Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

Separately the Viles and the Forestal were potent enough to banish Covenant and her son, her son . Together their energies would rend both of her loves. Jeremiah and Covenant would not simply disappear: they would perish utterly.

Without Covenant’s support, the Arch of Time itself might be undone.

Then we’ll have to do it. Get ready.

She could not reach them; could do nothing to protect them.

She had scarcely finished one stride and begun the next, however, when Covenant and Jeremiah turned away from their peril. Running headlong, they sprinted down the slope toward her. Again Covenant yelled. “ Now, Linden!”

Behind them, a tremendous explosion shook the hills as focused serpentine vitriol struck lucent melody. The impact seemed to jolt the sky, jarring the sun, spilling winter brightness back into the hollow: it made the ground under Linden’s boots pitch and heave. At once, time began to race like Covenant and Jeremiah, like Linden herself, as if opposing forces had knocked the interrupted moments loose to bleed and blur. The Viles released an unremitting gush of black unnatural puissance. Caerroil Wildwood sang in response, using the given lore of the Elohim and the sentient Earthpower of trees by the millions. Suddenly Linden and her companions were able to close the gap between them.

“ Now! ” Covenant panted yet again. “While they’re fighting each other!”

She stopped as if he had commanded her; as if she understood him.

Scrambling to a halt, he and Jeremiah positioned themselves on either side of her, front and back. They flung up their arms. Against a background of incompatible magicks as flagrant as an avalanche, she felt their powers rise. She had time to think, They did this, they tricked-

There are times when it’s useful to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Then thunder or lightning arched over her head, and everything vanished as though her existence had been severed with an axe. During the immeasurable interval between instants, she and her companions fled.

Without transition, the acrid midnight of the Viles and the angry music of the Forestal sprang into the distance. Unbalanced by the shifting ground, Linden stumbled; flung out her arms to catch herself. Then, still reeling, she looked wildly around her.

Covenant and Jeremiah had brought her to the ridge of another twisted rib among the Last Hills. On one side, the slopes rose into intransigent bluffs and crags: with each translocation, their resemblance to nascent mountains increased. On the other, Garroting Deep lapped against the hills as though the trees had been caught by winter and cold in the act of encroaching on their boundaries. With her first unsteady glance, Linden saw no significant change in the forest. Slight variations in the textures of the woodland: trees differently arranged. Nothing more. Yet she sensed that the intentions of the Deep had been altered at their roots.

The forest no longer hungered for human flesh. Instead Garroting Deep’s mood had become outrage, and its appetite was focused elsewhere.

In the southeast, at least two or three leagues away, the Viles and Caerroil Wildwood made war on each other. Their might was so intense that Linden could descry each scourging strike of scorn and blackness-and each extravagant note, each instance of pure fury, in the Forestal’s vast song.

Rampant obsidian and glory were plainly visible, hectic and unappeased, against the horizon of the hills. Even here, the ground trembled at the forces which the combatants hurled at each other.

Both Covenant and Jeremiah had dropped to their knees to avoid Linden’s floundering. But Jeremiah still held his arms high. From them, energies poured upward as if he sought to ward away or channel the collapse of the sky. The muscles at the corner of his eye sent out messages which she could not interpret.

A heartbeat later, wood began to rain from the empty air. Deadwood, twisted and knaggy: leafless twigs and branches of every size and shape, all broken by weather or theurgy from what must once have been a majestic oak. Linden and her companions could have been beaten bloody or killed by the sudden downpour. But Jeremiah’s power covered them. Twigs as slender as her fingers and boughs as thick as a Giant’s leg rebounded in mid-plunge and toppled to the dirt in a crude circle around the rim of Jeremiah’s protection.

Unbalanced by shock and surprise, Linden braced herself on the Staff. Too much had happened too quickly: her nerves could not accommodate it. She still seemed to see the speech of the Viles blooming darkly in her vision, clawing at her skin. All of that wood had fallen from the featureless sky, and she had done her utmost to sway the makers of the Demondim from their doom.

But she had failed. -a rock and a hard place . The Viles would never forgive the forests of the Land now. They had learned the loathing of trees-

Almost at once, Covenant jumped to his feet. “Get to it,” he snapped at Jeremiah. “We don’t have much time.” Then he faced Linden. “Do what I tell you,” he demanded harshly. “Don’t ask questions. Don’t even think. We’re still in danger. We need you.”

She did not think. When she said, “You tricked them,” she was surprised to hear herself speak aloud. “The Viles and the Forestal.” Like Covenant, Jeremiah had leapt upright. In a rush, he gathered the deadwood, tossing or tugging the heavier branches into a pile, throwing twigs by the handful among them. “You made them think that they were attacking each other.”

And she had helped him. Her attempts to reason with the Viles had distracted them-

“Damnation, Linden!” yelled Covenant. “I told you-!” But then he made an obvious effort to control himself. Lowering his voice, he rasped, “We don’t have time for this. I know you feel overwhelmed. But we can’t afford a discussion right now.

“The Viles aren’t stupid. They’re going to figure out what happened. They’ll know who to blame. If that damn Forestal stops singing at them, they’ll come after us. And even he can’t hold them. Any minute now, they’ll find a way to evade him.

“Linden, we need you.”

Tense with purpose, Jeremiah hurried around the circle of wood, collecting branches of all sizes.

Linden was not sure that she could move. If she tried to take a step, she might collapse. Covenant had told her not to think. She seemed to have no thoughts at all.

“Can’t you outrun them?”

“Hellfire!” Blood or embers flared in his eyes. “Of course we can outrun them. If we have time. But they can move pretty damn fast. We need time .”

As soon as they broke off their engagement with Caerroil Wildwood-

“You planned all of this,” she responded dully. “Or you planned for it.”

“Snap out of it!” Covenant retorted, yelling again. “Do what I tell you!”

Already Jeremiah had gathered half of the torn and splintered wood. In the distance, combat blazed and volleyed, wreckage against song, burgeoning disdain against ancient wrath.

“Where did all this wood come from?” she asked. “What’s it for?”

“ Linden !” Covenant protested: a howl of frustration.

But Jeremiah paused, sweating despite the cold. “There was a dead oak at the edge of the trees,” he said without looking at her. “Or almost dead. Anyway, it had a lot of dead branches. I hit it. We picked up the wood when we escaped. We’re going to need it when we get to Melenkurion Skyweir.”

Abruptly he resumed his task.

Trying to think, Linden wondered, Torches? Campfires?

But Jeremiah had broken enough boughs for a full bonfire-and most of them were too large to be carried as torches.