Free The Dragonstone by Dennis L. McKiernan

this thundering hazard rode the seven, while down in the roaring gorge the waters impotently raged. They came to the narrowest pinch atop the walls of the gorge, the western rampart but a stone’s throw away, and here, of a sudden, the constriction came to an end as the cliffs to either side began to diminish in height and to recede from one another, and the water below slid down a long ramp into a deep trough and shortly thereafter the river widened.
    Onward rode the Elven band, down the sloping land, and soon the thunder in the Race behind became a rumbleand then a distant grumble…and when they set camp that night not even a whispering echo remained.
    *   *   *
    All the next day they rode on the wold alongside the wooded river vale, now angling a bit easterly as the south-bearing river swung over that way. Once again they made camp as twilight drew upon the land.
    It was near mid of day the day after when they sighted the northern end of Olorin Isle, where they could see smoke rising from the dwellings of the Rivermen. Down from the wold rode the Elves and through a narrow marge of woods bordering the Argon to come to the river itself, and following an overgrown trail, a quarter mile downstream they reached the ferry dock. From the pier a well-beaten path bore southward alongside the stream. They all dismounted and stretched their legs and then Vanidar haled on the pull-rope to ring the summoning bell.
    After a while they could see the ferry, with four men rowing, leave the island pier; a mule stood in their midst. As they crossed the quarter-mile stretch, the river current carried the float southerly; it would land downstream below the Elves at the dock.
    “Should we ride down to meet it?” asked Melor.
    Silverleaf shook his head and pointed at the path along the bank. “The mule will haul it here, else on the journey back we could miss the island altogether.”
    Arin raised an eyebrow. “Why should we go to the isle? It’s the far side we would reach and not some point midriver.”
    Rissa laughed aloud, for she had been this way before, and Vanidar said, “Ah, ’tis the scheming of the Rivermen which makes it so: one ferry to carry us to the isle for a fee; another ferry to take us on to the far shore…for a second fee, of course.” Now Vanidar joined Rissa in her laughter.
    “Huah! Waterway robbery,” declared Ruar, yet he was smiling as he said so.
    Melor growled, “Outrageous,” but Perin and Biren looked at one another and shrugged.
    Some time later, harnessed to the ferry, the mule came plodding along the pathway, one man leading the animalwhile the three other men fended with poles to keep the float from grounding against the shore.
    *   *   *
    “Y’could help we’ns row,” said the Riverman, spitting into the Argon, then jerking his stubble-clad chin toward spare oars as he and his comrades rowed.
    “Oh no, my good man,” responded Ruar. “For the exorbitant fee paid ye we shall ride in luxury.”
    “Wi’ this load we c’d miss th’ isle alt’gether, y’know,” replied the Riverman. “Go over Bellon hisself ‘n’ inter th’ Cauldron herself.”
    “Oh, please do,” said Ruar gaily, for he knew full well that mighty Bellon Falls was a full hundred miles downstream, where the Argon plunged over the rim of the Great Escarpment to plummet a thousand feet to the thundering churn below. “I have always wanted to swim in the roar of the Cauldron at the foot of He Who Shouts.”
    The Riverman growled but said no more and hauled mightily on the oar, for he knew that if they did indeed miss the island they would collect no double fee.
    The barge landed on the long shores of Olorin Isle some three miles downstream, where the Elves offloaded and mounted up and rode along the tow path toward the northern point of the isle where the second ferry was docked.
    As they cantered along the shoreline, they saw boats put out from the island shore and row into the stream, where the boatmen