The Illearth War

by Stephen Donaldson

  "Hail!!"

  "My friends, people of the Land!" she called out to them, "the time has come. War is upon us, and we march to meet it. Hear me, all! I am the High Lord, holder of the Staff of Law-sworn and dedicate to the services of the Land. At my will, we march to do battle with the Gray Slayer-to pit our strength against him for the sake of the Earth. Hear me! It is I, Elena daughter of Lena, who say it: do not fear! Be of strong heart and bold hand. If it lies within our power, we will prevail!"

  As she held high the Staff, she caught the early sunlight. Her hair shone about her like an anadem, and the golden Ranyhyn bore her up like an offering to the wide day. For a moment, she had a look of immolation, and Troy almost choked on the fear of losing her. But there was nothing sacrificial in the upright

  peal of her voice as she addressed the people of Revelstone.

  "Do not mistake. This peril is severe-the gravest danger of our age. It may be that all we have ever seen or heard or felt will be lost. If we are to live-if the Land is to live-we must wrest life from the Despiser. It is a task that surpassed the Old Lords who came before us.

  "But I say to you, do not fear! The coming battle is our great test, our soul measure. It is our opportunity to repudiate utterly the Desecration which destroys what it loves. It is our opportunity to shape courage and service and faith out of the very rock of doom. Even if we fall, we will not despair.

  "Yet I do not believe that we shall fall." Taking the Staff in one hand, she thrust it straight toward the heavens, and a bright flame burst from its end. "Hear me, all!" she cried. "Hear the Dedication in Time of War!" Then she opened her throat and began to sing a song that pulsed like the stalking of drums.

  Friends! comrades! Proud people of the Land! There is war upon us; blood and pain and killing are at hand. Together we confront the test of death.

  Friends and comrades, remember Peace! Repeat the Oath with every breath. Until the end and Time's release, we bring no fury or despair, no passion of hatred, spite, or slaughter, no Desecration to the service of the Land. We fight to mend, anneal, repair to free the Earth of detestation; for health and home and wood and stone, for beauty's fragrant bloom and gleam, and rivers clear and fair we strike; nor will we cease, let fall our heads to ash and dust, lose faith and heart and hope and bone.

  We strike until the Land is clean of wrong and pain, and we have kept our trust. Let no great whelm of evil wreak despair! Remember Peace: brave death! We are the proud preservers of the Land!

  As she finished, she turned Myrha, faced the watchtower. From the Staff of Law, she sent crackling into the sky a great, branched lightning tree. At this sign, Lord Loerya threw her bundle into the air, and Lord Trevor pulled strongly on the lines of the flagpole. The defiant war-flag of Revelstone sprang open and snapped in the mountain wind. It was a huge oriflamme, twice as tall as the Lords who raised it, and it was clear blue, the color of High Lord's Furl, with one stark black streak across it. As it flapped and fluttered, a mighty cheer rose up from the Warward, and was repeated on the thronged wall of Revelstone.

  For a moment, High Lord Elena kept the Staff blazing. Then she silenced her display of power. As the shouting subsided, she looked at the group of riders, and called firmly, "Warmark Hile Troy! Let us begin!"

  At once, Troy sent Mehryl prancing toward the Warward. When he was alone in front of the riders, he saluted his second-in-command, and said quietly, to control his excitement, "First Haft Amorine, you may begin."

  She returned his salute, swung her mount toward the army.

  "Warward!" she shouted. "Order!"

  With a wide surge, the warriors came to attention.

  "Drummers ready!"

  The pace-beaters raised their sticks. When she thrust her right fist into the air, they began their beat, pounding out together the rhythm Troy had taught them.

  "Warriors, march!"

  As she gave the command, she pulled down her fist. Nearly sixteen thousand warriors started forward to. the cadence of the drums.

  Troy watched their precision with a lump of pride in his throat. At Amorine's side, he moved with his army down the road toward the river.

  The rest of the riders followed close behind him. Together, they kept pace with the Warward as it marched westward under the high south wall of Revelstone.

  THIRTEEN: The Rock Gardens of the Maerl

  TOGETHER, the riders and the marching Warward passed down the road to the wide stone bridge which crossed the White River a short distance south of the lake. As they mounted the bridge, they received a chorus of encouraging shouts from the horsemen and raft builders at the lake; but Warmark Troy did not look that way. From the top of the span, he gazed downriver: there he could see the last rafts of Hiltmark Quaan's first two Eoward moving around a curve and out of sight. They were only a small portion of Troy's army, but they were crucial. They were risking their lives in accordance with his commands, and the fate of the Land went with them. In pride and trepidation, he watched until they were gone, on their way to receive the measure of bloodshed he had assigned to them. Then he rode on precariously across the bridge.

  Beyond it, the road turned southward, and began winding down away from the Keep's plateau toward the rough grasslands which lay between Revelstone and Trothgard. As he moved through the foothills,

  Troy counted the accompanying Hirebrands and Gravelingases, to be sure that the Warward had its full complement of support from the lillianrill and rhadhamaerl. In the process, he caught a glimpse of an extra Gravelingas mounted and traveling behind the group of riders.

  Trell.

  The powerful Gravelingas kept to the back of the group, but he made no attempt to hide his face or his presence. The sight of him gave Troy a twinge of anxiety. He stopped and waited for the High Lord. Motioning the other riders past him, he said to Elena in a low voice, "Did you know that he's coming with us. Is it all right with you?" High Lord Elena met him with a questioning look which he answered by nodding toward Trell.

  Covenant had stopped with Elena, and at Troy's nod he turned to look behind him. When he saw the Gravelingas, he groaned.

  Most of the riders were past Elena, Troy, and Covenant now, and Trell could clearly see the three watching him. He halted where he was-still twenty-five yards away-and returned Covenant's gaze with a raw, bruised stare.

  For a moment, they all held their positions, regarded each other intently. Then Covenant cursed under his breath, gripped the reins of his horse, and moved up the road toward Trell.

  Bannor started after the Unbeliever, but High Lord Elena stopped him with a quick gesture. "He needs no protection," she said quietly. "Do not affront Trell with your doubt."

  Covenant faced Trell, and the two men glared at each other. Then Covenant said something. Troy could not hear what he said, but the Gravelingas answered it with a red-rimmed stare. Under his tunic, his broad chest heaved as if he were panting. His reply was inaudible also.

  There was violence in Trell's limbs, struggling for action; Troy could see it. He did not understand Elena's assertion that Covenant was safe. As he watched, he whispered to her, "What did Covenant say?"

  Elena responded as if she could not be wrong, "The ur-Lord promises that he will not harm me."

  This surprised Troy. He wanted to know why Covenant would try to reassure Trell in that way, but he could not think of a way to ask Elena what the connection was between her and Trell. Instead, he asked, "What's Trell's answer?"

  "Trell does not believe the promise."

  Silently, Troy congratulated Trell's common sense.

  A moment later, Covenant jerked his horse into motion, and came trotting back down the road. His free hand pulled insistently at his beard. Without looking at Elena, he shrugged his shoulders defensively as he said, "Well, he has a good point." Then he urged his mount into a canter to catch up with the rest of the riders.

  Troy wanted to wait for Trell, but the High Lord firmly took him with her as she followed Covenant. Out of respect for the Gr
avelingas, Troy did not look back.

  But when the Warward broke march at midday for food and rest, Troy saw Trell eating with the other rhadhamaerl.

  By that time, the army had wound out of the foothills into the more relaxed grasslands west of the White River. Troy gauged the distance they had covered, and used it as a preliminary measure of the pace he had set for the march. So far, the pace seemed right. But many factors influenced a day's march. The Warmark spent part of the afternoon with First Haft Amorine, discussing how to match the frequency and duration of rest halts with such variables as the terrain, the distance already traversed, and the state of the supplies. He wanted to prepare her for his absences.

  He was glad to talk about his battle plan; he felt proud of it, as if it were a work of objective beauty. Traditionally, beaten people fled to Doom's Retreat, but he meant to remake it into a place of victory. His plan was the kind of daring strategic stroke that only a blind man could create. But after a time Amorine responded by gesturing over the Warward and saying dourly, "One day of such a pace is no great matter. Even five days may give no distress to a good warrior. But twenty days, or thirty- In that time, this pace may kill."

  "I know," Troy replied carefully. His trepidation returned in a rush. "But we haven't got any choice. Even at this pace, too many warriors and Bloodguard are going to get killed buying us the time we need."

  "I hear you," Amorine grated. "We will keep the pace."

  When the army stopped for the night, Mhoram, Elena, and Amatin moved among the bright campfires, singing songs and telling gleeful Giantish stories to buttress the hearts of the warriors. As he watched them, Troy felt a keen regret that long days would pass before the Lords could again help Amorine maintain the Warward's spirit.

  But the separation was necessary. High Lord Elena had several reasons for visiting the Loresraat. But Revelwood was out of the way; the added distance was prohibitive for the marching warriors. So the Lords and the Warward parted company the next afternoon. The three Lords, accompanied by Covenant and Troy, the twenty Bloodguard, and the Lorewardens, turned with the road southwest toward Trothgard and Revelwood. And First Haft Amorine led the Warward, with its mounted Hirebrands and Gravelingases, almost due south in a direct line toward Doom's Retreat.

  Troy had business of his own at the Loresraat, and he was forced to leave Amorine alone in command of his army. That afternoon, the autumn sky turned dim as rain clouds moved heavily eastward. When he gave the First Haft his final instructions, his vision was blurred; he had to peer through an ominous haze. "Keep the pace," he said curtly. "Push it even faster when you reach easier ground past the Gray River. If you can gain a little time, we won't have to drive so hard around the Last Hills. If those Bloodguard the High Lord sent out were able to do their jobs, there should be plenty of supplies along the way. We'll catch up to you in the Center Plains." His voice was stiff with awareness of the difficulties she faced.

  Amorine responded with a nod that expressed her seasoned resolve. A light rain started to fall. Troy'

  "his vision became so clouded that he could no longer make out individual figures in the massed Warward. He gave the First Haft a tight salute, and she turned to lead the warriors angling away from the road.

  The Lords and Lorewardens gave a shout of encouragement, but Troy did not join it. He took Mehryl to the top of a bare knoll, and stood there with his ebony sword raised against the drizzle while the whole length of his army passed by like a shadow in the fog below him. He told himself that the Warward was not going into battle without him that his warriors would only march until he rejoined them. But the thought did not ease him. The Warward was his tool, his means of serving the Land; and when he returned to the other riders he felt awkward, disjointed, almost dismembered, as if only the skill of the Ranyhyn kept him on balance. He rode on through the rest of the day wrapped in the familiar loneliness of the blind.

  The drizzle continued throughout the remainder of the afternoon, all that night, and most of the next day. Despite the piled thickness of the clouds, the rain did not come down hard; but it kept out the sunlight, tormented Troy by obscuring his vision. In the middle of the night, sleeping in wet blankets that seemed to cling to him like winding sheets, he was snatched awake by a wild, inchoate conviction that the weather would be overcast when he went into battle at Doom's Retreat. He needed sunlight, clarity. If he could not see-1

  He arose depressed, and did not recover his usual confidence until the rainclouds finally blew away to the east, letting the sun return to him.

  Before midmorning the next day, the company of the Lords came in sight of the Maerl River. They had been traveling faster since they had left the Warward, and when they reached the river, the northern boundary of Trothgard, they were halfway to Revelwood. The Maerl flowed out of high places in the Westron Mountains, and ran first northeast, then southeast, until it joined the Gray, became part of the Gray, and

  went eastward to the Soulsease. Beyond the Maerl was the region where the Lords concentrated their efforts to heal the ravages of Desecration and war.

  Trothgard had borne the name Kurash Plenethor, Stricken Stone, from the last years of Kevin Landwaster until it was rechristened when the new Lords first swore their oath of service after the Desecration. At that time, the region had been completely blasted and barren. The last great battle between the Lords and the Despiser had taken place there, and had left it burned, ruined, soaked in scorched blood, almost soilless. Some of the old tales said that Kurash Plenethor had smoked and groaned for a hundred years after that last battle. And forty years ago the Maerl River had still run thick with eroded . and unfertile mud.

  But now there was only a trace of silt left in the current. For all the limitations of their comprehension, the Lords had learned much about the nurturing of damaged earth from the Second Ward, and on this day the Maerl carried only a slight haze of impurity. Because of centuries of past erosion, it lay in a ravine like a crack across the land. But the sides of the ravine were gentle with deep-rooted grasses and shrubs, and healthy trees lifted their boughs high out of the gully.

  The Maerl was a vital river again.

  Looking down into it from the edge of the ravine, the company paused for a moment of gladness. Together, Elena, Mhoram, and Amatin sang softly part of the Lords' oath. Then they galloped down the slope and across the road ford, so that the hooves of the Ranyhyn and the horses made a gay, loud splashing as they passed into Trothgard.

  This region lay between the Westron Mountains and the Maerl, Gray, and Rill rivers. Within these borders, the effects of the Lords' care were everywhere, in everything. Generations of Lords had made Stricken Stone into a hale woodland, a wide hilly country of forests and glades and dales. Whole grassy hillsides were vivid with small blue and yellow flowers. For scores of leagues south and west of the riders, profuse aliantha and deep grass were full of goldleaved Gilden and other trees, cherry and apple and white linden, prodigious oaks and elms and maples anademed in autumn glory. And air that for decades after the battle had still echoed with the blasts and shrieks of war was now so clear and clean that it seemed to glisten with birdcalls.

  This was what Troy had first seen when his vision began; this was what Elena had used to teach him the meaning of sight.

  Riding now on Mehryl's back under brilliant sun in Trothgard's luminous ambience, he felt more free of care than he had for a long time.

  As the company of the Lords moved through the early part of the afternoon, the country around them changed. Piles 'of tumbled rock began to appear among the trees and through the greensward; rugged boulders several times taller than the riders thrust their heads out of the ground, and smaller stones overgrown with moss and lichen lay everywhere. Soon the company seemed to be riding within the ancient rubble of a shattered mountain, a tall, incongruous peak which had risen out of the hills of Kurash Plenethor until some immense force had blasted it to bits.

  They were approaching the rock gardens of the Maerl. />
  Troy had never taken the time to study the gardens, but he knew that they were said to be the place where the best suru-pa-maerl Craftmasters of the rhadhamaerl did their boldest work. Though in the past few years he had ridden along this road through the bristling rocks many times, he could not say where the gardens themselves began. Except for a steady increase in the amount of rubble lying on or sticking through the grass, he could locate no specific changes or boundaries until the company crested a hill above a wide valley. Then at least he was sure that he was in one of the gardens.

  Most of the long, high hillside facing the valley was thickly covered with stones, as if it had once been the heart of the ancient shattered peak. The rocks clustered and bulged on all sides, raising themselves up in huge piles or massive single boulders, so that virtually the only clear ground on the steep slope was the roadway.

  None of these rocks and boulders was polished or chipped or shaped in any way, though scattered individual stones and clusters of stones appeared to have had their moss and lichen cleaned away. And they all seemed to have been chosen for their natural grotesquerie. Instead of sitting or resting on the ground, they jutted and splintered and scowled and squatted and gaped, reared and cowered and blustered like a mad, packed throng of troglodytes terrified or ecstatic to be breathing open air. On its way to the valley, the road wandered among the weird shapes as if it were lost in a garish forest, so that as they moved downward the riders were constantly in the shadow of one tormented form or another.

  Troy knew that the jumbled amazement of that hillside was not natural; it had been made by men for some reason which he did not grasp.

  On past journeys, he had never been interested enough in it to ask about its significance. But now he did not object when High Lord Elena suggested that the company go to look at the work from a distance. Across the grassy bottom of the valley was another hill, even steeper and higher than the one it faced. The road turned left, and went away along the bottom of the valley, ignoring the plainer hill. Elena suggested that the riders climb this hill to look back at the gardens.