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

loaded the supplies the Man had purchased the day before. When he returned, the Dwarves and Warrows. dressed for the journey, were standing on the stoop—packs, bedrolls, armor, and weaponry ready. They placed all their goods in the waggon, and the Dwarves piled aboard with Kian. Perry and Cotton took one last long look around, reluctant to get aboard now that it had come to it. Cotton glanced at Pern and, at his nod, reached up to grasp the sideboard to climb into the wain. But before he could do so, Holly came rushing out of the door. She spun Cotton around and hugged him and whispered into his ear, "Goodbye, Cotton. Now you stay by Mister Pern, and take care of him. and keep him safe." Then she turned to Perry, and she hugged him and kissed him and then held him at arm's length and with brimming eyes looked at him as if to fill herself up with the sight of him for the long days to come. And Perry, stunned and dumbfounded, shuffled his feet and peered at the ground, unable to look again upon the anguish in Holly's face. She tried to say something, but could not and burst into tears, and with one last quick embrace she ran weeping back into The Root.
    Pern stood a moment gaping at the pegged panels of the oaken door through which she had fled, and suddenly he realized how much he cared for her—in that quiet. Warrowish sort of way. Now his yen for adventure seemed somehow less important, but he glanced up into the wain where his companions were waiting; and in that instant—like countless others in all ages have found—he, too, learned the first lesson of quests: whether for good or ill, the needs of the quest overrule all else.
    Curbing his confused feelings. Pern climbed into the waggon with Cotton and the others, and they drove away to the east.

    CHAPTER 6
    THE HORN OF THE REACH
    Anval, Borin, Kian, Perry, and Cotton; they all rode away from The Root in silence, each deep in his own thoughts. In this fashion they passed down the canted road from Hollow End and on through Woody Hollow, past the mill and across the bridge over the Dingle-rill. And everywhere they passed, War-rows stood silent by the road or ran from their homes to watch the waggon roll by. This was, after all, an amazing sight, one not likely to be repeated in anyone's lifetime:
    Imagine, two Dwarves and a Man, actualh right here in Woody Hollow! And Mister Perry and Cotton goin' away with them and all! Wonders never cease! It was to be the talk of the Boskydells for months, even years, to come.
    A flock of chattering younglings, led by the two tag-alongs, ran ahead of, beside, and behind the wain all the way to the bridge over the Dingle-rill, where the children stopped and stood watching as the waggon slowly trundled across and went on. Some tykes silently waved, others gaily piped farewells, and some seemed instantly to lose interest, for they began playing tag or wrestling or simply went wandering off. Soon the horse-drawn vehicle was around the bend and over the hill and out of sight.
    Nothing was said by anyone in the wain for a mile or so, and apart from an occasional bird or an insect coming awake with the warming of the Sun, the silence was broken only by the sounds of the waggon and team: the creak of harness, the jingle of singletrees, the clip-clop of hooves, an occasional whicker or blowing, the rattle of sideboards and tailgate, and above all else the unremitting grind of iron-rimmed wheels turning against the hard-packed earthen road. In this somber mood they rode without speaking til they came to the village of Budgens.
    Upon sighting the small red waggon drawing nigh, the hundred or so citizens of that village, too, turned out to watch the wayfarers pass through, taking up a position on the Monument Knoll, with Ned Proudhand in the crowd forefront showing all who would look—and there were many—his Dwarf gold piece.

    As the wayfarers rolled by the Monument, Cotton, driven by an inner urge, drew the silver horn from his pack and blew