They would not get far.
Surely Galt was ready to slice open the croyel’s throat so that he could carry Loric’s krill into the fight? He would need it. Linden could hardly believe that he had waited so long.
No! she yelled to herself, harsh as vitriol, bitter as the dirt of Gallows Howe. No! I will not allow it!
Screaming the Seven Words, she redoubled her pitch-dark assault on Covenant’s son. Flame as black as the core of an eclipsed sun struck at him from both shod heels of her Staff. Between the iron bands, Caerroil Wildwood’s script flared with unconstrained possibilities. If she could stop Roger, kill him, his Cavewights might falter. Galt might refrain from causing Jeremiah’s death.
But she was the one who faltered. Caught by surprise, her concentration broke when she sensed Anele’s descent from the cairn. In one fist, he held the orcrest blazing as if it were a remedy for possession. His moonstone eyes shone like sunlight, articulating his inheritance of Earthpower.
Anele, don’t!
Already he was exposed to any blow that she failed to intercept. Through the clang of weapons and pain, she heard the iterated refrain of his compulsions.
“Must.”
“Cannot.”
As he worked his way down the last boulders, however, his “Cannot” sank to a whimper. “Must” became a cracked-voiced shout.
Cavewights fought forward from the east and west; closed like the jaws of a trap. More creatures gained the ridge just beyond the reach of Rime Coldspray’s glaive, Grueburn’s and Cabledarm’s longswords. Even with the strong support of Stave and Branl, three Giants were not enough. Weak with wounds, Mahrtiir could no longer stand or struggle. In the west, Kindwind, Latebirth, and Clyme fell back involuntarily. Together Stonemage, Bluntfist, and Galesend appeared around the edge of the cairn, slashing fervidly as they retreated.
None of them were enough.
Linden had no choice: she had to swallow her desire to kill Roger Covenant. She and all of her companions were about die. If Galt slew the croyel now, he would be too late: even the undefined magicks of the krill could not hold back so many assailants. But if he did not, he would be slain himself, and the monster would escape with Jeremiah.
In either case, Covenant would fall soon after the rest of the company.
Raging the Seven Words like curses, Linden turned the black fury of her Staff against the nearest Cavewights. Struck by her force and frenzy, they burst into flame like kindling; staggered away screaming in agony as they perished.
But while she scorched the bones of her immediate assailants, she could do nothing to hinder Roger. He was free at last to strike in any manner that pleased him.
Yet he did not. Instead he withheld his virulence. Standing alone on his hilltop with his hands braced on his hips, he yelled triumph at the battle.
More Cavewights surged closer, and were set afire, and died. The heat of their burning scalded Linden’s eyes. It drove the Giants, Stave, and the two Humbled back to form a final cordon around Linden and Galt, Jeremiah and the croyel. Nevertheless Roger’s army continued to surge through the bonfires of dying creatures. The Ramen and Covenant were given up for lost.
Pure and dazzling as a cynosure of coercion or doom, Anele thrust his way into the center of the cordon.
Through Linden’s torrents of flame, he said distinctly, “It was for this. Sunder my father and Hollian my mother urged me to it, but I have always been conscious of my fate. I live only because I am the Land’s last hope.”
His eyes were the precise hue and brightness of orcrest as he confronted Jeremiah. With both hands, he reached for the sides of Jeremiah’s head. In one, he gripped the Sunstone urgently. The other he held open as though he meant to stroke the boy’s cheek.
Possessed by Kastenessen, he had approached Liand in a similar fashion. Now he was sane. The interaction between the orcrest’s Earthpower and his native magicks warded him.
Terror burned in the croyel’s yellow gaze. Yet Jeremiah did not struggle. He regarded Anele emptily, understanding nothing.
But the old man did not touch the boy. He was interrupted.
Without warning, Esmer plunged out of the sky like a falling meteor.
Covenant had accused him of choosing Kastenessen’s legacy over Cail’s. You are indeed betrayed, Esmer had replied, but not by me.
His arrival shattered Linden’s power. It seemed to stun the nerves of her hands, leaving them numb on the Staff. Nausea writhed in her guts. He was a mass of wounds, rank and suppurating. Odious infections stained the tatters of his cymar, and his mien was anguish. Pain splashed from his eyes like spume. Nevertheless he came bearing concussions which tossed boulders from the cairn, caused upheavals like eruptions in the ridge. Quakes staggered the Giants. Linden nearly fell. Yowling in alarm, Cavewights sprang backward. Anele was flung aside. He collapsed like a bundle of rags on the gypsum.
Screaming, “Havoc!” Esmer strode after the old man. Anele brandished the Sunstone frantically, but he could do nothing. Unanswerable as a hurricane, Esmer raised his arms as if he meant to crack open the heavens; rain down chaos on the Land’s last hope.
As abrupt as Esmer’s coming, a score of ur-viles and Waynhim appeared within the cordon as though they had been incarnated by his vehemence. His hands fisted the sky, ready to hurl ruin. But before he could strike, the loremaster sprang at his arms.
With a jolt of force that seemed to shift the world, the loremaster clamped iron manacles onto Esmer’s wrists; sealed the bands.
In that instant, Linden’s nausea vanished. All of Esmer’s power vanished. The concussions endangering the ridge ceased. Bound together and helpless, his hands fell. They held nothing that could threaten Anele. When he plunged to his knees, he was sobbing.
To Linden, his cries sounded like relief: a release too long desired and denied for words.
In the distance, Roger gave a shriek of rage. At once, he began mustering a blast to shred the flesh of the Swordmainnir, hammer lava into the heart of their last defense.
Cavewights yammered in response. Roger’s fury rallied them. Swinging their weapons, they surged forward.
He would not care how many of them were slain.
But Anele scrambled back to his feet. Brushing past Esmer, he hastened toward Jeremiah again with his eyes and his orcrest as bright as little suns.
Linden felt Roger’s power gather like the force of a volcano. She tasted Anele’s urgency and the croyel’s terror. As if Galt’s hand were etched in the air, she saw their tension on the haft of the krill. Around her, the Giants wheeled for a final effort. At the same time, the Demondim-spawn rushed to form a fighting wedge with their loremaster at its tip. But she could not help them. Everything was happening too quickly. Esmer and manacles. Ur-viles, Waynhim, Anele.—the hope of the Land. Jeremiah passive as a puppet. The massed throng of Cavewights. Roger Covenant.
The krill’s gem began to blaze as Joan poured wild magic through it. In another moment, the blade would grow hot enough to sear Galt’s skin. Joan—or turiya Raver—wanted him to drop the dagger; wanted the croyel set loose.
Linden needed enough sheer force to counter every attack simultaneously, and she did not know how to find it in herself.
She heard combat rage around her; felt the wedge of ur-viles and Waynhim summon their lore in a killing gout of vitriol; sensed Roger’s desperation to attack through too many intervening bodies. But she did not see the hurled axe spinning across the sunlight toward Anele.
Galt saw it. And he was Haruchai: he had time to consider the axe, the press of Cavewights, the company’s vulnerability. He had time to regard the distrusted old man and choose.
Instead of pulling Jeremiah and the croyel to either side—and instead of killing the monster so that he could fight for his companions with Loric’s krill—he spun in place. As swift as thought, he turned his back to the axe without taking Jeremiah beyond Anele’s reach.
Almost that quickly, Anele sprang in front of the boy.
The axe was flint, heavy as a bludgeon. Its jagged blade bit deep into Galt’s back between his shoulder-blades, deep enough to slice through the intransigent rectitude of his heart. Blood and life gushed from the wound, taking with them every pulse of determination. As his dead fingers uncurled, the krill rolled out of his grasp and fell. Then he folded to the ground as though all of his joints had been severed.
For an instant—no more than an instant—the croyel was free.
But its escape came too late; or it had misjudged its opportunity. It still clung to Jeremiah. Rather than flinging itself aside, it pounced at his neck with its fangs, seeking the nameless magicks hidden within him.
Too late. Too slow.
Anele had already pressed his hands and the Sunstone to the sides of Jeremiah’s head. Now he poured his birthright into the boy, using orcrest to channel his long-preserved inheritance into Jeremiah’s vacancy.
As he did so, the orcrest fell to powder in his grasp. It could not endure the forces streaming from it and through it.
Nevertheless it served its purpose.
Immediate Earthpower became a kind of fire in Jeremiah’s veins. It entered him utterly, blossomed in his chest, raced along his limbs, shone out of his skin.
And from the graveyard of his mind and the enduring throb of his heart, the rich essence of health and Law was sucked into the croyel’s mouth.
Belated realization filled the creature’s eyes with horror as its own malign ichor caught flame and burned—
In unison, the croyel and Roger squalled as if they were answering each other; suffering together. Then a conflagration for which the monster was entirely unprepared tore through it like a wildfire through brittle deadwood. On Jeremiah’s back, the succubus burst apart, consumed from within by energies that it could neither contain nor suppress. Gore and viscera sprayed out over the slope, and steamed in the hot sunshine, and did no hurt.
Jeremiah still stood slack-mouthed and dull, as unreactive as a husk. Nevertheless he rather than the croyel was free. The creature which had used and excruciated him had been destroyed.
By Anele, who lay at his feet gasping for breath. In the old man there remained no flicker or pulse of Earthpower to stitch together the rent remnants of his spirit. Yet he was sane at last, and smiling.
Linden wanted to sob like Esmer; wrap Jeremiah in her arms; wail over Anele’s dying body. But she had no time.
6.
Parting Company
Fighting raged around Linden and Jeremiah. Within the frantic protection provided by Stave, Clyme, Branl, and the Giants, Galt lay dead, and Anele was dying. Esmer’s sobs had faded, made impotent by manacles. The ur-viles and Waynhim had thrust their wedge between two of the Swordmainnir. Joined by the surviving remnants of their kind, the creatures flung liquid blackness to shield Linden’s company from Roger. Within that dark theurgy, Cavewights fell and died in agony.
Yet the cordon was failing. The Cavewights were too many; and Roger’s blasts struck the ridge like convulsions.
At the feet of her comrades lay Onyx Stonemage, clubbed senseless. Cabledarm fought on one knee, unable to support herself with her damaged leg. Frostheart Grueburn did the same, hamstrung by the thrust of a spear. But their longswords were being beaten down by the rabid savagery of their foes. Halewhole Bluntfist had lost the use of her right arm: she was forced to wield her blade with her left. Battered by too many blows, Latebirth’s broken cataphract hung from her shoulders in fragments. The Ironhand, Cirrus Kindwind, and Stormpast Galesend had all been hacked until they were weak with blood loss; but they continued to struggle, desperate as the doomed.
Like the Swordmainnir, the remaining Haruchai had been badly wounded. Still they punished their assailants as if they were as mighty as Giants, and as unyielding as granite. They shattered brute armor with punches and kicks, broke necks, snapped limbs, cracked skulls—and could not prevail.
Without the intervention of the ur-viles and Waynhim, every Haruchai and Giant would already be dead, scorched lifeless by Roger’s withering magma. But acid magicks intercepted a portion of his fury; deflected a portion. And he hurled his power like a madman, too crazed for thought or care. He seemed deranged by the loss of the croyel, and therefore of Jeremiah. Cavewights who chanced to stand in his path perished. His screams echoed everywhere as if the sky were a vault, featureless and sealed.
Mahrtiir had crawled to the edge of the battle. He could no longer defend himself, and there was no one left to guard him except Bhapa. The older Cord had abandoned Covenant to Pahni. Now Bhapa stood over the Manethrall with bleak determination in his eyes and his garrote in his hands.
But at the focus of the carnage, Jeremiah stood exactly as he had stood while he was possessed, slack and vacant, with nothing that resembled awareness in his muddy gaze; as unreactive as a corpse. His whole body thronged with Earthpower, Anele’s last gift. Yet his new strength changed nothing. It did not restore his mind.
When Roger had killed everyone else, he would go after Covenant: Linden did not doubt that. Lord Foul would consider her death, and Covenant’s, a victory, if Roger did not.
Covenant’s son needed the croyel and Jeremiah. The croyel can use your kid’s talent. He’ll make us a door. A portal to eternity.—to help us become gods.
For Roger, that hope was gone. Now he would have to trust the Despiser.
It was too much. Too much. Linden could not suffer it. All of her friends. Jeremiah and Covenant. She had felt overwhelmed and frantic earlier. Now her despair had no limits.
Unable to make any other choice, she became Gallows Howe: a killing field made flesh.
In the gypsum and dirt where it had fallen, High Lord Loric’s krill still shone. Its brilliance throbbed to the beat of Joan’s madness. And she was a rightful white gold wielder. Only her abjection and turiya Raver’s mastery restricted her access to wild magic.
Linden was done with hesitation, with paralysis, with weakness. Done with humanity. Deliberately she dropped the Staff of Law at Jeremiah’s feet. Then she lifted Covenant’s ring on its chain over her head. Closing the chain in her fist, she slipped the ring onto the index finger of her right hand.
With no more preparation than that, she stooped to touch the avid gem of the krill with Covenant’s wedding band.
Long ago, she had seen him do something similar when he had needed a trigger or catalyst; a source of power to overcome his instinctive reluctance. She was not reluctant: not now. And Esmer’s influence no longer blocked her. It would never hinder her again. But she had no right to white gold. She needed help.
In the instant that the ring made contact with the gem, she became a holocaust of silver flame.
When she had spent one heartbeat, or two, measuring her borrowed power with her health-sense so that she could be sure of her control, she left the collapsing defense of her friends and began to wreak havoc as if she had been born for butchery and death.
So quickly that she appalled herself, the battle was over. While her friends and the Demondim-spawn watched, too stunned or horrified or injured to react, she ravaged every Cavewight on the ridge; rent asunder the hilltop where Roger stood; brought down cascades of fire from the blank sky. When surviving creatures turned to flee, she let them go. But she would have harried Roger until she had scorched every drop of his blood with wild magic, if he had not first hidden behind blunt hills and then warded himself with lava while he raced away on the shoulders of a Cavewight.
At his escape, she raised a scream of her own into the air; a shriek of unconstrained wild magic that seemed to challenge the Despiser himself. She yelled for Liand, and howled for Anele, and cried out for the pain of her companions, until her strength failed. Then at last her world went dark. All of her burdens fell away, and there was no more power anywhere that could hurt her.
When she recovered consciousness, she was sitting propped against a boulder at the base of Liand’s cairn. Someone must have put her there. Must have hung Covenant’s ring around her
neck again, rested the Staff of Law across her lap. Stave, probably. He stood over her now, watching her while blood dripped from the ends of his fingers and the hem of his rent tunic.
Her entire being flinched at what she had done. But she could not undo it.
“Your absence has been brief, Linden,” the former Master answered before she found the will to question him. “We have only begun to tally our wounds.” His voice was strangely congested, thick with an emotion which she did not recognize. “Had you not bestirred yourself, however, I would have roused you. Our need for your aid is grievous. Among us, only the Unbeliever, the Cords, and your son lack any dire hurt.”
Then he turned and walked away as though he could no longer bear the sight of her. Oozing blood, he went to join the figures kneeling or supine near Jeremiah, Galt, Anele, and Esmer.
Thinking, Anele? she tried to pull herself to her feet. Is he still alive? Tried, and could not. If she managed to stand, she would see bodies. Hundreds of them. Thousands. She would be forced to confront the outcome of her despair.
Peering through a blur of weakness, she saw the black shapes of ur-viles and the grey forms of Waynhim moving among her companions. Dimly through the reek of spilled guts and gore, she caught the dank scent of vitrim. The Demondim-spawn were still trying to help. Their musty drink appeared to be all that kept some of the Giants and Mahrtiir alive. As far as she could tell, however, vitrim did nothing for Anele, although he did not refuse it. And Esmer laughed at it softly, without scorn, as if he had passed beyond the reach of any sustenance.
That the ur-viles and Waynhim offered kindness to Esmer confounded Linden. In a distant age, they had forged their manacles, foreseeing this day. Ever since she had first encountered them, the Demondim-spawn had come to her aid whenever Esmer had posed a threat. Yet now they showed him compassion?
For centuries or millennia, they had been among the most feared of the Despiser’s servants—
Closing her fingers on the warm wood of her Staff, she tried again to rise.