Bannor leaped, launched a kick at Drool's face.
But for all his crippled condition, Drool Rockworm was full of power. He did not appear to feel Bannor's attack. In ponderous fury, he raised the Staff to deal a blast which would incinerate Bannor and Covenant where they stood. Against the kind of might he wielded, they were helpless.
Still Bannor braced himself in front of Covenant to meet the blow. Flinching, Covenant waited for the pain that would set him free.
But Drool was already too late. He had missed his chance, neglected other dangers. Even as he raised the Staff, the company of the Quest, led by First Mark Tuvor and High Lord Prothall, broke into Kiril Threndor.
They looked battered, as if they had just finished a skirmish with Drool's outer defences, but they were whole and dour-handed, and they entered the chamber like a decisive wave. Prothall stopped Drool's blast with a shout full of authority. Before the Cavewights could gather themselves together, the Eoman fell on them, drove them from the cave. In a moment, Drool was surrounded by a wide ring of warriors and Bloodguard.
Slowly, with an appearance of confusion, he retreated until he was half-crouching on his dais. He looked around the circle as if unable to realize what had happened. But his spatulate hands held the Staff in a grip as grim as death.
Then, grotesquely, his laval eyes took on an angle of cunning. Twitching nods over his shoulder, he hissed in a raw voice, “Here-this is fair. Fair. Better than promises. All of them-here. All little Lords and puny Bloodguard-humans. Ready for crushing.” He started to laugh, broke into a fit of coughing. “Crush!” he spat when he regained control of himself. “Crush with power.” He made a noise like a cracking of bones in his throat. “Power! Little Lords. Mighty Drool. Better than promises.”
Prothall faced the Cavewight squarely. Giving his staff to Mhoram, he stepped forward to the dais with Tuvor at his side. He stood erect; his countenance was calm and clear. Supported by their years of abnegation, his eyes neither wavered nor burned. In contrast, Drool's red orbs were consumed with the experience of innumerable satiations-an addictive gluttony of power. When the High Lord spoke, even the rattle of his old voice sounded like authority and decision. Softly, he said, “Give it up. Drool Rockworm, hear me. The Staff of Law is not yours. It is not meant for you. Its strength must only be used for the health of the Land. Give it to me.”
Covenant moved to stand near the High Lord. He felt that he had to be near the Staff.
But Drool only muttered, “Power? Give it up? Never.” His lips went on moving, as if he were communing over secret plans.
Again, Prothall urged, “Surrender it. For your own sake. Are you blind to yourself? Do you not see what has happened to you? This power is not meant for you. It destroys you. You have used the Staff wrongly. You have used the Illearth Stone. Such powers are deadly. Lord Foul has betrayed you. Give the Staff to me. I will strive to help you.”
But that idea offended Drool. “Help?” he coughed. “Fool! I am Lord Drool. Master! The moon is mine. Power is mine. You are mine. I can crush! Old man-little Lord. I let you live to make me laugh. Help? No, dance. Dance for Lord Drool.” He waved the Staff threateningly. “Make me laugh. I let you live.”
Prothall drew himself up, and said in a tone of command, “Drool Rockworm, release the Staff.” He advanced a step.
With a jerk like a convulsion of hysteria, Drool raised the Staff to strike.
Prothall rushed forward, tried to stop him. But Tuvor reached the Cavewight first. He caught the end of the Staff.
Shivering with rage, Drool jabbed the iron heel of the Staff against Tuvor's body. Bloody light flashed. In that instant the First Mark's flesh became transparent; the company could see his bones burning like dry sticks. Then he fell, reeling backward to collapse in Covenant's arms.
His weight was too great for the Unbeliever to hold; Covenant sank to the stone under it. Cradling Tuvor, he watched the High Lord.
Prothall grappled with Drool. He grasped the Staff with both hands to prevent Drool from striking him. They wrestled together for possession of it.
The struggle looked impossible for Prothall. Despite his decrepitude, Drool retained some of his Cavewightish strength. And he was full of power. And Prothall was old.
With Tuvor in his arms, Covenant could do nothing. “Help him!” he cried to Mhoram. “He'll be killed!”
But Lord Mhoram turned his back on Prothall. He knelt beside Covenant to see if he could aid Tuvor. As he examined the First Mark, he said roughly, “Drool seeks to master the Staff with malice. The High Lord can sing a stronger song than that.”
Appalled, Covenant shouted, “He'll be killed! You've got to help him!”
“Help him?” Mhoram's eyes glinted dangerously. Pain and raw restraint sharpened his voice as he said, “He would not welcome my help. He is the High Lord. Despite my Oath”-he choked momentarily on a throat full of passion-“I would crush Drool.” He invested Drool's word, crush, with a potential for despair that silenced Covenant.
Panting, Covenant watched the High Lord's fight. He was horrified by the danger, by the price both Lords were willing to pay.
Then battle erupted around him. Cavewights charged into Kiril Threndor from several directions. Apparently, Drool had been able to send out a silent call; his guards were answering. The first forces to reach the chamber were not large, but they sufficed to engage the whole company. Only Mhoram did not join the fight. He knelt beside Covenant and stroked the First Mark's face, as if he were transfixed by Tuvor's dying.
Shouting stertorously over the clash of weapons, Quaan ordered his warriors into a defensive ring around the dais and the Lords. Loss and fatigue had taken their toll on the Eoman, but stalwart Quaan led his command as if the Lords' need rendered him immune to weakness. Among the Bloodguard, his Eoman parried, thrust, fought on the spur of his exhortations.
The mounting perils made Covenant reel. Prothall and Drool struggled horribly above him. The fighting around him grew faster and more frenzied by the moment. Tuvor lay expiring in his lap. And he could do nothing about any of it, help none of them. Soon their escape would be cut off, and all their efforts would be in vain.
He had not foreseen this outcome to his bargain.
Drool bore Prothall slowly backward. “Dance!” he raged.
Tuvor shuddered; his eyes opened. Covenant looked away from Prothall. Tuvor's lips moved, but he made no sound.
Mhoram tried to comfort him. “Have no fear. This evil will be overcome-it is in the High Lord's hands. And your name will be remembered with honour wherever trust is valued.”
But Tuvor's eyes held Covenant, and he managed to whisper one word, “True?” His whole body strained with supplication, but Covenant did not know whether he asked for a promise or a judgment.
Yet the Unbeliever answered. He could not refuse a Bloodguard, could not deny the appeal of such expensive fidelity. The word stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. “Yes.”
Tuvor shuddered again, and died with a flat groan as if the chord of his Vow had snapped. Covenant gripped his shoulders, shook him; there was no response.
On the dais, Drool had forced Prothall to his knees, and was bending the High Lord back to break him. In futility and rage, Covenant howled, “Mhoram!”
The Lord nodded, surged to his feet. But he did not attack Drool. Holding his staff over his head, he blared in a voice that cut through the clamour of the battle, “Melenkurion abatha! Minas mill khabaal!” From end to end, his staff burst into incandescent fire.
The power of the Words jolted Drool, knocked him back a step. Prothall regained his feet.
More Cavewights rushed into Kiril Threndor. Quaan and his Eoman were driven back toward the dais. At last, Mhoram sprang to their aid. His staff burned furiously as he attacked. Around him, the Bloodguard fought like wind devils, leaping and kicking among the Cavewights so swiftly that the creatures interfered with each other when they tried to strike back.
But Drool's defenders
kept coming, pouring into the cave. The company began to founder in the rising onslaught.
Then Prothall cried over the din, “I have it! The moon is free!”
He stood triumphant on the dais, with the Staff of Law upraised in his hands. Drool lay at his feet, sobbing like a piece of broken rock. Between spasms of grief, the creature gasped, “Give it back. I want it.”
The sight struck fear into the Cavewights. They recoiled, quailed back against the walls of the chamber.
Released from battle, Quaan and his warriors turned toward Prothall and gave a raw cheer. Their voices were hoarse and worn, but they exulted in the High Lord's victory as if he had won the future of the Land.
Yet overhead the dancing lights of Kiril Threndor went their own bedizened way.
Covenant snapped a look at his ring. Its argent still burned with blood. Perhaps the moon was free; he was not.
Before the echoes of cheering died-before anyone could move-a new sound broke over them. It started softly, then expanded until it filled the chamber like a collapse of the ceiling. It was laughter-Lord Foul's laughter, throbbing with glee and immitigable hate. Its belittling weight dominated them, buried them in their helplessness; it paralyzed them, seemed to cut them off from their own heartbeats and breathing. While it piled onto them, they were lost.
Even Prothall stood still. Despite his victory, he looked old and feeble, and his eyes had an unfocused stare as if he were gazing into his own coffin. And Covenant, who knew that laugh, could not resist it.
But Lord Mhoram moved. Springing onto the dais, he whirled his staff around his head until the air hummed, and blue lightning bolted upward into the clustered stalactites. “Then show yourself, Despiser!” he shouted. “If you are so certain, face us now! Do you fear to try your doom with us?”
Lord Foul's laughter exploded with fiercer contempt. But Mhoram's defiance had broken its transfixion. Prothall touched Mhoram's shoulder. The warriors gripped their swords, placed themselves in grim readiness behind the Lords.
More Cavewights entered the chamber, though they did not attack. At the sight of them, Drool raised himself on his crippled arms. His bloody eyes boiled still, clinging to fury and malice to the end. Coughing as if he were about to heave up his heart, he gasped, “The Staff. You do not know. Cannot use it. Fools. No escape. None. I have armies. I have the Stone.” With a savage effort, he made himself heard through the laughter. “Illearth Stone. Power and power. I will crush. Crush.” Flailing one weak arm at his guards, he screamed in stricken command, “Crush!”
Wielding their weapons, the Cavewights surged forward.
Twenty Four: The Calling of Lions
THEY came in a mass of red eyes dull with empty determination. But Lord Foul's bodiless laughter seemed to slow them. They waded through it as if it were a quagmire, and their difficult approach gave the company time to react. At Quaan's command, the warriors ringed Mhoram and Prothall. The Bloodguard took fighting positions with the Eoman.
Mhoram called to Covenant.
Slowly, Covenant raised his head. He looked at his companions, and they seemed pitifully few to him. He tried to get to his feet. But Tuvor was too heavy for him to lift. Even in death, the massive devotion of the First Mark surpassed his strength.
He heard Manethrall Lithe shout, “This way! I know the way!” She was dodging among the Cavewights toward one of the entrances. He watched her go as if he had already forsaken her. He could not lift Tuvor because he could not get a grip with his right hand; two fingers were not enough.
Then Bannor snatched him away from the fallen First Mark, thrust him toward the protective ring of the Eoman. Covenant resisted. “You can't leave him!” But Bannor forced him among the warriors. “What are you doing?” he protested. “We've got to take him along. If you don't send him back, he won't be replaced.” He spun to appeal to the Lords. “You can't leave him!”
Mhoram's lips stretched taut over his teeth. “We must.”
From the mouth of the tunnel she had chosen, Lithe called, “Here!” She clenched her cord around a Cavewight's neck, and used the creature's body to protect herself from attack. “This is the way!” Other Cavewights converged on her, forced her backward.
In response, Prothall lit his old staff, swung it, and led a charge toward her. With Mhoram's help, he burned passage for his companions through the massed Cavewights.
Bright Lords-fire intimidated the creatures. But before the company had gained the tunnel Lithe had chosen, a wedge of ur-viles drove snarling into the chamber from a nearby entrance. They were led by a mighty loremaster, as black as the catacombs, wielding an iron stave that looked wet with power or blood.
Prothall cried, “Runt” The Questers dashed for the tunnel.
The ur-viles raced to intercept them.
The company was faster. Prothall and Mhoram gained the passage, and parted to let the others enter between them.
But one of the warriors decided to help his comrades escape. He suddenly veered away from the Eoman. Whirling his sword fervidly, he threw himself at the ur-vile wedge.
Mhoram yelled, started back out into the chamber to help him. But the loremaster brushed the warrior aside with a slap of its stave, and he fell. Dark moisture covered him from head to foot; he screamed as if he had been drenched in acid. Mhoram barely evaded the stave's backstroke, retreated to Prothall's side in the mouth of the passage.
There they tried to stand. They opposed their blazing blue flame to the ur-viles. The loremaster struck at them again and again; they blocked each blow with their staffs; gouts of flaming fluid, igniting blue and then turning quickly black, spattered on all sides at every clash. But the wedge fought with a savagery which drove the Lords backward step by step into the tunnel.
Quaan tried to counter by having his strongest archers loose arrows at the loremaster. But the shafts were useless. They caught fire in the ur-viles' black power and burned to ashes.
Behind the company, Lithe was chaffing to pursue the guide of her instinct for daylight. She called repeatedly for the Lords to follow her. But they could not; they did not dare turn their backs on the wedge.
Each clash drove them backward. For all their courage and resolve, they were nearly exhausted, and every blow of the loremaster's stave weakened them further. Now their flame had a less rampant blaze, and the burning gouts turned black more swiftly. It was clear, that they could not keep up the fight. And no one in the company could take it for them.
Abruptly, Mhoram shouted, “Back! Make room!”
His urgency allowed no refusal; even the Bloodguard obeyed.
“Covenant!” Mhoram cried.
Covenant moved forward until he was only an arm's length from the searing battle.
“Raise your ring!”
Compelled by Mhoram's intensity, the Unbeliever lifted his left hand. A crimson cast still stained the heart of his wedding band.
The loremaster observed the ring as if suddenly smelling its presence. It recognized white gold, hesitated. The wedge halted, though the loremaster did not drop its guard.
“Melenkurion abatha!” Mhoram commanded. “Blast them!”
Half intuitively, Covenant understood. He jabbed at the loremaster with his left fist as if launching a bolt.
Barking in strident fear, the whole wedge recoiled.
In that instant, the Lords acted. Shouting, “Minas mill khabaal!” on different pitches in half-screamed harmony, they drew with their fire an X which barricaded the tunnel from top to bottom. The flame of the X hung in the air; and before it could die, Prothall placed his staff erect within it. At once, a sheet of blue flared in the passage.
Howling in rage at Mhoram's ruse, the ur-viles sprang forward. The loremaster struck hugely at the flame with its stave. The fiery wall rippled and fluttered-but did not let the wedge pass.
Prothall and Mhoram took only a moment to see how their power held. Then they turned and dashed down the tunnel.
Gasping for breath, Mhoram told the company,
“We have forbidden the tunnel! But it will not endure. We are not strong enough-the High Lord's staff was needed to make any forbidding at all. And the ur-viles are savage. Drool drives them mad with the Illearth Stone.” In spite of his haste, his voice carried a shudder. “Now we must run. We must escape-must! All our work will go for nothing if we do not take both Staff and Ward to safety.”
“Come!” the Manethrall responded. “I know grass and sky. I can find the way.”
Prothall nodded agreement, but his movements were slow, despite the need for alacrity. He was exhausted, driven far past the normal limits of his stamina. With his breath rattling deep in his chest as if he were drowning in the phlegm of his age, he leaned heavily on the Staff of Law. “Go!” he panted. “Run!”
Two Bloodguard took his arms, and between them he stumbled into a slow run down the passage. Rallying around him, the company started away after Lithe.
At first, they went easily. Their tunnel offered few branchings; at each of these, Lithe seemed instantly sure which held the greatest promise of daylight. Lit from behind by Mhoram's staff, she loped forward as if following a warm trail of freedom.
After the struggles of close combat, the company found relief in simple, single-minded running. It allowed them to focus and conserve their strength. Furthermore, they were passing, as if slowly liberated, out of the range of Lord Foul's laughter. Soon they could hear neither mockery nor threat of slaughter at their backs. For once, the silent darkness befriended them.
For nearly a league, they hastened onward. They began to traverse a section of the catacombs which was intricate with small caves and passages and turnings, but which appeared to contain no large halls, crevices, wightworks. Throughout these multiplied corridors, Lithe did not hesitate. Several times she took ways which inclined slowly upward.
But as the complex tunnels opened into broader and blacker ways, where Mhoram's flame illumined no cave walls or ceilings, the catacombs became more hostile. Gradually, the silence changed-lost the hue of relief, and became the hush of ambush. The darkness around Mhoram's light seemed to conceal more and more. At the turnings and intersections, night thickened in their choices, clouding Lithe's instinct. She began to falter.
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