The Last Dark (83 page)

The Ironhand started to retort; but Handir gestured abruptly for silence. Ignoring Coldspray, he faced Covenant across the shining of the
krill
.

“Nonetheless this also is folly.” He spoke with his accustomed rigidity—and yet his tone conveyed a cry of protest. “Doubtless Linden Avery has become a rightful white gold wielder. And your endeavors against Corruption have twice exceeded every expectation. Yet when the Worm feeds, wild magic cannot counter it. Only Law can withstand the Earth’s destruction, but the Staff is held by a boy who has not mastered it. Why do you wish to expend our lives where no good outcome can be achieved?

“If we must be shamed, we will bear it. We are
Haruchai
. Yet it is cruel—is it not?—to insist upon our service in the name of folly. In the name of futility, ur-Lord. In the name of
waste
.”

Covenant grinned at him fiercely. “You tell me. Which would you rather do? Die here fighting Cavewights? Take the chance that something good might happen? Or be swept out of existence while you stand around complaining about waste?”

The Voice of the Masters paused for only a moment. Then he said without inflection, “We will fight.”

Covenant clenched his fists; stifled an impulse to punch the air. “Then get me to Kiril Threndor. Protect Linden as long as you can. Keep Jeremiah safe. And brace yourselves. We’ve already surprised the hell out of Lord Foul. Maybe we’ll surprise you, too.”

After that, he could no longer contain himself. Turning away from Handir, he shouted at the ceiling, “Did you hear that, you tormented bastard? The
Haruchai
are going to
fight
!”

The Ardent’s last service had accomplished its purpose.

Parting Company

Covenant wanted to talk to Linden, remind her that he loved her, do what he could to reassure her. In addition, he meant to check on Jeremiah. The boy’s elsewhere gaze was changing: his whole face seemed to be changing. The silted hue of his eyes had acquired a crimson tinge, as if his irises were bleeding. And his visage looked leaner, deprived of its youthfulness by dismay and nascent horror. His hands no longer gripped the Staff tightly, no longer spilled the black flames of his transformed legacy. He may have forgotten that he held it.

As guerdon for his puerile
valor
—

He was losing his ability to ward himself from visions of the Worm.

Covenant wanted to say something, ask questions, understand; give comfort if he could. But he had no time. While the echoes of his defiance lingered in the cave, the cordon of Masters surged into motion.

Responding to the mental shouts of the sentries,
Haruchai
sprinted toward the chamber’s openings. Around the company and the Cords, a few Masters formed a protective circle: Handir and Canrik, Samil and Vortin, Dast and Ulman. Stave held the
krill
high in one hand, hefted Cabledarm’s longsword in the other. Branl readied Longwrath’s flamberge.

“Cavewights,” the Voice of the Masters announced, passionless as stone. “They have massed their forces. Now they advance.”

Covenant spun, scanned the entrances. “Where?”

“On all sides, ur-Lord,” Branl replied.

Nodding to the Anchormaster, Rime Coldspray and her comrades joined Handir’s defensive formation. The sailors arranged themselves to support the Swordmainnir.

“Hellfire!” Covenant’s ring itched for use. He felt an irrational desire to fling wild magic at the knuckled ceiling. “Then pick one! Which one goes toward Kiril Threndor?”

Linden’s face was pallid with fright as she grasped Jeremiah’s arm, prepared herself to pull him into motion.

He threw her off. “Again?” he protested petulantly. Then his voice darkened. “Of course. We’re always attacked.” He sounded like a different person, someone older, inured to abuse. “Somebody should tell them they’re as doomed as we are.”

“Jeremiah!” cried Linden softly. “Honey? What’s happening to you?”

For an instant, the boy’s eyes rolled back in his head. Then he bared his teeth. His gaze came into focus.

“I’m getting it, Mom.” Again he sounded different, as if this time he had arisen from some other grave. “I don’t care what Stave says. I’ll show you.”

“We do not know the way,” Handir told Covenant. “None here have trod familiar passages. We must estimate our road. We are certain only that Kiril Threndor lies in that direction.” He pointed above and behind Covenant. “We will endeavor to clear a path there”—he indicated the tunnel closest to Kiril Threndor’s heading—“hoping to encounter other Masters. Their knowledge may extend farther.”

“Sure,” Jeremiah muttered. “Why not?”

Bhapa and Pahni stood with Stave beside Linden and Jeremiah. The Cords held their garrotes in their fists.

Covenant heard a noise like the sizzle of rain on hot stone: running feet. It swept closer. Before he could respond to Handir, Cavewights charged into the cave on all sides. In an instant, they filled the space with chaos and howling.

They came brandishing spears and truncheons, falchions heavy as spars, axes shaped to behead Giants. They burst into the cave from every entrance in such numbers that they could have inundated their foes, left no one standing.

But they did not come so far. Three strides into the chamber, they crashed like breakers against a seawall of Masters.

Hardly able to understand what he saw, Covenant watched the warriors meet the attack with a fanged front. At each entrance, tight wedges of three or four men bit like teeth into the brunt of the charge. Even as they fell in spurts and gushes of blood, the
Haruchai
drove confusion among the first creatures; forced them to veer away on both sides. Some of the Cavewights tripped over bodies, did not rise again. Others spilled past the formations and scattered their lives against a bulwark of Masters.

The wedges did not hold. They could not. There were too many Cavewights. But the
Haruchai
were at their most devastating when they fought singly. As their front failed, they spun among their assailants, fighting as though carnage exalted them. They leapt and ducked, avoided and struck. Punches snapped arms, broke necks. Kicks dislocated knees, smashed feet. And many of the Masters snatched up weapons. They cut like scythes through the Cavewights, reaping entrails, brains, gore.

Nevertheless the creatures were many; and they had spent millennia nurturing their hatred and savagery, their resentment of peoples who had repeatedly foiled their singular dreams. They fought with the ferocity of beasts. Slaughtered themselves, they delivered slaughter in return. Covenant watched dozens of Masters go down amid scores of Cavewights. Wherever he looked, he seemed to see
Haruchai
killing or crippling creatures—and yet at every moment the Masters were driven back. Axes took heads, ripped torsos. Spears, bludgeons, brutal swords: all wrought havoc. Even the armed warriors died, cut down from behind while they slew the foes in front of them.

Covenant could have stopped this—but only by killing everyone in the cave, rendering every living thing to ash. His thwarted heart burned, accomplishing nothing.

Still more Cavewights surged inward, striding long-legged over the mounting rubble of corpses. Their weapons flung red ruin. Step by step, the fighting closed around the company. Handir prepared his defense. The Swordmainnir waited with their blades poised.

Behind them, Linden and Jeremiah faced each other, apparently arguing. Alarm stretched her features. He gnashed his teeth as if he were biting off hunks of desperation. She may have been shouting—they both may have been shouting—but Covenant could not hear them. Howls and screams deafened him, the sickening sounds of torn flesh, the hard smack of blows, the crack of breaking bones.

As if he were answering his mother, Jeremiah raised the Staff of Law. He held it over his head like a quarterstaff, braced to hammer down fire. The look in his eyes was agony.

Abruptly Branl gripped Covenant’s arm, turned him toward the tunnel where Handir had proposed to leave the cave. At the same time, the
Haruchai
between the company and that exit changed their tactics.

Imponderably graceful amid the viciousness and turmoil, those Masters drew back, leaving an open line for the Cavewights, an aisle straight toward the clenched center of the defense.

Covenant thought that he heard Linden yell, “
Now
, Jeremiah!”

Roaring triumph, the creatures rushed forward—

Now or never.

—and Jeremiah swung the Staff.

Black lightning raged from the shaft. Earthpower struck at the Cavewights, fire hot as an inferno. It set them ablaze as if their bones were kindling. Their roars became shrieks. Lit like torches, they blundered away, trying to escape.

More creatures charged. More creatures caught fire. Jeremiah screamed as if his efforts were claws tearing at his heart. His eyes wept anguish. Nevertheless he poured out power in a convulsion of killing.

For a moment—if only for a moment—he cleared a path.

“Now!” Linden cried again. “
Run!
”

This time, she was shouting at the Giants.

The company obeyed. Shielded by Masters and Swordmainnir, and then by the Giants of Dire’s Vessel, Branl hauled Covenant forward. With Bhapa and Pahni, Stave herded Linden and Jeremiah. While the surviving
Haruchai
gathered to ward the rear, the Land’s defenders dashed along Jeremiah’s path.

A moment later, the boy’s power failed. He crumpled as if his tendons had been cut. He dropped the Staff: he may have fainted. But Far Horizoneyes snatched him off the floor, cradled him without missing a step. Furledsail grabbed the Staff and kept running.

Cavewights crowded the passage ahead. They had only paused, shocked or startled by screaming. But while they were in the tunnel, their movements were constricted. With Canrik and Samil—with Vortin, Ulman, and Dast—Handir tore into the creatures, broke them like boughs in a rending wind. And those Cavewights that withstood the force of the
Haruchai
fell to the blades of the Swordmainnir.

Trampling bodies, the company gained their exit.

But now the Masters also were hampered. Their speed and agility became less effective. Dodging a spear, Ulman stepped into the stroke of a falchion. The blade opened his side, cut deep enough to reach his spine. He fell, fountaining crimson. The other warriors in the lead survived only because they were supported by the swift skill of the Swordmainnir, the lick and thrust of longswords.

The
Haruchai
holding the rear did so without the aid of battle-trained Giants. The Anchormaster and Frothbreeze gave what aid they could: still the losses among the Masters were grievous. While they struggled against swords and axes, massive clubs, they also had to contend with spears hurled over their heads to strike at Stoutgirth’s crew. Leaping to intercept some of those shafts left the Masters defenseless. They were cut down or spitted.

Behind the warriors, Keenreef and Setrock swung their sacks of supplies, blocked spears with bundled waterskins and food.

As the Masters died, the Cavewights drove closer. How many
Haruchai
remained in the rear? Ten? Less?

Covenant heard Scatterwit laughing amid the clamor: a horrific sound, shrill and urgent, feverish as hysteria. It jerked him around to watch as Scatterwit thrust her way among the Masters. Stoutgirth’s shout, and Blustergale’s, carried after her, but she ignored them.

Lurching on the stump of her ankle, she rushed the Cavewights with her arms spread wide as if she wanted to embrace every creature within reach.

In an instant, the point of a spear jutted from her back. A truncheon crashed onto her left shoulder. An axe bit between her ribs on the right. Her laughing was cut off; but she did not falter. Four, no, five Cavewights she hugged to her chest. Using them as a shield, she drove her great strength and weight against the pursuing creatures.

For a moment, she was impossibly successful. Somehow she cleared a space between her comrades and their foes. Five paces. Seven. Ten. When the blade of an axe came down on her head, spilling brains and ruined bone, she sagged. Still her legs thrust her forward. Supporting herself on the creatures in her arms, she kept fighting.

Then she was done. Strength and life drained out of her: her legs failed: she dropped to her knees. Propped upright by corpses, she knelt there until her foes hacked her to pieces.

Screaming, the Anchormaster tried to follow her. Frothbreeze and Blustergale caught his arms, held him back.

Rage filled Covenant’s throat. He could hardly breathe. “The
krill
,” he gasped. “I need the
krill
!”

Scatterwit had opened a gap. If he could reach the rear before the Cavewights resumed their advance—

Stave and Branl must have understood him. Without hesitation, Stave slapped the bright
krill
into Covenant’s hands. At the same time, Branl moved past Covenant. With one arm, the Humbled parted the sailors so that Covenant could pass.

While Linden cried his name, Covenant brought up a rush of wild magic.

But he did not unleash its raw force. Instead he shaped silver fire along the blade of the
krill
. As he had done against the Sandgorgons, he fashioned an argent sword fierce as the white core of a furnace.

With Branl, he went to meet the Cavewights.

Behind the two men, the rest of the company fled, following Handir’s embattled cadre and the striking Swordmainnir. Supported only by the last of the rearguard, Covenant and Branl carried bloodshed among their attackers.

Covenant made no attempt to defend himself. He had no skill, and was burning too hotly to care. He left his own protection to Branl’s flamberge, to the fleet prowess of the few Masters. Wielding his chosen theurgy, Covenant became incarnate killing.

With every slash and thrust, every frantic swing, he appalled himself. He had to goad himself with curses like groans in order to keep moving. Otherwise he would have plunged to his knees, crippled by abhorrence. The Cavewights were only simple in their thinking: they were not unintelligent. And they had a long history. On their own terms, they had a civilization. They had never deserved the use which Lord Foul had made of them. They did not deserve what Covenant did to them now.

He promised himself that the Despiser would pay for this; but no promise sufficed to condone such slaughter.

Branl and the Masters exacted their own toll. They were as precise as surgeons, as fluid as wind. But where they cut and blocked, punched and fended, Covenant ravaged.

The Cavewights seemed endless. Those still alive after the struggle in the cave were joined by more issuing from the other passages, entire hordes of creatures mad with blood-lust and ancient resentments. Yet even they could not withstand a blade forged of wild magic that shone like condensed stars. Nor could they match the skill of the
Haruchai
. Their screams and shrieks raced back down the tunnel, pierced the hearts of the Cavewights behind them. Their rage became fear. It became terror and panic. Fighting the press of their fellows, they tried to flee.