Against All Things Ending

by Donaldson, Stephen R.

  For a moment, Linden saw nothing except Clyme’s pelting haste. The spear was stone, massive and ungainly; yet he carried it with ease. Several hills intervened between him and the ridge, all lower than the crest he had left. He dropped into a valley, then reappeared, still some distance away.

  Then she felt a silent shock. With her health-sense rather than her ears, she heard a shredding sound like the rip of claws through fabric. An instant later, her foes became visible as if they had been translated here by some immense magic.

  A wave of Cavewights had already broken over the hill where Clyme had stood, scores of them. More poured around the slopes on either side, tall and gangling, with disproportionately long limbs, club-heads, eyes like molten crimson, too much strength. They all wielded weapons: swords as crude as claymores, truncheons like battering-rams, heavy spears, axes chipped from blocks of flint. Like the creatures that had attacked after the destruction of First Woodhelven, they wore slabs of armor fashioned from the benighted stone of Gravin Threndor. And they kept coming, more Cavewights than the rocks of Liand’s cairn; more than Linden had ever seen before: more than enough to sweep even Giants away like debris in a flood.

  How—?

  Unable to match their pace on his own legs, Roger rode the shoulders of a Cavewight. Glee and triumph distorted his features, effacing any resemblance to his father. His right fist was a blaze of power like deep magma. He seemed to hold the savagery of a dozen skurj in one hand: a piece of Kastenessen’s essential agony and rage.

  How had he and the Cavewights come so far in so short a time?

  Alone among the Giants, Stormpast Galesend held back. She held her longsword ready in one hand. With the other arm, she cradled Anele’s flinching terror.

  “Ironhand!” she yelled through the advancing clamor. “What must I do? The old man hampers me!”

  Swiftly Coldspray scanned the company’s formation. She glanced at Linden’s dismay, then turned away, cursing.

  “Set him upon the cairn! Its stone will ward him! Against so many, we must trust that he will evade spears!”

  Perhaps Anele would draw enough sanity from Liand’s orcrest to duck and dodge.

  As Galesend obeyed, the Ironhand snapped at Linden, “We cannot prevail against so many—or against such theurgy! We must have your aid!”

  Linden understood. Oh, she understood. Still she felt paralyzed, overtaken by confusion and dread. Kastenessen must have told Roger where she was; where Galt held the croyel. But how had Roger and his Cavewights arrived so soon? As far as she knew, he could not transport himself or anyone else magically without the croyel’s help.

  Anele appeared to recognize his peril. He clambered frantically up the boulders until he gained the crown of the cairn. There he searched for a niche or covert between the rocks; a place to hide himself.

  Crossing the lower hills toward the base of the ridge, the Cavewights howled like ghouls. Their lust for blood was ancient, especially the blood of Giants. In their own eyes, at least, it was justified. The First of the Search and Pitchwife had done much to prevent the resurrection of Drool Rockworm.

  Clyme and Branl reached the gypsum ridge well ahead of the creatures. For an instant, they considered the formation of the Giants, regarded Bhapa and Pahni holding Covenant’s arms, consulted mind to mind with Galt. Then Clyme joined the Swordmainnir. Branl stood between Covenant and the coming onslaught. To the Cords, he said flatly, “Flee with the Unbeliever when you must. He must be preserved.”

  “How—?” Linden tried to ask Stave. The question stuck in her throat.

  Over his shoulder, Stave told Galt, “Again I offer myself in your place. Acquiescence is preferable to murder. If you would give battle, release the krill to me.”

  Without hesitation, Galt answered, “I will not. You will retain it when it is required by the Unbeliever. And you will not slay the croyel, whatever the cost. You will name it preferable to see every defender of the Land butchered.”

  Stave looked toward Anele, glanced sidelong at Linden. Then he shrugged. Relaxed and ready, he prepared to defend her.

  Her friends needed her. And she would never be able to resurrect Covenant again: not if he fell here. She would have to burn as many Cavewights as she could. She would have to oppose Roger with every scrap of her strength.

  In the absence of Kevin’s Dirt, she could be mighty—

  Yet her greatest fear was for Jeremiah. It shackled her. She could too easily imagine the fluid motion of Galt’s arm as he pulled the krill across the croyel’s throat—

  “How,” she managed to croak, “did they get here so fast?”

  “I am uncertain,” Stave told her without apparent curiosity. “However, I speculate that Kastenessen has wielded his strange magicks to aid them. Through Anele, he has become certain of our location. And there is precedent. The attack of the ur-Lord’s son and his Cavewights at First Woodhelven defied mundane forms of travel. The distance from Gravin Threndor was too great, and the Cavewights know little of theurgy. Yet the ur-Lord’s son contrived to strike when we were vulnerable, as we are here.

  “If we judge by Esmer’s condition, Kastenessen does not ease the straits of his servants when they have displeased him. Perhaps this accounts for the ur-Lord’s son’s flight on the shoulders of a Cavewight when he had failed against us.”

  The cacophony of howling became a kind of ululation, a full-throated demand for killing. In their eagerness, several Cavewights flung their spears. But they had not yet reached the foot of the ridge, and their shafts fell short. Those that struck within reach, the Giants snatched up and returned with startling vehemence.

  The company had the advantage of elevation. Roger and his forces would have to fight an uphill battle. Nevertheless half that many Cavewights would have been enough to overwhelm the ridge eventually.

  More sharply, Stave urged, “Ready yourself, Chosen.” But she was already too late.

  Shouting avidly, Roger hurled a second blast of brimstone and lava. In a frenzy, Linden tried to haul fire from her Staff, impose concentration on her conflicted heart. She could only persuade Galt to stay his hand by driving back the assault: she had no other argument that he would heed. But distress slowed her efforts to summon Earthpower.

  Unimpeded, Roger’s fury slammed into the side of the cairn.

  Anele!

  Heavy stones erupted outward, shattering as they slashed the air. In a welter of rubble and spraying shards, nearly a third of the cairn was torn away. A few smaller fragments pelted the Giants and Clyme; but most of the wreckage carried beyond the company.

  Roger had attacked the cairn, the cairn. He was trying to kill Anele. Or destroy the Sunstone.

  For the duration of a heartbeat, no more than that, Linden searched the crown of the pile for the old man, her first companion, the hope of the Land. She spotted him almost instantly, crouched and gibbering on the south side of the cairn.

  Then she reached far down into herself for Jeremiah’s sake, and for her friends, and brought up a cyclone of flame from the willing wood of the Staff.

  Her fire was as black as the shaft itself; as the lightless depths of mountains. And as it gyred into the pale sky, the runes written into the Staff shone like purest silver, articulating Caerroil Wildwood’s ire and grief. Arcane symbols gave their consent.

  They made Linden stronger.

  Her counterattack was a driving gale that nearly unseated Roger. If he had defended himself with anything less than Kastenessen’s desecrated hand, her outrage and despair would have charred the marrow of his bones. But his magma caught her blow; held it back as if he were equal to every aspect of her.

  Bhapa was panting, “Ringthane, Ringthane,” as though she had appalled him. Stave regarded Earthpower transformed to fuligin with a suggestion of chagrin in his eye. Apparently they had not grasped the true scale of her transubstantiation. Liand’s death had completed a change begun in the graveyard of Jeremiah’s mind; an alteration inspired by She Who Must Not Be Named, a
nd by dreams of being carrion, and by Gallows Howe.

  Below her, the first Cavewights reached the foot of the ridge. Mad as a rabble, and vicious as kresh, they charged upward, a rising scend of slaughter.

  The Ironhand gave them a moment. Then, crying, “Stone and Sea!” she and Frostheart Grueburn and Halewhole Bluntfist sprang to meet the rabid rush.

  From the tumult of creatures, spears streaked the air. A few crossed the path of Linden’s black flame and became powder, harmless amid the howling. Stave caught one, used it to deflect another, then threw it back, all in the same motion. Pahni and Bhapa jerked Covenant away from a shaft which would have nailed him to the crumbling gypsum. Branl grabbed two more out of the air. When he returned them, one burst into slivers against the rough armor of its target; but the other took a Cavewight in the throat and sent the creature sprawling backward, sweeping half a dozen more off their feet as it fell.

  Coldspray, Grueburn, and Bluntfist did not waste their swords on armor. With wheeling strokes as fatal as Linden’s fire, they hacked at arms and legs, at exposed necks and skulls. Then, as their first assailants fell, tripping Cavewights lower on the slope, the three Swordmainnir allowed themselves to be driven back. Deliberately they retreated to higher ground.

  At the same time, Latebirth, Cabledarm, and Onyx Stonemage flung themselves into the battle, protecting their comrades with their own attack. Stonemage had claimed a spear. Now she fought with two weapons, swinging her longsword and jabbing with the spear as though she had spent centuries training to do so.

  That quick succession of countering assaults, three and then three, disrupted the initial charge; blunted it. More and more Cavewights stumbled over their fallen. Some lost their footing. Others staggered aside. When Coldspray, Grueburn, and Bluntfist rushed downward again, they drove their foes back.

  In the confusion of toppling bodies and spraying blood, the first onslaught of the Cavewights became a rout.

  But they were thinking creatures in spite of their bloodlust. Too many of them had tried to attack the company’s position directly. Now they adjusted their tactics. From the rear of the army, scores of Cavewights turned to challenge the ridge in the west, beyond the reach of swords. Others pounded upward in the east, apparently intending to use the remains of the cairn for cover while they massed against the Giants.

  Linden saw what they were doing, but she paid no attention. With her whole heart, she sent an unremitting torrent of ebony at Roger. Runes shone like inscribed wild magic as she strove to batter down Roger’s defenses, repay his bitter betrayals; fought to prevent Galt from deciding to kill the croyel.

  In Galt’s grasp, the monster yowled encouragement or instructions at Roger and the Cavewights. Froth splashed from its fangs like venom. Despite its desperation and malice, however, it did not dare to press its throat against the krill in order to chew on Jeremiah’s neck.

  One-handed, Cirrus Kindwind left her comrades and went to confront the surge of Cavewights in the west. Apparently satisfied by the chaos immediately below him, Clyme joined her. Alone, Stormpast Galesend began to fight her way around the cairn toward the eastern threat. Entrusting Covenant to the Cords, Branl took Clyme’s place among the other Swordmainnir.

  A doomed struggle. Only a few score of the Cavewights had attempted the ridge, and more came as if they were numberless. To an extent, the Ironhand’s alternating sallies downward had succeeded. The surface below her was already slick with blood and gore, churned to mud. The creatures climbing there slipped and skidded, rose arduously: they were vulnerable. But to the east and west, throngs of weapons and red eyes gained ground. Soon Coldspray would be forced to send Swordmainnir to support Kindwind and Galesend. Then direct assaults would become more effective.

  From his hilltop, Roger seemed to ignore the rest of the battle. Like the Cavewights, however, he changed his tactics. Sitting the shoulders of his mount, he blared magic like scoria at Linden’s black fire until he had formed an angled wall of power that caused her flame to glance away. Then, with the suddenness of a convulsion, he flung eldritch lava at the cairn again.

  Roaring, Cirrus Kindwind charged her foes. At her side, Clyme struck hard and deep. Blood ran from cuts on Grueburn’s arms and legs. Latebirth bore similar wounds. Spear-points and blades had scored Coldspray’s cataphract: truncheons smashed the shaped stone away in flakes.

  Linden was almost too late to protect the mound that shielded Anele. At the last instant, however, she realized what Roger was doing. Frenzy pounded in her temples as she nudged his bolt aside. It ruptured the far corner of the pile, sent a small rain of boulders and shards onto the Cavewights in the east, but did no serious harm to the stones where Anele cowered.

  The old man looked like he was screaming, but Linden heard nothing except the loud rage of the creatures and the vicious sizzle of Roger’s onslaught.

  Retreating by increments, Pahni and Bhapa tugged Covenant from side to side to avoid spears and hurled axes, thrown scraps of rock. Even now, he showed no sign that he would ever return from his memories. Nevertheless Linden thought that she felt Galt’s grip tighten on the krill.

  With nothing to guide him except his health-sense, Manethrall Mahrtiir suddenly dove headlong down the slope; hit fouled mud and rolled; collided with the legs of Cavewights scrambling for purchase on the slick ridgeside. Instead of trying to hurt single creatures, he twisted among them, kicking at their ankles and knees, fighting beneath the reach of their weapons to knock them off balance. On a slope made treacherous by blood and spilled guts, he was impossibly successful. Below the Ironhand and her comrades, a small swath of Cavewights went down as if he had scythed them from their feet.

  He would be dead in moments, suffocated under the weight of falling bodies if no weapon pierced him. While he lived, however, he wrought such turmoil that two of the Swordmainnir were freed to fight elsewhere. Heaving for breath, Latebirth ran to join Cirrus Kindwind and Clyme. Drenched in blood, Bluntfist followed Stormpast Galesend around the cairn.

  Nonetheless more and more Cavewights reached the long spine among the hills. Then they no longer had to struggle upward. On gypsum crushed to dust, they gathered from east and west. Only the comparative narrowness of the ridge kept them from over-running the Giants immediately.

  With Clyme, Kindwind and Latebirth fought like berserkers. Their great strength and uncounted years of training wrought devastation. But the Cavewights were too many—

  Linden could not see Galesend and Bluntfist past the cairn; but she did not doubt that they would soon be overwhelmed.

  Branl needed no request to go after the Manethrall. Like a boulder pitched from a rampart, he plunged out of sight into the melee around Mahrtiir.

  Stave did not so much as glance at Galt as he moved to take Branl’s place with Coldspray and Stonemage, Grueburn and Cabledarm. Screams and shrieking punctuated the battle-howl of the Cavewights—and still they came.

  Inspired by dread for Jeremiah, Linden adjusted her attack on Roger. Instead of opposing him squarely, she lowered her aim. In a flash of black puissance, she incinerated the Cavewight carrying Covenant’s son; reduced the creature to instantaneous ash. And as Roger fell, cursing, in a flurry of limbs, she turned her fire like a scourge against the Cavewights around him. Before he could flounder to his feet, she set ablaze every creature that might have shielded him. When she resumed flailing at him again, he stood alone on his hilltop, an eyot of absolute ferocity above the tide of Cavewights and the carnage.

  Cabledarm fell to one knee, an axe embedded in her thigh, with her longsword thrust through the throat of her attacker. Before other creatures could inundate her, Stave wrenched loose the axe and spun among them, delivering hacked limbs and gashed necks on all sides. Snarling in pain, Cabledarm cleared her sword; hobbled to follow Stave with Frostheart Grueburn at her shoulder. Together the two Swordmainnir and the former Master cleared a space at the gore-streaked edge of the ridge.

  Into that space climbed Branl with Mahrtiir hang
ing on his back. The Humbled wore blood as thick as a cloak: cuts covered the Manethrall like fretwork. But they were still alive.

  With a word, Coldspray sent Onyx Stonemage to join the fighting beyond the cairn. The Ironhand seemed to wade through blows and bodies, whirling her glaive in a fierce blur, as she labored to support Grueburn and Cabledarm.

  In another moment, or perhaps two, they would all be hacked down. Every Giant. Every Haruchai except Galt. Manethrall Mahrtiir. There would be no one left to defend the Cords and Covenant, or Galt and Jeremiah, or Anele, except Linden herself.

  Seeing what was about to happen, Bhapa and Pahni began to drag Covenant down the far side of the ridge.

  They would not get far.

  Surely Galt was ready to slice open the croyel’s throat so that he could carry Loric’s krill into the fight? He would need it. Linden could hardly believe that he had waited so long.

  No! she yelled to herself, harsh as vitriol, bitter as the dirt of Gallows Howe. No! I will not allow it!

  Screaming the Seven Words, she redoubled her pitch-dark assault on Covenant’s son. Flame as black as the core of an eclipsed sun struck at him from both shod heels of her Staff. Between the iron bands, Caerroil Wildwood’s script flared with unconstrained possibilities. If she could stop Roger, kill him, his Cavewights might falter. Galt might refrain from causing Jeremiah’s death.

  But she was the one who faltered. Caught by surprise, her concentration broke when she sensed Anele’s descent from the cairn. In one fist, he held the orcrest blazing as if it were a remedy for possession. His moonstone eyes shone like sunlight, articulating his inheritance of Earthpower.

  Anele, don’t!

  Already he was exposed to any blow that she failed to intercept. Through the clang of weapons and pain, she heard the iterated refrain of his compulsions.

  “Must.”

  “Cannot.”

  As he worked his way down the last boulders, however, his “Cannot” sank to a whimper. “Must” became a cracked-voiced shout.