One Tree (32 page)

Eels!

Immense numbers of them.

They were not on fire, shed no flame. Rather they radiated a hot red malice from their snakelike forms. Driven by the lust of the Raver in them, they shone like incandescent blood as they climbed. They were as large as Linden’s arm. Their gaping teeth flashed light as incisive as razors.

The First yelled a warning that fled without echo into the wind.

The leading eels reached the level of the mast; but Linden could not move. The sheer force of the Raver’s presence held her. Memories of Gibbon and Marid burned in her guts; and a black yearning answered, jumping within her like wild glee. Power! The part of her that desired possession and Ravers, lusted for the sovereign strength of death, lashed against her conscious loathing, her vulnerable and deliberate rejection of evil; and the contradiction locked her into immobility. She had been like this in the woods behind Haven Farm, when Lord Foul had looked out of the fire at her and she had let Covenant go down alone to his doom.

Yet that threat to him had finally broken her fear, sent her running to his rescue. And the eels were coming for him now, while he was entirely unable to defend himself. Stung by his peril, her mind seemed to step back, fleeing from panic into her old professional detachment.

Why had Foul chosen to attack now, when the
Elohim
had already done Covenant such harm? Had the
Elohim
acted for reasons of their own, without the Despiser’s knowledge or prompting? Had she been wrong in her judgment of them? If Lord Foul did not know about Covenant’s condition—

Hergrom, Ceer, and the First had already started downward to meet the attack; but Pitchwife was closer to it than anyone else. Quickly he slipped below his lifeline to the next cable. Bracing himself there, he bent and scooped up an eel to crush it.

As his hand closed, a discharge of red power shot through him. The blast etched him, distinct and crimson, against the dark sea. With a scream in his chest, he tumbled down the deck, struck heavily against
the base of the mast. Sprawled precariously there, he lay motionless, barely breathing.

More eels crawled over his legs. But since he was still, they did not unleash their fire into him.

Hergrom slid in a long dive down to the stricken Giant. At once, he kicked three eels away from Pitchwife’s legs. The creatures fell writhing back into the sea; but their power detonated on Hergrom’s foot, sent him into convulsions. Only the brevity of the blast saved his life. He retained scarcely enough control over his muscles to knot one fist in the back of Pitchwife’s sark, the other on a cleat of the mast. Twitching and jerking like a wild man, he still contrived to keep himself and Pitchwife from sliding farther.

Every spasm threatened to bring either him or the Giant into contact with more of the creatures.

Then the First reached the level of the assault. With her feet planted on the deck, a lifeline across her belly, she poised her broadsword in both fists. Her back and shoulders bunched like a shout of fear and rage for Pitchwife.

The First’s jeopardy snatched Linden back from her detachment. Desperately she howled, “No!”

She was too late. The First scythed her blade at the eels closest to her feet.

Power shot along the iron, erupted from her hands into her chest. Fire formed a corona around her. Red static sprang from her hair. Her sword fell. Plunging in a shower of sparks, it struck the water with a sharp hiss and disappeared.

She made no effort to catch it. Her stunned body toppled over the lifeline. Below her, the water seethed with malice as more eels squirmed up the deck into air and fire.

Ceer barely caught her. Reading the situation with celerity bordering on prescience, he had taken an instant to knot a rope around his waist. As the First fell, he threw the rope to the nearest crewmember and sprang after her.

He snagged her by the shoulder. Then the Giant pulled on the rope, halting Ceer and the First just above the waterline.

“Don’t move them!” Linden shouted instantly. “She can’t take any more!”

The First lay still. Ceer held himself motionless. The eels crawled over them as if they were a part of the deck.

With a fierce effort, Hergrom fought himself under command. He steadied his limbs, stopped jerking Pitchwife, a heartbeat before more eels began slithering over the two of them.

Linden could hardly think. Her friends were in danger. Memories of Revelstone and Gibbon pounded at her. The presence of the Raver hurt her senses, appalled every inch of her flesh. In Revelstone, the conflict of her reactions to that ill power had driven her deep into a catatonia of horror. But now she let the taste of evil pour through her and fought to concentrate on the creatures themselves. She needed a way to combat them.

Seadreamer’s reflexes were swifter. Tearing Covenant from Brinn’s grasp, he leaped down to the first cable, then began hauling himself toward Foodfendhall.

Brinn went after him as if to retrieve the ur-Lord from a Giant who had gone mad.

But almost immediately Seadreamer’s purpose became clear. As the Giant conveyed Covenant forward, the eels turned in that direction,
writhing to catch up with their prey. The whole thrust of the attack shifted forward.

Soon Ceer and the First were left behind. And a moment later Pitchwife and Hergrom were out of danger.

At once, the Giant holding Ceer’s rope heaved the
Haruchai
and the First upward. Honninscrave skidded under the lifelines to the mast, took Pitchwife from Hergrom’s damaged grasp.

But the eels still came, Raver-driven to hurl themselves at Covenant. Shortly Seadreamer had traversed the cable to its mooring near the rail at the edge of Foodfendhall. There he hesitated, looked back at the pursuit. But he had no choice. He had committed himself, was cornered now between the housing and the rail. The nearest creatures were scant moments from his feet.

As Brinn caught up with him, Seadreamer grabbed the
Haruchai
by the arm, pulled him off his feet in a deft arc up to the canted roof. He landed just within the ship’s lee below the mad gale. Almost in the same motion, Seadreamer planted one foot atop the railing and leaped after Brinn.

For an instant, the wind caught him, tried to hurl him out to sea. But his weight and momentum bore him back down to the roof. Beyond the edge of Foodfendhall, he dropped out of Linden’s view. Then he appeared again as he stretched out along the midmast. He held Covenant draped over his shoulder.

In spite of the fearsome risks he took, Linden’s courage lifted. Perhaps the wall of the housing would block the eels.

But the creatures had not been daunted by the steep slope of the deck; and now they began to squirm up the side of Foodfendhall, clinging to the flat stone with their bellies. As their fire rose, it came between her and the darkness at the mast, effacing Seadreamer and Covenant from her sight.

At Honninscrave’s command, several Giants moved to engage the eels. They fought by using lengths of hawser as whips—and had some success. Discharges of power expended themselves by incinerating the ropes, did not reach the hands of the Giants. Many eels were killed by the force of the blows.

But the creatures were too numerous; and the Giants were slowed by their constant need for more rope. They could not clear their way to the wall, could not prevent scores of fire-serpents from scaling upward. And more eels came surging incessantly out of the sea. Soon Seadreamer would be trapped. Already creatures were wriggling onto the roof.

Urgency and instinct impelled Linden into motion. In a flash of memory, she saw Covenant standing, valiant and desirable, within the
caamora
he had created for the Dead of The Grieve—protected from the bonfire by wild magic. Fire against fire. Bracing herself on Cail, she snatched at the lantern hanging from the rail above her head. Though she was weak with cold and off-balance, she turned, hurled the lantern toward Foodfendhall.

It fell short of the red-bright wall. But when it hit the deck, it broke; and oil spattered over the nearest eels. Instantly they burst into flame. Their own power became a conflagration which consumed them. Convulsed in their death throes, they fell back to the water and hissed their dying away into the dark.

Linden tried to shout; but Honninscrave was quicker. “Oil!” he roared. “Bring more oil!”

In response, Ceer and two of the Giants hurtled toward a nearby hatchway.

Other crewmembers grabbed for the remaining lanterns. Honninscrave stopped them. “We will need the light!”

Seadreamer, Covenant, and Brinn were visible now in the advancing glare of the eels. Seadreamer stood on the mast, with Covenant over his shoulder. As the eels hastened toward him, he retreated up the mast. It was a treacherous place to walk—curved, festooned with cables, marked with belaying-cleats. But he picked his way up the slope, his eyes fixed on the eels. His gaze echoed mad determination to their fire. In the garish illumination, he looked heavy and fatal, as if his weight alone would be enough to topple Starfare’s Gem.

Between him and the attack stood Brinn. The
Haruchai
followed Seadreamer, facing the danger like the last guardian of Covenant’s life. Linden could not read his face at that distance; but he must have known that the first blow he struck would also be the last. Yet he did not falter.

Ceer and the two Giants had not returned. Measuring the time by her ragged breathing, Linden believed that they were already too late. Too many eels had gained the roof. And still more continued to rise out of the sea as if their numbers were as endless as the malevolence which drove them.

Abruptly Seadreamer stumbled into the turbulence beyond the lee of the ship. The gale buffeted him from his feet, almost knocked him off the mast. But he dropped down to straddle the stone with his legs, and his massive thighs held him against the blast. Light reflected from the scar under his eyes as if his visage were afire. Covenant dangled limp and insensate from his shoulder. The creatures were halfway up the mast to him. Between him and death stood one weaponless
Haruchai
.

Raging with urgency, Honninscrave shouted at his brother.

Seadreamer heard, understood. He shifted the Unbeliever so that Covenant lay cradled in his thighs. Then he began to unbind the shrouds around him.

When he could not reach the knots, or not untie them swiftly enough, he snapped the lines like string. And as he worked or broke them free, he passed the pieces to Brinn.

Thus armed, the
Haruchai
advanced to meet the eels.

Impossibly poised between caution and extravagance, he struck at the creatures, flailing them with his rough-made quirts. Some of the pieces were too short to completely spare him from hot harm; but somehow he retained his control and fought on. When he had exhausted his supply of weapons, he bounded back to Seadreamer to take the ones the Giant had ready for him.

From Linden’s distance, Covenant’s defenders looked heroic and doomed. The mast’s surface limited the number of eels which could approach simultaneously. But Brinn’s supply of quirts was also limited by the amount of line within Seadreamer’s reach. That resource was dwindling rapidly. And no help could reach them.

Frantically Linden gathered herself to shout at Honninscrave, tell him to throw more rope to Seadreamer. But at that moment, Ceer returned. Gripping a large pouch like a wineskin under his arm, he dashed out from under the wheeldeck, sprang to the nearest lifeline. With all his
Haruchai
alacrity, he sped forward.

Behind him came the two Giants. They moved more slowly because they each carried two pouches, but they made all the haste they could.

Honninscrave sent his crew scrambling out of Ceer’s path. As he rushed forward past the aftermast, Ceer unstopped his pouch. Squeezing it under his arm, he spouted a dark stream of oil to the stone below him. Oil slicked the deck, spread its sheen downward.

When the oil met the eels, the deck became a sheet of flame.

Fire spread, burning so rapidly that it followed Ceer’s spout like hunger. It ignited the eels, cast them onto each other to multiply the ignition. In moments, all the deck below him blazed. The Raver’s creatures were wiped away by their own conflagration.

But hundreds of them had already gained the wall and roof of the housing; and now the crew’s access to Foodfendhall was blocked. Fire alone would not have stopped the Giants. But the oil made the deck too slippery to be traversed. Until it burned away, no help could try to reach Seadreamer and Brinn except along the cable Ceer used.

They had only scant moments left. No more line lay within Seadreamer’s reach. He tried to slide himself toward the first spar, where the shrouds were plentiful; but the effort took him farther into the direct turbulence of the gale. Before he had covered half the distance, the blast became too strong for him. He had to hunch over Covenant, cling to the stone with all his limbs, in order to keep the two of them from being torn away into the night.

Ceer’s pouch was emptied before he gained Foodfendhall. He was forced to stop. No one could reach the housing.

Honninscrave barked commands. At once, the nearer oil-laden Giant stopped, secured her footing, then threw her pouches forward, one after the other. The first flew to the Master as he positioned himself immediately behind Ceer. The second arced over them to hit and burst against the edge of the roof. Oil splashed down the wall. Flames cleared away the eels. Rapidly the surviving remnant of the attack was erased from the afterdeck.

Honninscrave snapped instructions at Ceer. Ceer ducked around behind the Giant, climbed his back like a tree while Honninscrave crossed the last distance to the wall. From the Master’s shoulders, Ceer leaped to the roof, then turned to catch the pouch Honninscrave tossed upward.

Flames leaped as Ceer began spewing oil at the eels.

With a lunge, Honninscrave caught at the edge of the roof. In spite of the oil, his fingers held, defying failure as he flipped himself over the eaves. Giants threw the last two pouches up to him. Clutching one by the throat in each hand, he crouched under the gale and followed Ceer.