Against All Things Ending (69 page)

Still slowly, Stave said, “Or it may chance that it will not. Then the son of Linden Avery the Chosen will have been slain, and you will have accomplished nothing, and your vaunted devoir will be made a mockery of itself.”

Linden hung on Stave’s response. Inwardly she burned to hear what Galt would say next.

But he did not reply.

Without warning, he and Stave both stiffened as if they were about to leap at each other’s throats. Then Stave grabbed her arm, snatched her away from Galt and Jeremiah—

—turned her in time to see Clyme launch himself off the crest where he had stood watch.

In his right hand, Clyme gripped a long spear by its shaft. Blood marked the point of the spear and the side of his left shoulder. His tunic there had been rent.

“Ware and ward!” Stave shouted. “We are assailed!”

As Clyme plunged downward, the hilltop of his vantage-point exploded in a blast of heat and fury like brimstone.

Oh, God—!

Around Linden, Giants wrenched their swords from their scabbards. Rime Coldspray gave them no commands: they were Swordmainnir and knew their tasks. Long strides swept them into a defensive arc to protect their smaller companions. Those Giants carrying supplies threw their bundles southward off the ridge. The Ironhand brandished her glaive, loosening her arms and wrists.

As the Giants readied themselves, Stave called, “The Unbeliever’s son brings Cavewights against us! Concealed by some glamour, they eluded Clyme’s senses. Only the spear in its flight forewarned him!”

Linden wanted to protest, They can’t be here. We’re too far from Mount Thunder. But she could not breathe, and had no voice.

Once again, Roger Covenant had caught the company by surprise. Cavewights charging closer should have raised a cloud of dust—unless the air was too still for dust, or the creatures ran entirely on stone. Or Roger’s glamour was so complete that it masked every sign of his coming.

Grimly Manethrall Mahrtiir ordered his Cords to protect Covenant. “Doubtless Branl will aid you! Entrust the Ringthane to Stave, and to me!”

For a moment, Linden saw nothing except Clyme’s pelting haste. The spear was stone, massive and ungainly; yet he carried it with ease. Several hills intervened between him and the ridge, all lower than the crest he had left. He dropped into a valley, then reappeared, still some distance away.

Then she felt a silent shock. With her health-sense rather than her ears, she heard a shredding sound like the rip of claws through fabric. An instant later, her foes became visible as if they had been translated here by some immense magic.

A wave of Cavewights had already broken over the hill where Clyme had stood, scores of them. More poured around the slopes on either side, tall and gangling, with disproportionately long limbs, club-heads, eyes like molten crimson, too much strength. They all wielded weapons: swords as crude as claymores, truncheons like battering-rams, heavy spears, axes chipped from blocks of flint. Like the creatures that had attacked after the destruction of First Woodhelven, they wore slabs of armor fashioned from the benighted stone of Gravin Threndor. And they kept coming, more Cavewights than the rocks of Liand’s cairn; more than Linden had ever seen before: more than enough to sweep even Giants away like debris in a flood.

How—?

Unable to match their pace on his own legs, Roger rode the shoulders of a Cavewight. Glee and triumph distorted his features, effacing any resemblance to his father. His right fist was a blaze of power like deep magma. He seemed to hold the savagery of a dozen
skurj
in one hand: a piece of Kastenessen’s essential agony and rage.

How had he and the Cavewights come so far in so short a time?

Alone among the Giants, Stormpast Galesend held back. She held her longsword ready in one hand. With the other arm, she cradled Anele’s flinching terror.

“Ironhand!” she yelled through the advancing clamor. “What must I do? The old man hampers me!”

Swiftly Coldspray scanned the company’s formation. She glanced at Linden’s dismay, then turned away, cursing.

“Set him upon the cairn! Its stone will ward him! Against so many, we must trust that he will evade spears!”

Perhaps Anele would draw enough sanity from Liand’s
orcrest
to duck and dodge.

As Galesend obeyed, the Ironhand snapped at Linden, “We cannot prevail against so many—or against such theurgy! We must have your aid!”

Linden understood. Oh, she
understood
. Still she felt paralyzed, overtaken by confusion and dread. Kastenessen must have told Roger where she was; where Galt held the
croyel
. But how had Roger and his Cavewights arrived so soon? As far as she knew, he could not transport himself or anyone else magically without the
croyel
’s help.

Anele appeared to recognize his peril. He clambered frantically up the boulders until he gained the crown of the cairn. There he searched for a niche or covert between the rocks; a place to hide himself.

Crossing the lower hills toward the base of the ridge, the Cavewights howled like ghouls. Their lust for blood was ancient, especially the blood of Giants. In their own eyes, at least, it was justified. The First of the Search and Pitchwife had done much to prevent the resurrection of Drool Rockworm.

Clyme and Branl reached the gypsum ridge well ahead of the creatures. For an instant, they considered the formation of the Giants, regarded Bhapa and Pahni holding Covenant’s arms, consulted mind to mind with Galt. Then Clyme joined the Swordmainnir. Branl stood between Covenant and the coming onslaught. To the Cords, he said flatly, “Flee with the Unbeliever when you must. He must be preserved.”

“How—?” Linden tried to ask Stave. The question stuck in her throat.

Over his shoulder, Stave told Galt, “Again I offer myself in your place. Acquiescence is preferable to murder. If you would give battle, release the
krill
to me.”

Without hesitation, Galt answered, “I will not. You will retain it when it is required by the Unbeliever. And you will not slay the
croyel
, whatever the cost. You will name it preferable to see every defender of the Land butchered.”

Stave looked toward Anele, glanced sidelong at Linden. Then he shrugged. Relaxed and ready, he prepared to defend her.

Her friends needed her. And she would never be able to resurrect Covenant again: not if he fell here. She would have to burn as many Cavewights as she could. She would have to oppose Roger with every scrap of her strength.

In the absence of Kevin’s Dirt, she could be mighty—

Yet her greatest fear was for Jeremiah. It shackled her. She could too easily imagine the fluid motion of Galt’s arm as he pulled the
krill
across the
croyel
’s throat—

“How,” she managed to croak, “did they get here so fast?”

“I am uncertain,” Stave told her without apparent curiosity. “However, I speculate that Kastenessen has wielded his strange magicks to aid them. Through Anele, he has become certain of our location. And there is precedent. The attack of the ur-Lord’s son and his Cavewights at First Woodhelven defied mundane forms of travel. The distance from Gravin Threndor was too great, and the Cavewights know little of theurgy. Yet the ur-Lord’s son contrived to strike when we were vulnerable, as we are here.

“If we judge by Esmer’s condition, Kastenessen does not ease the straits of his servants when they have displeased him. Perhaps this accounts for the ur-Lord’s son’s flight on the shoulders of a Cavewight when he had failed against us.”

The cacophony of howling became a kind of ululation, a full-throated demand for killing. In their eagerness, several Cavewights flung their spears. But they had not yet reached the foot of the ridge, and their shafts fell short. Those that struck within reach, the Giants snatched up and returned with startling vehemence.

The company had the advantage of elevation. Roger and his forces would have to fight an uphill battle. Nevertheless half that many Cavewights would have been enough to overwhelm the ridge eventually.

More sharply, Stave urged, “Ready yourself, Chosen.” But she was already too late.

Shouting avidly, Roger hurled a second blast of brimstone and lava. In a frenzy, Linden tried to haul fire from her Staff, impose concentration on her conflicted heart. She could only persuade Galt to stay his hand by driving back the assault: she had no other argument that he would heed. But distress slowed her efforts to summon Earthpower.

Unimpeded, Roger’s fury slammed into the side of the cairn.

Anele!

Heavy stones erupted outward, shattering as they slashed the air. In a welter of rubble and spraying shards, nearly a third of the cairn was torn away. A few smaller fragments pelted the Giants and Clyme; but most of the wreckage carried beyond the company.

Roger had attacked the cairn, the
cairn
. He was trying to kill Anele. Or destroy the Sunstone.

For the duration of a heartbeat, no more than that, Linden searched the crown of the pile for the old man, her first companion,
the hope of the Land
. She spotted him almost instantly, crouched and gibbering on the south side of the cairn.

Then she reached far down into herself for Jeremiah’s sake, and for her friends, and brought up a cyclone of flame from the willing wood of the Staff.

Her fire was as black as the shaft itself; as the lightless depths of mountains. And as it gyred into the pale sky, the runes written into the Staff shone like purest silver, articulating Caerroil Wildwood’s ire and grief. Arcane symbols gave their consent.

They made Linden stronger.

Her counterattack was a driving gale that nearly unseated Roger. If he had defended himself with anything less than Kastenessen’s desecrated hand, her outrage and despair would have charred the marrow of his bones. But his magma caught her blow; held it back as if he were equal to every aspect of her.

Bhapa was panting, “Ringthane, Ringthane,” as though she had appalled him. Stave regarded Earthpower transformed to fuligin with a suggestion of chagrin in his eye. Apparently they had not grasped the true scale of her transubstantiation. Liand’s death had completed a change begun in the graveyard of Jeremiah’s mind; an alteration inspired by She Who Must Not Be Named, and by dreams of being carrion, and by Gallows Howe.

Below her, the first Cavewights reached the foot of the ridge. Mad as a rabble, and vicious as
kresh
, they charged upward, a rising scend of slaughter.

The Ironhand gave them a moment. Then, crying, “Stone and Sea!” she and Frostheart Grueburn and Halewhole Bluntfist sprang to meet the rabid rush.

From the tumult of creatures, spears streaked the air. A few crossed the path of Linden’s black flame and became powder, harmless amid the howling. Stave caught one, used it to deflect another, then threw it back, all in the same motion. Pahni and Bhapa jerked Covenant away from a shaft which would have nailed him to the crumbling gypsum. Branl grabbed two more out of the air. When he returned them, one burst into slivers against the rough armor of its target; but the other took a Cavewight in the throat and sent the creature sprawling backward, sweeping half a dozen more off their feet as it fell.

Coldspray, Grueburn, and Bluntfist did not waste their swords on armor. With wheeling strokes as fatal as Linden’s fire, they hacked at arms and legs, at exposed necks and skulls. Then, as their first assailants fell, tripping Cavewights lower on the slope, the three Swordmainnir allowed themselves to be driven back. Deliberately they retreated to higher ground.

At the same time, Latebirth, Cabledarm, and Onyx Stonemage flung themselves into the battle, protecting their comrades with their own attack. Stonemage had claimed a spear. Now she fought with two weapons, swinging her longsword and jabbing with the spear as though she had spent centuries training to do so.

That quick succession of countering assaults, three and then three, disrupted the initial charge; blunted it. More and more Cavewights stumbled over their fallen. Some lost their footing. Others staggered aside. When Coldspray, Grueburn, and Bluntfist rushed downward again, they drove their foes back.

In the confusion of toppling bodies and spraying blood, the first onslaught of the Cavewights became a rout.

But they were thinking creatures in spite of their bloodlust. Too many of them had tried to attack the company’s position directly. Now they adjusted their tactics. From the rear of the army, scores of Cavewights turned to challenge the ridge in the west, beyond the reach of swords. Others pounded upward in the east, apparently intending to use the remains of the cairn for cover while they massed against the Giants.

Linden saw what they were doing, but she paid no attention. With her whole heart, she sent an unremitting torrent of ebony at Roger. Runes shone like inscribed wild magic as she strove to batter down Roger’s defenses, repay his bitter betrayals; fought to prevent Galt from deciding to kill the
croyel
.

In Galt’s grasp, the monster yowled encouragement or instructions at Roger and the Cavewights. Froth splashed from its fangs like venom. Despite its desperation and malice, however, it did not dare to press its throat against the
krill
in order to chew on Jeremiah’s neck.

One-handed, Cirrus Kindwind left her comrades and went to confront the surge of Cavewights in the west. Apparently satisfied by the chaos immediately below him, Clyme joined her. Alone, Stormpast Galesend began to fight her way around the cairn toward the eastern threat. Entrusting Covenant to the Cords, Branl took Clyme’s place among the other Swordmainnir.

A doomed struggle. Only a few score of the Cavewights had attempted the ridge, and more came as if they were numberless. To an extent, the Ironhand’s alternating sallies downward had succeeded. The surface below her was already slick with blood and gore, churned to mud. The creatures climbing there slipped and skidded, rose arduously: they were vulnerable. But to the east and west, throngs of weapons and red eyes gained ground. Soon Coldspray would be forced to send Swordmainnir to support Kindwind and Galesend. Then direct assaults would become more effective.