Stephen Donaldson - Lord Foul's Bane

Quaan tried to counter by having his strongest archers loose arrows at the loremaster. But the shafts were useless. They caught fire in the ur-viles' black power and burned to ashes.

Behind the company, Lithe was chaffing to pursue the guide of her instinct for daylight. She called repeatedly for the Lords to follow her. But they could not; they did not dare turn their backs on the wedge.

Each clash drove them backward. For all their courage and resolve, they were nearly exhausted, and every blow of the loremaster's stave weakened them further. Now their flame had a less rampant blaze, and the burning gouts turned black more swiftly. It was clear, that they could not keep up the fight. And no one in the company could take it for them.

Abruptly, Mhoram shouted, “Back! Make room!”

His urgency allowed no refusal; even the Bloodguard obeyed.

“Covenant!” Mhoram cried.

Covenant moved forward until he was only an arm's length from the searing battle.

“Raise your ring!”

Compelled by Mhoram's intensity, the Unbeliever lifted his left hand. A crimson cast still stained the heart of his wedding band.

The loremaster observed the ring as if suddenly smelling its presence. It recognized white gold, hesitated. The wedge halted, though the loremaster did not drop its guard.

“ Melenkurion abatha !” Mhoram commanded. “Blast them!”

Half intuitively, Covenant understood. He jabbed at the loremaster with his left fist as if launching a bolt.

Barking in strident fear, the whole wedge recoiled.

In that instant, the Lords acted. Shouting, “ Minas mill khabaal! ” on different pitches in half-screamed harmony, they drew with their fire an X which barricaded the tunnel from top to bottom. The flame of the X hung in the air; and before it could die, Prothall placed his staff erect within it. At once, a sheet of blue flared in the passage.

Howling in rage at Mhoram's ruse, the ur-viles sprang forward. The loremaster struck hugely at the flame with its stave. The fiery wall rippled and fluttered-but did not let the wedge pass.

Prothall and Mhoram took only a moment to see how their power held. Then they turned and dashed down the tunnel.

Gasping for breath, Mhoram told the company, “We have forbidden the tunnel! But it will not endure. We are not strong enough-the High Lord's staff was needed to make any forbidding at all. And the ur-viles are savage. Drool drives them mad with the Illearth Stone.” In spite of his haste, his voice carried a shudder. “Now we must run. We must escape-must! All our work will go for nothing if we do not take both Staff and Ward to safety.”

“Come!” the Manethrall responded. “I know grass and sky. I can find the way.”

Prothall nodded agreement, but his movements were slow, despite the need for alacrity. He was exhausted, driven far past the normal limits of his stamina. With his breath rattling deep in his chest as if he were drowning in the phlegm of his age, he leaned heavily on the Staff of Law. “Go!” he panted. “Run!”

Two Bloodguard took his arms, and between them he stumbled into a slow run down the passage. Rallying around him, the company started away after Lithe.

At first, they went easily. Their tunnel offered few branchings; at each of these, Lithe seemed instantly sure which held the greatest promise of daylight. Lit from behind by Mhoram's staff, she loped forward as if following a warm trail of freedom.

After the struggles of close combat, the company found relief in simple, single-minded running. It allowed them to focus and conserve their strength. Furthermore, they were passing, as if slowly liberated, out of the range of Lord Foul's laughter. Soon they could hear neither mockery nor threat of slaughter at their backs. For once, the silent darkness befriended them.

For nearly a league, they hastened onward. They began to traverse a section of the catacombs which was intricate with small caves and passages and turnings, but which appeared to contain no large halls, crevices, wightworks. Throughout these multiplied corridors, Lithe did not hesitate. Several times she took ways which inclined slowly upward.

But as the complex tunnels opened into broader and blacker ways, where Mhoram's flame illumined no cave walls or ceilings, the catacombs became more hostile. Gradually, the silence changed-lost the hue of relief, and became the hush of ambush. The darkness around Mhoram's light seemed to conceal more and more. At the turnings and intersections, night thickened in their choices, clouding Lithe's instinct. She began to falter.

Behind her, Prothall grew less and less able to keep up the pace. His hoarse, wheezing breath was increasingly laboured; even the weariest Questers could hear his gasps over their own hard panting. The Bloodguard were almost carrying him.

Still they pushed on into stark midnight. They bore the Staff of Law and the Second Ward, and could not afford surrender.

Then they reached a high cave which formed a crossroads for several tunnels. The general direction they had maintained since Kiril Threndor was continued by one passage across the cave. But Lithe stopped in the centre of the junction as if she had been reined to a halt. She searched about her uncertainly, confused by the number of her choices-and by some intuitive rejection of her only obvious selection. Shaking her head as if resisting a bit, she groaned, “Ah, Lords. I do not know.”

Mhoram snapped, “You must!” We have no other chance. The old maps do not show these ways. You have led us far beyond our ken." He gripped her shoulder as if he meant to force her decision. But the next moment he was distracted by Prothall. With a sharp spasm of coughing, the High Lord collapsed to the floor.

One Bloodguard quickly propped him into a sitting position, and Mhoram knelt beside him, peering with intent concern into his old face. “Rest briefly,” mumbled Mhoram. “Our forbidding has long since broken. We must not delay.”

Between fits of coughing, the High Lord replied, “Leave me. Take the Staff and go. I am done.”

His words appalled the company. Covenant and the warriors covered their own breathing to hear Mhoram's answer. The air was suddenly intense with a fear that Mhoram would accept Prothall's sacrifice.

But Mhoram said nothing.

“Leave me,” Prothall repeated. “Give your staff to me, and I will defend your retreat as I can. Go, I say. I am old. I have had my time of triumph. I lose nothing. Take the Staff and go.” When the Lord still did not speak, he rattled in supplication, “Mhoram, hear me. Do not let my old bones destroy this high Quest.”

“I hear you.” Mhoram's voice sounded thick and wounded in his throat. He knelt with his head bowed.

But a moment later he rose to his feet, and put back his head, and began to laugh. It was quiet laughter-unfeverish and unforced-the laughter of relief and indespair. The company gaped at it until they understood that it was not hysteria. Then, without knowing why, they laughed in response. Humour ran like a clean wind through their hearts.

Covenant almost cursed aloud because he could not share it.

When they had subsided into low chuckling, Mhoram said to the High Lord, “Ah, Prothall son of Dwillian. It is good that you are old. Leave you? How will I be able to take pleasure in telling Osondrea of your great exploits if you are not there to protest my boasting?” Gaily, he laughed again. Then, as if recollecting himself, he returned to where Lithe stood bewildered in the centre of the cave.

“Manethrall,” he said gently, “you have done well. Your instinct is true-remember it now. Put all doubt away. We do not fear to follow where your heart leads.”

Covenant had noticed that she, too, had not joined the laughter of the company. Her eyes were troubled; he guessed that her swift blood had been offended by Mhoram's earlier sharpness. But she nodded gravely to the Lord. “That is well. My thoughts do not trust my heart.”