The Nether Scroll Chapter 12: Sacrificing Hopper and Descending Into Dekanter's Mines
Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8
This chapter hurts. Not in a plot-twist way. It hurts because a good horse dies and nobody pretends it’s easy.
Druhallen wakes up soaked. Hopper’s cracked hoof has gotten worse. The gelding is standing on three legs. Everyone knows what that means for a horse in the mountains. The only question is how.
Saying Goodbye to Hopper
The conversation between Dru and Tiep is one of the most emotionally honest moments in this book. Tiep knows what’s coming but doesn’t want to say it out loud. When he asks “Isn’t there anything you can do?” and Dru says a flat “No,” you feel the uselessness of magic. All the fire spells in the world, and he can’t fix a cracked hoof.
They decide to turn Hopper’s death into strategy. Lead the horse down to Ghistpok’s camp, sacrifice him, use the feast to get on the goblins’ good side. Cold calculus wrapped around genuine heartbreak. Tiep insists on being there. “The last thing he sees will be me.”
When Dru actually does it, casting fire into Hopper’s skull while the horse rests its chin on his shoulder with total trust… that’s hard to read. Abbey doesn’t flinch from it. The “mercy” spell is just a simple flame spell. The difference is where you aim it.
Welcome to Ghistpok’s Camp
The descent into Dekanter reveals how bad things are. Twenty half-starved spearmen meet them at the quarry bottom. Every one of them is emaciated. Their clothes are rags. And they refuse to speak the common tongue, even though they clearly understand it. It’s a small act of defiance against the humans who destroyed their way of life.
The camp is worse. The stench is overwhelming. Goblin women huddle behind low walls with hollow faces. And Dru notices something disturbing: way more boys than girls. He does the math and realizes Ghistpok’s tribe has been killing their daughters for generations. A tribe that despises its women is a tribe at the edge of extinction. And the adult males who should fill those spear ranks? Missing. Fed to the Beast Lord’s athanor.
Ghistpok himself is grotesque. Massively fat in a starving camp, with folds of empty skin hanging from his body. He won’t speak to humans. Sheemzher negotiates and comes out without his shirt (now a turban on Ghistpok’s head) but with a deal: bring proof the Beast Lord is turning goblins into monsters. If the proof convinces Ghistpok, the scroll is theirs.
Into the Mines
The mine entrance is covered in Netherese inscriptions. For decades Dru has dreamed of standing here. A thousand times he imagined how it would feel. None of those imaginings prepared him for doing it with blood on his hands and a dead horse behind him.
Underground, last night’s rain has penetrated everything. Dru knows this is dangerous. Only fools walk into a mountain after a storm. But Rozt’a’s answer is practical: “The Beast Lord lives in this mountain and so do its slaves. If they can survive, so can we.”
They follow Sheemzher’s nose until they find boundary wards. Spider-web magic strung across a corridor, potent enough to kill anyone who touches it. And that changes everything. The Beast Lord isn’t just using these mines. It’s defending them. From below. From the Underdark.
Dru breaks through using a swordswinger’s sword. The ward flare is blinding, but it clears the way. Swordswingers find them quickly after that. Eight of them. But Sheemzher insults Outhzin deliberately, and Ghistpok’s goblins charge into battle with their spears. The humans never even draw their swords.
The Proof
Then the real discovery. One of the swordswinger corpses has old scars along his ribs. Outhzin recognizes them. “Grouze!” he shouts. It’s someone they knew. A former tribemember, transformed by the Beast Lord into a monster.
Sheemzher freezes. If Grouze was turned, then his wife Elva was too. Rozt’a kneels before the goblin and says gently, “Don’t look. Tell yourself she died years ago.”
Dru has to carry the corpse out himself because none of the goblins will touch it. And he warns Tiep to keep quiet about the implications. “The Beast Lord’s done something Ghistpok can’t forgive. We get our sentience shield, we get the golden scroll, and we get out of Dekanter.”
That “no worse off” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because “no worse off” already includes a dead horse, a heartbroken goblin, and a party permanently changed by what they’ve seen.