-earth (except for Gandalf), the Warrows have a long, long history of involvement in world events, which somewhat undermines the whole “unnoticed ordinary people shape the fate of the world while the eyes and hands of the great powers are elsewhere” angle.
Tharkos: And so, the Warrows spend the rest of the day traveling onward through the forest, finally coming to a stop at dusk, about thirty miles from Woody Hollow. They set up camp and draw lots for watches; Tuck gets the midnight watch, while Hob gets the first. Patrel promises that tomorrow night they’ll all sleep in Arlo Huggs’ hayloft at his farm about twenty-five miles away; Arlo and his wife have already promised Patrel they’ll put them up for the night. We then cut to midnight, as Tuck is awakened by Danner and starts his watch. Tuck suggests that Danner should also get some sleep, so he won’t be so grumpy in the morning *snorts loudly* to which Danner predictably takes offense. Tuck says that Danner was unpleasant on the journey today, to which Danner responds that he’s like a mirror – he only reflects back what he gets (it seemed to me that he was simply annoyed everyone else was happier and more credulous than he was…). Tuck tells Danner that he can be like a mirror or a window, but only the window lets light in, and Danner goes to sleep with a thoughtful expression. Tuck spends his watch writing in his diary, including the lyrics to Patrel’s song, and as Tuck confirms he’s planning to keep a detailed record of his travels, the scene ends.
MG: …which is nothing at all like Bilbo, and later Frodo and Sam, writing the memoirs of their adventures. /s
Thalia: The next morning it snows – I know some people enjoy watching snow, but being out in it with nowhere to go has little to recommend it! – as the Warrows head north, leaving the Dinglewood behind and finally reaching the road to Spindle Ford. They talk about hoping for a hot meal – understandably so! – and reaching Arlo’s, and three hours later they arrive at the farm, exactly as Patrel predicted. As they approach the farmhouse, however, Patrel calls out that something is wrong. He notices that there is no light coming from the house, and tells the others to ready their bows. They slowly approach, and the tension actually builds rather ominously as they spot the open windows and the banging of the shutters. And then, as they approach the door, it suddenly opens; Tuck, startled, fires several arrows in succession without realizing what he’s doing, but they all vanish into the blackness. When nothing responds, Patrel motions for the everyone to enter the house. They find it’s ransacked and empty, with no sign of people, nor are there any livestock in the barn. They investigate further, trying to figure out what happened; suddenly Danner screams and everyone comes running to find a large bloodstain, with a pawprint in the middle of it. Tarpy thinks it was wolves, but even Danner can guess the truth – Vulgs. And, as if on cue, off in the distance, mingled with the moan of the wind, came a single, horrid, prolonged savage wail.
MG: I’d be tempted to say this is clearly riffing on the warg attack on the slopes of Caradhras from Fellowship of the Ring (cut from the Jackson movies and most other adaptations) where the howling of the wargs is initially mistaken for the howling of the wind, but in this case I honestly don’t know if it’s specific enough. Just something that came to mind, though.
Tharkos: The Warrows examine the house, determining exactly how the Vulgs got in. “See, the broken glass flew inwards, as if the evil creatures hurtled through.” Which is an extremely awkward way to describe this scene, and does not sound at all like someone reacting emotionally to the horror around them. Tarpy notes they didn’t find the bodies anywhere; Hob says it’s another disappearance, and Patrel corrects him that it’s a slaughter instead. They all wonder again what happened to the bodies; Patrel doesn’t know (considering what Vulgs are, I would imagine “they ate them” would be a reasonably likely answer…) but he does note that none of the other vanishings lefts evidence like the bloodstain, which makes the others conclude that Arlo and his family must have put up a fight. Hob wonders if they should search for the bodies, while Danner wants to go after the Vulgs. Patrel says they can’t do either and need to rest for the night and proceed to Spindle Ford in the morning. Danner isn’t happy, but Patrel won’t have a Warrow under his command blundering around the woods at night hunting Vulgs. Tarpy, understandably, refuses to stay in the house, and so the Thornwalkers decide to sleep in the barn’s hayloft as the scene ends.
Thalia: And so, we cut to Tuck being awakened by Danner once again to stand watch. As he heads down from the loft into the barn, Danner tells him there’s been no further sign of Vulgs or regular wolves, but he still thinks they should be out there hunting. Tuck repeats Patrel’s words about why that’s a bad idea, and Danner reminds him that because of the Ban, night is the only time you can find Vulgs. Tuck thinks about that and wonders how good their aim will be in the dark if they do encounter Vulgs, as the scene ends. The next morning, the Warrows look one last time for Arlo and his wife’s bodies and finding nothing they set back out on the road, leaving a note on the door warning any passerby about Vulgs. Eventually they come to the next farm and warn the farmer there about what happened; he sends his sons out to pass the warning on to their neighbors. The farmer thinks that now that they now what to expect, they can at least hold the Vulgs off until dawn if need be (I wouldn’t be so sure of that…) and that the Thornwalkers need to reach the garrison at Spindle Ford and warn them. And so, the Thornwalkers set off, with Patrel wanting to ride on through the night to reach Spindle Ford as soon as they can. *winces* In this context, that seems very unwise…
Tharkos: One might argue that in this context there are no good options (five halflings meeting a pack of Vulgs on the road or in a camp seems unlikely to end well either way…) but once again, it does seem like tempting fate. They continue riding through the enshadowed land, a remarkably dramatic way to describe “through the evening” until at last they spot up ahead Rook’s Roost… a great pile of stone that happens to be where Two Fords Road and the Upland Way come together. Well, there is part of our chapter title, though so far, our heroes do not appear to be “retreating” there. We get some further exposition about the roads and how Rook’s Roost is only five miles from Spindle Ford as the Warrows approach; we learn that the Roost was higher than he first had thought, rising perhaps fifty feet into the air, a great jumble of rocks and boulders placed there in ancient times by an unknown hand to stand ominously in the night. As the ponies plodded onward, Tuck felt as if this looming pile somehow boded doom. Suddenly the ponies panic, and Tuck soon spots the reason why – a Vulg in the fields nearby, keeping pace with them.
Thalia: …if only someone could have predicted this… Patrel tells them to keep riding as more Vulgs join the first; their savage yellow eyes gleamed like hot coals when the Moon caught them just so, and slavering red tongues lolled over wicked fangs set in crushing jaws. Hideous power bunched and rippled under coarse black fur as the beasts slid through the shadows. Patrel tells the others to make for Rook’s Roost and stick together, but as the Vulgs charge towards them, he tells them all to fly for their lives. The ponies burst into a gallop, but the Vulgs are faster. Tuck wants to shoot one but knows on pony-back his aim won’t be good and that an arrow that misses is as good as lost. But when a Vulg nearly reaches his pony he beats it with his bow until it turns aside. Hob, meanwhile, isn’t so lucky. His pony throws him and Danner turns back to grab him. Just as he does, however, a Vulg reaches Hob and bites savagely into his side. Tarpy, who has reached Rook’s Roost, manages to feather it with an arrow straight through the eye, killing it. Patrel shoots another through the paw, causing it to turn aside, and he, Tuck and Danner make the Roost as well. Hob faints as they dismount and begin to climb the rocks; Tarpy is worried about leaving the ponies, but Danner tells him they’re after Waerlings, which I think must be another word for Warrows (though why it’s being used here, I couldn’t say…) and not horses. However, two of the ponies do panic and run off, and the Vulgs pounce and tear them apart. *she winces sharply* Poor things…
Tharkos: At last the Warrows manage to climb to the top of Rook’s Roost, and the Vulgs circle the base but don’t attempt to follow them up. Hob is still alive, and the Warrows work at bandaging him up, while Danner looks down at the Vulgs, wondering what they’re planning (I’m afraid I can’t speculate, as I have no idea how intelligent these creatures are meant to be). Suddenly, the fourth Vulg bursts up from the other side of the hill, while its three packmates take that as a signal to begin their own ascent. Patrel manages to shoot the first Vulg in the shoulder, sending it falling down the stones, while the other three veer again out of arrow range. The Warrows are left watching the Vulgs as they regroup next to the body of the dead Vulg and dead ponies down below, while the surviving ponies have all fled. Danner hopes their arrows last until dawn while the others turn back to tending to Hob, who makes back up and says he’s made a mess of things. Tuck assures him he did fine; Hob wants to know if everyone’s all right, and they tell him how Tarpy killed the Vulg that bit him. Hob is pleased and compliments Tarpy on the shot, but fades in and out of consciousness and rambles more about the Vulgs, while the others note he’s burning with fever – Tarpy wonders if the Vulgs’ fangs are poisoned as the scene ends.
Thalia: We cut to the other Warrows tending to Hob throughout the night, until Danner cries that all four of the Vulgs are coming. Danner looses arrow after arrow at them, daring them to come at him; he manages to hit and kill one, and the others veer away again. Tuck watches them go and then returns to Hob, who is in a bad way and bleeding everywhere. He mumbles about how cold he is as Tuck stays by his side and the Vulgs continue prowling around the hill, until finally Hob quietly dies and the scene ends. Finally, the moon sets and the Vulgs take that as their warning that the dawn is coming and flee. And indeed, as soon as the rising sun strikes the two Vulg corpses left behind, they immediately catch fire and burn to ash. The Warrows gather stones and build a cairn in which they lay Hob’s body to rest, and Patrel sings a mourning song:
The Shadow Tide doth run
O’er boundless Darkling Sea
’Neath skies of Silver Suns
That beckon endlessly.
Reach out thy ship’s wings wide,
Ride on the gentle wind,
Sail with the Shadow Tide
To shoreless Time’s own end.
Alone thou sailed away
Upon the Darkling Sea,
Yet there shall come a day
When I will sail with thee.
Thalia: Hmmm; not inappropriate, I don’t think? The Warrows gather around the cairn and weep and finally Tuck steps forward and swears a vow: by all that I am, the Evil that did this shall answer to your memory. And all the Warrows swear the same and then take up their bows and head onward for Spindle Ford, leaving behind Rook’s Roost, which we’re told was ever after known as Hob’s Cairn, as the chapter comes to an end.
MG: Well, this chapter… wasn’t terrible, exactly, but I do have some issues to take with it. The early expository conversations are very, very awkward, especially since it’s made clear that everyone already knows everything they’re telling each other, and “as you know, Bob”-ing it up purely for the audience’s benefit is one of the clumsiest ways of handling exposition you can do, probably second only to just stopping the narrative outright for the author to infodump to us directly. We get some more of the obvious Middle-earth parallels from it, though we also get hints of some of the ways Mithgar diverges from Middle-earth that later books in the setting will do more with. The discovery of the ransacked farmhouse and subsequent Vulg attacks are fairly atmospheric and do manage some genuine tension, though it’s kind of hard to miss that, while the Rook’s Roost sequence isn’t identical to the Weathertop sequence from FotR, it’s similar enough that the parallels are obvious.
And then we get to the elephant in the room – Hob’s death. On the one hand, one of the “hobbits” dying before we even make it out of “the Shire” is definitely a point where Iron Tower diverges from LotR and is an effective way of telling the reader that this isn’t going to be a light or happy adventure with no lasting consequences for our heroes. On the other hand, it doesn’t hit as hard as it should because I feel like I barely knew anything about Hob. All the other Warrows have their basic personalities established by now – Tuck is thoughtful, Danner is grumpy and aggressive, Patrel is trying to be a responsible leader and likes to make up songs, even Tarpy is at least cheerful and enthusiastic, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about Hob that sets him apart from “generic Warrow.” Thus, while I certainly buy that the Thornwalkers are saddened by his death, because he’s their friend, I as the reader have a hard time caring about him, and in hindsight he’s really obviously a sacrificial lamb who exists only to die to raise the stakes. And so ultimately, I find myself kind of ambivalent about the entire thing, especially in light of some further developments down the line. On a minor note, the Warrows remain remarkably well informed about the history of things from thousands of years ago, right down to accurately remembering Gyphon’s last words before being banished
(which, by the way, feel more like generic supervillain ranting than anything; maybe it’s because I was introduced to these books and the Sam Raimi Spider-man movies at around the same time, but I can’t help but hear Gyphon as Willem Defoe’s Green Goblin yelling “we’ll meet again, Spider-man!”) more than four thousand years ago.
Next time, the Thornwalkers reach Spindle Ford, and we start to get more of an inkling of the overall state of the world and what Modru is actually planning. We’ll see you then!
This is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Dennis L. McKiernan’s The Iron Tower! Last time, we were introduced to a group of Warrows (who totally aren’t hobbits) preparing to join the Thornwalkers, the militia of the Boskydells (which totally isn’t the Shire) in response to rumors about the return of Modru (who totally isn’t Sauron). Today, we’ll be picking up with our new recruits as they set out on their mission, bring each other (and us) up to speed on some relevant backstory, and also suffer their first setbacks.
First off, before we begin our journey, there is something I feel like I need to point out. Just last week, I was reminded that Dennis McKiernan is one of those authors who is strictly opposed to other people writing fanfic of his own work, to the point that he has been (and, AFAIK, remains) on FF.net’s ever-shortening list of creators who have requested the site not host fic related to their work. Though he has explained his reasons for it (mostly legal, related to the fanfic kerfuffle Das Sporking’s old nemesis Marion Zimmer Bradley got herself involved in in the early 90s, see here for more details)) considering McKiernan’s own career got started with him being a fanfic writer made good, in his case in particular it can’t help but feel incredibly hypocritical, like he got his and then tried to pull the ladder up after him. Honestly, it lowers my opinion of him as a person quite a bit… and considering Mithgar’s own origins as reskinned LotR fanfic, it felt like it was something worth bringing up here and worth reminding everyone about before we go any further.
Anyway, on a lighter note, let’s meet the sporkers who’ll be joining us today!
*two figures materialize in the spork chamber; the first is a half-orc man in late middle-age, in a black and red uniform and with a soldier’s bearing; the other is a scrawny, grey-skinned tiefling girl in her late teens, wrapped in tattered robes and with unusually bright and piercing gold eyes*
And so, say hello to Tharkos, former officer of the Ragesian Empire turned renegade…
Tharkos: I did not abandon the Empire; the Empire abandoned me when the great emperor was killed and that witch of an inquisitor and her cronies took control.
MG: Who is somewhat touchy about his exact status, and Thalia, a warlock in service to powers that… well, we’re not quite sure what they are, exactly, but “beyond mortal comprehension” seems about right.
Thalia: It’s not so bad! Admittedly, the visions can be distracting, and the nightmares mean I rarely get a good night’s sleep, and there is the way most people cross the street to avoid talking to me or bumping into me *glances down at her filthy robes* which admittedly might not be because I’m a warlock – but aside from that, I have no complaints!
MG: And so, with introductions out of the way… onward!
Chapter 2: Retreat to Rook’s Roost
Tharkos: And so, we begin our chapter with a description of the territory through which our intrepid heroes are traveling:
The bright light of the mounting Sun fell aslant across the white, glistening snow, and from the glitter, tiny evanescent shards of sparkling color winged to the eye, as if reflected from diminutive fragments of shattered jewels nestled among the fallen flakes. The cold crystalline air was calm, and in all the wide Dinglewood nothing seemed to be astir except for a jostling flock of noisy ravens squabbling over a meager breakfast up among the barren trees on Hawthorn Hill, while down below wending slowly along the North Trace were five Warrows astride five ponies, leading two more of the animals laden with gear.
Tharkos: …this strikes me as rather overwrought, though perhaps it is a matter of taste. I shall withhold judgment for now. We learn that the group has been silent and sullen for miles, which is unusual for Warrows, so Patrel, in the lead, decides to remedy the matter. He takes out his lute and starts strumming, and Tarpy calls for a cheery song. Tuck also wants one, but Danner isn’t in the mood. Tuck things that’s all the more reason for a song to cheer them up, and Danner finally gives in. Patrel decides it’s high time for the others to learn what being a Thornwalker means (something they should have perhaps considered before they enlisted…) and launches into a song.
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we;
We walk around the miles of bounds
To keep the Bosky free
Of Wolves and Vulgs and great wild dogs
And other enemy
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we.
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we;
We’ve trod the Thorns from night to morn
Through Bosky history.
Our ears can hear, and never fear,
For keenly do we see;
We are Thornwalkers,
Thornwalkers are we.
Tharkos: The song continues in that manner for several more verses, until by the end all of the “young buccen” are singing happily along with Patrel, with Danner ironically being the loudest of them. The song ends with Patrel playing a loud twang, and everyone collapsing into laughter, their somber mood gone.
MG: I’m tempted to note this as another point of comparison between Iron Tower and LotR, considering Tolkien was fond of including songs and poems in his text, including hobbit walking songs. But, probably at least in part as a legacy of Tolkien, including songs and poems is pretty common in fantasy fiction, so McKiernan is hardly alone here. In general, I’d say this song is serviceable, though certainly not as memorable or catchy as Tolkien’s poems tend to be.
Thalia: Hob finally asks if that’s really what Thornwalkers do (I have to side with Tharkos here – surely he should have learned that before he signed up?) and if so, he thinks they’ll be busy; Danner says they won’t if they’re stuck guarding Spindle Ford where nothing is likely to happen. Tarpy thinks that doesn’t sound so bad to him, but Tuck is curious about the song, wondering where it came from, since he’s never heard it before, and what it means by “other enemy.” Hmm; if the song somehow manifested spontaneously as a warning of evil times, that would be a cause for worry, wouldn’t it? It turns out Patrel composed it himself, as he sheepishly admits he was still working on it when he came down to pick them up. Tarpy is amazed and asks if this means Patrel is a real minstrel, while Hob says his Aunt Oot – Oot? – used to make up songs too. Tuck asks more about the song, so Patrel decides it’s time for a history lesson!
“There’s not that much to say,” answered Patrel. “You all know that the Thornwalkers help to protect the Bosky; a big responsibility that is, too, for it’s a wide Land: Seven Dells: North, South, East, West, Center, Up, and Down. Ringed ’round by the Great Spindlethorn Barrier. Bounded by two rivers, the Wenden and Spindle, and by the Northwood and the Updunes.”
MG: The Seven Dells of the Bosky are not, of course, to be confused with the Four Farthings of the Shire.
Tharkos: Notably, Danner complains that he is not in the mood for a history or geography lesson, which I would sympathize with in his position as this is no doubt going to be full of things he already knows, but it does seem like this is the means, clumsy as it may be, by which McKiernan has decided this information is to be conveyed. At the urging of the others, Patrel explains he doesn’t know where other singers get their songs, he only knows about his, which explains the mission of the Thornwalkers. Hob still wants to know about Vulgs and “other enemies,” which Danner teases him for, since he doesn’t’ know what “other enemy” could be a threat (were we not told last chapter that people are disappearing? Perhaps you could start there!). And so, we come to this exchange:
“How about Vulgs?” shot back Hob.
“And Rûcks, Hlôks, and Ogrus,” chimed in Tarpy.
“Ghûls,” added Tuck.
Danner looked disgusted. “You left out Cold-drakes! And Modru! And bloody Gyphon himself!” he snapped. “And it seems you’ve also forgotten High Adon’s Ban! And that’s why there isn’t any other enemy: the Ban!”
Thalia: *shaking her head* Ah, for such a world where one’s only foes are monsters and not the evil which lurks in the hearts of one’s fellow beings! In my experience, that is far too often the more dire threat… but Danner, at the urges of the others, launches into his own version of a history lesson they all already know (my, that is seeming to be a trend this chapter, isn’t it?). In any case, Danner explains that long ago, the god Gyphon challenged Adon for rule of the cosmos, and war broke out across the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds. For a time Gyphon had the advantage, for Modru, servant of Gyphon, ruled in Mithgar. Finally, a Grand Alliance of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Utruni, Wizards and Warrows turned the tide against Gyphon and Modru and their armies of Vûlks, Ghûls, Hlôks, Ogrus, Rûcks, Vulgs . . . and some Dragons. The Alliance won and with Modru’s defeat, the balance of power on all three planes turned against Gyphon. And so Adon cursed all who followed Gyphon with the Ban, barring them from the sunlight on pain of death, and from the dragons he took their fire, turning them into cold-drakes. Gyphon himself was also banished beyond the Spheres, though no one knows what that means (I can guess! It does not sound pleasant…). Modru in turn was exiled from his homeland of Gron and fled even further north, to lands where it’s dark half the year so he can range freely at that time… for the price that he has to hide himself away during the other half of the year, when it’s always day.
MG: This seems like the time to have some further elaboration on things that concern the Mithgar books overall, so strap in. Gyphon is the overarching antagonist of the Mithgar series as a whole, and he’s quite blatantly the Morgoth to Modru’s Sauron, though as you might have already guessed he’s going to be more important to Iron Tower than Morgoth is in LotR (where Morgoth only gets a handful of vague mentions and is never really relevant to the plot). I remember when I first read these books I was confused as to why McKiernan named his archvillain “Gryphon” with the “R” removed (for the record, Gyphon has nothing to do with griffons of any description or spelling!) though it occurs to me now that the intended reference might be “Typhon,” with a G instead of a T. But do note that just as Morgoth was banished to the Void following his defeat, so too was Gyphon banished “beyond the Spheres” to the Great Abyss. “Utruni” are the stone-giants, and though they’re not identical to the ents, they fill the same basic niche that the ents do in the Legendarium’s narrative. Don’t expect them to show up in Iron Tower, though – in another case of his shifting elements of the Legendarium around, McKiernan did include the Warrows recruiting them to fight against the enemy, but pushed it back to his take on the War of the Last Alliance. Speaking off, that appears in Mithgar’s history here barely changed as the “Great Alliance.” D for effort on that one, McKiernan.
To take a closer look at Gyphon’s minions listed here… they’re all pretty familiar fantasy monsters, just with different names. “Vûlks” is an umbrella term for demons of all sorts (Gyphon himself is sometimes called “The High Vûlk,” in fact). Ghûls you might think are Mithgar’s version of the Ringwraiths, and to a certain extent that’s true, but they’re also notably different in some ways… more on that when we see them. Hlôks are orcs or hobgoblins, and Rûcks are smaller goblins (or, to get back to Middle-earth, it’s just the Uruk-hai/common orc divide). Ogrus are just Tolkien style trolls, and are literally sometimes called trolls outright (or, inexplicably, Ogru-Trolls, as if we’d forget they were the same creature if we didn’t hyphenate the name). Vulgs we’ve already been over last time; they’re wargs. Dragons are kind of interesting, because as noted here in contrast to Tolkien, where dragons were in their origins creatures of Morgoth, only some of Mithgar’s dragons fought for Gyphon – dragons in general are depicted as being more like amoral forces of nature than anything, and not really friendly to either side of the divine conflict (cold-drakes do exist in Tolkien, but aside from the fact that they don’t breathe fire and the “long-worn” Scatha mentioned in LotR’s appendices was one, they’re not much elaborated on). Interestingly, Danner’s little spiel here implies that all Wizards fought against Gyphon, which isn’t true (and, for further context, Wizards or Mages – the two terms are used interchangeably – are presented as their own species in Mithgar, neither humans nor elves but something kind of in-between and the only race with the power to perform most actual magic; they’re not the same thing as the Maiar from Middle-earth, but sort of end up in the same general niche); a number of Black Mages (who are different from regular Mages in that they power their spells vampirically by feeding off the life-force of other creatures) served Gyphon and suffer the Ban. It’s an especially egregious oversight because Modru himself was the most powerful of those Mages; then again, I don’t believe Iron Tower goes into much detail about Modru’s origins, so maybe McKiernan just hadn’t worked that part out yet.
A bit more to discuss before we move on. For one, we get our first look at Mithgar’s cosmology and how it differs from Middle-earth’s here, with its structure of the three planes (technically there’s more than that – Mages, Dragons and the Fae, who don’t appear in
Iron Tower but play important roles in several of the later Mithgar books – are all from their own separate planes as well) and the struggle for control on them (supposedly, if you control two of the three main planes, you rule the whole cosmos, but it’s never quite clear what that means, IMO – Adon holds two, the gods’ world of Adonar and Mithgar, which makes him the top god, and clearly is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and neither is he so powerful he can’t be challenged). The other planes will get explored some in some of the later books, particularly Silver Wolf, Black Falcon; I remember being pretty underwhelmed by them.
And then… there’s the Ban. Clearly, the Ban exists as a riff on something from Middle-earth – that the most ancient of the creatures bred by Morgoth, such as orcs and trolls, can’t stand the light of the son (though it’s only fatal to trolls, who it turns to stone; orcs can endure the sun, but it weakens them and they hate it, and won’t go out in it except in dire need). This is presented more as a side-effect of their making and corruption than anything, and Morgoth’s later creatures, including dragons (and the Uruk-hai his various successors would later breed) don’t have this same weakness. The Ban, OTOH, is fatal, instantly (most of the time; IIRC we have one instance in a later book of a Ghul just barely managing to get out of the sun in time and getting off with “just” half his face burned off) and was directly imposed as a punishment by Adon. But, well… look how it works. The Spawn, or Foul Folk (the various creatures of the underworld who serve Gyphon) get hit with it universally, despite the fact that, being native to Gyphon’s underworld they were born into slavery and never chose to serve him – but nope, their world happened to have the wrong god, so their whole species get condemned. OTOH, with dragons and Mages the ban only fell on the specific individuals who chose to fight for Gyphon, so Adon is clearly capable of aiming with greater precision. Meanwhile, no humans suffer the Ban at all, even though many humans have fought for Gyphon and there are a number of religions on Mithgar that outright worship him under various names as the true and supreme God. So, uh… good work, Adon! Notably, that Adon, the god who preaches freedom or choice and opposes Gyphon the tyrant, would damn whole races for all eternity for the actions of their masters while sparing others in a fairly arbitrary manner, seems to be something that McKiernan eventually realized was supremely hypocritical, as Adon gets called out on it in Silver Wolf, Black Falcon and the Ban is ultimately lifted after Gyphon’s final defeat. But that doesn’t really affect this book much (and admittedly, Adon himself is barely a character in most of the Mithgar books and almost never appears directly).
Tharkos: …I might say that the orcish people bear an unfair stigma of barbarism and violence (as if our human neighbors were any better…) in my own homeland, but at least the Four never saw fit to curse our entire race for it. In any case, Danner ends his speech by declaring that the Ban would destroy “any other enemy” – I must echo Thalia that it seems terribly naïve he can only conceive of an enemy being one of Gyphon’s servants and not of purely mortal evils – though Patrel reminds him the Ban only applies in daylight and Gyphon’s minions can still commit their evil at night. He reminds them that Warrows have reported seeing glimpses of creatures like great black wolves, which could be Vulgs, though they can only come out at night – however, he doubts that any of the other creatures Danner names are active in the Boskydells, and the mountains where most such creatures live, the Grimwall, Gronfang and Rigga ranges, are far away. Tuck wonders why Vulgs have returned to the Boskydell now, and Danner still thinks it’s probably regular wolves – it’s been two Eras since Modru was overthrown, so he cannot imagine why evil would be stirring now. Alas, considering that this is merely the opening section of a longer novel, I fear the boy who is so certain of himself here is merely tempting fate.
Thalia: The Warrows ride on in silence for some time, musing over the question, until Tuck recalls an old legend he heard of the words Gyphon spoke just as Adon tossed him into the Great Abyss. Danner also heard it, and doesn’t buy it.
“‘Even now,’” Danner quoted, his voice sepulchral, “‘Even now I have set into motion events you cannot stop. I shall return! I shall conquer! I shall rule!’ That’s what the old tales say Gyphon last spat at Adon, then He was gone, beyond the Spheres, banished. But He was wrong, for He hasn’t returned. In four-thousand years He hasn’t returned. That’s how long they say it has been. And for those same four-thousand years, no Rûck, no Vulg, ah, fie! Nothing! Nothing suffering the Ban has threatened the Bosky! Ever!”
Thalia: Ah, to assume that just because things have always been so, they must always be so! I have to agree with Tharkos; Danner is clearly tempting fate most unwisely! Patrel says Danner may be right, but that doesn’t explain why rumor says that Vulgs have returned to the Boskydells, and the scene ends there.
MG: Before we move on, a couple of more notes. First off, another point regarding the timeline – the Boskydells is more than four thousand years old and has remained largely unchanged in character for all that time. Contrast the Shire, which is less than half that age and has undergone some fairly significant upheavals in that time (most notably, going from a protectorate of Arthedain to an independent country), despite hobbits’ reputation for being resistant to change. And this also makes it worth noting that, in contrast to hobbits who had been long overlooked by all the powerful movers and shakers of Middle-earth (except for Gandalf), the Warrows have a long, long history of involvement in world events, which somewhat undermines the whole “unnoticed ordinary people shape the fate of the world while the eyes and hands of the great powers are elsewhere” angle.
Tharkos: And so, the Warrows spend the rest of the day traveling onward through the forest, finally coming to a stop at dusk, about thirty miles from Woody Hollow. They set up camp and draw lots for watches; Tuck gets the midnight watch, while Hob gets the first. Patrel promises that tomorrow night they’ll all sleep in Arlo Huggs’ hayloft at his farm about twenty-five miles away; Arlo and his wife have already promised Patrel they’ll put them up for the night. We then cut to midnight, as Tuck is awakened by Danner and starts his watch. Tuck suggests that Danner should also get some sleep, so he won’t be so grumpy in the morning *snorts loudly* to which Danner predictably takes offense. Tuck says that Danner was unpleasant on the journey today, to which Danner responds that he’s like a mirror – he only reflects back what he gets (it seemed to me that he was simply annoyed everyone else was happier and more credulous than he was…). Tuck tells Danner that he can be like a mirror or a window, but only the window lets light in, and Danner goes to sleep with a thoughtful expression. Tuck spends his watch writing in his diary, including the lyrics to Patrel’s song, and as Tuck confirms he’s planning to keep a detailed record of his travels, the scene ends.
MG: …which is nothing at all like Bilbo, and later Frodo and Sam, writing the memoirs of their adventures. /s
Thalia: The next morning it snows – I know some people enjoy watching snow, but being out in it with nowhere to go has little to recommend it! – as the Warrows head north, leaving the Dinglewood behind and finally reaching the road to Spindle Ford. They talk about hoping for a hot meal – understandably so! – and reaching Arlo’s, and three hours later they arrive at the farm, exactly as Patrel predicted. As they approach the farmhouse, however, Patrel calls out that something is wrong. He notices that there is no light coming from the house, and tells the others to ready their bows. They slowly approach, and the tension actually builds rather ominously as they spot the open windows and the banging of the shutters. And then, as they approach the door, it suddenly opens; Tuck, startled, fires several arrows in succession without realizing what he’s doing, but they all vanish into the blackness. When nothing responds, Patrel motions for the everyone to enter the house. They find it’s ransacked and empty, with no sign of people, nor are there any livestock in the barn. They investigate further, trying to figure out what happened; suddenly Danner screams and everyone comes running to find a large bloodstain, with a pawprint in the middle of it. Tarpy thinks it was wolves, but even Danner can guess the truth – Vulgs. And, as if on cue, off in the distance, mingled with the moan of the wind, came a single, horrid, prolonged savage wail.
MG: I’d be tempted to say this is clearly riffing on the warg attack on the slopes of Caradhras from Fellowship of the Ring (cut from the Jackson movies and most other adaptations) where the howling of the wargs is initially mistaken for the howling of the wind, but in this case I honestly don’t know if it’s specific enough. Just something that came to mind, though.
Tharkos: The Warrows examine the house, determining exactly how the Vulgs got in. “See, the broken glass flew inwards, as if the evil creatures hurtled through.” Which is an extremely awkward way to describe this scene, and does not sound at all like someone reacting emotionally to the horror around them. Tarpy notes they didn’t find the bodies anywhere; Hob says it’s another disappearance, and Patrel corrects him that it’s a slaughter instead. They all wonder again what happened to the bodies; Patrel doesn’t know (considering what Vulgs are, I would imagine “they ate them” would be a reasonably likely answer…) but he does note that none of the other vanishings lefts evidence like the bloodstain, which makes the others conclude that Arlo and his family must have put up a fight. Hob wonders if they should search for the bodies, while Danner wants to go after the Vulgs. Patrel says they can’t do either and need to rest for the night and proceed to Spindle Ford in the morning. Danner isn’t happy, but Patrel won’t have a Warrow under his command blundering around the woods at night hunting Vulgs. Tarpy, understandably, refuses to stay in the house, and so the Thornwalkers decide to sleep in the barn’s hayloft as the scene ends.
Thalia: And so, we cut to Tuck being awakened by Danner once again to stand watch. As he heads down from the loft into the barn, Danner tells him there’s been no further sign of Vulgs or regular wolves, but he still thinks they should be out there hunting. Tuck repeats Patrel’s words about why that’s a bad idea, and Danner reminds him that because of the Ban, night is the only time you can find Vulgs. Tuck thinks about that and wonders how good their aim will be in the dark if they do encounter Vulgs, as the scene ends. The next morning, the Warrows look one last time for Arlo and his wife’s bodies and finding nothing they set back out on the road, leaving a note on the door warning any passerby about Vulgs. Eventually they come to the next farm and warn the farmer there about what happened; he sends his sons out to pass the warning on to their neighbors. The farmer thinks that now that they now what to expect, they can at least hold the Vulgs off until dawn if need be (I wouldn’t be so sure of that…) and that the Thornwalkers need to reach the garrison at Spindle Ford and warn them. And so, the Thornwalkers set off, with Patrel wanting to ride on through the night to reach Spindle Ford as soon as they can. *winces* In this context, that seems very unwise…
Tharkos: One might argue that in this context there are no good options (five halflings meeting a pack of Vulgs on the road or in a camp seems unlikely to end well either way…) but once again, it does seem like tempting fate. They continue riding through the enshadowed land, a remarkably dramatic way to describe “through the evening” until at last they spot up ahead Rook’s Roost… a great pile of stone that happens to be where Two Fords Road and the Upland Way come together. Well, there is part of our chapter title, though so far, our heroes do not appear to be “retreating” there. We get some further exposition about the roads and how Rook’s Roost is only five miles from Spindle Ford as the Warrows approach; we learn that the Roost was higher than he first had thought, rising perhaps fifty feet into the air, a great jumble of rocks and boulders placed there in ancient times by an unknown hand to stand ominously in the night. As the ponies plodded onward, Tuck felt as if this looming pile somehow boded doom. Suddenly the ponies panic, and Tuck soon spots the reason why – a Vulg in the fields nearby, keeping pace with them.
Thalia: …if only someone could have predicted this… Patrel tells them to keep riding as more Vulgs join the first; their savage yellow eyes gleamed like hot coals when the Moon caught them just so, and slavering red tongues lolled over wicked fangs set in crushing jaws. Hideous power bunched and rippled under coarse black fur as the beasts slid through the shadows. Patrel tells the others to make for Rook’s Roost and stick together, but as the Vulgs charge towards them, he tells them all to fly for their lives. The ponies burst into a gallop, but the Vulgs are faster. Tuck wants to shoot one but knows on pony-back his aim won’t be good and that an arrow that misses is as good as lost. But when a Vulg nearly reaches his pony he beats it with his bow until it turns aside. Hob, meanwhile, isn’t so lucky. His pony throws him and Danner turns back to grab him. Just as he does, however, a Vulg reaches Hob and bites savagely into his side. Tarpy, who has reached Rook’s Roost, manages to feather it with an arrow straight through the eye, killing it. Patrel shoots another through the paw, causing it to turn aside, and he, Tuck and Danner make the Roost as well. Hob faints as they dismount and begin to climb the rocks; Tarpy is worried about leaving the ponies, but Danner tells him they’re after Waerlings, which I think must be another word for Warrows (though why it’s being used here, I couldn’t say…) and not horses. However, two of the ponies do panic and run off, and the Vulgs pounce and tear them apart. *she winces sharply* Poor things…
Tharkos: At last the Warrows manage to climb to the top of Rook’s Roost, and the Vulgs circle the base but don’t attempt to follow them up. Hob is still alive, and the Warrows work at bandaging him up, while Danner looks down at the Vulgs, wondering what they’re planning (I’m afraid I can’t speculate, as I have no idea how intelligent these creatures are meant to be). Suddenly, the fourth Vulg bursts up from the other side of the hill, while its three packmates take that as a signal to begin their own ascent. Patrel manages to shoot the first Vulg in the shoulder, sending it falling down the stones, while the other three veer again out of arrow range. The Warrows are left watching the Vulgs as they regroup next to the body of the dead Vulg and dead ponies down below, while the surviving ponies have all fled. Danner hopes their arrows last until dawn while the others turn back to tending to Hob, who makes back up and says he’s made a mess of things. Tuck assures him he did fine; Hob wants to know if everyone’s all right, and they tell him how Tarpy killed the Vulg that bit him. Hob is pleased and compliments Tarpy on the shot, but fades in and out of consciousness and rambles more about the Vulgs, while the others note he’s burning with fever – Tarpy wonders if the Vulgs’ fangs are poisoned as the scene ends.
Thalia: We cut to the other Warrows tending to Hob throughout the night, until Danner cries that all four of the Vulgs are coming. Danner looses arrow after arrow at them, daring them to come at him; he manages to hit and kill one, and the others veer away again. Tuck watches them go and then returns to Hob, who is in a bad way and bleeding everywhere. He mumbles about how cold he is as Tuck stays by his side and the Vulgs continue prowling around the hill, until finally Hob quietly dies and the scene ends. Finally, the moon sets and the Vulgs take that as their warning that the dawn is coming and flee. And indeed, as soon as the rising sun strikes the two Vulg corpses left behind, they immediately catch fire and burn to ash. The Warrows gather stones and build a cairn in which they lay Hob’s body to rest, and Patrel sings a mourning song:
The Shadow Tide doth run
O’er boundless Darkling Sea
’Neath skies of Silver Suns
That beckon endlessly.
Reach out thy ship’s wings wide,
Ride on the gentle wind,
Sail with the Shadow Tide
To shoreless Time’s own end.
Alone thou sailed away
Upon the Darkling Sea,
Yet there shall come a day
When I will sail with thee.
Thalia: Hmmm; not inappropriate, I don’t think? The Warrows gather around the cairn and weep and finally Tuck steps forward and swears a vow: by all that I am, the Evil that did this shall answer to your memory. And all the Warrows swear the same and then take up their bows and head onward for Spindle Ford, leaving behind Rook’s Roost, which we’re told was ever after known as Hob’s Cairn, as the chapter comes to an end.
MG: Well, this chapter… wasn’t terrible, exactly, but I do have some issues to take with it. The early expository conversations are very, very awkward, especially since it’s made clear that everyone already knows everything they’re telling each other, and “as you know, Bob”-ing it up purely for the audience’s benefit is one of the clumsiest ways of handling exposition you can do, probably second only to just stopping the narrative outright for the author to infodump to us directly. We get some more of the obvious Middle-earth parallels from it, though we also get hints of some of the ways Mithgar diverges from Middle-earth that later books in the setting will do more with. The discovery of the ransacked farmhouse and subsequent Vulg attacks are fairly atmospheric and do manage some genuine tension, though it’s kind of hard to miss that, while the Rook’s Roost sequence isn’t identical to the Weathertop sequence from FotR, it’s similar enough that the parallels are obvious.
And then we get to the elephant in the room – Hob’s death. On the one hand, one of the “hobbits” dying before we even make it out of “the Shire” is definitely a point where Iron Tower diverges from LotR and is an effective way of telling the reader that this isn’t going to be a light or happy adventure with no lasting consequences for our heroes. On the other hand, it doesn’t hit as hard as it should because I feel like I barely knew anything about Hob. All the other Warrows have their basic personalities established by now – Tuck is thoughtful, Danner is grumpy and aggressive, Patrel is trying to be a responsible leader and likes to make up songs, even Tarpy is at least cheerful and enthusiastic, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about Hob that sets him apart from “generic Warrow.” Thus, while I certainly buy that the Thornwalkers are saddened by his death, because he’s their friend, I as the reader have a hard time caring about him, and in hindsight he’s really obviously a sacrificial lamb who exists only to die to raise the stakes. And so ultimately, I find myself kind of ambivalent about the entire thing, especially in light of some further developments down the line. On a minor note, the Warrows remain remarkably well informed about the history of things from thousands of years ago, right down to accurately remembering Gyphon’s last words before being banished
(which, by the way, feel more like generic supervillain ranting than anything; maybe it’s because I was introduced to these books and the Sam Raimi Spider-man movies at around the same time, but I can’t help but hear Gyphon as Willem Defoe’s Green Goblin yelling “we’ll meet again, Spider-man!”) more than four thousand years ago.
Next time, the Thornwalkers reach Spindle Ford, and we start to get more of an inkling of the overall state of the world and what Modru is actually planning. We’ll see you then!
