The Last Dark (85 page)

efore long, the company’s progress became a running battle, frantic and almost continuous. The tunnel branched more frequently, intersected other passages; and at almost every junction, massed Cavewights waited, or small bands of Masters, or both.

With their acquired weapons—heavy falchions, spears nearly as tall as Giants, axes that Covenant could not have lifted—Handir, Canrik, and their comrades led the way. Deceptively swift, they slipped among their foes, slashing or stabbing at exposed limbs, throats, groins. Together they disrupted one attack after another.

And behind them came the Swordmainnir. Rime Coldspray and her women fought in a kind of fury, pitiless and brutal. Their blades flung blood. Crimson stained the air, streaked the walls, glazed the floor. They wore it as if it nauseated them, but they did not falter.

Cavewights went down, screaming or already dead.
Haruchai
fell as well. New warriors joined the company. Together they hastened from one struggle to the next.

For the time being, at least, Lord Foul’s forces did not attack from the rear. Masters reported that Cavewights crowded the tunnel behind them; but the creatures appeared content to follow at a distance. They feared Covenant’s wild blade—or they desired a surer chance to strike.

Guiding by newly acquired memories, the Voice of the Masters turned left at one branching, passed straight through two intersections, angled sharply to the right at a third. The passage lurched upward in stages like terraces. The cries of the dying trailed like spectres behind the company.

Thirty or more
Haruchai
had now joined the company. The losses of the Cavewights were far greater. But there were thousands of Cavewights. Tens of thousands. At present, the tunnels themselves were the company’s best defense. Covenant and his companions survived primarily because Handir’s route avoided another open killing field like the cave.

At Covenant’s side, Linden hurried as if she were hunkering down inside herself, trying to make herself too small for her fears to find her. Nevertheless she remained Linden Avery. With Jeremiah’s consent, she borrowed Earthpower from the Staff at intervals and spread it among the Giants, fed vitality to Covenant’s dwindling reserves. To Bhapa and Pahni, she offered the same gift; but they declined it. They were Ramen. They could have run through these passages indefinitely, fleet as horses in spite of their loathing for enclosed spaces.

To the Masters, she gave nothing. She knew better.

Along the way, Jeremiah made his own use of Staff-fire. Instead of extending flames outward, however, he appeared to draw them into himself. They ran up his arms as if he intended to broil his own skin, excoriate himself. Then they faded into his chest. And as he absorbed the Staff’s magicks, his eyes darkened until they seemed to refuse light. They glittered at Covenant’s silver like chunks of obsidian.

Covenant had no idea what the boy was trying to accomplish, but he did not question it. He had provoked this reaction. Now he had to trust it.

The gem’s shining restricted his view ahead, but he thought that he saw—

Abruptly he lowered the dagger, shaded it with his free hand. “Branl?” He was breathing too hard to articulate a question. “Branl?”

“Indeed, ur-Lord,” the Humbled replied as though he understood.

There: in the distance above Covenant, beyond the dark shapes of the Swordmainnir hastening upward temporarily unopposed: a faint glow. Reddish, but not crimson; warmer and more yellow than the laval eyes of the Cavewights. It seemed to flicker as Giants interrupted it, but Covenant could guess what it was.

Then Linden grabbed his arm, breathed his name; and he was sure.

Rocklight. The company was approaching one of the lit regions of the Wightwarrens.

The glow grew stronger. Summoned by Handir, Masters from the rear ran past Covenant and Linden, Jeremiah and the Cords. Fresh rage and iron rang along the passage. Hard impacts. A rabid stutter of screams, howls, frenzy.

“We will ward you,” Stave said suddenly, “but you must also defend yourselves. A multitude awaits us.” He touched Jeremiah’s shoulder. “Do you hear, Chosen-son? You must turn your thoughts to our peril. It may be that our lives will require your aid.”

“What do you want from me?” Jeremiah panted. “More killing? That’s not what Law is for. I can’t forget the Worm. I’m not strong enough.”

Linden regarded him with desperation in her eyes.

“Then don’t worry about it,” said Covenant between sickened breaths. “You’re getting ready for a different kind of fight.” As was Linden. “Leave this one to the rest of us.”

To Giants and
Haruchai
. And to Covenant himself, who had already shed enough blood to drown him.

He gave himself no other choice. In a former life, he had turned his back on power. Now he demanded it of himself.

Rocklight washed over him. Rime Coldspray and her comrades passed an opening, spread out to both sides. Blows and shouts pounded down the tunnel, but the sounds were strangely muffled. A gulf seemed to swallow their force.

Straining for air, Covenant went a step or two ahead of Linden and Jeremiah; ahead of Stave. The
krill
he held at his side so that it would not blind him. With Branl, Bhapa, and Pahni, he drove his weakness out of the tunnel onto a ledge as wide as an avenue.

There he found himself facing a rocklit chasm.

It was not a fault or flaw in the gutrock, although it resembled a crevice: long and high, but not wide, little more than a stone’s throw from wall to wall. Rather it had been fashioned, dug out over centuries or millennia. The ruddy light everywhere testified to the effort and theurgy which had formed the space. Overhead, and to left and right, it stretched beyond the reach of Covenant’s dimmed sight. But when he moved closer to the rim of the ledge, he could see the bottom of the excavation: a crude trough crowded with debris, as full of refuse as a midden.

In spite of Stave’s warning, he stopped and stared, momentarily unable to do anything except look. For a few heartbeats, he forgot fighting; forgot his peril entirely. He needed time to comprehend what he saw.

A ledge opposite him resembled the one where he stood. It was the lowest of five, six, no seven levels like communal passages, each carved into the wall two or three Giant-heights above the next. And at the back of each horizontal cut, each shaped road, were openings like doorways. They measured out the chasm in both directions at intervals of perhaps twenty paces. Stone doors closed some of them. Others stood open, revealing lit chambers.

Habitations. Covenant could hardly think. He struggled for air as if he were inhaling dismay. Dwellings. Homes.

Homes implied families. Families implied children.

There were hundreds of doorways near enough for his failing vision; and the chasm was long. If the wall where the company had emerged mirrored the one across from it, the space held thousands.

Thousands of homes. The Cavewightish version of a city.

Ah, hell. Covenant had brought bloodshed to a place where the creatures were vulnerable, where their mates and children could be killed. A place which they would defend for reasons better than obedience to the Despiser.

Everywhere he looked, he saw Cavewights mustering. On every level, armed bands gathered and ran, converging—

Any uncontrolled wild magic here would incinerate children.

—on bridges that spanned the chasm.

Hellfire! There were dozens of the damn things, wrought granite roads as wide as the ledges. A few stretched straight across, level to level; but most of them arced, connecting the walls at differing heights. On Covenant’s left, the nearest bridge reached to the third level opposite it: another farther away on his right extended to the fourth. An elaborate and apparently random network of spans crisscrossed the space, giving every ledge access—direct or indirect—to every other.

And on every bridge, Cavewights raced across the air, rushing to give battle.

—exposed to assault on all sides.
Bloody damnation!

Covenant wheeled on Branl. “We have to get out of here! These are their homes! We can’t start killing their
children
!”

The Humbled shrugged. “We do what we must. Foes now throng the passage at our backs. We have sacrificed the choice of retreat.

“Our path lies there.” He pointed to the nearest bridge. “From the third level opposite, we must cross to the fifth above us. At that height, a passage leads toward Kiril Threndor. Its constriction will defend us once again.”

“Then
run
!” Covenant yelled. “Before they can stop us!”

He could not unleash wild magic here. Even to save the Earth, he could not.

“Thomas!” Linden clutched his arm, tugged at him. “Look!”

For an instant, his mind reeled. Then he dragged his attention away from possibilities which horrified him.

On both sides, his companions were already fighting.

To the left, the Ironhand and Frostheart Grueburn slashed like furies through the press of Cavewights. Among them, Handir and half a dozen Masters dodged and struck. Onyx Stonemage and Halewhole Bluntfist had gone to the right. With more
Haruchai
, they held their ground against three times as many creatures. The cacophony of battle was terrible. It seemed more terrible because it dissipated in the high chasm as if it were meaningless.

The Giants of Dire’s Vessel had arrived behind Covenant. The last six or seven Masters prepared to block the tunnel, protect the rear of the company.

Now Covenant spotted more Masters on the levels above him: groups of four widely scattered. They were too few to save his companions; too far away.

“
Coldspray!
” he cried as if he were falling.

The Ironhand and Handir exchanged shouts. Coldspray bellowed commands at Bluff Stoutgirth. The Anchormaster answered with curses. His glare held madness.

Clutching their unfamiliar weapons, the sailors charged to the right. With strength and mass, if not with skill, they rushed to support Stonemage and Bluntfist.

Bhapa and Pahni hesitated for a moment, spoke to each other. Then they followed the Anchormaster.

Together
Haruchai
, Giants, and Ramen began to force the Cavewights backward.

At the same time, Coldspray and Grueburn appeared to redouble their efforts. They chopped down creatures, tore through flesh and bone, flung bodies off the ledge. Handir and Canrik fought as one, striking high and low simultaneously. Samil and Dast knocked Cavewights off their feet. Vortin and his comrades broke necks, cracked skulls, disabled limbs.

For a moment, Covenant did not understand. The Ironhand had divided the company. Surely she had made it weaker? But then he realized that she had also divided the Cavewights. They were fighting for their homes now, not for Lord Foul. They rushed to oppose two threats instead of one.

Near Covenant, Coldspray’s tactics seemed to accomplish nothing. Only savage fighting pushed the creatures back.

Nevertheless fewer foes gathered on the bridges which the company had to cross.

Coldspray and Grueburn gained the foot of the nearest span, the shallow arc to the third level. Handir and his warriors fought to secure the Ironhand’s position.

Cavewights tried to burst from the tunnel at Covenant’s back. Masters repulsed them.

Branl hauled Covenant after Coldspray. Covenant caught Linden’s hand, pulled her with him. Stave brought Jeremiah.

“Mom!” Covenant could barely hear the boy. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay with Stave!” she called back. “He’ll tell you!”

Coldspray and Grueburn started onto the bridge. Ahead of them, a fresh onslaught of Cavewights came howling down the span. Branl and Stave followed the two Swordmainnir with Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah. Somehow Handir and his comrades finished their immediate foes.

Swift as swords, Handir and Canrik ran to join the Ironhand. Dast and Samil. Vortin and a few
Haruchai
guarded the rear.

At the mouth of the tunnel, Masters died one by one. Numberless Cavewights gained the ledge. Some sped after the group escorting Covenant. Others pursued the sailors.

With Bhapa and Pahni, warriors reached the crossing to the fourth level. Stoutgirth and his crew fought as if they were caught in a hurricane. Stumbling on a slashed leg, Far Horizoneyes fell from the ledge. Blustergale scattered creatures with every swipe of his spear. Stoutgirth’s shouts sounded like hysteria as he herded his crew onto the bridge.

Coldspray and Grueburn surged upward. Confusion spun through Covenant, lethal as vertigo, fatal as blades. The chasm gaped below him. It breathed his name. If Branl and Linden had not held him—

Dizzy and wandering, he followed the Swordmainnir.

They were still a dozen strides away from a collision with charging Cavewights when other creatures began to fling spears from the upper levels.

Partially protected by their cataphracts, the Ironhand and Frostheart Grueburn did not pause. Cursing fiercely, Coldspray hastened to meet her foes. Grueburn slapped shafts aside with her longsword or her open hand.