The Last Dark (62 page)

“There!” one of the Swordmainnir barked softly.

A quick pang of alarm disturbed Linden’s flames. She bit her lip, resisted her impulse to falter.

“Where?” asked the Ironhand. “My sight has lost its youth. I do not descry—”

Calm as mist, Stave said, “Chosen. Direct your strength to the mountainsides beyond the Defiles Course.”

She complied at once.
Moksha
’s forces were more likely to round Mount Thunder from the north than the south.

Fresh tension spread among the Giants. Latebirth groaned. Stonemage and Grueburn cursed harshly.

“Chosen-son!” snapped Cirrus Kindwind. “Stand at my back. Move as I move. I will shield you.”

To Branl, Coldspray rasped, “You must defend the Timewarden. We cannot. If the Swordmainnir do not stand together, we will soon fall.”

Linden opened her eyes, but she did not need them to discern the Sandgorgons. She felt their eager ferocity in every nerve.

There were—

Oh, God!

—at least a score of them. Two score? More?

Fatal as a landslide, they sped among lingering streamers of brume, hurtled down the mountainside toward the valley.

One led the way. It had pulled some distance ahead of the others. Behind it came three, no, four more Sandgorgons. Nimble on the pads of their feet, the strange backward flex of their legs, they cascaded over the rocks. The rest of the monsters followed, a pale rush angling across Mount Thunder’s contorted slopes.

For an instant, Linden froze. How many Sandgorgons had left their home across the seas? More than this? Surely not
more
?

The company could not survive so many.

Worse, Jeremiah would not be one of the victims. Lord Foul and
moksha
Raver might not be able to control the
skurj
; keep them away from the Despiser’s prize. The Sandgorgons were another matter. The shreds of
samadhi
Sheol animated their minds. They would obey Lord Foul’s wishes.

As if she had taken herself by the throat, Linden let out a black scream against the fog.

That was as much as she could do. She wanted to strike at the Sandgorgons before they reached the valley, do as much damage as she could from a distance. But she had already caught the reek of more gangrene.

High above the Defiles Course, a second chancre had appeared, a second suppuration. The gutrock bled vile fluids like pus.

God in Heaven! We can’t—

Rime Coldspray adjusted the formation of the Swordmainnir. With Frostheart Grueburn, Latebirth, and Halewhole Bluntfist, she came to stand in front of Linden. The others positioned themselves to defend Jeremiah. He was trying to shout, but his voice broke into whimpers. Stave waited at Linden’s side as if he were resting. In no apparent hurry, Branl returned along the valley bottom toward Covenant.

Ragged with strain, Covenant continued yelling at the Sarangrave.

“Linden Giantfriend.” The Ironhand sounded almost nonchalant. The prospect of an impossible battle seemed to focus her combative nature. “The
skurj
we must entrust to you. If by kind fortune they approach singly, you may perhaps prevail. The Sandgorgons are mighty in all sooth, yet they wield only strength and ferocity. And we also are mighty. We are armed and armored. We will hope to stand against them. If they do not mass for a combined assault”—she shrugged to loosen her shoulders—“we will teach them to esteem us.”

The pounding of Linden’s pulse in her ears measured out Coldspray’s words—
entrust to you.
After that, she recognized only one in three. Still she knew what was required of her.

Jeremiah had his defenders. Armed with a sword forged to fight Sandgorgons, Branl would guard Covenant. And Covenant was not helpless. If any residue of his victory over Nom lingered in the minds of the monsters, or in
samadhi
’s, they might flinch from attacking him. That left the
skurj
.

Linden believed that she could stop them—

—if they came no more than one or two at a time.

Fierce and ruddy, a maw full of fangs burst from the granite high in the cliff. With grim satisfaction, Linden saw that the monster was directly above the Defiles Course. The riverbed held much less than its former torrents; but the remaining gush was still
water
: polluted beyond estimation, yes, and stinking to the stars, but water nonetheless. Her fate was written in it.

Swinging her Staff like the handle of a flail, and hissing the Seven Words past her teeth, she sent barbed fire at the
skurj
.

The leading Sandgorgon was already nearing the valley. The others did not gain ground, but they followed swiftly.

Thinking
Melenkurion
and
minas
and
khabaal
, Linden found that the monster in the cliff had emerged near the limit of her range. She could not hit it hard enough to slay it. But she was fighting now: instinct and desperation guided her. She did not need to kill the monster directly. She could use the river. All she had to do was make the damn thing fall.

Deliberately she harried the creature. She whipped fire at its jaws, made wounds in its gullet. Then she caused one of his fangs to rupture.

Roaring in distress, the
skurj
thrashed against the rims of its egress. The stone around it cracked and crumbled.

It was not a thinking creature. It did not observe and take care: it only hunted and fed—and reacted to pain. After a moment, its own writhing broke loose a section of the cliff.

Amid shards of gutrock as loud as thunder, the monster plunged down the face of the precipice.

When the
skurj
hit the Defiles Course, steam erupted from the impact. Fouled water sprayed upward, filled the valley bottom with a rain of poison and acid. But Linden had anticipated that. As the monster fell, she raised a curtain of black flame between her companions and the river. Earthpower burned ruin out of the air. Then, as the corrosive deluge subsided, she turned her fire against the
skurj
again, burning to trap the monster in the river.

Inflicted hurts blocked the monster’s escape. It shrieked like shattering as it swallowed spray and splashes, gulped down death. Then it collapsed, steaming furiously; stretched out its length in the current. A moment later, it was dead, and the Defiles Course flowed over it.

Linden wanted a shout of celebration. She looked around for it. But sudden plague-spots dotted the far side of the valley; and more appeared on the near side, within a stone’s throw of the company; and the first Sandgorgon raced off the mountainside onto lower ground, charging toward Branl and Covenant.

The
gaddhi
of
Bhrathairealm
had called the Sandgorgons
more fearsome than madness or nightmare
. Baked to an albino whiteness in the Great Desert, the creatures were destruction incarnate. They could pulverize granite with the prehensile stumps of their forearms. And their heads had been formed for battering, lacking eyes or other vulnerabilities. They breathed through slits like gills protected by tough hide on the sides of their heads.

If that Sandgorgon contrived to strike Covenant, it would snap every bone in his body.

But Linden could do nothing to defend him. Half a dozen
skurj
had already thrust their heads and fangs out of the ground. More were close. Frantic and furious, she faced those threats, leaving her husband to Branl.

She had devised a new defense. Whipping flame from place to place, she concentrated Earthpower on the lambent fangs. From maw to maw, she caused eruptions like bursts of agony along the kraken jaws. Small hurts: the
skurj
were huge, and their mouths held scores of scimitar-teeth. Nevertheless their pain was acute. It enraged the monsters—but it also distracted them.

It slowed their emergence from the earth.

Gripping her glaive, the Ironhand breathed, “Well done, Linden Giantfriend. I had not considered such a ploy.”

It was no more than a delay, a transient interruption. But it might create openings for the Swordmainnir.

While Linden lashed obsidian back and forth, accentuating her efforts with the Seven Words, Covenant and Branl finally turned to face the nearest Sandgorgon. As if they were sure of their strength, they strode to meet the charge. Branl held Longwrath’s flamberge poised to slash. Covenant’s halfhand gripped Loric’s shining dagger by its wrapped hilt.

Behind them came a cluster of Feroce, perhaps ten of the naked child-forms. They held out their hands like gestures of supplication or worship. Rank green flames twisted and flared in each of their palms.

At their backs, more fog piled out of the Sarangrave, obscuring the perils of the wetland.

The Sandgorgon gathered itself, sprang over the water. For the flicker of an instant, it vanished below the rim of the riverbank. Then another leap brought it out of the Defiles Course. Silent as the fog, as the boundary between life and death, it sped toward the Unbeliever and the Humbled. Between one stride and the next, it became a juggernaut.

Covenant and Branl did not hesitate.

Instead the creature faltered. Five of its strides from its targets, it jerked to a halt. Its head turned from side to side, scanning with its arcane senses. It seemed to remember Covenant. Its blunt forearms aimed confused blows at the air.

Before the Sandgorgon could recover—before the thwarted scraps of
samadhi
Sheol’s sentience regained their mastery—Branl delivered a cut that opened the monster’s torso from its neck down through its chest to its opposite hip. Blood and strange guts spouted from the wound as the Sandgorgon toppled.

Branl did not pause to regard the corpse. Four more creatures were only heartbeats away. One had already leapt the river. Another was leaping.

But Covenant turned to the Feroce in spite of his peril. “That was impressive,” he growled quietly. “What did you do?”

The Humbled continued his advance. His blade shed blood and strips of flesh as if its old magicks repelled the gore of the Sandgorgon.

In their one voice, moist and diffuse, the lurker’s minions answered, “We have caused it to remember that it is bestial, a creature of instinct, not of intent. We have caused it to remember that you are mighty. Alas, we are merely the Feroce. We are frail, unworthy to serve our High God. We cannot impose recall upon so many, or upon such savagery.”

At the last instant, Branl stepped aside from the first creature, beyond the reach of its arms—but not the length of his sword. The Sandgorgon had no defense as he slid the flamberge across its trunk below its ribs. Reflexively it clamped its forearms over the slash; but they were not enough to keep its life from spilling out.

Covenant nodded to the Feroce. “Do what you can,” he said; demanded. “And tell your High God I need more than just you. I need
him
. I need him
here
. This is what alliances are for. I have to have help.”

Branl spun into a horizontal cut that bit through obdurate bone, nearly severed the top half of a Sandgorgon’s face and skull. But Longwrath’s sword caught there, grinding between bones which could have smashed down a wall. The
Haruchai
could not wrench his blade loose quickly enough to intercept the next creature.

Wailing, the Feroce brandished their fires as the third Sandgorgon swung a crushing blow at Branl.

Even his preternatural strength was no match for the creature’s. Yet he was
Haruchai
, and swift. And he had not forgotten the ease with which a Sandgorgon had killed Hergrom, crippled Ceer. He evaded the blow by diving under the creature’s arm. It did not touch him.

He landed on his feet, whirled back toward the creature. But now he was too far away to protect Covenant; and he had to retrieve his sword.

At the last instant, the theurgy of the Feroce took hold. The monster slowed its rush directly in front of Covenant.

Wincing and bitter, he raised the
krill
. The eldritch blade slipped as easily as murder into the Sandgorgon’s heart.

Blood sprayed from the creature’s gills as it plowed into him. It was already dead. Still the impact sent him sprawling. He lost his grip on the dagger. It tumbled away across the dirt, sending dismembered flashes of argent through the new fog.

From the ground, he glared wildly at the fourth Sandgorgon as though he imagined that he could defy it with nothing more than his gaze and his anger. Spangles like glints of frenzy gathered around his wedding band; but he had fallen too heavily to wield them.

Leaping, Branl came down at that creature’s back with the full force and magic of his flamberge.

The Sandgorgon staggered away in a welter of blood and bone. Its legs folded under it. It pounded its featureless face against the valley bottom while its muscles seized. Then it lay still.

More Sandgorgons were coming: too many. The first of them had reached the valley. In another moment, it would cross the Defiles Course.

Branl appeared to shrug as he reached down to clasp Covenant’s hand. In one effortless motion, he snatched the Unbeliever upright. A moment later, he retrieved the
krill
, returned it to Covenant.

“Now or never,” Covenant gasped at the Feroce. He could hardly breathe. Something in his chest felt broken. “You said the alliance is sealed. We need help
now
.”

Together he and Branl resumed their ascent along the valley. He lurched in pain. His companion looked as deadly as Longwrath’s sword.

The Feroce followed at a slight distance. Their fires flared like mewling.

Linden was not watching. She could not. While she harassed
skurj
furiously, lashing Earthpower and Law at the bright lava of their fangs, another ironwood became instant conflagration. Burning sap burst from its trunk, its boughs, even its leaves. It was close: its heat slapped at her face as an open maw appeared, rabid and ravenous. Uprooted by the monster, the tree pitched down the slope as if it had been hurled aside.

Frantic and off-balance on the cliff edge of her strength, Linden threw obsidian vehemence at the
skurj
.