White Gold Wielder t2cotc-3

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  But he could not afford release. Lord Foul was probably already gloating at the possibility that he Covenant, might unleash wild magic to aid the Waynhim. Grimly, he stifled his desire to make some acerbic retort. Instead, he replied, “No. I don't want to hear it from Hamako. I don't want to let Findail off the hook.”

  Deliberately, he turned toward the Appointed. But Findail met him with the same trammelled and impenetrable rue with which he had rebuffed every challenge or appeal. More to answer Linden than to attack Findail, Covenant concluded, “I'm waiting for this bloody Elohim to discover the honesty if not the simple decency to start telling the truth.” Findail's yellow eyes darkened; but he said nothing.

  Linden looked back and forth between Covenant and the Appointed. Then she nodded. Speaking as if Findail were not present, she said, “I hope he makes up his mind soon. I don't like the idea of having to face the Clave when they still know more about Vain than we do.”

  Grateful for at least that much acceptance from her Covenant tried to smile. But he achieved only a grimace.

  The Waynhim were milling around the cavern, moving as if each of them wanted to speak to everyone else before the crisis; and their low, barking voices thickened the atmosphere. But the Giants were no longer among them. Honninscrave leaned against one wall, detached and lonely, his head bowed. Pitchwife had remained with Covenant, Linden, and Cail. And the First and Mistweave stood together near the opposite side of the space. Mistweave's stance was one of pleading; but the First met whatever he said angrily. When be beseeched her further, her reply cracked over the noise of the Waynhim.

  “You are mortal. Giant. Such choices are harsh to any who must make them. But failure is only failure. It is not unworth, You are sworn and dedicate to the Search, if not to the Chosen, and I will not release you.”

  Sternly, she left his plain dismay, marched through the throng toward the rest of her companions. When she reached them, she answered their mute questions by saying, “He is shamed.” She looked at Linden. “His life you saved when Covenant Giantfriend's was at risk. Now he deems that his indecision in your need is unpardonable. He asks to be given to the Waynhim, that he may seek expiation in their battle.” Unnecessarily, she added, “I have refused him.”

  Linden muttered a curse. “I didn't ask him to serve me. He doesn't need- “

  Abruptly, she cried, “Honninscrave! Don't!” But the Master did not heed her. Fury clenched in his fists, he strode toward Mistweave as though he meant to punish the Giant's distress.

  Linden started after him; the First stopped her. In silence, they watched as Honninscrave stalked up to his crewmember. Confronting Mistweave, the Master stabbed one massive finger at the Giant's sore heart as if he knew the exact location of Mistweave's bafflement. His jaws chewed excoriations; but the interchanges of the Waynhim covered his voice.

  Softly, the First said, “He is the Master. It is enough for me that he has found room in his own pain for Mistweave. He will do no true harm to one who has served him aboard Starfare's Gem.”

  Linden nodded. But her mouth was tight with frustration and empathy, and she did not take her eyes off Mistweave.

  At first, Mistweave flinched from what Honninscrave was saying. Then a hot belligerence rose up in him, and he raised one fist like a threat. But Honninscrave caught hold of Mistweave's arm and snatched it down, thrust his jutting beard into Mistweave's face. After a moment, Mistweave acquiesced. His eyes did not lose then heat; but he accepted the stricture Honninscrave placed upon him. Slowly, the ire faded from the Master's stance.

  Covenant let a sigh through his teeth.

  Then Hamako appeared among the Waynhim, came toward the company. His gaze was bright in the light of the braziers. His movements hinted at fever or anticipation. In his hands he bore a long scimitar that looked like it had been fashioned of old bone. Without preamble, he said, “The time has come. The arghuleh draw nigh. We must issue forth to give combat. What will you do? You must not remain here. There is no other egress, and if the entrance is sealed you will be ensnared.”

  The First started to reply; but Covenant forestalled her. Venom nagged at the skin of his forearm. “We'll follow you out,” he said roughly. “We're going to watch until we figure out the best way to help.” To the protest in Bamako's mien, he added, "Stop worrying about us. We've survived worse. If everything else goes to hell and damnation, well find some way to escape.”

  A grin momentarily softened Hamako's tension. “Thomas Covenant,” he said in a voice like a salute, “I would that we had met in kinder times.” Then he raised his scimitar, turned on his heel, and started toward the throat of the cavern.

  Bearing curved, bony daggers like smaller versions of Hamako's blade, all the Waynhim followed him as if they had chosen him to lead them to their doom.

  They numbered nearly two hundred, but they needed only a few moments to march out of the cavern, leaving the company behind in the undiminished firelight Honninscrave and Mistweave came to join their companions. The First looked at Covenant and Linden, then at the other Giants. None of them demurred. Linden's face was pale. but she held herself firm. Pitchwife's features worked as if he could not find the right jest to ease his tension. In their separate ways, the First, Mistweave, and Honninscrave looked as unbreachable as Cail.

  Covenant nodded bitterly. Together, he and his friends turned their backs on warmth and safety, went out to meet the winter.

  In the tunnel, he felt the temperature begin to drop almost immediately. The change made no difference to his numb fingers and feet; but he sashed his robe tight as if in that way he might be able to protect his courage. Past the branchings of the passage he followed the Waynhim until the company reached the rude antechamber where the sleds were. Mutely. Honninscrave and Mistweave took the lines. Their breath had begun to steam. Firelight transmuted the wisps of vapour to gold.

  The entrance to the rhyshyshim was open; and cold came streaming inward, hungry to extinguish tins hidden pocket of comfort. Deep in Covenant's guts, shivers mounted. His robe had previously kept him alive, if not warm; but now it seemed an insignificant defence against the frozen winter. When he looked at Linden, she answered as if his thoughts were palpable to her:

  “I don't know how many. Enough.”

  Then the entrance loomed ahead. Now the air blew keenly into Covenant's face, tugging at his beard, drawing tears from his eyes. A dark pressure gathered in his veins. But he ducked his head and went on. With his companions, he strode through the opening onto the rocky ground at the foot of the escarpment.

  The plain was sharp with sunlight. From a fathomless sky, the mid-afternoon sun burned across the white waste. The air felt strangely brittle, as if it were about to break under its own weight. Stiff snow crunched beneath Covenant's boots. For a moment, the cold seemed as bright as fire. He had to fight to keep wild magic from leaking past his restraint.

  When his sight cleared, he saw that the whirling snow-devils which had marked and guarded the rhyshyshim were gone. The Waynhim had no more need of them.

  Barking softly to each other, the creatures surged together into the compact and characteristic wedge which both they and the ur-viles used to concentrate and wield their combined force. Bamako stood at the apex of the formation. When it was complete and the invocations had been made, he would hold the lore and power of five rhysh in the blade of his scimitar. As long as they did not break ranks, the Waynhim along the sides of the wedge would be able to strike individual blows; but Bamako's might would be two hundred strong.

  Every moment, the battle drew closer. Looking northward, Covenant found that he could barely see the region of monoliths beyond the massed advance of the arghuleh.

  Ponderous and fatal, they came forward-a slow rush of white gleaming over the snow and ice. Already, their feral clatter was audible above the voices of the Waynhim. It echoed like shattering off the face of the escarpment. The horde did not appear to greatly outnumber the Waynhim; but the far larger bulk and savagery o
f the arghuleh made their force seem overwhelming.

  The company still had time to flee. But no one suggested flight. The First stood, stem and ready, with one hand resting on the hilt of her longsword. Glints reflected out of Honninscrave's eyes as if he were eager to strike any blow which might make his grief useful. Pitchwife's expression was more wary and uncertain; he was no warrior. But Mistweave bore himself as though he saw his chance for restitution coming and had been commanded to ignore it. Only Cail watched the advancing horde with dispassion, unmoved alike by the valour of the Waynhim and the peril of the company. Perhaps he saw nothing especially courageous in what the rhysh were doing. Perhaps to his Haruchai mind such extravagant risk was simply reasonable.

  Covenant struggled to speak. The cold seemed to freeze the words in his throat. “I want to help them. If they need it But I don't know how.” To the First, he said, “Don't go out there unless the wedge starts to break. I've seen this kind of fighting before.” He had seen ur-viles slash into the Celebration of Spring to devour the Wraiths of Andelain-and had been powerless against that black wedge. “As long as their formation holds, they aren't beaten.” Then he turned to Linden.

  Her expression stopped him. Her face was fixed, pale with cold, toward the arghuleh, and her eyes looked as livid as, injuries. For one dire moment, he feared she had fallen again into her particular panic. But then her gaze snapped toward him. It was battered but not cowed. “I don't know,” she said tightly. “He's right. There's some force out there. Something that keeps them together. But I can't tell what it is.”

  Covenant swallowed a knot of dread. “Keep trying,” he murmured. “I don't want these Waynhim to end up like the Unhomed.” Damned as well as doomed.

  She did not reply; but her nod conveyed a fierce resolve as she turned back to the arghuleh.

  They were dangerously close now. A score of them led the advance, and their mass was nearly that many deep. Though they were beasts of hate that preyed on everything, they had become as organized as a conscious army. Steadily, they gathered speed to hurl themselves upon the Waynhim.

  In response, the Waynhim raised a chant into the chill. Together, they barked a raw, irrhythmic invocation which sprang back at them from the escarpment and resounded across the flat. And a moment later a black light shone from the apex of the wedge. Hamako flourished his scimitar. Its blade had become as ebon as Demondim vitriol. It emitted midnight as if it were ablaze with death.

  At the same time, all the smaller blades of the Waynhim turned black and began to drip a hot fluid which steamed and sizzled in the snow.

  Without knowing what he was doing Covenant retreated. The frigid air had become a thrumming shout of power, soundless in spite of the chant which summoned it; and that puissance called out to him. His yearning for fire battered at the walls he had built around it; the scars on his forearm burned poisonously. He took a few steps backward. But he could not put any distance between himself and his desire to strike. Instinctively, he fumbled his way to the only protection he could find: a jagged rock that stood half his height near the entrance to the rhyshyshim. Yet be did not crouch or cower there. His numb hands gripped the argute stone in the same way that his eyes clung to the Waynhim and the arghuleh; and within himself he pleaded. No. Not again.

  He had not been required to watch the actual destruction of the Unhomed.

  Then Hamako gave a shout like a huzzah; and the wedge started forward. Moving as one, the Waynhim went out to the foe they had chosen for their last service.

  Hushed amid the vicious advance of the ice-beasts, the long hoarse chant of the Waynhim, the echoes breaking up and down the escarpment Covenant and his companions watched as the wedge drove in among the arghuleh.

  For a moment, its thrust was so successful that the outcome appeared foregone. The rhysh poured their power into Hamako: he cut an irresistible swath for the wedge to follow. And as individuals the Waynhim slashed their ice-corroding fluid in all directions. Arghuleh snapped apart, fell back, blundered against each other.

  Screaming from their many maws, they swarmed around the wedge, trying to engulf it, crush it among them. But that only brought the third side of the wedge into the fray. And Hamako's scimitar rang like a hammer on the ice, seat shards and limbs flying from side to side with every blow. He had aimed the wedge toward an especially large beast at the rear of the mass, an arghule that seemed to have been formed by one creature crouching atop another; and with each step he drew closer to that target.

  The arghuleh were savage, impervious to fear. Webs and snares were flung across the wedge. Booming cracks riddled the snow-pack. But black liquid burned the nets to tatters. Falling chunks bruised the Waynhim, but did not weaken their formation. And the hard ground under the snow rendered the cracks ineffective.

  Covenant leaned against his braced bands, half frozen there, hardly daring to credit what he saw. Low shouts of encouragement broke from the First; and her sword was in her hands. Avid with hope, Pitchwife peered into the fray as if he expected victory at any moment, expected the very winter to break and flee.

  Then, without warning, everything changed.

  The arghuleh were virtually mindless, but the force which ruled them was not. It was sentient and cunning. And it had learned a lesson from the way the Waynhim had rescued the company earlier.

  Abruptly, the horde altered its tactics. In a sudden flurry like an explosion of white which almost obscured the battle, all the beasts raised their ice at once. But now that ice was not directed at the wedge. Instead, it covered every arghule that had been hurt, broken, or even killed by the Waynhim.

  Ice slapped against every gout of vitriol, smothered the black fluid, effaced it, healed the wounds.

  Ice bandaged every limb and body that Hamako had backed or shattered, restoring crippled creatures to wholeness with terrible celerity.

  Ice gathered together the fragments of the slain, fused them anew, poured life back into them.

  The Waynhim had not stopped fighting for an instant. But already half their work had been undone. The arghuleh revitalized each other faster than they were damaged.

  More and more of them were freed to attack in other ways.

  Unable to rend the wedge with their webs, they began to form a wall of ice around it as if they meant to encyst it until its power gave out through sheer weariness.

  Covenant stared in horror. The Waynhim were clearly unprepared for this counterattack. Hamako whirled his blade, flaring desperation around him. Three times he pounded an arghule into pieces no larger than his fist; and each time a web snatched the pieces together, restored them, sent the beast at him again. Wildly he sprang forward to assail the web itself. But in so doing he broke contact with the wedge. Instantly, his scimitar relapsed to bone': it splintered when he struck. He would have fallen himself; but hands reached out from the wedge and jerked him back into position.

  And there was nothing Covenant could do. The Giants were calling to him, beseeching him for some command. The First shouted imprecations he did not hear. But there was nothing he could do.

  Except unleash the wild magic.

  Venom thudded in his temples. The wild magic, unquenchable and argent. Every thought of it, every memory, every ache of hunger and yearning was as shrill and frantic as Linden's fervid cry: You're going to break the Arch of Time! This is what Foul wants! Desecration filled each pulse and wail of his heart. He could not call up that much power and still pretend to control it.

  But Hamako would be killed. It was as distinct as the declining sunlight on the white plain The Waynhim would be slaughtered like the people of the Land to feed the lust of evil. That same man and those Waynhim had brought Covenant back from delirium once-and had shown him that there was still beauty in the world. The winter of their destruction would never end.

  Because of the venom. Its scars still burned, as bright as Lord Foul's eyes, in the flesh of his right forearm, impelling him to power. The Sunbane warped Law, birthed abominations; but Cove
nant might bring Time itself to chaos.

  At no great distance from him, the wedge no longer battled offensively. It struggled simply to stay alive. Several Waynhim had fallen in bonds of ice they could not break. More would die soon as the arghuleh raised their wall. Hamako remained on his feet, but had no weapon, no way to wield the might of the wedge. He was thrust into the centre of the formation, and a Waynhim took his place, fighting with all the fluid force its small blade could channel.

  “Giantfriend!” the First yelled. “Covenant!”

  The wedge was dying; and the Giants dared not act, for fear that they would place themselves in the way of Covenant's fire.

  Because of the venom sick fury pounding like desire between the bones of his forearm. He had been made so powerful that he was powerless. His desperation demanded blood.

  Slipping back his sleeve, he gripped his right wrist with his left hand to increase his leverage, then hacked his scarred forearm at the sharpest edges of the rock. His flesh ground against the jagged projections. Red slicked the stone, spattered the snow, froze in the cold. He ignored it. The Clave had cut his wrists to gain power for the soothtell which had guided and misled him. Deliberately, he mangled his forearm, striving by pain to conceive an alternative to venom, struggling to cut the fang marks out of his soul.

  Then Linden hit him. The blow knocked him back. Flagrant with urgency and concern, she caught her fists in his robe, shook him like a child, raged at him.

  “Listen to me!” she flamed as if she knew he could hardly hear her, could not see anything except the blood he had left on the rock. “It's like the Kemper! Like Kasreyn!” Back and forth she heaved him, trying to wrestle him into focus on her. “Like his son! The arghuleh have something like, his son!”

  At that, clarity struck Covenant so hard that he nearly fell.

  Winter in Combat The Kemper's son. Oh my God.

  The croyel.

  Before the thought was finished, he had broken Linden's grasp and was running toward the Giants.