The Illearth War

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Troy spoke for the first time since he had left Doriendor Corishev. “I’m blind,” he said in a hollow voice, as if that explained everything. “I can’t help it.” He pulled himself out of Quaan’s grasp, sat down near the fire. Locating the flames by their heat, he hunched toward them like a man studying secrets in the coals.

  Quaan turned to Mhoram. “Lord, do you accept this madness? It will mean death for us all—and destruction for the Land.”

  Quaan’s protest made the Lord’s heart ache. But before he could find words for any answer, Troy spoke suddenly.

  “No, he doesn’t,” the Warmark said. “He doesn’t actually think I’m a Raver.” Inner pain made his voice harsh. “He thinks Foul had a hand in summoning me—interfered with Atiaran somehow so that I showed up, instead of somebody else who might have looked less friendly.” He stressed the word looked, as if sight itself were inherently untrustworthy. “Foul wanted the Lords to trust me because he knew what kind of man I am. Dear God! It doesn’t matter how much I hate him. He knew I’m the kind of man who backs into corners where just being fallible is the same thing as treachery.

  “But you forget that it isn’t up to me anymore. I’ve done my part—I’ve put you where you haven’t got any choice. Now Mhoram has got to save you. It’s on his head.”

  Quaan appeared torn between dismay for the Warward and concern for Troy. “Even a Lord may be defeated,” he replied gruffly.

  “I’m not talking about a Lord,” Troy rasped. “I’m talking about Mhoram.”

  In his weariness, Lord Mhoram ached to deny this, to refuse the burden. He said, “Warmark, of course I will do all that lies within my strength. But if Lord Foul has chosen you for the work of our destruction—ah, then, my friend, all aid will not avail. The burden of this plan will return to you at the last.”

  “No.” Troy kept his face toward the fire, as if here reliving the acid burn which had blinded him. “You’ve given your whole life to the Land, and you’re going to give it now.”

  “The Despiser knows me well,” Mhoram breathed. “He ridicules me in my dreams.” He could hear echoes of that belittling mirth, but he held them at a distance. “Do not mistake me, Warmark. I do not flinch this burden. I accept it. On Kevin’s Watch I made my promise—and you dared this plan because of that promise. You have not done ill. But I must speak what is in my heart. You are the Warmark. I believe that the command of this fate must finally return to you.”

  “I’m blind. There’s nothing more I can do. Even Foul can’t ask any more of me.” The heat of the fire made the burn marks on his face lurid. He held his hands clasped together, and his knuckles were white.

  In distress, Quaan gazed at Mhoram with eyes that asked if he had been wrong to trust Troy.

  “No,” Lord Mhoram answered. “Do not pass judgment upon this mystery until it is complete. Until that time, we must keep faith.”

  “Very well,” Quaan sighed heavily. “If we have been betrayed, we have no recourse now. To flee into the Desert will accomplish only death. And Cravenhaw is a place to fight and die like any other. The Warward must not turn against itself when the last battle is near. I will stand with Warmark Troy.” Then he went to his blankets to search for sleep among his fears. Amorine followed his example dumbly, leaving Callindrill and Mhoram with Troy.

  Callindrill soon dropped into slumber. And Mhoram was too worn to remain awake. But Troy sat up by the embers of the campfire. As the Lord’s eyes closed, Troy was still huddled toward the flames like a cold cipher seeking some kind of remission for its frigidity.

  Apparently the Warmark found an answer during the long watch. When Lord Mhoram awoke the next morning, he found Troy erect, standing with his arms folded across his breastplate. The Lord studied him closely, but could not discern what kind of answer Troy had discovered. Gently he greeted the blind man.

  At the sound of Mhoram’s voice, Troy turned. He held his head with a slight sideward tilt, as if that position helped him focus his hearing. The old half smile which he had habitually worn during his years in Revelstone was gone, effaced from his lips. “Call Quaan,” he said flatly. “I want to talk to him.”

  Quaan was nearby; he heard Troy, and approached at once.

  Fixing the Hiltmark with his hearing, Troy said, “Guide me. I’m going to review the Warward.”

  “Troy, my friend,” Quaan murmured, “do not torment yourself.”

  Troy stood stiffly, rigid with exigency. “I’m the Warmark. I want to show my warriors that blindness isn’t going to stop me.”

  Mhoram felt a hot premonition of tears, but he held them back. He smiled crookedly at Quaan, nodded his answer to the old veteran’s question. Quaan saluted Troy, bravely ignoring the Warmark’s inability to see him. Then he took Troy’s arm, and led him away to the Eoward.

  Lord Mhoram watched their progress among the warriors—watched Quaan’s respectful pain guiding Troy’s erect helplessness from Eoman to Eoman. He endured the sight as best he could, and blinked down his own heart hurt. Fortunately the ordeal did not last long; Fleshharrower’s pursuit did not allow Troy time for a full review of the Warward. Soon Mhoram was mounted on his Ranyhyn, Drinny son of Hynaril, and riding on toward Cravenhaw.

  He spent most of that day watching over the Warmark. But the next morning, while the Warward made its final approach to Garroting Deep, he was forced to turn his attention to his task. He had to plan some way in which to keep his promise. He melded his thoughts with Lord Callindrill, and together they searched through their combined knowledges and intuitions for some key to Mhoram’s dilemma. In his dread, he hoped to gain courage from the melding, but the ache of Callindrill’s self-distrust denied him. Instead of receiving strength, Mhoram gave it.

  With Callindrill’s help, he prepared an approach to his task, arranged a series of possible answers according to their peril and likelihood of success. But by noon, he had found nothing definitive. Then he ran out of time. The Warward staggered to a halt at the very brink of Garroting Deep.

  There, face-to-face with the One Forest’s last remaining consciousness, Lord Mhoram began to taste the full gall of his inadequacy. The Deep’s dark, atavistic rage left him effectless; he felt like a man with no fingers. The first trees were within a dozen yards of him. Like irregular columns, they appeared suddenly out of the ground, with no shrubs or bushes leading up to them, and no underbrush cluttering the greensward on which they stood. They were sparse at first. As far back as he could see, they did not grow thickly enough to close out the sunlight. Yet a shadow deepened on them; mounting dimness spurned the sunlight. In the distance, the benighted will of the Forest became an almost tangible refusal of passage. He felt that he was peering into a chasm. The idea that any bargain could be made with such a place seemed to be madness, vanity woven of dream stuff. For a long time, he only stood before the Deep and stared, with a groan of cold dread on his soul.

  But Troy showed no hesitation. When Quaan told him where he was, he swung Mehryl around and began issuing orders. “All right, Hiltmark,” he barked, “let’s get ready for it. Food for everyone. Finish off the supplies, but make it fast. After that, move the warriors back beyond bowshot, and form an arc around Lord Mhoram. Make it as wide as possible, but keep it thick—I don’t want Fleshharrower to break through. Lord Callindrill, I think you should fight with the Warward. And Quaan—I’ll speak to the warriors while they’re eating. I’ll explain it all.”

  “Very well, Warmark.” Quaan sounded distant, withdrawn into the recessed stronghold of his courage; and the lines of his face were taut with resolution. He returned Troy’s blind salute, then turned and gave his own orders to Amorine. Together they went to make the Warward’s final preparations.

  Troy pulled Mehryl around again. He tried to face Mhoram, but missed by several feet. “Maybe you’d better get started,” he said. “You haven’t got much time.”

  “I will wait until you have spoken to the Warward.” Sadly Mhoram saw Troy grimace with vexation at the dis
covery that he had misjudged the Lord’s position. “I need strength. I must seek it awhile.”

  Troy nodded brusquely, and turned away as if he meant to watch the Warward’s preparations.

  Together they waited for Quaan’s signal. Lord Callindrill remained with them long enough to say, “Mhoram, the High Lord had no doubt of your fitness for the burden of these times. She is no ordinary judge of persons. My brother, your faith will suffice.” His voice was gentle, but it implicitly expressed his belief that his own faith did not suffice. When he walked away from the Deep to take his stand with the warriors, he left Mhoram wrestling with insistent tears.

  A short time later, Quaan reported that the Warward was ready to hear Troy. The Warmark asked Quaan to guide him to a place from which he could speak, and they trotted away together. Lord Mhoram walked after them. He wished to hear the Warmark’s speech.

  Troy stopped within the wide-seated arc of warriors. He did not need to ask for silence. Except for the noises of eating, the warriors were still, too exhausted to talk. They had marched and ached in blank silence for the last three days, and now they chewed their food with a kind of aghast lifelessness, ate as if compelled by an old habit unassoiled by any remaining endurance, desire. Moving their jaws, staring out of moistureless eyes, they looked like dusty skeletons, bare, dry bones animated by some obsession not their own.

  Mhoram could not hold back his tears. They ran down his jaw and spattered like warm pain on his hands where he held his staff.

  Yet he was glad that Troy could not see what his plans had done to the Warward.

  Warmark Hile Troy faced the warriors squarely, held up his head as if he were offering his burns for inspection. Sitting on Mehryl’s back, he was stiff with discipline—a rigid refusal of his own abjection. As he began to speak, his voice was hoarse with conflicting impulses, but he grew steadier as he continued.

  “Warriors!” he said abruptly. “We are here. For victory or defeat, this is the end. Today the outcome of this war will be decided.

  “Our position is desperate—but you know that. Fleshharrower is only a league away by now. We’re caught between his army and Garroting Deep. I want you to know that this is not an accident. We didn’t panic and run here out of fear. We didn’t come here because Fleshharrower forced us. You aren’t victims. We came here on my order. I made the decision. When I was on Kevin’s Watch, I saw how big Fleshharrower’s army is. It’s so big that we wouldn’t have had a chance in Doom’s Retreat. So I made the decision. I brought us here.

  “I believe we’re going to win today. We are going to cause the destruction of that horde—I believe it. I brought you here because I believe it. Now let me tell you how we’re going to do it.”

  He paused for a moment, and became even stiffer, more erect, as he braced himself for what he had to say. Then he went on, “We are going to fight that army here for one reason. Lord Mhoram needs time. He’s going to make this plan of mine work—and we have to keep him safe until he’s ready.

  “When he’s ready”—Troy seemed to clench himself—“we’re going to run like hell into Garroting Deep.”

  If he expected an outcry, he was surprised; the warriors were too weak to protest. But a rustle of anguish passed among them, and Mhoram could see horror on many faces.

  Troy went on promptly, “I know how bad that sounds. No one has ever survived the Deep—no one has ever returned. I know all that. But Foul is hard to beat. Our only chance is something that seems impossible. I believe we won’t be killed.

  “While we fight, Lord Mhoram is going to summon Caerroil Wildwood, the Forestal. And Caerroil Wildwood is going to help us. He’s going to give us free passage through Garroting Deep. He’s going to defeat Fleshharrower’s army.

  “I believe this. I want you to believe it. It will work. The Forestal has no reason to hate us—you know that. And he has every reason to hate Fleshharrower. That Giant is a Raver. But the only way Caerroil Wildwood can get at Fleshharrower is to give us free passage. If we run into Garroting Deep, and Fleshharrower sees that we aren’t harmed—then he’ll follow us. He hates us and he hates the Deep too much to pass up a chance like this. It will work. The only problem is to summon the Forestal. And that is up to Lord Mhoram.”

  He paused again, weighing his words before he said, “Many of you have known Lord Mhoram longer than I have. You know what kind of man he is. He’ll succeed. You know that.

  “Until he succeeds, the only thing we have to do is fight—keep him alive while he works. That’s all. I know how tough it’s going to be for you. I—I hear how tired you are. But you are warriors. You will find the strength. I believe it. Whatever happens, I’ll be proud to fight with you. And I won’t be afraid to lead you into Garroting Deep. You are the true preservers of the Land.”

  He stopped, waiting for some kind of answer.

  The warriors gave no cheers or shouts or cries; the extravagant grip of their exhaustion kept them silent. But together they heaved themselves to their feet. Twelve thousand men and women stood to salute the Warmark.

  He seemed to hear their movement and understand it. He saluted them once, rigidly. Then he turned his proud Ranyhyn, and went trotting back toward where he had left Lord Mhoram.

  He caught Mhoram by surprise, and the Lord failed to intercept him. He moved as if he were held erect by the stiffness of extreme need; his voice shook as he said to the empty air where Mhoram had been, “I hope you understand what’ll happen if you fail. We won’t have any choice. We’ll still have to go into the Deep. And pray the Forestal doesn’t kill us until Fleshharrower follows. We’ll all die that way, but maybe the Raver will, too.”

  Mhoram hastened toward Troy. But Terrel was closer to the Warmark, and he spoke before Mhoram could stop him. “That we will not permit,” he said dispassionately. “It is suicide. We do not speak of the Warward. But we are the Bloodguard. We will not permit the Lords to enact their own death. We failed to prevent High Lord Kevin’s self-destruction. We will not fail again.”

  “I hear you,” Mhoram replied sharply. “But that moment has not yet come. First I must work.” Turning to Troy, he said, “My friend, will you remain with me while I make this attempt. I need—I have need of support.”

  Troy seemed to totter on Mehryl’s back. But he caught hold of the Ranyhyn’s mane, steadied himself. “Just tell me if there’s anything I can do.” He reached out his hand, and when Mhoram clasped it, he slipped down from Mehryl’s back.

  Mhoram gripped his hand for a moment, then released him. The Lord looked over at the Warward, saw that it was preparing to meet Fleshharrower’s charge. He turned his attention to the Deep. Dread constricted his heart. He was afraid that Caerroil Wildwood would simply strike him where he stood for the affront of his call—strike all the army. But he was still his own master. He stepped forward, raised his staff high over his head, and began the ritual appeal to the woods.

  “Hail, Garroting Deep! Forest of the One Forest! Enemy of our enemies! Garroting Deep, hail! We are the Lords—foes to your enemies, and learners of the lillianrill lore. We must pass through!

  “Harken, Caerroil Wildwood! We hate the ax and flame which hurt you. Your enemies are our enemies. Never have we brought edge of ax or flame of fire to touch you—nor ever shall. Forestal, harken! Let us pass!”

  There was no answer. His voice fell echoless on the trees and grass; nothing moved or replied in the dark depths. He strained his senses to listen and look for any sign, but none came. When he was sure of the silence, he repeated the ritual. Again there was no reply. After a third appeal, the silent gloom of the Deep seemed to increase, to grow more profound and ominous, as he beseeched it.

  Through the Forest’s unresponsiveness, he heard the first gleeful shout of Fleshharrower’s army as it caught sight of the Warward. The hungry cry multiplied his dread; his knuckles whitened as he resisted it. Planting his staff firmly on the grass, he tried another approach.

  While the sun arced through the middle of the
afternoon, Lord Mhoram strove to make himself heard in the heart of Garroting Deep. He used every Forestal name which had been preserved in the lore of the Land. He wove appeals and chants out of every invocation or summoning known to the Loresraat. He bent familiar forms away from their accustomed usage, hoping that they would unlock the silence. He even took the Summoning Song which had called Covenant to the Land, altered it to fit his need, and sang it into the Deep. It had no effect. The Forest remained impenetrable, answerless.

  And behind him the last battle of the Warward began. As Fleshharrower’s hordes rushed at them, the warriors raised one tattered cheer like a brief pennant of defiance. But then they fell silent, saved the vestiges of their strength for combat. With their weapons ready, they faced the ravening that charged toward them out of the Wastes.

  The Raver’s army crashed murderously into them. Firing their arrows at close range, they attempted to crack the momentum of the charge. But the horde’s sheer numbers swept over slain ur-viles and Cavewights and other creatures, trampled them underfoot, drove into the Warward.

  Its front lines crumbled at the onslaught; thousands of ill beasts broke into its core. But Hiltmark Quaan rallied one flank, and First Haft Amorine shored up the other. For the first time since she had left Doriendor Corishev, she seemed to remember herself. Throwing off her enervation of will, she brought her Eoward to the aid of the front lines. And Lord Callindrill held his ground in the army’s center. Whirling his staff about his head, he rained blue fiery force in all directions. The creatures gave way before him; scores of unorganized ur-viles fell under his fire.

  Then Quaan and Amorine reached him from either side.

  From a place deep within them, beyond their most bereft exhaustion, the men and women of the Land brought up the strength to fight back. Faced with the raw malevolence of Lord Foul’s perverse creations, the warriors found that they could still resist. Bone-deep love and abhorrence exalted them. Passionately they hurled themselves at the enemy. Hundreds of them fell in swaths across the ground, but they threw back the Raver’s first assault.