Dragonstone 19

Chapter 19
We cut to the Generic Elves in media res as they struggle through a blizzard in the mountains. We learn that the mules “had been blizzard-slain” when they got lost one night (and their six mules have become two, though it's possible I missed something in the last 386,321 pages of travel description) and that Arin has ridden her horse to death. “Arin's horse . . . had simply collapsed and died; her heart had given out as she had labored in the deep snow.”
The elves are terrible horsemen, but we already knew that.
The elves make their way to “a village of huts and hovels” and knock on the door of one of the larger huts. It is answered by “a small yellow man.” \~/
We get a very short scene from the villagers' point of view (no specific villager; just the villagers as a whole) where we learn that they think the elves are demons, ho ho. However, the “demons” never killed anyone or transformed into their hideous true forms, and they “enriched the village exceedingly with two gemstones in trade for the supply of food and five ponies and grain.”
No. Bad author.
This is a tiny mountain village. They have no frikkin' use for gemstones. They do, however, have a very good use for food and horses. Those five ponies represented an enormous labor multiplier for these people; now, every single task the ponies did – probably hauling heavy loads – will have to be done by the humans instead. That food is vital to the villagers' continued survival, especially in the mountains in the winter – it's November, per the text. It's not clear how much food was taken, but it takes the party of seven elves, six horses and five ponies another two weeks to reach Black Mountain, so that's, what, 98 elf-days of food and 154 horse-days of grain?
For that matter, where did this come from? I rather doubt one individual in this tiny mountain village (named Doku, if you care, which apparently means “poison”) has all the gear and livestock the elves need, much less has it to spare. This means the gear was purchased from multiple individuals, all of whom will now have to split those two gems among themselves . . . once they find a buyer, and turn the gems into stuff they can actually use.
Like food. And ponies.
\~/\~/\~/\~/
I think McKiernan is basing his knowledge of economics on D&D, and assuming that mundane supplies are available with 100% reliability if you can pay for them, and that gems magically transform into the appropriate number of gold pieces on demand.
And we're traveling, and we're traveling . . . \~/ Great emphasis is placed on how bare and “sterile” the landscape is as the elves approach Black Mountain, making me wonder what the mages eat. I'm probably not supposed to think about that, though.
McKiernan's faux-Tolkienian prose somehow continues to get worse. I freely grant that Tolkien's prose was wordy, and could get a little purple at times, but he painted a vivid picture. McKiernan gives us images like “And once again the band made a fireless camp, setting against the cold, dark stone while remote stars wheeled overhead throughout the icy nighttide, and just ere dawn the thin pale crescent of the waning moon preceded the sun into the sky.”
DEATHLESS.
Anyway, they reach the door to the “Wizardholt” and the chapter ends.
Drinks: 6
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