Oh, God—
Beyond her, the Swordmainnir strode down the slope to intercept the attack, spreading out so that they would each have room to strike and dodge. Stave stood a few paces in front of Linden as if he imagined that he could counter one of the skurj.
Covenant may have been unaware of the threat behind him. He continued hurling his demands into the shrouded Sarangrave. The krill slashed back and forth: cuts that had no effect. But now he was alone. Apparently Branl trusted that the lurker would not assail the Pure One, even if the monster had withdrawn its aid. With calm haste, the Humbled came back up the valley, gripping Longwrath’s flamberge in both hands.
“Mom?” Jeremiah called: a small sound like a whimper. “Mom? What’s happening?”
Abruptly a monster surged up from the eaten ground.
Now Linden saw it clearly. The unthinking creature had devoured its way through the earth to emerge among the roots of an ironwood. Almost immediately, the tree exploded into flames. Bright as a bonfire, and hot as the ravaging of Covenant’s home on Haven Farm, it heralded hunger and scoria.
Tall and thick as a Giant, the skurj stood in conflagration with half of its full length braced underground. Roaring like an eruption, it twisted from side to side, apparently seeking the scent of its prey. Then it began its rush toward the company, drawing its whole body out of the dirt as it snaked into the valley bottom.
Under other circumstances, the river might have forced the monster to pause; perhaps to chew its way beneath the watercourse. But the Defiles Course was much diminished. The skurj did not hesitate. Coiling its strength, it launched itself in a brimstone arc above the waters.
Its fury dismissed the fog around it. Even at that distance, Linden felt waves of heat beat against her face.
Covenant’s shouting was hoarse and doomed. Still he persisted.
Linden did not think. She had no time. Raising her Staff, she left Jeremiah’s side. Black flames like the tails of a scourge pulled free of the wood and whipped around her as she hurried toward the Giants.
Stave accompanied her without question. He seemed to have no questions left.
“Don’t move,” she urged as she passed between Coldspray and Frostheart Grueburn. “I can do this.” She hardly heard herself. “Take care of Jeremiah.” In the back of her mind, she had already begun to pronounce the Seven Words. “Lord Foul doesn’t want him dead, but that monster probably doesn’t care.”
The skurj was only one.
In Salva Gildenbourne, one alone had overwhelmed her in spite of her Staff. And during the company’s flight toward Andelain, Kastenessen’s monsters had been too strong for her. She could not have fought them in the Lost Deep.
Since then, everything had changed. Kevin’s Dirt was gone. Kastenessen’s passing into the fane of the Elohim had struck manacles from her wrists. While Covenant still believed that the lurker might heed him, she meant to guard his back.
“Melenkurion abatha,” she promised softly while the skurj arose from the riverbank and swept toward her. “Duroc minas mill. Harad khabaal.”
Down the valley from her, Branl did not quicken his pace. He advanced with the remorseless inevitability of a breaking wave.
“Help her!” Jeremiah panted at the Swordmainnir. “That thing is going to eat her!”
If the Ironhand or any of her comrades replied, Linden did not hear them.
Now! she told herself. Do it now.
Get away from me, you overgrown slug. You cannot have my son! Or my friends. Or my husband.
With the Staff of Law alive and lurid in her grasp, she flung an ebon torrent of Earthpower and Law between the jaws of the skurj.
The creature’s body radiated heat, but it did not emit light. All of the monster’s radiance came from the cruelty of its fangs. They were lambent and infernal, curved for ripping: they blazed with havoc. Looking into that wide maw was like staring down the gullet of a living cremation.
But Linden was as ready as she would ever be. Her power was ready. And she was sick of frustration and fear, more profoundly infuriated that she had allowed herself to realize. She felt that she had not struck an effective blow since the day of horror when she had slaughtered uncounted Cavewights with wild magic: sentient creatures whose massacre at her hands still filled her with revulsion. She was by God ready to oppose a monster which sought destruction merely to feed its own worst appetites—and to satisfy a Raver’s commands.
Moksha Jehannum had once possessed her. She remembered him vividly. Like Covenant, if only with her Staff, she was done with restraint.
Her dark torrent tore a howl from the throat of the skurj. The monster reared back, balancing like a cobra on its length. For a moment or two, long enough for her to shout the Seven Words, it tried to swallow her power; gulp it down as if it were the natural drink of skurj. But it could not. Her power shredded its gullet, sent agony inward. Thrashing its head, it clamped shut its mouth, closed its jaws on its horrid lumination. Then it whirled away before she could inflict more pain.
Branl intercepted the skurj smoothly, as if he had foreseen the timing of his strike as soon as he had left Covenant’s side. The flamberge was a streak of theurgy in his hands. One stroke cut halfway through the monster’s neck.
Then he sprang aside as the skurj became a flailing fountain of blood as bitter as acid. Convulsions writhed through the monster: it seemed to snarl itself in knots. But it could not survive its wounds. While it gaped and snapped at the air, the light of its fangs faded into the fog.
Still Linden did not stop. She had endured too much, and yearned to repay it. Branl had killed the skurj for her: she turned her fire to quench the virulence of the monster’s blood.
Even when she had eradicated every spot and spatter from the dirt, she wanted to continue until she had reduced the corpse to ash. But she felt Stave’s hand on her shoulder, heard him say, “Enough, Linden. The monster is slain. Now you must conserve your magicks. Where one skurj arrives, others will surely come.”
“No,” Jeremiah breathed, apparently to himself. “Not more of those things. I can’t stand it. How did it find us?”
If he sought reassurance, no one offered it.
“Aye, Linden Giantfriend,” rumbled the Ironhand. “Your prowess raises a paean in our hearts. Yet Stave Rockbrother counsels wisely. In Kastenessen’s absence, the skurj are doubtless ruled by moksha Raver. We must believe that a greater force follows this lone creature. We must spare our strength while we may.”
Someone should have said that to Covenant. He was still trying to coerce a response from the Sarangrave, hacking at the fog with Loric’s krill, and yelling intermittently. The gem’s argent spread out until the wetland smothered it. His voice made no sound that Linden could hear.
“In that case,” she said as if she had only now begun to understand Rime Coldspray’s warning, “we need to see. We can’t let whatever comes take us by surprise.
“Watch for me. I’m going to get rid of this damn fog.”
The vapors baffled percipience. Like the Ironhand, Linden did not know whether they were natural or invoked. But she did not care. The fog itself was just suspended moisture. Earthpower and Law would dispel it.
“That would be a benison in all sooth,” answered Coldspray. “Make the attempt, Giantfriend. The Swordmainnir will ward your son.”
Linden nodded, but she had stopped listening. Again she prepared the Seven Words in her mind. Instinctively she moved away from her companions so that she would have space to work. With only Stave nearby, she tuned her senses to the pitch and timbre of mist. Then she lifted new flames from the Staff and sent them skirling upward.
She regretted the blackness of her fire. She would always regret it. But she had no idea how to relieve it. The fog was a simpler problem. And her stained theurgy was still Earthpower.
With her eyes closed, she summoned more and more of her Staff’s potential. Her health-sense recognized and measured the vapors: their specific dampness on her skin;
their distinctive currents and flavors. As if she were musing to herself, she murmured the Seven Words.
The only substantial obstacle to her intent was the extent of the fug. It arose continuously from the Flat, curled up into the valley without ceasing. To be rid of it, she had to dismiss it faster than it came.
Melenkurion abatha.
Obliquely she wondered whether it had been invoked by the lurker, perhaps so that the High God of the Feroce would have an excuse for ignoring Covenant’s appeal. On a deeper level, she chewed the gristle of Jeremiah’s question. She feared that she knew the answer.
Duroc minas mill.
But she had work to do and could not afford to distract herself. If more skurj were coming—
Harad khabaal.
Behind her, the Giants muttered their approval. Stalwart as any of his kinsmen, Stave guarded her back.
When she had cleared the air directly overhead, unveiled the stars and the onset of evening, she sent her fire toward the cliff above the Defiles Course; toward the steep slopes on either side of the exposed gutrock.
“How did it find us?” Jeremiah repeated. He raised his voice, tried to make his question a demand. “We can’t get away if we don’t know how it found us.”
The skurj were able to sense exertions of Earthpower; but Linden did not know how far their perceptions reached. Could they detect her power while they were ravaging in Salva Gildenbourne? Detect it past the bulk of Mount Thunder? And arrive so quickly? No: she did not believe it.
She no longer felt Covenant’s irate, tattered summons; no longer sensed the krill’s shining imprecation. Grimly she focused her attention on the Staff of Law and fog.
“There!” one of the Swordmainnir barked softly.
A quick pang of alarm disturbed Linden’s flames. She bit her lip, resisted her impulse to falter.
“Where?” asked the Ironhand. “My sight has lost its youth. I do not descry—”
Calm as mist, Stave said, “Chosen. Direct your strength to the mountainsides beyond the Defiles Course.”
She complied at once. Moksha’s forces were more likely to round Mount Thunder from the north than the south.
Fresh tension spread among the Giants. Latebirth groaned. Stonemage and Grueburn cursed harshly.
“Chosen-son!” snapped Cirrus Kindwind. “Stand at my back. Move as I move. I will shield you.”
To Branl, Coldspray rasped, “You must defend the Timewarden. We cannot. If the Swordmainnir do not stand together, we will soon fall.”
Linden opened her eyes, but she did not need them to discern the Sandgorgons. She felt their eager ferocity in every nerve.
There were—
Oh, God!
—at least a score of them. Two score? More?
Fatal as a landslide, they sped among lingering streamers of brume, hurtled down the mountainside toward the valley.
One led the way. It had pulled some distance ahead of the others. Behind it came three, no, four more Sandgorgons. Nimble on the pads of their feet, the strange backward flex of their legs, they cascaded over the rocks. The rest of the monsters followed, a pale rush angling across Mount Thunder’s contorted slopes.
For an instant, Linden froze. How many Sandgorgons had left their home across the seas? More than this? Surely not more?
The company could not survive so many.
Worse, Jeremiah would not be one of the victims. Lord Foul and moksha Raver might not be able to control the skurj; keep them away from the Despiser’s prize. The Sandgorgons were another matter. The shreds of samadhi Sheol animated their minds. They would obey Lord Foul’s wishes.
As if she had taken herself by the throat, Linden let out a black scream against the fog.
That was as much as she could do. She wanted to strike at the Sandgorgons before they reached the valley, do as much damage as she could from a distance. But she had already caught the reek of more gangrene.
High above the Defiles Course, a second chancre had appeared, a second suppuration. The gutrock bled vile fluids like pus.
God in Heaven! We can’t—
Rime Coldspray adjusted the formation of the Swordmainnir. With Frostheart Grueburn, Latebirth, and Halewhole Bluntfist, she came to stand in front of Linden. The others positioned themselves to defend Jeremiah. He was trying to shout, but his voice broke into whimpers. Stave waited at Linden’s side as if he were resting. In no apparent hurry, Branl returned along the valley bottom toward Covenant.
Ragged with strain, Covenant continued yelling at the Sarangrave.
“Linden Giantfriend.” The Ironhand sounded almost nonchalant. The prospect of an impossible battle seemed to focus her combative nature. “The skurj we must entrust to you. If by kind fortune they approach singly, you may perhaps prevail. The Sandgorgons are mighty in all sooth, yet they wield only strength and ferocity. And we also are mighty. We are armed and armored. We will hope to stand against them. If they do not mass for a combined assault”—she shrugged to loosen her shoulders—“we will teach them to esteem us.”
The pounding of Linden’s pulse in her ears measured out Coldspray’s words—entrust to you. After that, she recognized only one in three. Still she knew what was required of her.
Jeremiah had his defenders. Armed with a sword forged to fight Sandgorgons, Branl would guard Covenant. And Covenant was not helpless. If any residue of his victory over Nom lingered in the minds of the monsters, or in samadhi’s, they might flinch from attacking him. That left the skurj.
Linden believed that she could stop them—
—if they came no more than one or two at a time.
Fierce and ruddy, a maw full of fangs burst from the granite high in the cliff. With grim satisfaction, Linden saw that the monster was directly above the Defiles Course. The riverbed held much less than its former torrents; but the remaining gush was still water: polluted beyond estimation, yes, and stinking to the stars, but water nonetheless. Her fate was written in it.
Swinging her Staff like the handle of a flail, and hissing the Seven Words past her teeth, she sent barbed fire at the skurj.
The leading Sandgorgon was already nearing the valley. The others did not gain ground, but they followed swiftly.
Thinking Melenkurion and minas and khabaal, Linden found that the monster in the cliff had emerged near the limit of her range. She could not hit it hard enough to slay it. But she was fighting now: instinct and desperation guided her. She did not need to kill the monster directly. She could use the river. All she had to do was make the damn thing fall.
Deliberately she harried the creature. She whipped fire at its jaws, made wounds in its gullet. Then she caused one of his fangs to rupture.
Roaring in distress, the skurj thrashed against the rims of its egress. The stone around it cracked and crumbled.
It was not a thinking creature. It did not observe and take care: it only hunted and fed—and reacted to pain. After a moment, its own writhing broke loose a section of the cliff.
Amid shards of gutrock as loud as thunder, the monster plunged down the face of the precipice.
When the skurj hit the Defiles Course, steam erupted from the impact. Fouled water sprayed upward, filled the valley bottom with a rain of poison and acid. But Linden had anticipated that. As the monster fell, she raised a curtain of black flame between her companions and the river. Earthpower burned ruin out of the air. Then, as the corrosive deluge subsided, she turned her fire against the skurj again, burning to trap the monster in the river.
Inflicted hurts blocked the monster’s escape. It shrieked like shattering as it swallowed spray and splashes, gulped down death. Then it collapsed, steaming furiously; stretched out its length in the current. A moment later, it was dead, and the Defiles Course flowed over it.
Linden wanted a shout of celebration. She looked around for it. But sudden plague-spots dotted the far side of the valley; and more appeared on the near side, within a stone’s throw of the company; and the first Sandgorgon raced off the mountains
ide onto lower ground, charging toward Branl and Covenant.
The gaddhi of Bhrathairealm had called the Sandgorgons more fearsome than madness or nightmare. Baked to an albino whiteness in the Great Desert, the creatures were destruction incarnate. They could pulverize granite with the prehensile stumps of their forearms. And their heads had been formed for battering, lacking eyes or other vulnerabilities. They breathed through slits like gills protected by tough hide on the sides of their heads.
If that Sandgorgon contrived to strike Covenant, it would snap every bone in his body.
But Linden could do nothing to defend him. Half a dozen skurj had already thrust their heads and fangs out of the ground. More were close. Frantic and furious, she faced those threats, leaving her husband to Branl.
She had devised a new defense. Whipping flame from place to place, she concentrated Earthpower on the lambent fangs. From maw to maw, she caused eruptions like bursts of agony along the kraken jaws. Small hurts: the skurj were huge, and their mouths held scores of scimitar-teeth. Nevertheless their pain was acute. It enraged the monsters—but it also distracted them.
It slowed their emergence from the earth.
Gripping her glaive, the Ironhand breathed, “Well done, Linden Giantfriend. I had not considered such a ploy.”
It was no more than a delay, a transient interruption. But it might create openings for the Swordmainnir.
While Linden lashed obsidian back and forth, accentuating her efforts with the Seven Words, Covenant and Branl finally turned to face the nearest Sandgorgon. As if they were sure of their strength, they strode to meet the charge. Branl held Longwrath’s flamberge poised to slash. Covenant’s halfhand gripped Loric’s shining dagger by its wrapped hilt.
Behind them came a cluster of Feroce, perhaps ten of the naked child-forms. They held out their hands like gestures of supplication or worship. Rank green flames twisted and flared in each of their palms.
At their backs, more fog piled out of the Sarangrave, obscuring the perils of the wetland.
The Sandgorgon gathered itself, sprang over the water. For the flicker of an instant, it vanished below the rim of the riverbank. Then another leap brought it out of the Defiles Course. Silent as the fog, as the boundary between life and death, it sped toward the Unbeliever and the Humbled. Between one stride and the next, it became a juggernaut.