The Power That Preserves

Fifteen: “Lord Mhoram’s Victory”

THE exertion of hauling the dead forms from the ground and throwing them at Revelstone had exhausted samadhi Satansfist, drained him until he could no longer sustain that expenditure of force. He had seen High Lord’s Furl torn from its flagpole atop the tower by his Cavewights. He knew he had met at least part of his master’s objective in this assault. While his forces held the tower-while tons of sand blocked the inner gates of the Keep-while winter barrened the upland plateau above Revelstone-the Lords and all their people were doomed. They could not feed themselves within those stone walls indefinitely. If last came to last, the Giant-Raver knew that he could through patience alone make the great Keep into one reeking tomb or crypt. He let his dead collapse into sand.

Yet his failure to burst those inner gates enraged him, made him pant for recompense even though he lacked the strength to assail the walls himself. He was a Raver, insatiable for blood despite the mortal limits of the Giantish body he occupied. And other things compelled him also. There was an implacable coercion in the wind, a demand which brooked no failure, however partial or eventually meaningless.

As the dead fell apart, Satansfist ordered his long-leashed army to the attack.

With a howl that shivered the air, echoed savagely off the carven walls, beat against the battlements like an ululation of fangs and claws and hungry blades, the Despiser’s hordes charged. They swept up through the foothills like a shrill grey flood and hurled themselves at Revelstone.

Lord Foul’s Stone-spawned creatures led the attack-not because they were effective against granite walls and abutments, but because they were expendable. The Raver’s army included twice a hundred thousand of them, and more arrived every day, marching to battle from Foul’s Creche through the Centre Plains. So samadhi used them to absorb the defence of the Keep, thus protecting his Cavewights and ur-viles. Thousands of perverted creatures fell with arrows, spears, javelins jutting from them, but many many thousands more forged ahead. And behind them came the forces which knew how to damage Revelstone.

In moments, the charge hit. Rabid, rockwise Cavewights found crafty holds in the stone, vaulted themselves up onto the lowest battlements and balconies. Mighty ur-vile wedges used their black vitriol to wipe clear the parapets above them, then pounced upward on sturdy wooden ladders brought to the walls by other creatures. Within a short time, Revelstone was under assault all along its south and north faces.

But the ancient Giants who made Lord’s Keep had built well to defend against such an attack. Even the lowest parapets were high off the ground; they could be sealed off, so that the attackers were denied access to the city; they were defended by positions higher still in the walls. And Warmark Quaan had drilled the Warward year after year, preparing it for just this kind of battle. The prearranged defences of the Keep sprang into action instantly as alarms sounded throughout the city. Warriors left secondary tasks and ran to the battlements; relays formed to supply the upper defences with arrows and other weapons; concerted Eoman charged the Cavewights and ur-viles which breached the lower abutments. Then came Lore wardens, Hirebrands, Gravelingases. Lorewardens repulsed the attacks with songs of power, while Hirebrands set fire to the ladders, and Gravelingases braced the walls themselves against the strength of the Cavewights.

As he commanded the struggle from a coign in the upper walls, Quaan soon saw that his warriors could have repulsed this assault if they had not been outnumbered thirty or more to one-if every life in his army had not been so vital, and every life in the Raver’s so insignificant. But the Warward was outnumbered; it needed help. In response to the fragmentary reports which reached him from the Close-reports of fire and power and immense relief-he sent an urgent messenger to summon the Lords to Revelstone’s aid.

The messenger found High Lord Mhoram in the Close, but Mhoram did not respond to Quaan’s call. It only reached the outskirts of his mind, and he held it gently distant, away from himself. When he heard one of the guards explain to the messenger what had transpired in the fire-ruined Close, he let his own awareness of the battle slip away-let all thought of the present danger drop from him, and gave himself to the melding of the Lords.

They sat on the slumped floor around the graveling pit with their staffs on the stone before them-Trevor and Loerya on Mhoram’s left, Amatin on his right. In his trembling hands, the krill blazed in hot affirmation of white gold. Yet he barely saw the light; his eyes were heat-scorched, and he was blinded by tears of release that would not stop. Through the silent contact of the meld, he spread strength about him, and shared knowledge which had burdened him more than he had ever realized. He told his fellow Lords how he had been able to remove the krill from its stone rest, and why now it did not burn his vulnerable flesh.

He could feel Amatin shrink from what he said, feel Trevor shake with a pain that only in part came from his injury, feel Loerya appraise his communication as she might have appraised any new weapon. To each of them, he gave himself; he showed them his conviction, his understanding, his strength. And he held the proof in his hands, so that they could not doubt him. With such evidence shining amid the ravage of the Close, they followed the process which had led him to his secret knowledge and shared the dismay which had taught him to keep it secret.

Finally, Lord Amatin framed her question aloud. It was too large for silence; it required utterance, so that Revelstone itself could hear it. She swallowed awkwardly, then floated words in the untarnished acoustics of the chamber. “So it is we-we ourselves who have-for so many generations the Lords themselves have inured themselves to the power of Kevin’s Lore.”

“Yes, Lord,” Mhoram whispered, knowing that everyone in the Close could hear him.

“The Oath of Peace has prevented-“

“Yes, Lord.”

Her breathing shuddered for a moment. “Then we are lost.”

Mhoram felt the lorn dilemma in her words and stood up within himself, pulling the authority of his High Lordship about his shoulders. “No.”

“Without power, we are lost,” she countered. “Without the Oath of Peace, we are not who we are, and we are lost.”

“Thomas Covenant has returned,” responded Loerya.

Brusquely, Amatin put this hope aside. “Nevertheless. Either he has no power, or his power violates the Peace with which we have striven to serve the Land. Thus also we are lost.”

“No,” the High Lord repeated. “Not lost. We and ur-Lord Covenant-must find the wisdom to attain both Peace and power. We must retain our knowledge of who we are, or we will despair as Kevin Landwaster despaired, in Desecration. Yet we must also retain this knowledge of power, or we will have failed to do our utmost for the Land. Perhaps the future Lords will find that they must turn from Kevin’s Lore-that they must find lore of their own, lore which is not so apt for destruction. We have no time for such a quest. Knowing the peril of this power, we must cling to ourselves all the more, so that we do not betray the Land.”

His words seemed to ring in the Close, and time passed before Amatin said painfully, “You offer us things which contradict each other, and tell us that we must preserve both, achieve both together. Such counsel is easily spoken.”

In silence, the High Lord strove to share with her his sense of how the contradiction might be mastered, made whole; he let his love for the Land, for Revelstone, for her, flow openly into her mind. And he smiled as he heard Lord Trevor say slowly, “It may be done. I have felt something akin to it. What little strength I have returned to me when the Keep’s need became larger for me than my fear of the Keep’s foe.”

“Fear,” Loerya echoed in assent.

And Mhoram added, “Fear-or hatred.”

A moment later, Amatin began to weep quietly in comprehension. With Loerya and Trevor, Mhoram wrapped courage around her and held her until her dread of her own danger, her own capacity to Desecrate the Land, relaxed. Then the High Lord put down the krill and opened his eyes to the Close.

Dimly, blurrily, his sight made out Hearthrall Tohrm and Trell. Trell still huddled within himself, shirking the horror of what he had done. And Tohrm cradled his head, commiserating in rhadhamaerl grief with the torment of soul which could turn a Gravelingas against beloved stone. They were silent, and Mhoram gazed at them as if he were to blame for Trell’s plight.

But before he could speak, another messenger from Warmark Quaan arrived in the Close, demanded notice. When the High Lord looked up at him, the messenger repeated Quaan’s urgent call for help.

“Soon,” Mhoram sighed, “soon. Tell my friend that we will come when we are able. The Lord Trevor is wounded. I am”-with a brief gesture, he indicated the scalded skin of his head-“the Lord Amatin and I must have food and rest. And the Lord Loerya-“

” I will go,” Loerya said firmly. ” I have not yet fought as I should for Revelstone.” To the messenger, she responded, ”Take me to the place of greatest need, then carry the High Lord’s reply to Warmark Quaan.” Moving confidently, as if the new discovery of power answered her darkest doubts, she climbed the stairs and followed the warrior away toward the south wall of the Keep.

As she departed, she sent the guards to call the Healers and bring food. The other Lords were left alone for a short time, and Tohrm took that opportunity to ask Mhoram what was to be done with Trell.

Mhoram gazed around the ruined galleries as if he were trying to estimate the degree to which he had failed Trell. He knew that generations of rhadhamaerl work would be required to restore some measure of the chamber’s useful Tightness, and tears blurred his vision again as he said to Tohrm, “The Healers must work with him. Perhaps they will be able to restore his mind.”

“What will be the good? How will he endure the knowledge of what he has done?”

“We must help him to endure. I must help him. We must attempt all healing, no matter how difficult. And I who have failed him cannot deny the burden of his need now.”

“Failed him?” Trevor asked. The pain of his injury had drawn the blood from his face, but he had not lost the mood which had inspired him to bear such a great share of the Keep’s defence. “In what way? You did not cause his despair. Had you treated him with distrust, you would have achieved nothing but the confirmation of his distress. Distrust-vindicates itself.”

Mhoram nodded. “And I distrusted-I distrusted all. I kept knowledge secret even while I knew the keeping wrong. It is fortunate that the harm was no greater.”

“Yet you could not prevent-“

“Perhaps. And perhaps-if I had shared my knowledge with him, so that he had known his peril-known- Perhaps he might have found the strength to remember himself-remember that he was a Gravelingas of the rhadhamaerl, a lover of stone.”

Tohrm agreed stiffly, and his sympathy for Trell made him say, “You have erred, High Lord.”

“Yes, Hearthrall,” Mhoram replied with deep gentleness in his voice. “I am who I am-both human and mortal. I have-much to learn.”

Tohrm blinked fiercely, ducked his head. The tautness of his shoulders looked like anger, but Mhoram had shared an ordeal with the Hearthrall, and understood him better.

A moment later, several Healers hurried into the Close. They brought with them two stretchers, and carefully bore Trell away in one. Lord Trevor they carried in the other, peremptorily ignoring his protests. Tohrm went with Trell. Soon Mhoram and Amatin were left with the warrior who brought their food, and a Healer who softly applied a soothing ointment to the High Lord’s burns.

Once Mhoram’s hurts had been treated, he dismissed the warrior and the Healer. He knew that Amatin would want to speak with him, and he cleared the way for her before he began to eat. Then he turned to the food. Through his weariness, he ate deliberately, husbanding his strength so that when he was done he would be able to return to his work.

Lord Amatin matched his silence; she seemed to match the very rhythm of his jaws, as if his example were her only support in the face of a previously unguessed peril. Mhoram sensed that her years of devotion to Kevin’s Wards had left her peculiarly unprepared for what he had told her; her trust in the Lore of the Old Lords had been exceedingly great. So he kept silent while he ate; and when he was done, he remained still, resting himself while he waited for her to speak what was in her heart.

But her question, when it came, took a form he had not anticipated. “High Lord,” she said with a covert nod toward the krill, “if Thomas Covenant has returned to the Land-who summoned him? How was that call performed? And where is he?”

“Amatin-” Mhoram began.

“Who but the Despiser could do such a thing?”

“There are-“

“And if this is not Lord Foul’s doing, then where has Covenant appeared? How can he aid us if he is not here?”

“He will not aid us.” Mhoram spoke firmly to stop the tumble of her questions. “If there is help to be found in him, it will be aid for the Land, not aid for us against this siege. There are other places from which he may serve the Land-yes, and other summoners also. We and Lord Foul are not the only powers. The Creator himself may act to meet this need.”

Her waifish eyes probed him, trying to locate the source of his serenity. “I lack your faith in this Creator. Even if such a being lives, the Law which preserves the Earth precludes-Do not the legends say that if the Creator were to break the arch of Time to place his hand upon the Earth, then the arch and all things in it would come to an end, and the Despiser would be set free?”

“That is said,” Mhoram affirmed. “I do not doubt it. Yet the doom of any creation is upon the head of its Creator. Our work is enough for us. We need not weary ourselves with the burdens of gods.”

Amatin sighed. “You speak with conviction, High Lord. If I were to say such things, they would sound glib.”

“Then do not say them. I speak only of what gives me courage. You are a different person and will have a different courage. Only remember that you are a Lord, a servant of the Land-remember the love that brought you to this work, and do not falter.”

“Yes, High Lord,” she replied, looking intensely into him. “Yet I do not trust this power which makes Desecration possible. I will not hazard it.”

Her gaze turned him back to the krill. Its white gem flamed at him like the light of a paradox, a promise of life and death. Slowly, he reached out and touched its hilt. But his exaltation had faded, and the krill’s heat made him withdraw his hand.

He smiled crookedly. “Yes,” he breathed as if he were speaking to the blade, “it is a hazard. I am very afraid.” Carefully, he took a cloth from within his robe; carefully, he wrapped the krill and set it aside until it could be taken to a place where the Lorewardens could study it. Then he glanced up and saw that Amatin was trying to smile also.

“Come, sister Amatin,” he said to her bravery, “we have delayed our work too long.”

Together, they made their way to the battle, and with Lord Loerya they called fire from their staffs to throw back the hordes of the Despiser.

The three were joined late in the afternoon by a bandaged and hobbling Trevor. But by that time, Revelstone had survived the worst frenzy of Satansfist’s assault. The Lords had given the Warward the support it needed. Under Quaan’s stubborn command, the warriors held back the onslaught. Wherever the Lords worked, the casualties among the defenders dropped almost to nothing, and the losses of the attackers increased vastly. In this kind of battle, the ur-viles could not focus their power effectively. As a result, the Lords were able to wreak a prodigious ruin among the Cavewights and other creatures. Before the shrouded day had limped into night, samadhi Raver called back his forces.

But this time he did not allow the Keep to rest. His attacks began again shortly after dark. Under the cover of cold winter blackness, ur-viles rushed forward to throw liquid vehemence at the battlements, and behind them tight companies of creatures charged, carrying shields and ladders. Gone now was the haphazard fury of the assault, the unconcerted wild attempt to breach the whole Keep at once. In its place were precision and purpose. Growling with hunger, the hordes shaped themselves to the task of wearing down Revelstone as swiftly and efficiently as possible.

In the days that followed, there was no let to the fighting. Satansfist controlled his assaults so that his losses did not significantly outrun the constant arrival of his reinforcements; but he exerted pressure remorselessly, allowing the warriors no respite in which to recover. Despite Quaan’s best efforts to rotate his Eoman and Howard, so that each could rest in turn, the Warward grew more and more weary-and weary warriors were more easily slain. And those who fell could not be replaced.

But the Warward did not have to carry the burden of this battle alone. Gravelingases and Hirebrands and Lore wardens fought as well. People who had no other urgent work-homeless farmers and Cattleherds, artists, even older children-took over supporting tasks; they supplied arrows and other weapons, stood sentry duty, ran messages. Thus many Eoman were freed for either combat or rest. And the Lords rushed into action whenever Quaan requested their aid. They were potent and compelling; in their separate ways, they fought with the hard strength of people who knew themselves capable of Desecration and did not intend to be driven to that extreme.

Thus Lord’s Keep endured. Eoman after Eoman fell in battle every day; food stores shrank; the Healers’ supplies of herbs and poultices dwindled. Strain carved the faces of the people, cut away comfortable flesh until their skulls seemed to be covered by nothing but pressure and apprehension. But Revelstone protected its inhabitants, and they endured.

At first, the Lords concentrated their attention on the needs of the battle. Instinctively, they shied away from their dangerous knowledge. They spent their energy in work and fighting, rather than in studying last resorts. But when the continuous adumbrations of assault had echoed through the Keep for six days, High Lord Mhoram found that he had begun to dread the moment when Satansfist would change his tactics-when the Raver and his master were ready to use the Stone and the Staff again. And during the seventh night, Mhoram’s sleep was troubled by dim dreams like shadows of his former visionary nightmares. Time and again, he felt that he could almost hear somewhere in the depths of his soul the sound of an Unfettered One screaming. He awoke in an inchoate sweat, and hastened upland to see if anything had happened to the Unfettered One of Glimmermere.

The One was safe and well, as were Loerya’s daughters. But this did not relieve Mhoram. It left a chill in the marrow of his bones like an echo of winter. He felt sure that someone, somewhere, had been slain in torment. Straightening himself against the shiver of dread, he called the other Lords to a Council, where for the first time he raised the question of how their new knowledge could be used against the Despiser.

His question sparked unspoken trepidations in them all. Amatin stared widely at the High Lord, Trevor winced, Loerya studied her hands-and Mhoram felt the acuteness of their reaction as if they were saying, Do you think then that we should repeat the work of Kevin Landwaster? But he knew they did not intend that accusation. He waited for them, and at last Loerya found her voice. “When you defended the Close-you worked against another’s wrong. How will you control this power if you initiate it?”

Mhoram had no answer.

Shortly, Trevor forced himself to add, “We have nothing through which we could channel such might. It is in my heart that our staffs would not suffice-they would not be strong to control power of that extent. We lack the Staff of Law, and I know of no other tool equal to this demand.”

“And,” Amatin said sharply, “this knowledge in which you dare to put your faith did not suffice for High Lord Kevin son of Loric. It only increased the cost of his despair. I have-I have given my life to his Lore, and I speak truly. Such power is a snare and a delusion. It cannot be controlled. It strikes the hand that wields it. Better to die in the name of Peace than to buy one day of survival at the cost of such peril!”

Again, Mhoram had no answer. He could not name the reasons behind his question. Only the cold foreboding in his bones impelled him, told him that unknown horrors stalked the Land in places far distant from Revelstone. When Amatin concluded grimly, “Do you fear that ur-Lord Covenant may yet Desecrate us?” he could not deny that he was afraid.

So the Council ended without issue, and the Lords went back to the defence of the Keep.

Still the fighting went on without surcease. For four more days, the Lords wielded their staff fire with all the might and cunning they could conceive-and the Warward drove itself beyond its weariness as if it could not be daunted-and the other people of Revelstone did their utmost to hurl Cavewights, ur-viles, Stone-spawn, from the walls. But Satansfist did not relent. He pressed his assault as if his losses were meaningless, spent whole companies of his creatures to do any kind of damage to the city, however small. And the accumulating price that Lord’s Keep paid for its endurance grew more terrible day by day.

During the fifth day, Mhoram withdrew from the battle to inspect the condition of the city. Warmark Quaan joined him, and when they had seen the fatal diminishment of the stores, had taken the toll of lost lives, Quaan met Mhoram’s gaze squarely and said with a tremor in his brusque voice, “We will fall. If this Raver does not raise another finger against us, still we will fall.”

Mhoram held his old friend’s eyes. “How long can we hold?”

“Thirty days-at most. No more. Forty-if we deny food to the ill, and the injured, and the infirm.”

“We will not deny food to any who yet live.”

“Thirty, then. Less, if my warriors lose strength and permit any breach of the walls.” He faltered and his eyes fell. “High Lord, does it come to this? Is this the end-for us-for the Land?”

Mhoram put a firm hand on Quaan’s shoulder. “No, my friend. We have not come to the last of ourselves. And the Unbeliever-Do not forget Thomas Covenant.”

That name brought back Quaan’s war-hardness. “I would forget him if I could. He will-“

“Softly, Warmark,” Mhoram interrupted evenly. ”Do not be abrupt to prophesy doom. There are mysteries in the Earth of which we know nothing.”

After a moment, Quaan murmured, “Do you yet trust him?”

The High Lord did not hesitate. “I trust that Despite is not the sum of life.”

Quaan gazed back into this answer as if he were trying to find its wellspring. Some protest or plea moved in his face; but before he could speak, a messenger came to recall him to the fighting. At once, he turned and strode away.

Mhoram watched his stern back for a moment, then bestirred himself to visit the Healers. He wanted to know if any progress had been made with Trell Atiaran-mate.

In the low groaning hall which the Healers had made into a hospital for the hundreds of injured men and women, Mhoram found the big Gravelingas sprawled like a wreck on a pallet in the centre of the floor. A fierce brain-fever had wasted him. To Mhoram’s cold dread, he looked like the incarnated fate of all Covenant’s victims-a fleshless future crouched in ambush for the Land. The High Lord’s hands trembled. He did not believe he could bear to watch that ineluctable ravage happen.

“At first, we placed him near the wall,” one of the attendants said softly, “so that he would be near stone. But he recoiled from it in terror. Therefore we have laid him here. He does not recover-but he no longer shrieks. Our efforts to succour him are confounded.”

“Covenant will make restitution,” Mhoram breathed in answer, as if the attendant had said something else. “He must.”

Trembling, he turned away, and tried to find relief for his dismay in the struggle of Revelstone.

The next night, samadhi changed his tactics. Under cover of darkness, a band of Cavewights rushed forward and clambered up onto one of the main battlements, and when warriors ran out to meet the attack, two ur-vile wedges hidden in the night near the walls swiftly formed Forbiddings across the ends of the battlement, thus trapping the warriors, preventing any escape or rescue. Two Eoman were caught and slaughtered by the ur-viles before Lord Amatin was able to break down one of the Forbiddings.

The same pattern was repeated simultaneously at several points around the Keep.

Warmark Quaan had lost more than eightscore warriors before he grasped the purpose of these tactics. They were not intended to break into Revelstone, but rather to kill defenders.

So the Lords were compelled to bear the brunt of defending against these new assaults; a Forbidding was an exercise of power which only they were equipped to counter. As long as darkness covered the approach of the ur-viles, the attacks continued, allowing the Lords no chance to rest. And when dawn came, Sheol Satansfist resumed the previous strategy of his assault.

After four nights of this, Mhoram and his comrades were near exhaustion. Each Forbidding cost two of them an arduous exertion; one Lord could not counteract the work of three-or fivescore ur-viles swiftly enough. As a result, Amatin was now as pale and hollow-eyed as an invalid; Loerya’s once-sturdy muscles seemed to hang like ropes of mortality on her bones; and Trevor’s eyes flinched at everything he saw, as if even in the deepest safety of the Keep he was surrounded by ghouls. Mhoram himself felt that he had a great weight leaning like misery against his heart. They could all taste the accuracy of Quaan’s dire predictions, and they were sickening on the flavour.

During a brief moment of dazed half-sleep late that fourth night, the High Lord found himself murmuring, “Covenant, Covenant,” as if he were trying to remind the Unbeliever of a promise.

But the next morning the attacks stopped. A silence like the quietude of open graves blew into Revelstone on the wind. All the creatures had returned to their encampment, and in their absence Revelstone panted and quivered like a scourged prisoner between lashes. Mhoram took the opportunity to eat, but he put food into his mouth without seeing it and chewed without tasting it. In the back of his mind, he was trying to measure the remnant of his endurance. Yet he responded immediately when a messenger hastened up to him, informed him that samadhi Raver was approaching the Keep alone.

Protected by flanks of archers from any attack by the enemy occupying the tower, Mhoram and the other Lords went to one of the high balconies near the eastward point of the Keep and faced Satansfist.

The Giant-Raver approached sardonically, with a swagger of confidence and a spring of contempt in his stride. His huge fist gripped his fragment of the Stone, and it steamed frigidly in the freezing air. He stopped just beyond effective bow range, leered up at the Lords, and shouted stertorously, “Hail, Lords! I give you greeting! Are you well?”

“Well!” Quaan grated under his breath. “Let him come five paces nearer, and I will show him ‘well.’ “

“My master is concerned for you!” samadhi continued. “He fears that you have begun to suffer in this unnecessary conflict!”

The High Lord’s eyes glinted at this gibe. “Your master lives for the suffering of others! Do you wish us to believe that he has eschewed Despite?”

“He is amazed and saddened that you resist him. Do you still not see that he is the one word of truth in this misformed world? His is the only strength-the one right. The Creator of the Earth is a being of disdain and cruelty! All who are not folly-blind know this. All who are not cowards in the face of the truth know that Lord Foul is the only truth. Has your suffering taught you nothing? Has Thomas Covenant taught you nothing? Surrender, I say! Give up this perverse and self-made misery-surrender! I swear to you that you will stand as my equals in the service of Lord Foul!”

In spite of his mordant sarcasm, the Raver’s voice carried a strange power of persuasion. The might of the Stone was in his words, compelling his hearers to submit. As samadhi spoke, Mhoram felt that the flesh of his resistance was being carved away, leaving his bare bones exposed to the winter. His throat ached at the taste of abdication, and he had to swallow heavily before he could reply.

“Samadhi Sheol,” he croaked, then swallowed again and focused all his skeletal resolve in his voice. “Samadhi Sheol! You mock us, but we are not mocked. We are not blind-we see the atrocity which underlies your persuasion. Begone! Foul-chattel! Take this army of torment and despication-return to your master. He has made your suffering-let him take joy in it while he can. Even as we stand here, the days of his might are numbered. When his end comes upon him, be certain he will do nothing to preserve your miserable being. Begone, Raver! I have no interest in your cheap taunts.”

He hoped that the Raver would react with anger, do something which would bring him within reach of the archers. But Satansfist only laughed. Barking with savage glee, he turned away and gave a shout that sent his forces forward to renew their assault.

Mhoram turned also, pulled himself painfully around to face his fellow Lords. But they were not looking at him. They were intent on a messenger who stood trembling before them. Fear-sweat slicked his face despite the cold, and the muscles of his throat locked, clenched him silent. Mutely, he reached into his tunic, brought out a cloth bundle. His hands shook as he unwrapped it.

After a febrile moment, he exposed the krill.

Its gem was as dull as death.

Mhoram thought he heard gasps, groans, cries, but he could not be sure. Dread roared in his ears, made other sounds indistinguishable. He snatched up the krill. Staring aghast at it, he fell to his knees, plunged as if his legs had broken. With all the force of his need, he thrust his gaze into the gem, tried to find some gleam of life in it. But the metal was cold to his touch, and the edges of the blade were dull. Blind, lustreless winter filled the furthest depths of the jewel.

The hope of the wild magic was lost. Covenant was gone.

Now Mhoram understood why the Raver had laughed.

“Mhoram?”

“High Lord.”

“Mhoram!”

Supplications reached toward him, asking him for strength, begging him, requiring. He ignored them. He shrugged off the hands of melding which plucked at his mind. The prophecy of his dread had come to pass. He had nothing left with which to answer supplications.

“Ah, High Lord!”

There were tears and despair in the appeals, but he had nothing left with which to answer.

He was only dimly aware that he rose to his feet, returned the krill to the messenger. He wanted it removed from his sight as if it were a treacher, yet that feeling occupied only a distant portion of him. With the rest, he tightened his frail blue robe as if he were still fool enough to believe it could protect him from the cold, and walked numbly away from the battlement. The short, stiff shock of his hair, newly grown after the fire in the Close, gave him a demented aspect. People came after him, beseeching, requiring, but he kept up his wooden pace, kept ahead of them so that he would not have to see their needy faces.

He gave no thought to where he was going until he reached a fork in the passage. There, the weight of decision almost crushed him to his knees again-left and down into the Keep, or right and out toward the upland plateau. He turned to the right because he could not bear the unintended recrimination of Revelstone-and because he was a man who already knew that he had no choice.

When he started up the long ascending road, the people behind him slowed, let him go. He heard them whispering:

“He goes to the Unfettered One-to the interpreter of dreams.”

But that was not where he was going; he had no questions to ask an oracle. Oracles were for people to whom ambiguous visions could make a difference, but now the only things which could make a difference to High Lord Mhoram son of Variol were things which would give him courage.

In a stupor of dread, he climbed out into the wind which scythed across the open plateau. Above its chill ululations, he could hear battle crashing against the walls of the Keep, waves of assailants hurling themselves like breakers against a defiant and ultimately frangible cliff. But he put the sound behind him; it was only a symbol, a concentration, of the whole Land’s abominable doom. Without Thomas Covenant-! Mhoram could not complete the thought. He walked up through the barren hills away from Revelstone, up toward the river and northward along it, with an abyss in his heart where the survival of the Land should have been. This, he told himself, was what Kevin Landwaster must have felt when Lord Foul overwhelmed Kurash Plenethor, making all responses short of Desecration futile. He did not know how the pain of it could be endured.

After a time, he found himself standing cold in the wind on a hill above Glimmermere. Below him, the rare, potent waters of the lake lay unruffled despite the buffeting of the wind. Though the skies above it were as grey as the ashes of the world’s end, it seemed to shine with remembered sunlight. It reflected cleanly the hills and the distant mountains, and through its purity he could see its fathomless, rocky bottom.

He knew what he would have to do; he lacked courage, not comprehension. The last exactions of faith lay unrolled before him in his dread like the map of a country which no longer existed. When he stumbled frozenly down toward the lake, he did so because he had nowhere else to turn. There was Earthpower in Glimmermere. He placed his staff on the bank, stripped off his robe, and dropped into the lake, praying that its icy waters would do for him what he could not do for himself.

Though he was already numb with cold, the water seemed to burn instantly over all his flesh, snatch him out of his numbness like a conflagration in his nerves. He had had no thought of swimming when he had slipped into the depths, but the force of Glimmermere triggered reactions in him, sent him clawing up toward the surface. With a whooping gasp, he broke water, sculled for a moment to catch his breath against the fiery chill, then struck out for the bank where he had left his robe.

Climbing out onto the hillside, he felt aflame with cold, but he compelled himself to remain naked while the wind made ice of the water on his limbs and dried him. Then he pulled his robe urgently over his shoulders, hugged his staff to his chest so that its heat warmed him where he most needed warming. His feverish chill took some time to pass, and while he waited, he braced himself, strove to shore up his heart against the obstacles and the dismay which awaited him.

He had to do something which was obviously impossible. He had to slay samadhi Satansfist.

He would need help.

Putting grimly aside all his former scruples, he turned to the only possible source of help-the only aid whose faithfulness matched his need. He raised one cold hand to his lips and whistled shrilly three times.

The turbulent wind seemed to snatch the sound to pieces, tatter it instantly. In a place where echoes were common, his call disappeared without resonance or answer; the wind tore it away as if to undo his purpose, make him unheard. Nevertheless he summoned his trust, pried himself up the hillside to stand waiting on the vantage of the crest. A suspense like the either/or of despair filled him, but he faced the western mountains as if his heart knew neither doubt nor fear.

Long moments which sharpened his suspense to the screaming point passed before he saw a dull brown movement making its way toward him out of the mountains. Then his soul leaped up in spite of its burdens, and he stood erect with the wind snapping in his ears so that his stance would be becoming to the Ranyhyn that was answering his call.

The wait nearly froze the blood in his veins, but at last the Ranyhyn reached the hills around Glimmermere, and nickered in salutation.

Mhoram groaned at the sight. In order to answer his call, the Ranyhyn must have left the Plains of Ra scores of days ago-must have fled Satansfist’s army to run straight across the Centre Plains into the Westron Mountains, then found its pathless way among the high winter of the peaks northward to the spur of the range which jutted east and ended in the plateau of Revelstone. The long ordeal of the mountain trek had exacted a severe price from the great stallion. His flesh hung slack over gaunt ribs, he stumbled painfully on swollen joints, and his coat had a look of ragged misery. Still Mhoram recognized the Ranyhyn, and greeted him with all the respect his voice could carry:

“Hail, Drinny, proud Ranyhyn! Oh, bravely done! Worthy son of a worthy mother. Tail of the Sky, Mane of the World, I am”-a clench of emotion caught his throat, and he could only whisper-“I am honoured.”

Drinny made a valiant effort to trot up to Mhoram, but when he reached the High Lord he rested his head trembling on Mhoram’s shoulder as if he needed the support in order to keep his feet. Mhoram hugged his neck, whispered words of praise and encouragement in his ear, stroked his ice-clogged coat. They stood together as if in their differing weaknesses they were making promises to each other. Then Mhoram answered the nudging of Drinny’s unquenchable pride by springing onto the Ranyhyn’s back. Warming the great horse with his staff, he rode slowly, resolutely, back toward Revelstone.

The ride took time-time made arduous and agonizing by the frailty of Drinny’s muscles, his painful, exhausted stumbling. While they passed down through the hills, Mhoram’s own weariness returned, and he remembered his inadequacy, his stupefying dread. But he had placed his feet on the strait path of his faith; now he held the Ranyhyn between his knees and bound himself in his determination not to turn aside. Drinny had answered his call. While his thoughts retained some vestige of Glimmermere’s clarity, he made his plans.

Then at last his mount limped down into the wide tunnel which led into Lord’s Keep. The clop of hooves echoed faintly against the smooth stone walls and ceiling-echoed and scurried ahead of the High Lord like a murmurous announcement of his return. Soon he could feel the voices of the Keep spreading word of him, proclaiming that he had come back on a Ranyhyn. People left their work and hastened to the main passage of the tunnel to see him. They lined his way, muttered in wonder or pain at the sight of the Ranyhyn, whispered intently to each other about the look of focused danger which shone in his eyes. Down into the Keep he rode as if he were borne on a low current of astonishment and hope.

After he had ridden a few hundred yards along the main ways of Revelstone, he saw ahead of him the other leaders of the city-the Lords Trevor, Amatin, and Loerya, Warmark Quaan, the two Hearthralls, Tohrm and Borillar. They awaited him as if they had come out together to do him honour. When the Ranyhyn stopped before them, they saluted the High Lord and his mount mutely, lacking words for what they felt.

He gazed back at them for a moment, studied them. In their separate ways, they were all haggard, needy, stained with battle. Quaan in particular appeared extravagantly worn. His bluff old face was knotted into a habitual scowl now, as if only the clench of constant belligerence held the pieces of his being together. And Amatin, too, looked nearly desperate; her physical slightness seemed to drain her moral stamina. Borillar’s face was full of tears that Mhoram knew came from the loss of Thomas Covenant. Trevor and Loerya supported each other, unable to remain upright alone. Of them all, only Tohrm was calm, and his calm was the steadiness of a man who had already passed through his personal crisis. Nothing could be worse for him than the stone Desecration he had experienced in the Close-experienced and mastered. The others met Mhoram with concentrated hope and dismay and suspense and effectlessness in their faces-expressions which begged to know what this returning on a Ranyhyn meant.

He nodded to their silent salute, then dropped heavily from Drinny’s back and moved a step or two closer to them. On the only level for which he had sufficient strength-the level of his authority-he answered them. He spoke softly, but his voice was raw with peril. “Hear me. I am Mhoram son of Variol, High Lord by the choice of the Council. I have taken my decision. Hear me and obey. Warmark Quaan, Drinny of the Ranyhyn must be given care. He must be fed and healed-he must be returned swiftly to his strength. I will ride him soon.

“Lords, Hearthralls, Warmark-the watchtower of Revelstone must be regained. The gates of the Keep must be cleared. Do it swiftly. Warmark, ready the horses of the Warward. Prepare all mounted warriors and as many unmounted as you deem fit-prepare them to march against samadhi Satansfist. We strike as soon as our way has been made clear.”

He could see that his commands stunned them, that they were appalled at the mad prospect of attacking the Raver’s army. But he did not offer them any aid, any reassurance. When the time came for the certain death of his purpose, he hoped to leave behind him men and women who had proved to themselves that they could meet extreme needs-leaders who had learned that they could do without him.

Yet he could not refuse to explain the reason for his commands. “My friends,” he went on with the rawness livid in his tone, “the light of the krill has failed. You know the meaning of this. Thomas Covenant has left the Land-or has fallen to his death — or has been bereft of his ring. Therein lies our sole hope. If the Unbeliever lives-and while the wild magic has not been brought into use against us — we can hope that he will regain his ring.

“We must act on this hope. It is small-but all hopes are small in this extremity. It is our work to redeem victory from the blood and havoc of despair. We must act. Surely the Despiser knows that ur-Lord Covenant has lost the white gold-if it has been lost and not withdrawn from the Land or captured. Therefore his thoughts may be turned from us for a time. In that time we may have some hope of success against samadhi Raver. And if Lord Foul seeks to prevent the Unbeliever’s recovery of his ring, we may give a distant aid to ur-Lord Covenant by requiring the Despiser to look toward us again.”

He could not bear to watch the aghast supplications which wrung the faces of his friends. He put his arm over Drinny’s neck and concluded as if he were speaking to the Ranyhyn, “This choice is mine. I will ride against Satansfist alone if I must. But this act must be made.”

At last, Amatin found herself to gasp, “Melenkurion! Melenkurion abatha! Mhoram, have you learned nothing from Trell Atiaran-mate- from the Bloodguard-from Kevin Landwaster himself? You beg yourself to become a Desecrator. In this way, we learn to destroy that which we love!”

High Lord Mhoram’s reply had the sting of authority. “Warmark, I will take no warrior with me who has not accepted this hazard freely. You must explain to the Warward that the light of Loric’s krill has failed.”

He ached to rush to his friends, ached to throw his arms around them, hug them, show them in some way his love and his terrible need for them. But he knew himself; he knew he would be utterly unable to leave them if they did not first show their independence to themselves and him by meeting alone his extreme demands. His own courage hung too much on the verge of faltering; he needed some demonstration from them to help him follow the strait line of faith. So he contained himself by hugging Drinny tightly for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked stiffly away to his private chambers.

He spent the next days alone, trying to rest-searching himself for some resource which would enable him to bear the impossibility and the uselessness of his decision. But a fever was on his soul. The foundation of serenity which had sustained him for so long seemed to have eroded. Whether he lay on his bed, or ate, or paced his chambers, or studied, he could feel a great emptiness in the heart of the Keep where the krill’s fire should have been. He had not realized how much that white blaze had taught him to rely on the Unbeliever. Its quenching left him face to face with futile death-death for himself, for Drinny, for any who dared follow him-death that could only be trusted to foreshorten Revelstone’s survival. So he spent large stretches of the time on his hands and knees on the floor, probing through the stone in an effort to sense how his commands were being met.

Without difficulty he read the preparations of the Warward. The few hundred horses which had been stabled in the Keep were being made ready. The duty rotations of the warriors were changed so that those who chose to follow the High Lord could rest and prepare. And as a result, the burden of resisting samadhi’s attacks fell on fewer shoulders. Soon the defence took on a febrile pitch which matched Mhoram’ s own fever. His commands had hastened the Warward’s ineluctable decline into frenzy and desperation. He ground his teeth on that pain and hunted elsewhere in the city for the Lords.

He found that Lord Amatin had retreated to the isolation of the Loresraat’s libraries, but Trevor, Loerya, and Hearthrall Tohrm were active. Together, Lord Trevor and Tohrm went down into one of the unfrequented caverns directly under the tower. There they combined their lore in a rite dangerously similar to Trell’s destruction of the Close, and sent a surge of heat up through the stone into the passages of the tower. They stoked the heat for a day, raised it against the enemy until the Cavewights and creatures began to abandon the tower.

And when the lowest levels were empty, Lord Loerya led several Eoman in an assault. Under cover of darkness, they leaped from the main Keep into the sand, crossed the courtyard, and entered the tower to fight their way upward. By the dawn of the third day, they were victorious. Makeshift crosswalks were thrown up over the courtyard, and hundreds of archers rushed across to help secure the tower.

Their success gave Mhoram a pride in them that eased his distress for a time. He doubted that the tower could be held for more than a day or two, but a day or two would be enough, if the rest of his commands were equally met.

Then, during the third day, Amatin returned to work. She had spent the time in an intense study of certain arcane portions of the Second Ward which High Lord Mhoram himself had never grasped, and there she had found the rites and invocations she sought. Armed with that knowledge, she went to the abutments directly above the courtyard, made eldritch signs and symbols on the stone, wove rare gestures, chanted songs in the lost language of the Old Lords-and below her the sandy remains of the dead slowly parted. They pulled back far enough to permit the opening of the gates, far enough to permit an army to ride out of Revelstone.

Her achievement drew Mhoram from his chambers to watch. When she was done, she collapsed in his arms, but he was so proud of her that his concern was dominated by relief. When the Healers assured him she would soon recover if she were allowed to rest, he left her and went to the stables to see Drinny.

He found a Ranyhyn that hardly resembled the ragged, worn horse he had ridden into Revelstone. Good food and treatment had rekindled the light in Drinny’s eyes, renewed his flesh, restored elasticity to his muscles. He pranced and nickered for Mhoram as if to show the High Lord he was ready.

Such things rejuvenated Mhoram. Without further hesitation, he told Warmark Quaan that he would ride out against the Raver the next morning.

But late that night, while Trevor, Loerya, and Quaan all struggled against a particularly fierce flurry of onslaughts, Lord Amatin came to Mhoram’s rooms. She did not speak, but her wan, bruised aspect caught at his heart. Her labours had done something to her; in straining herself so severely, she had lost her defences, left herself exposed to perils and perceptions for which she was neither willing nor apt. This vulnerability gave her a look of abjection, as if she had come to cast herself at Mhoram’s feet.

Without a word, she raised her hands to the High Lord. In them she held the krill of Loric.

He accepted it without dropping his gaze from her face. “Ah, sister Amatin,” he breathed gently, “you should rest. You have earned-“

But a spasm of misery around her eyes cut him off. He looked down, made himself look at the krill.

Deep in its gem, he saw faint glimmerings of emerald.

Without a word, Amatin turned and left him alone with the knowledge that Covenant’s ring had fallen into the power of the Despiser.

When he left his rooms the next morning, he looked like a man who had spent the night wrestling in vain against his own damnation. His step had lost its conviction; he moved as if his very bones were loose and bending. And the dangerous promise of his gaze had faded, leaving his eyes dull, stricken. He bore the krill within his robe and could feel Lord Foul’s sick emerald hold upon it growing. Soon, he knew, the cold of the green would begin to burn his flesh. But he was past taking any account of such risks. He dragged himself forward as if he were on his way to commit a perfidy which appalled him.

In the great entrance hall a short distance within Revelstone’s still-closed gates, he joined the warriors. They were ranked by Eoman, and he saw at a glance that they numbered two thousand: one Howard on horseback and four on foot-a third of the surviving Warward. He faltered at the sight; he had not expected to be responsible for so many deaths. But the warriors hailed him bravely, and he forced himself to respond as if he trusted himself to lead them. Then he moved in anguish to the forefront, where Drinny awaited him.

The Lords and Warmark Quaan were there with the Ranyhyn, but he passed by them because he could not meet their eyes, and tried to mount. His muscles failed him; he was half paralyzed by dread and could not leap high enough to gain Drinny’s back. Shaking on the verge of an outcry, he clung to the horse for support, and beseeched himself for the serenity which had been his greatest resource.

Yet he could not make the leap; Drinny’s back was too high for him. He ached to ask for help. But before he could force words through his locked throat, he felt Quaan behind him, felt Quaan’s hand on his shoulder. The old Warmark’s voice was gruff with urgency as he said, “High Lord, this risk will weaken Revelstone. A third of the Warward-two thousand lives wasted. High Lord-why? Have you become like Kevin Landwaster? Do you wish to destroy that which you love?”

“No!” Mhoram whispered because the tightness of his throat blocked any other sound. With his hands, he begged Drinny for strength. “I do not-I do not forget-I am the High Lord. The path of faith is clear. I must follow it-because it is not despair.”

“You will teach us despair-if you fail.”

Mhoram heard the pain in Quaan’s voice, and he compelled himself to answer. He could not refuse Quaan’s need; he was too weak, but he could not refuse. “No. Lord Foul teaches despair. It is an easier lesson than courage.” Slowly, he turned around, met first Quaan’s gaze, then the eyes of the Lords. “An easier lesson,” he repeated. “Therefore the counsels of despair and hate can never triumph over Despite.”

But his reply only increased Quaan’s pain. While knuckles of distress clenched Quaan’s open face, he moaned brokenly, “Ah, my Lord. Then why do you delay? Why do you fear?”

“Because I am mortal, weak. The way is only clear-not sure. In my time, I have been a seer and oracle. Now I–I desire a sign. I require to see.”

He spoke simply, but almost at once his mortality, his weakness, became too much for him. Tears blurred his vision. The burden was not one that he could bear alone. He opened his arms and was swept into the embrace of the Lords.

The melding of their minds reached him, poured into him on the surge of their united concern. Folded within their arms and their thoughts, he felt their love soothe him, fill him like water after a long thirst, feed his hunger. Throughout the siege, he had given them his strength, and now they returned strength to him. With quiet diffidence, Lord Trevor restored his crippled sense of endurance in service-a fortitude which came, not from the server, but from the preciousness of the thing served. Lord Loerya shared with him her intense instinct for protection, her capacity for battle on behalf of children-loved ones who could not defend themselves. And Lord Amatin, though she was still frail herself, gave him the clear, uncluttered concentration of her study, her lore-wisdom- a rare gift which for his sake she proffered separate from her distrust of emotion.

In such melding, he began to recover himself. Blood seemed to return to his veins; his muscles uncramped; his bones remembered their rigor. He accepted the Lords deep into himself, and in response he shared with them all the perceptions which made his decision necessary. Then he rested on their love and let it assuage him.

His appetite for the meld seemed to have no bottom, but after a time the contact was interrupted by a strident voice so full of strange thrills that none of the Lords could refuse to hear it. A sentry raced into the hall clamouring for their attention, and when they looked at her she shouted, “The Raver is attacked! His army-the encampment-! It is under attack. By Waynhim! They are few-few- but the Raver had no defences on that side, and they have already done great damage. He has called his army back from Revelstone to fight them!”

High Lord Mhoram whirled away, ordering the Warward to readiness as he moved. He heard Warmark Quaan echo his commands. A look full of dire consequences for the Raver passed between them; then Quaan leaped onto his own horse, a tough, mountain-bred mustang. To one side among the warriors, Mhoram saw Hearthrall Borillar mounting. He started to order Borillar down; Hirebrands were not fighters. But then he remembered how much hope Borillar had placed in Thomas Covenant, and left the Hearthrall alone.

Loerya was already on her way to aid the defences of the tower, keep it secure so that the Warward would be able to re-enter Revelstone. Trevor had gone to the gates. Only Amatin remained to see the danger shining in Mhoram’s eyes. She held him briefly, then released him, muttering, “It would appear that the-Waynhim have made the same decision.”

Mhoram spun and leaped lightly onto Drinny’s back. The Ranyhyn whinnied; peals of pride and defiance resounded through the hall. As the huge gates opened outward on the courtyard, Mhoram sent Drinny forward at a canter.

The Warward started into motion behind him, and at its head High Lord Mhoram rode out to war.

In a moment, he flashed through the gates, across the courtyard between steep banks of sand and earth, into the straight tunnel under the tower. Drinny stretched jubilantly under him, exalted by health and running and the scent of battle. As Mhoram passed through the splintered remains of the outer gates, he had already begun to outdistance the Warward.

Beyond the gates, he wheeled Drinny once, gave himself an instant in which to look back up at the lofty Keep. He saw no warriors in the tower, but he sensed them bristling behind the fortifications and windows. The bluff stone of the tower, with Revelstone rising behind it like the prow of a great ship, answered his gaze in granite permanence as if it were a prophecy by the old Giants-a cryptic perception that victory and defeat were human terms which had no meaning in the language of mountains.

Then the riders came cantering through the throat of the tower, and Mhoram turned to look at the enemy. For the first time, he saw samadhi’s army from ground level. It stood blackly in the bleak winterscape around him like a garrote into which he had prematurely thrust his neck. Briefly, he remembered other battles-Kiril Threndor, Doom’s Retreat, Doriendor Corishev-as if they had been child’s play, mere shadows cast by the struggle he now faced. But he pushed them out of his mind, bent his attention toward the movements in the foothills below him.

As the sentry had said, Revelstone’s attackers were pelting furiously back toward their encampment. It was only a few hundred yards distant, and Mhoram could see clearly why samadhi’s forces had been recalled. The Giant-Raver was under assault by a tight wedge of ten-or fifteenscore Waynhim.

Satansfist himself was not their target, though he fought against them personally with feral blasts of green. The Waynhim struck against the undefended rear of the encampment in order to destroy its food supplies. They had already incinerated great long troughs of the carrion and gore on which Lord Foul’s creatures fed; and while they warded off the scourge of Satansfist’s Stone as best they could, they assailed other stores, flash-fired huge aggregations of hacked dead flesh into cinders.

Even if they had faced the Raver alone, they would have had no chance to survive. With his Giantish strength and his fragment of the Illearth Stone-with the support of the Staff of Law-he could have beaten back ten or fifteen thousand Waynhim. And he had an army to help him. Hundreds of ur-viles were nearly within striking distance; thousands of other creatures converged toward the fighting from all directions. The Waynhim had scant moments of life left.

Yet they fought on, resisted samadhi’s emerald ill with surprising success. Like the ur-viles, they were Demondim-spawn- masters of a dark and potent lore which no Lord had ever touched. And they had not wasted the seven and forty years since they had gone into hiding. They had prepared themselves to resist Despite. Yelping rare words of power, gesturing urgently, they shrugged off the Raver’s blasts, and continued to destroy every trough and accumulation of food they could reach.

All this High Lord Mhoram took in almost instantly. The raw wind hurt his face, made his eyes burn, but he thrust his vision through the blur to see. And he saw that, because of the Waynhim, he and the Warward had not yet been noticed by Satansfist’s army.

“Warmark,” he snapped, “we must aid the Waynhim! Give the commands.”

Rapidly, Quaan barked his instructions to the mounted warriors and the Hafts of the four unmounted Howard as they came through the tunnel. At once, a hundred riders positioned themselves on either side of the High Lord. The remaining two hundred fell into ranks behind him. Without breaking stride, the unmounted warriors began to run.

Mhoram touched Drinny and started at a slow gallop straight down through the foothills toward the Raver.

Some distant parts of the encampment saw the riders before they had covered a third of the distance. Hoarse cries of warning sprang up on all sides; ur-viles, Cavewights, Stone-made creatures which had not already been ordered to the Giant-Raver’s aid, swept like a ragged tide at the Warward. But the confusion around the Waynhim prevented Satansfist’s immediate forces from hearing the alarm. The Raver did not turn his head. Revelstone’s counterattack was nearly upon him before he saw his danger.

In the last distance, Warmark Quaan shouted an order, and the riders broke into full gallop. Mhoram had time for one final look at his situation. The forces around samadhi were still locked in their concentration on the Waynhim. The Raver’s reinforcements were long moments away. If Quaan’s warriors could hit hard enough, break through toward the Waynhim fast enough, the unmounted Howard might be able to protect their rear long enough for them to strike once at the Raver and withdraw.

That way, some of the warriors might survive to return to the Keep.

Mhoram sent Drinny forward at a pace which put him among the first riders crashing into Satansfist’s unready hordes.

They impacted with a shock that shook the High Lord in his seat. Horses plunged, hacked with their hooves. Swords were brandished like metal lightning. Shrieks of surprised pain and rage shivered the air as disorganized ranks of creatures went down under the assault. Heaving their mounts forward, the warriors cut their way in toward the Raver.

But thousands of creatures milled between them and Satansfist. Though the hordes were in confusion, the’ sheer weight of their numbers slowed the Warward’s charge.

Seeing this, Quaan gave new orders. On his command, the warriors flanking Mhoram turned outward on either side, cleared a space between them for the riders behind the High Lord. These Eoman sprinted forward. When they reached Mhoram, he called up the power of his staff. Blue fire raged ahead of him like the point of a lance, piercing the wall of enemies as he led the second rush of riders deeper into the turmoil of the Raver’s army.

For a moment, he thought they might succeed. The warriors with him hacked their way swiftly through the enemy. And ahead of them, Satansfist turned from the Waynhim to meet this new threat. The Raver howled orders to organize his army, turned his forces against the Warward, surged a few furious strides in that direction. Mhoram saw the distance shorten. He wielded his Lords-fire fiercely, striving to reach his foe before the impossible numbers of the enemy broke his momentum.

But then the riders ploughed into an obstacle. A band of Cavewights had had time to obey the Raver’s commands; they had lined themselves across the path of the Warward, linked their strong earth-delvers’ arms, braced themselves. When the riders plunged forward, they crashed into the creatures.

The strength of the Cavewights was so great that their line held. Horses were thrown down. Riders tumbled to the ground, both before and beyond the wall. The charge of the Warward was turned against itself as the horses which followed stumbled and trampled among the leaders.

Only Mhoram was not unhorsed. At the last instant, Drinny gathered himself, leaped; he hurdled the line easily, kicking at the heads of the Cavewights as he passed.

With the riders who had been thrown beyond the wall, Mhoram found himself faced by a massing wedge of ur-viles.

The Cavewights cut him off from the Warward. And the falling of the horses gave samadhi’s creatures a chance to strike back. Before Quaan could organize any kind of assault on the Cavewights, his warriors were fighting for their lives where they stood.

Wheeling Drinny, Mhoram saw that he would get no help from the riders. But if he went back to them, fought the wall himself, the ur-viles would have time to complete their wedge; they would have the riders at their mercy.

At once, he sent the warriors with him to attack the Cavewights. Then he flung himself like a bolt of Lords-fire at the ur-viles.

He was only one man against several hundred of the black, roynish creatures. But he had unlocked the secret of High Lord Kevin’s Lore; he had learned the link between power and passion; he was mightier than he had ever been before. Using all the force his staff could bear, he shattered the formation like a battering ram, broke and scattered ur-viles like rubble. With Drinny pounding, kicking, slashing under him, he held his staff in both hands, whirled it about him, sent vivid blasts blaring like the blue fury of the cloud-damned heavens, shouting in a rapture of rage like an earthquake. And the ur-viles staggered as if the sky had fallen on them, collapsed as if the ground had bucked under their feet. He fired his way through them like a titan, and did not stop until he had reached the bottom of a low hollow in the hills.

There he spun, and discovered that he had completely lost the Warward. The riders had been thrown back; in the face of insuperable odds, Quaan had probably taken them to join the unmounted warriors so that they could combine their strength in an effort to save the High Lord.

On the opposite rim of the hollow, Satansfist stood glaring down at Mhoram. He held his Stone cocked to strike, and the mad lust of the Raver was in his Giantish face. But he turned away without attacking, disappeared beyond the rim as if he had decided that the Waynhim were a more serious threat than High Lord Mhoram.

“Satansfist!” Mhoram yelled. “Samadhi Sheol! Return and fight me! Are you craven, that you dare not risk a challenge?”

As he shouted, he hit Drinny with his heels, launched the Ranyhyn in pursuit of Satansfist. But in the instant that his attention was turned upward, the surviving ur-viles rallied. Instead of retreating to form a wedge, they flung themselves at him. He could not swing his staff; ravenous black hands clutched at him, clawed his arms, caught hold of his robe.

Drinny fought back, but he succeeded only in pulling himself out from under the High Lord. Mhoram lost his seat and went down under a pile of rabid black bodies.

Blood-red Demondim blades flared at him. But before any of the eldritch knives could bite his flesh, he mustered an eruption of force which blasted the ur-viles away. Instantly, he was on his feet again, wielding his staff, crushing every creature that came near him-searching fervidly for his mount.

The Ranyhyn was already gone, driven out of the hollow.

Suddenly, Mhoram was alone. The last ur-viles fled, leaving him with the dead and dying. In their place came a fatal silence that chilled his blood. Either the fighting had ended, or the livid wind carried all sounds away; he could hear nothing but the low cruel voice of Lord Foul’s winter, and his own hoarse respiration.

The abrupt absence of clamour and turmoil kept him still also. He wanted to shout for Quaan but could not raise his voice through the horror in his throat-wanted to whistle for Drinny, but could not bring himself to break the awful quietude. He was too astonished with dread.

The next instant, he realized that the Raver had trapped him. He sprang into a run, moving away from the Warward, toward the Waynhim, hoping that this choice would take the trap by surprise.

It was too complete to be surprised. Before he had gone a dozen yards, creatures burst into view around the entire rim of the hollow. Hundreds of them let him see them; they stood leering down at him, pawing the ground hungrily, slavering at the anticipated taste of his blood and bones. The wind bore their throaty lust down to him as if they gave tongue to the animating spirit of the winter.

He was alone against them.

He retreated to the centre of the hollow, hunted swiftly around the rim for some gap or weakness in the surrounding horde. He found none. And though he sent his perceptions ranging as far as he could through the air, he discovered no sign of the Warward; if the warriors were still alive, still fighting, they were blocked from his senses by the solid force of the trap.

As he grasped the utterness of his plight, he turned inward, retreated into himself as if he were fleeing. There he looked the end of all his hopes and all his Landservice in the face, and found that its scarred, terrible visage no longer appalled him. He was a fighter, a man born to fight for the Land. As long as something for which he could fight remained, he was impervious to terror. And something did remain; while he lived, at least one flame of love for the Land still burned. He could fight for that.

His crooked lips stretched into an extreme and perilous grin; hot, serene triumph shone in his eyes. “Come, then!” he shouted. “If your master is too much a coward to risk himself against me, then come for me yourselves! I do not wish to harm you, but if you dare me, I will give you death!”

Something in his voice halted them momentarily. They hesitated, moiling uneasily. But almost at once the grip of their malice locked like jaws. At the harsh shout of a command, they started down toward him from all sides like an avalanche.

He did not wait for them. He swung in the direction Satansfist had taken, intending to pursue the Raver as far as his strength would carry him. But some instinct or intuition tugged him at the last instant, deflected him to one side. He turned and met that part of the avalanche head-on.

Now the only thing which limited his might was his staff itself. That wood had been shaped by people who had not understood Kevin’s Lore; it was not formed to bear the force he now sent blazing through it. But he had no margin for caution. He made the staff surpass itself, sent it bucking and crackling with power to rage against his assailants. His flame grew incandescent, furnace-hot; in brilliance and coruscation it sliced through his foes like a scythe of sun-fire.

In moments, their sheer numbers filled all his horizons, blocked everything but their dark assault out of his awareness. He saw nothing else, felt nothing but huge waves of misshapen fiends that sought to deluge him, knew nothing but their ravening lust for blood and his blue, fiery passion. Though they threw themselves at him in scores and hundreds, he met them, cut them down, blasted them back. Wading through their corpses as if they were the very sea of death, he fought them with fury in his veins, indomitability in his bones, extravagant triumph in his eyes.

Yet they outweighed him. They were too many. Any moment now, one of them would drive a sword into his back, and he would be finished. Through the savage clash of combat, he heard a high, strange cry of victory, but he hardly knew that he had made it himself.

Then, unexpectedly, he glimpsed the light of a fire through a brief gap in his attackers. It disappeared instantly, vanished as if it had never happened. But he had recognized it. He shouted again and began to fight toward it. Ignoring the danger at his back, he reaped a break in the avalanche ahead. There he saw the fire again.

It was the blaze of a Hirebrand.

On the rim of the hollow, Hearthrall Borillar and the last of the Waynhim fought together against Mhoram’s foes. Borillar used his flaming staff like a mace, and the Waynhim supported him with their own powers. Together they struggled impossibly to rescue the High Lord.

At the sight of them, Mhoram faltered; he could see immense monsters rising up to smite them, and their peril interrupted his concentration. But he recovered, surged toward them, driving his staff until it screamed in his hands.

Too many creatures were pressed between him and his rescuers; he could not reach them in time. While he fought slipping and ploughing through the blood, he saw Borillar slain, saw the formation of the Waynhim broken, scattered. He almost fell himself under his inability to help them.

But with their deaths they had purchased a thinning in the flood of attackers at that point. Through that thinning came Drinny of the Ranyhyn, bucking and charging to regain his rider.

His violent speed carried him down into the hollow. He crashed through creatures, leaped over them, hacked them out of his way. Before they could brace themselves to meet him, Drinny had reached the High Lord.

Mhoram sprang onto the Ranyhyn’s back. From that vantage, he brought his power down on the heads of his assailants, while Drinny kicked and plunged back up the hillside. In moments, they crested the rim and broke into clearer ground beyond it.

As he guided Drinny ahead, Mhoram caught a glimpse of the Warward. It had rallied around Quaan and was struggling in the High Lord’s direction. The riders charged to break up the ranks of the enemy, then the other warriors rushed to take advantage of the breach. But they were completely engulfed-a small, valiant island in the sea of Satansfist’s army. Their progress was tortuous, their losses atrocious. High Lord Mhoram knew of only one effective way to help them, and he took Drinny toward it without an instant of hesitation.

Together, they pursued samadhi Raver.

Satansfist was only fifty yards away. He stood on a knoll from which he could direct the battle. And he was alone; all his forces were engaged elsewhere. He towered atop the hill like a monolith of hatred and destruction, wielding his army with the force of green ill.

Holding his staff ready, Mhoram sent the Ranyhyn lunging straight into the teeth of the winter-straight at samadhi. When he was scant strides away from his foe, he cried his challenge:

“Melenkurion abatha! Duroc minas mill khabaal!”

With all his strength, he levelled a blast of Lords-fire at the Raver’s leering skull.

Satansfist knocked the attack down as if it were negligible; disdainfully, he slapped Mhoram’s blue out of the air with his Stone and returned a bolt so full of cold emerald force that it scorched the atmosphere as it moved.

Mhoram sensed its power, knew that it would slay him if it struck. But Drinny dodged with a fleet, fluid motion which belied the wrenching change of his momentum. The bolt missed, crashed instead into the creatures pursuing the High Lord, killed them all.

That gave Mhoram the instant he needed. He corrected Drinny’s aim, cocked his staff over his shoulder. Before samadhi could unleash another blast, the High Lord was upon him.

Using all Drinny’s speed, all the strength of his body, all the violated passion of his love for the Land, Mhoram swung. His staff caught Satansfist squarely across the forehead.

The concussion ripped Mhoram from his seat like a dry leaf in the wind. His staff shattered at the blow, exploded into splinters, and he hit the ground amid a brief light rain of wood slivers. He was stunned. He rolled helplessly a few feet over the frozen earth, could not stop himself, could not regain his breath. His mind went blank for an instant, then began to ache as his body ached. His hands and arms were numb, paralyzed by the force which had burned through them.

Yet even in his daze, he had room for a faint amazement at what he had done.

His blow had staggered Satansfist, knocked him backward. The Giant-Raver had fallen down the far side of the knoll.

With a gasp, Mhoram began to breathe again. Spikes of sensation dug into his arms; dazzling pain filled his vision. He tried to move, and after a moment succeeded in rolling onto his side. His hands hung curled on the ends of his wrists as if they were crippled, but he shifted his shoulder and elbow, turned himself onto his stomach, then levered himself with his forearms until he gained his knees. There he rested while the pain of returning life stabbed its way down into his fingers.

The sound of heavy steps, heavy breathing, made him look up.

Samadhi Sheol stood over him.

Blood poured from Satansfist’s forehead into his eyes, but instead of blinding him, it seemed only to enrich his raving ferocity. His lips were contorted with a paroxysm of savage glee; ecstatic rage shone on his wet teeth. In the interlocked clasp of his fists, the Illearth Stone burned and fumed as if it were on the brink of apotheosis.

Slowly, he raised the Stone over Mhoram’s head like an axe.

Transfixed, stunned-as helpless as a sacrifice-Mhoram watched his death rise and poise above him.

In the distance, he could hear Quaan shouting wildly, uselessly, “Mhoram! Mhoram!” On the ground nearby, Drinny groaned and strove to regain his feet. Everywhere else there was silence. The whole battle seemed to have paused in midblow to watch Mhoram’s execution. And he could do nothing but kneel and regret that so many lives had been spent for such an end.

Yet when the change of the air came an instant later, it was so intense, so vibrant and thrilling, that it snatched him to his feet. It made Satansfist arrest his blow, gape uncomprehendingly into the sky, then drop his fists and whirl to shout strident curses at the eastern horizon.

For that moment, Mhoram also only gaped and gasped. He could not believe his senses, could not believe the touch of the air on his cold-punished face. He seemed to be tasting something which had been lost from human experience.

Then Drinny lurched up, braced himself on splayed legs, and raised his head to neigh in recognition of the change. His whinny was weak and strained, but it lifted Mhoram’s heart like the trumpets of triumph.

While he and Satansfist and all the armies stared at it, the wind faltered. It limped, spurting and fluttering in the air like a wounded bird, then fell lifeless to the ground.

For the first time since Lord Foul’s preternatural winter had begun, there was no wind. Some support or compulsion had been withdrawn from samadhi Satansfist.

With a howl of rage, the Raver spun back toward Mhoram. “Fool!” he screamed as if the High Lord had let out a shout of jubilation.’ “That was but one weapon of many! I will yet drink your heart’ s blood to the bottom!” Reeling under the weight of his fury, he lifted his fists again to deliver the executing blow.

But now Mhoram felt the fire which burned against his flesh under his robe. In a rush of exaltation, he understood it, grasped its meaning intuitively. As the Stone reached its height over his head, he tore open his robe and grasped Loric’s krill.

Its gem blazed like a hot white brazier in his hands. It was charged to overflowing with echoes of wild magic; he could feel its keenness as he gripped its hilt.

It was a weapon strong enough to bear any might.

His eyes met Satansfist’s. He saw dismay and hesitation clashing against the Raver’s rage, against samadhi Sheol’s ancient malice and the supreme confidence of the Stone.

Before Satansfist could defend himself, High Lord Mhoram sprang up and drove the krill deep into his bosom.

The Raver shrieked in agony. With Mhoram hanging from the blade in his chest, he flailed his arms as if he could not find anything to strike, anywhere to exert his colossal outrage. Then he dropped to his knees.

Mhoram planted his feet on the ground and braced himself to retain his grip on the krill. Through the focus of that blade, he drove all his might deeper and deeper toward the Giant-Raver’s heart.

Yet samadhi did not die. Faced with death, he found a way to resist. Both his fists clenched the Stone only a foot above the back of Mhoram’s neck. With all the rocky, Giantish strength of his frame, he began to squeeze.

Savage power steamed and pulsed like the beating of a heart of ice-a heart labouring convulsively, pounding and quivering to carry itself through a crisis. Mhoram felt the beats crash against the back of his spine. They kept Satansfist alive while they strove to quench the power which drove the krill

But Mhoram endured the pain, did not let go; he leaned his weight on the blazing blade, ground it deeper and still deeper toward the essential cords of samadhi’s life. Slowly, his flesh seemed to disappear, fade as if he were being translated by passion into a being of pure force, of unfettered spirit and indomitable will. The Stone hammered at his back like a mounting cataclysm, and Satansfist’s chest heaved against his hands in great, ragged, bloody gasps.

Then the cords were cut.

Pounding beyond the limits of control, the Illearth Stone exploded, annihilated itself with an eruption that hurled Mhoram and Satansfist tumbling inextricably together from the knoll. The blast shook the ground, tore a hole in the silence over the battle. One slow instant of stunned amazement gripped the air, then vanished in the dismayed shrieks of the Despiser’s army.

Moments later, Warmark Quaan and the surviving remnant of his mounted Howard dashed to the foot of the knoll. Quaan threw himself from his horse and leaped to the High Lord’s side.

Mhoram’s robe draped his bloodied and begrimed form in tatters; it had been shredded by the explosion. His hands as they gripped the krill were burned so badly that only black rags of flesh still clung to his bones. From head to foot, his body had the look of pain and brokenness. But he was still alive, still breathing faintly, fragilely.

Fear, weariness, hesitation dropped off Quaan as if they were meaningless. He took the krill, wrapped it, and placed it under his belt, then with celerity and care lifted the High Lord in his arms. For an instant, he looked around. He saw Drinny nearby, shaking his head and mane to throw off the effects of the blast. He saw the Despiser’s army seething in confusion and carnage. He hoped that it would fall apart without the Raver’s leadership and coercion. But then he saw also that the ur-viles were rallying, taking charge of the creatures around them, reorganizing the hordes.

In spite of the High Lord’s weight, Quaan ran and vaulted onto Drinny’s back. Shouting to the Warward, “Retreat! Return to the Keep! The Grey Slayer has not lost his hold!” he clapped Drinny with his heels and took the Ranyhyn at a full gallop toward the open gates of Revelstone.