Stephen Donaldson - The Power That Preserves

With part of his mind, Mhoram observed that Lord Amatin now stood beside him. He glanced around for Loerya and saw her on a balcony of the main Keep. He waved his approval to her; if any holocaust struck the watchtower, all the Lords would not be lost. Then he cocked an eyebrow at Quaan, and when the Warmark nodded to indicate that the warriors were ready for any sudden orders, High Lord Mhoram returned his attention to the ur-viles.

As the arm of the catapult was drawn back, Gravelingas Tohrm knelt at the parapet, spreading his arms and pressing his palms against the slow curve of the wall. In a dim, alien voice, he began to sing a song of granite endurance to the stone.

Then the arm reached its fullest arc. Quivering as if it were about to splinter, it strained toward the tower. At once, it was locked into place with iron hooks. Its wide cup had been brought down to chest level directly in front of the loremaster who apexed the largest wedge.

With a ringing clang, the loremaster struck its stave against the cup. Strength surged through scores of black shoulders; they emanated power as the loremaster laboured over the cup. And thick, cruel fluid, as fiery as the vitriol which consumes flesh and obsidian and teak alike, splashed coruscating darkly from the stave into the waiting cup.

The High Lord had seen human bodies fall into ash at the least touch of fluid like that. He turned to warn Quaan. But the old Warmark needed no warning; he also had watched warriors die in Demondim acid. Before Mhoram could speak, Quaan was shouting down the stairwell into the tower, ordering his warriors away from all the exposed windows and battlements.

At Mhoram’s side, Lord Amatin’s slight form began to shiver in the wind. She held her staff braced before her as if she were trying to ward the cold away.

Slowly, the loremaster’s fluid filled the cup. It splashed and spouted like black lava, throwing midnight sparks into the air; but the lore of the ur-viles contained it, held its dark force together, prevented it from shattering the catapult.

Then the cup was full.

The ur-viles did not hesitate. With a hoarse, hungry cry, they knocked free the restraining hooks.

The arm arced viciously forward, slapped with flat vehemence against the stop at the end of its throw.

A black gout of vitriol as large as a Stonedownor home sprang through the air and crashed against the tower a few dozen feet below the topmost parapet.

As the acid struck stone, it erupted. In lightless incandescence, it burned at the mountain rock like the flare of a dark sun. Tohrm cried out in pain, and the stone’s agony howled under Mhoram’s feet. He leaped forward. With Trevor and Amatin beside him, he called blue Lords-fire from his staff and flung it down against the vitriol.

Together, the three staffs flamed hotly to counter the acid. And because the ur-viles could not replenish it, it fell apart in moments-dropped like pieces of hate from the wall, and seared the ground before it was extinguished.

It left behind a long scar of corrosion in the stone. But it had not broken through the wall.

With a groan, Tohrm sagged away from the parapet. Sweat ran down his face, confusing his tears so that Mhoram could not tell whether the Gravelingas wept from pain or grief or rage. “ Melenkurion abatha! ” he cried thickly. “Ah, Revelstone!”

The ur-viles were already cranking their catapult into position for another throw.

For an instant, Mhoram felt stunned and helpless. With such catapults, so many thousands of ur-viles might be able to tear Lord’s Keep down piece by piece, reduce it to dead rubble. But then his instinct for resistance came to life within him. To Trevor and Amatin he snapped, “Those blasts must not touch the Keep. Join me. We will shape a Forbidding.”

Even as they moved away from him on either side to prepare between them as wide a defence as possible, he knew that these tactics would not suffice. Three Lords might be able to deflect the greatest harm of a few attacks, but they could not repulse the assault of fifteen or twenty thousand ur-viles. “Tohrm!” he commanded sharply. “Borillar!”

At once, Hearthrall Tohrm began calling for more Gravelingases. But Borillar hesitated, searching around him uncertainly as if the urgency of the Situation interfered with his thinking, hid his own lore from him.

“Calmly, Hirebrand,” Mhoram said to steady him. “The catapults are of wood.”

Abruptly, Borillar spun and dashed away. As he passed Warmark Quaan, he cried, “Archers!” Then he was yelling toward the main Keep, “Hirebrands! Bring lor-liarill ! We will make arrows!

In a dangerously short time, the ur-viles had cocked their machine and were filling its cup with their black vitriol. They fired their next throw scant moments after Tohrm’s rhadhamaerl reinforcements had positioned themselves to support the stone.

At Mhoram’s command, the Lords struck against the arcing gout of acid before it reached the tower. Their staffs flashed as they threw up a wall of fire across the acid’s path.

The fluid hit their fire with a force which shredded their Forbidding. The black acid shot through their power to slam against the tower wall. But the attack had spent much of its virulence. When it reached the stone, Tohrm and his fellow Gravelingases were able to withstand it.

It shattered against the strength which they called up in the rock, and fell flaming viciously to the ground, leaving behind dark stains on the wall but no serious damage.

Tohrm turned to meet High Lord Mhoram’s gaze. Hot anger and exertion flushed the Hearthrall’s face, but he bared his teeth in a grin which promised much for the defence of Revelstone.

Then three of Quaan’s archers joined the Lords, followed closely by two Hirebrands. The archers were tall Woodhelvennin warriors, whose slimness of form belied the strength of their bows. Warmark Quaan acknowledged them, and asked Borillar what he wanted them to do. In response, Borillar accepted from the Hirebrands six long, thin arrows. These were delicately rune-carved, despite their slenderness; their tips were sharpened to keen points; and their ends were fletched with light brown feathers. The Hearthrall gave two of them to each archer, saying as he did so, “This is lor-liarill , the rare wood called by the Giants of Seareach ‘Gildenlode.’ They-“

“We are Woodhelvennin,” the woman who led the archers said bluntly. ” Lor-liarill is known to us.”

“Loose them well,” returned Borillar. “There are no others prepared. Strike first at the Cavewights.”

The woman looked at Quaan to see if he had any orders for her, but he waved her and her companions to the parapet. With smooth competence, the three archers nocked arrows, bent bows, and took aim at the catapult.

Already, the ur-viles had pulled back its arm, and were busy rabidly refilling its iron cup.

Through his teeth, Quaan said, “Strike now.”

Together, three bowstrings thrummed.

Immediately, the defending Cavewights jerked up their shields, caught the arrows out of the air.

The instant the arrows bit wood, they exploded into flame. The force of their impact spread fire over the shields, threw blazing shreds and splinters down onto the Cavewights. Yelping in surprise and pain, the dull-witted, gangling creatures dropped their shields and jumped away from the fire.

At once, the archers struck again. Their shafts sped through the air and hit the catapult’s throwing arm, just below the cup. The lor-liarill detonated instantly, setting the black acid afire. In sudden conflagration, the fluid’s power smashed the catapult, scattered blazing wood in all directions. A score of ur-viles and several Cavewights fell, and the rest went scrambling beyond arrow range, leaving the pieces of the machine to burn themselves out.