The Last Dark

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  When she focused her senses on Jeremiah, her eyes went wide. Realizations scudded across the background of her gaze. In a startled tone, she breathed, “You brought him back.”

  Covenant nodded. He felt suddenly drained, weak in every limb, as if he had passed a test which might have broken him.

  To Handir, he said in a wan voice, “The direct road. Jeremiah is right. We don’t have time for anything else.”

  He knew what direct meant. It would require more killing.

  Rime Coldspray stood over the old Haruchai. “If the path is perilous,” she asked, “what form do its hazards take?”

  Handir frowned up at her. “For a portion of its length, Ironhand, we will be exposed to assault on all sides.”

  She snarled a curse. Then she gave Covenant a look full of reflected argent. “Aye, Timewarden. If we must kill and die, then let us do so swiftly and be done.”

  At once, she turned to the sailors. Sure of herself now, she told them to help the Masters guard the rear of the company.

  Branl had retrieved the krill. As he restored it to Covenant, he said, “Be wary, ur-Lord. Your son has not yet opposed us. Moksha Raver remains. And we do not doubt that Corruption has other servants.”

  With a mental command, Handir sent the newly arrived Masters to support the sailors. Joined by Canrik and Dast, Samil and Vortin, he started along the passage. The Swordmainnir followed at his back. Gesturing for the Cords, Covenant accompanied Branl. Stave urged Linden and Jeremiah forward.

  Through the thick midnight of the Wightwarrens, Covenant bore the only light. He tried to hold it steady, but his arm wavered like his thoughts. Be wary. Roger and Cavewights and moksha Jehannum. Cirrus Kindwind. Baf Scatterwit. Scores of slain Haruchai. And for what? Not for him. Not even for Linden. Lord Foul was not afraid of them. He believed that he had already triumphed. Nothing that they did could stop the Worm.

  No, it was all for Jeremiah: all the threats and bloodshed, all the striving and woe. So that the Despiser would be able to take him.

  Covenant could only pray that Jeremiah would eventually find a way to resist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Linden regarded him with desperation in her eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

  There he found himself facing a rocklit chasm.

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

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

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

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

  Homes implied families. Families implied children.

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

  Thousands of homes. The Cavewightish version of a city.

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

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

  Any uncontrolled wild magic here would incinerate children.

  —on bridges that spanned the chasm.

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

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

  —exposed to assault on all sides. Bloody damnation!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  On both sides, his companions were already fighting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Dizzy and wandering, he followed the Swordmainnir.

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

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

  Handir and his warriors formed a shield around Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah. The Haruchai countered a barrage of throws. Handir caught one spear, blocked another. A third pierced his chest, cast him silent as a stone into the chasm.

  Snagging shafts from the air, Canrik and the other Masters advanced as though their leader’s death changed nothing. When one of Vortin’s comrades mistimed a catch and was gutted, none of the warriors flinched.

  Covenant felt the shock as Rime Coldspray crashed against the torrent of Cavewights. She should have fallen: the impact would have split a slab of marble. Yet she stood. At her back, Grueburn braced her with one hand—and Canrik, Dast, and Samil attacked as if they were born to the use of weapons—

  —and the enfilade of spears stopped. The creatures thronging along both walls could not throw now without hitting their own kind.

  Cavewights plunged like detritus from the bridge as Coldspray and Grueburn powered ahead.

&nb
sp; Out of the heights, a boulder struck the span where the sailors and the Cords raced upward. Bouncing away, the stone took two Masters with it.

  After that, Covenant lost sight of Stoutgirth and the others. He hardly knew where he was. His boots skidded in blood: he could not imagine how Branl and Linden kept him on his feet. His mind was whirling madness. He seemed to rise borne on a gyre of carnage.

  Then he was gasping on the flat shelf of the third level, and Linden was shouting his name, urgent as fever, and the bridge back across the gulf to the fifth level was only a dozen paces away. Cavewights came from both directions, but he had no time for them. He caught his balance on the sight of the span he had just crossed. Up the curve slick with slaughter, more Cavewights rose like executioners; like deserved death. They poured from the passage where the company had entered this habitation, gushed upward in a flood released by the dying of Masters.

  They were too many. That was all: they were just too many. The Swordmainnir and the Haruchai were already fighting desperately, drenched in blood. Trusting Covenant, Linden, and Jeremiah to Stave, Branl sprinted to support his kinsmen. Jeremiah trembled on the verge of panic, ready to hurl black devastation in all directions. Linden stood with him, but she looked lost, unable to help him: appalled or paralyzed. A deranged part of Covenant wanted to demolish the whole place, children and families and everything living. He and his companions could not survive more Cavewights.

  Suddenly calm, almost at peace with his dizziness, he went to face the creatures rising in rage up the bridge. Once again, he shaped wild magic along the blade of the krill, formed a longsword of fierce argent. With it, he began hacking great hunks of granite out of the span.

  When the Cavewights there saw what he was doing, they froze.

  Three blows cut halfway through the indurated substance of the bridge. The fourth sent shivers down its length. The stone screamed at its own weight.

  Shrieking, the creatures turned to flee. Most of them reached the lower ledge before the bridge fell in thunder. The rest plummeted.