Stephen Donaldson - Lord Foul's Bane

The mounting perils made Covenant reel. Prothall and Drool struggled horribly above him. The fighting around him grew faster and more frenzied by the moment. Tuvor lay expiring in his lap. And he could do nothing about any of it, help none of them. Soon their escape would be cut off, and all their efforts would be in vain.

He had not foreseen this outcome to his bargain.

Drool bore Prothall slowly backward. “Dance!” he raged.

Tuvor shuddered; his eyes opened. Covenant looked away from Prothall. Tuvor's lips moved, but he made no sound.

Mhoram tried to comfort him. “Have no fear. This evil will be overcome-it is in the High Lord's hands. And your name will be remembered with honour wherever trust is valued.”

But Tuvor's eyes held Covenant, and he managed to whisper one word, “True?” His whole body strained with supplication, but Covenant did not know whether he asked for a promise or a judgment.

Yet the Unbeliever answered. He could not refuse a Bloodguard, could not deny the appeal of such expensive fidelity. The word stuck in his throat, but he forced it out. “Yes.”

Tuvor shuddered again, and died with a flat groan as if the chord of his Vow had snapped. Covenant gripped his shoulders, shook him; there was no response.

On the dais, Drool had forced Prothall to his knees, and was bending the High Lord back to break him. In futility and rage, Covenant howled, “Mhoram!”

The Lord nodded, surged to his feet. But he did not attack Drool. Holding his staff over his head, he blared in a voice that cut through the clamour of the battle, “ Melenkurion abatha! Minas mill khabaal! ” From end to end, his staff burst into incandescent fire.

The power of the Words jolted Drool, knocked him back a step. Prothall regained his feet.

More Cavewights rushed into Kiril Threndor. Quaan and his Eoman were driven back toward the dais. At last, Mhoram sprang to their aid. His staff burned furiously as he attacked. Around him, the Bloodguard fought like wind devils, leaping and kicking among the Cavewights so swiftly that the creatures interfered with each other when they tried to strike back.

But Drool's defenders kept coming, pouring into the cave. The company began to founder in the rising onslaught.

Then Prothall cried over the din, “I have it! The moon is free!”

He stood triumphant on the dais, with the Staff of Law upraised in his hands. Drool lay at his feet, sobbing like a piece of broken rock. Between spasms of grief, the creature gasped, “Give it back. I want it.”

The sight struck fear into the Cavewights. They recoiled, quailed back against the walls of the chamber.

Released from battle, Quaan and his warriors turned toward Prothall and gave a raw cheer. Their voices were hoarse and worn, but they exulted in the High Lord's victory as if he had won the future of the Land.

Yet overhead the dancing lights of Kiril Threndor went their own bedizened way.

Covenant snapped a look at his ring. Its argent still burned with blood. Perhaps the moon was free; he was not.

Before the echoes of cheering died-before anyone could move-a new sound broke over them. It started softly, then expanded until it filled the chamber like a collapse of the ceiling. It was laughter-Lord Foul's laughter, throbbing with glee and immitigable hate. Its belittling weight dominated them, buried them in their helplessness; it paralyzed them, seemed to cut them off from their own heartbeats and breathing. While it piled onto them, they were lost.

Even Prothall stood still. Despite his victory, he looked old and feeble, and his eyes had an unfocused stare as if he were gazing into his own coffin. And Covenant, who knew that laugh, could not resist it.

But Lord Mhoram moved. Springing onto the dais, he whirled his staff around his head until the air hummed, and blue lightning bolted upward into the clustered stalactites. “Then show yourself, Despiser!” he shouted. “If you are so certain, face us now! Do you fear to try your doom with us?”

Lord Foul's laughter exploded with fiercer contempt. But Mhoram's defiance had broken its transfixion. Prothall touched Mhoram's shoulder. The warriors gripped their swords, placed themselves in grim readiness behind the Lords.

More Cavewights entered the chamber, though they did not attack. At the sight of them, Drool raised himself on his crippled arms. His bloody eyes boiled still, clinging to fury and malice to the end. Coughing as if he were about to heave up his heart, he gasped, “The Staff. You do not know. Cannot use it. Fools. No escape. None. I have armies. I have the Stone.” With a savage effort, he made himself heard through the laughter. “Illearth Stone. Power and power. I will crush. Crush.” Flailing one weak arm at his guards, he screamed in stricken command, “Crush!”

Wielding their weapons, the Cavewights surged forward.

THEY came in a mass of red eyes dull with empty determination. But Lord Foul's bodiless laughter seemed to slow them. They waded through it as if it were a quagmire, and their difficult approach gave the company time to react. At Quaan's command, the warriors ringed Mhoram and Prothall. The Bloodguard took fighting positions with the Eoman.

Mhoram called to Covenant.

Slowly, Covenant raised his head. He looked at his companions, and they seemed pitifully few to him. He tried to get to his feet. But Tuvor was too heavy for him to lift. Even in death, the massive devotion of the First Mark surpassed his strength.

He heard Manethrall Lithe shout, “This way! I know the way!” She was dodging among the Cavewights toward one of the entrances. He watched her go as if he had already forsaken her. He could not lift Tuvor because he could not get a grip with his right hand; two fingers were not enough.

Then Bannor snatched him away from the fallen First Mark, thrust him toward the protective ring of the Eoman. Covenant resisted. “You can't leave him!” But Bannor forced him among the warriors. “What are you doing?” he protested. “We've got to take him along. If you don't send him back, he won't be replaced.” He spun to appeal to the Lords. “You can't leave him!”

Mhoram's lips stretched taut over his teeth. “We must.”

From the mouth of the tunnel she had chosen, Lithe called, “Here!” She clenched her cord around a Cavewight's neck, and used the creature's body to protect herself from attack. “This is the way!” Other Cavewights converged on her, forced her backward.

In response, Prothall lit his old staff, swung it, and led a charge toward her. With Mhoram's help, he burned passage for his companions through the massed Cavewights.

Bright Lords-fire intimidated the creatures. But before the company had gained the tunnel Lithe had chosen, a wedge of ur-viles drove snarling into the chamber from a nearby entrance. They were led by a mighty loremaster, as black as the catacombs, wielding an iron stave that looked wet with power or blood.

Prothall cried, “Runt” The Questers dashed for the tunnel.

The ur-viles raced to intercept them.

The company was faster. Prothall and Mhoram gained the passage, and parted to let the others enter between them.

But one of the warriors decided to help his comrades escape. He suddenly veered away from the Eoman. Whirling his sword fervidly, he threw himself at the ur-vile wedge.

Mhoram yelled, started back out into the chamber to help him. But the loremaster brushed the warrior aside with a slap of its stave, and he fell. Dark moisture covered him from head to foot; he screamed as if he had been drenched in acid. Mhoram barely evaded the stave's backstroke, retreated to Prothall's side in the mouth of the passage.

There they tried to stand. They opposed their blazing blue flame to the ur-viles. The loremaster struck at them again and again; they blocked each blow with their staffs; gouts of flaming fluid, igniting blue and then turning quickly black, spattered on all sides at every clash. But the wedge fought with a savagery which drove the Lords backward step by step into the tunnel.