"Just as the Valley of Baruk, to our eyes, looks eastward from Lund, at the other end of the valley there are high cliffs rising tier above tier that mark the beginnings of what for the inhabitants would have been a westerly passage, and no doubt the valley once was known by another name that has long since been forgotten.
"At what for us is the end of the Valley of Baruk, there are the remains of an ancient flagged road with broken pillars lining its sides. Facing west, back the way we'd come, it became clear to us by the lay of the land that we stood on the westernmost edge of some ancient, dead civilization, though all sign of it, at our backs, had been utterly blasted from the earth.
"Presently we came to a bottleneck centred by a stone arch. Beyond the arch there was nothing, save endless broken hills to either side that smoked, and the road meandered into the distance like a dry river-bed wandering through the broken hills beyond.
"Unscathed and ready to begin our trial in earnest, our company then were Gart and Raldo the dwarves, Darrow the wizard, Stil the elf, twelve men of Brand, and myself.
"Beyond this place we could see that the land became more cracked and broken, and this was not to my liking as it was clearly the only way, and offered us no chance of concealment or defensibility, and we were so few. Yet the way seemed deserted, so we proceeded.