In chapter 7, Carter escapes dreadful Leng and comes to the aid of friends.

Carter runs madly through the temple, eventually getting turned around and cursing his lack of direction. He wanders by instinct until after a long while he finds himself outside. He sneaks away from Leng towards some ruins. Safely inside the ruins, he finds twin statues of colossal diorite lions. He recalls mention of these lions as the entry to the abyss via Sarkomand. He wanders but a bit further and hears pained gibbering.

Carter seeks out the source of the gibbering and finds, to his horror, the three ghouls that aided his escape from the abyss, now tortured by the toad-beings from the moon. In a moment of genius, he recalls a password given to him by Pickman. This password allows ghouls to safely travel into and out of the abyss without harassment from night-gaunts.

Carter rushes back to Sarkomand and delves deep, until he feels the familiar tickling sensation of probing night-gaunts. He utters the password and explains his plight. The night-gaunts descend into the abyss and return with an army of ghouls. Carter leads the ghouls in a charge and rescues the three captives from the moon-beasts.

The three captive ghouls describe their journey to Dylath-Leen and their capture. The ghouls caught the attention of a moon slaver crew when they asked about passage to Sarkomand. Ever protective of Leng, one of the slavers pulled the same trick of getting the ghouls drunk on ridiculously strong moon wine. The ghouls were then transported to Leng and tortured for play by the moon-beasts.

The now defeated beasts left their ship behind. Carter and leaders of the ghoul clans discuss a plan to sail to the haunted island and forcefully shut down the operations of the moon-beasts. An epic battle ensues, involving night-gaunts dropping beasts from great heights, and the ghouls defending the captured island from a two-pronged counter assault. The ghouls loot the island for moon alcohol which they can use for trade. Realising that rubies are inedible, they leave the hoard alone. Carter, aware of the origins of the rubies, does not grab any.

Carter, who led a naval counter-offensive during the final great battle of the island, is lauded as a hero by the ghouls and their allied night-gaunts. Carter then sees an opportunity to leverage passage to Kadath. He explains the fear of the gods and shantaks for night-gaunts, and requests a modest reward for his bravery. Carter asks for a few night-gaunts to transport him to Kadath and protect him from assailants. If the ghouls could spare a few of their own, he would also like a retinue.

The ghouls, fearing not what lies atop Kadath, instead over-deliver. The entire ghoul and night-gaunt host will accompany Carter to Kadath, and a company of ghouls shall be his honour guard.

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I was surprised that the ghouls were not aware of the night-gaunts’ allegiance to Nodens, lord of the abyss. Apparently, everyone except the people of Leng seem to associate them with Nyarlathotep. given their allegiance to the night-gaunts, doesn’t it make sense that the ghouls would know of their loyalty to Nodens?

Here we see the foolhardiness of Carter finally paying off. He didn’t rescue the ghouls with an idea to bargain for passage to Kadath. He engaged in the (apparently foolish) task of communicating with the night-gaunts, which really could have ended poorly for him. He then led several assaults and was pivotal in the capture of the island of the moon-beasts.

One thing that I don’t mention in the plot synopsis is a brass door on the island. It is mentioned almost off-handedly. While the conquerors loot the island, Carter sees a brass door. He has a supernatural aversion to the door and so does not peek behind it. Given what he’s witnessed so far on his quest, what could be so disturbing that he dare not bear witness to it?