The One Tree t2cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Yet that threat to him had finally broken her fear, sent her running to his rescue. And the eels were coming for him now, while he was entirely unable to defend himself. Stung by his peril, her mind seemed to step back, fleeing from panic into her old professional detachment.

  Why had Foul chosen to attack now, when the Elohim had already done Covenant such harm? Had the Elohim acted for reasons of their own, without the Despiser's knowledge or prompting? Had she been wrong in her judgment of them? If Lord Foul did not know about Covenant's condition—

  Hergrom, Ceer, and the First had already started downward to meet the attack; but Pitchwife was closer to it than anyone else. Quickly, he slipped below his lifeline to the next cable. Bracing himself there, he bent and scooped up an eel to crush it.

  As his hand closed, a discharge of red power shot through him. The blast etched him, distinct and crimson, against the dark sea. With a scream in his chest, he tumbled down the deck, struck heavily against the base of the mast. Sprawled precariously there, he lay motionless, barely breathing.

  More eels crawled over his legs. But since he was still, they did not unleash their fire into him.

  Hergrom slid in a long dive down to the stricken Giant. At once, he kicked three eels away from Pitchwife's legs. The creatures fell writhing back into the sea; but their power detonated on Hergrom's foot, sent him into convulsions. Only the brevity of the blast saved his life. He retained scarcely enough control over his muscles to knot one fist in the back of Pitchwife's sark, the other on a cleat of the mast. Twitching and jerking like a wildman, he still contrived to keep himself and Pitchwife from sliding farther.

  Every spasm threatened to bring either him or the Giant into contact with more of the creatures.

  Then the First reached the level of the assault. With her feet planted on the deck, a lifeline across her belly, she poised her broadsword in both fists. Her back and shoulders bunched like a shout of fear and rage for Pitchwife.

  The First's jeopardy snatched Linden back from her detachment. Desperately, she howled, 'No!"

  She was too late. The First scythed her blade at the eels closest to her feet.

  Power shot along the iron, erupted from her hands into her chest. Fire formed a corona around her. Red static sprang from her hair. Her sword fell. Plunging in a shower of sparks, it struck the water with a sharp hiss and disappeared.

  She made no effort to catch it. Her stunned body toppled over the lifeline. Below her, the water seethed with malice as more eels squirmed up the deck into air and fire.

  Ceer barely caught her. Reading the situation with celerity bordering on prescience, he had taken an instant to knot a rope around his waist. As the First fell, he threw the rope to the nearest crewmember and sprang after her.

  He snagged her by the shoulder. Then the Giant pulled on the rope, halting Ceer and the First just above the waterline.

  “Don't move them!” Linden shouted instantly. “She can't take any more!”

  The First lay still. Ceer held himself motionless. The eels crawled over them as if they were a part of the deck.

  With a fierce effort, Hergrom fought himself under command. He steadied his limbs, stopped jerking Pitchwife, a heartbeat before more eels began slithering over the two of them.

  Linden could hardly think. Her friends were in danger. Memories of Revelstone and Gibbon pounded at her. The presence of the Raver hurt her senses, appalled every inch of her flesh. In Revelstone, the conflict of her reactions to that ill power had driven her deep into a catatonia of horror. But now she let the taste of evil pour through her and fought to concentrate on the creatures themselves. She needed a way to combat them.

  Seadreamer's reflexes were swifter. Tearing Covenant from Brinn's grasp, he leaped down to the first cable, then began hauling himself toward Foodfendhall.

  Brinn went after him as if to retrieve the ur-Lord from a Giant who had gone mad.

  But almost immediately Seadreamer's purpose became clear. As the Giant conveyed Covenant forward, the eels turned in that direction, writhing to catch up with their prey. The whole thrust of the attack shifted forward.

  Soon Ceer and the First were left behind. And a moment later Pitchwife and Hergrom were out of danger.

  At once, the Giant holding Ceer's rope heaved the Haruchai and the First upward. Honninscrave skidded under the lifelines to the mast, took Pitchwife from Hergrom's damaged grasp.

  But the eels still came, Raver-driven to hurl themselves at Covenant. Shortly, Seadreamer had traversed the cable to its mooring near the rail at the edge of Foodfendhall. There he hesitated, looked back at the pursuit. But he had no choice. He had committed himself, was cornered now between the housing and the rail. The nearest creatures were scant moments from his feet.

  As Brinn caught up with him, Seadreamer grabbed the Haruchai by the arm, pulled him off his feet in a deft arc up to the canted roof. He landed just within the ship's lee below the mad gale. Almost in the same motion, Seadreamer planted one foot atop the railing and leaped after Brinn.

  For an instant, the wind caught him, tried to hurl him out to sea. But his weight and momentum bore him back down to the roof. Beyond the edge of Foodfendhall, he dropped out of Linden's view. Then he appeared again as he stretched out along the midmast. He held Covenant draped over his shoulder.

  In spite of the fearsome risks he took, Linden's courage lifted. Perhaps the wall of the housing would block the eels.

  But the creatures had not been daunted by the steep slope of the deck; and now they began to squirm up the side of Foodfendhall, clinging to the flat stone with their bellies. As their fire rose, it came between her and the darkness at the mast, effacing Seadreamer and Covenant from her sight.

  At Honninscrave's command, several Giants moved to engage the eels. They fought by using lengths of hawser as whips-and had some success, Discharges of power expended themselves by incinerating the ropes, did not reach the hands of the Giants. Many eels were killed by the force of the blows.

  But the creatures were too numerous; and the Giants were slowed by their constant need for more rope. They could not clear their way to the wall, could not prevent scores of fire-serpents from scaling upward. And more eels came surging incessantly out of the sea. Soon Seadreamer would be trapped. Already, creatures were wriggling onto the roof.

  Urgency and instinct impelled Linden into motion. In a flash of memory, she saw Covenant standing, valiant and desirable, within the caamora he had created for the Dead of The Grieve — protected from the bonfire by wild magic. Fire against fire. Bracing herself on Cail, she snatched at the lantern hanging from the rail above her head. Though she was weak with cold and off-balance, she turned, hurled the lantern toward Foodfendhall.

  It fell short of the red-bright wall. But when it hit the deck, it broke; and oil spattered over the nearest eels. Instantly, they burst into flame. Their own power became a conflagration which consumed them. Convulsed in their death throes, they fell back to the water and hissed their dying away into the dark.

  Linden tried to shout; but Honninscrave was quicker. “Oil!” he roared. “Bring more oil!”

  In response, Ceer and two of the Giants hurtled toward a nearby hatchway.

  Other crewmembers grabbed for the remaining lanterns. Honninscrave stopped them. “We will need the light!”

  Seadreamer, Covenant, and Brinn were visible now in the advancing glare of the eels. Seadreamer stood on the mast, with Covenant over his shoulder. As the eels hastened toward him, he retreated up the mast. It was a treacherous place to walk-curved, festooned with cables, marked with belaying-cleats. But he picked his way up the slope, his eyes fixed on the eels. His gaze echoed mad determination to their fire. In the garish illumination, he looked heavy and fatal, as if his weight alone would be enough to topple Starfare's Gem.

  Between him and the attack stood Brinn. The Haruchai followed Seadreamer, facing the danger like the last guardian of Covenant's life. Linden could not read his face at that distance; but he
must have known that the first blow he struck would also be the last. Yet he did not falter.

  Ceer and the two Giants had not returned. Measuring the time by her ragged breathing, Linden believed that they were already too late. Too many eels had gained the roof. And still more continued to rise out of the sea as if their numbers were as endless as the malevolence which drove them.

  Abruptly, Seadreamer stumbled into the turbulence beyond the lee of the ship. The gale buffeted him from his feet, almost knocked him off the mast. But he dropped down to straddle the stone with his legs, and his massive thighs held him against the blast. Light reflected from the scar under his eyes as if his visage were afire. Covenant dangled limp and insensate from his shoulder. The creatures were halfway up the mast to him. Between him and death stood one weaponless Haruchai.

  Raging with urgency, Honninscrave shouted at his brother.

  Seadreamer heard, understood. He shifted the Unbeliever so that Covenant lay cradled in his thighs. Then he began to unbind the shrouds around him.

  When he could not reach the knots, or not untie them swiftly enough, he snapped the lines like string. And as he worked or broke them free, he passed the pieces to Brinn.

  Thus armed, the Haruchai advanced to meet the eels.

  Impossibly poised between caution and extravagance, he struck at the creatures, flailing them with his rough-made quirts. Some of the pieces were too short to completely spare him from hot harm; but somehow he retained his control and fought on. When he had exhausted his supply of weapons, he bounded back to Seadreamer to take the ones the Giant had ready for him.

  From Linden's distance, Covenant's defenders looked heroic and doomed. The mast's surface limited the number of eels which could approach simultaneously. But Brinn's supply of quirts was also limited by the amount of line within Seadreamer's reach. That resource was dwindling rapidly. And no help could reach them.

  Frantically, Linden gathered herself to shout at Honninscrave, tell him to throw more rope to Seadreamer. But at that moment, Ceer returned. Gripping a large pouch like a wineskin under his arm, he dashed out from under the wheeldeck, sprang to the nearest lifeline. With all his Haruchai alacrity, he sped forward.

  Behind him came the two Giants. They moved more slowly because they each carried two pouches, but they made all the haste they could.

  Honninscrave sent his crew scrambling out of Ceer's path. As he rushed forward past the aftermast, Ceer unstopped his pouch. Squeezing it under his arm, he spouted a dark stream of oil to the stone below him. Oil slicked the deck, spread its sheen downward.

  When the oil met the eels, the deck became a sheet of flame.

  Fire spread, burning so rapidly that it followed Ceer's spout like hunger. It ignited the eels, cast them onto each other to multiply the ignition. In moments, all the deck below him blazed. The Raver's creatures were wiped away by their own conflagration.

  But hundreds of them had already gained the wall and roof of the housing; and now the crew's access to Foodfendhall was blocked. Fire alone would not have stopped the Giants. But the oil made the deck too slippery to be traversed. Until it burned away, no help could try to reach Seadreamer and Brinn except along the cable Ceer used.

  They had only scant moments left. No more line lay within Seadreamer's reach. He tried to slide himself toward the first spar, where the shrouds were plentiful; but the effort took him farther into the direct turbulence of the gale. Before he had covered half the distance, the blast became too strong for him. He had to hunch over Covenant, cling to the stone with all his limbs, in order to keep the two of them from being torn away into the night.

  Ceer's pouch was emptied before he gained Foodfendhall. He was forced to stop. No one could reach the housing.

  Honninscrave barked commands. At once, the nearer oil-laden Giant stopped, secured her footing, then threw her pouches forward, one after the other. The first flew to the Master as he positioned himself immediately behind Ceer. The second arced over them to hit and burst against the edge of the roof. Oil splashed down the wall. Flames cleared away the eels. Rapidly, the surviving remnant of the attack was erased from the afterdeck.

  Honninscrave snapped instructions at Ceer. Ceer ducked around behind the Giant, climbed his back like a tree while Honninscrave crossed the last distance to the wall. From the Master's shoulders, Ceer leaped to the roof, then turned to catch the pouch Honninscrave tossed upward.

  Flames leaped as Ceer began spewing oil at the eels.

  With a lunge, Honninscrave caught at the edge of the roof. In spite of the oil, his fingers held, defying failure as he flipped himself over the eaves. Giants threw the last two pouches up to him. Clutching one by the throat in each hand, he crouched under the gale and followed Ceer.

  Linden could not see what was happening. Foodfendhall blocked the base of the mast from her view. But the red flaring across Brinn's fiat visage as he retreated was the crimson of eel-light, not the orange-and-yellow of flames.

  A moment later, his retreat carried him into the grasp of the wind.

  He tottered. With all his strength and balance, he resisted; but the hurricane had him, and its savagery was heightened by the way it came boiling past the lee of the roof. He could not save himself from falling.

  He lashed out at the eels as he dropped. Simultaneously, he pitched himself back toward Seadreamer. His blow struck an attacker away. Its power outlined him against the night like a lightning-burst of pain.

  Then a pouch flashed into view, cast from Ceer or Honninscrave to Seadreamer. Fighting the wind, Seadreamer managed to raise his arms, catch the oilskin. Pumping the pouch under his elbow, he squeezed a gush of oil down the mast.

  The eel-light turned to fire. Flames immersed the mast, fell in burning gouts of oil and blazing creatures toward the sea.

  Linden heard a scream that made no sound. Yowling in frustration, the Raver fled. Its malefic presence burst and vanished, freeing her like an escape from suffocation.

  The illumination of eels and oil revealed Brinn. He hung from one of Seadreamer's ankles, twitching and capering helplessly. But in spite of seizures and wind which tossed him from side to side like a puppet, his grip held.

  The oil burned away rapidly. Already, the afterdeck had relapsed into the darkness of the storm-night assuaged only by a few faint lanterns. Ceer and Honninscrave were soon able to ascend the mast.

  Moored by a rope to Honninscrave, Ceer hung below the mast and swung himself outward until he could reach Brinn. Hugging his kinsman, he let Honninscrave haul the two of them back to relative safety. Then the Master went to aid his brother.

  With Covenant supported between them, a link more intimate and binding than birth, Honninscrave and Seadreamer crept down out of the wind.

  Linden could hardly believe that they had survived, that the Raver had been defeated. She felt at once faint with relief and exhaustion, fervid to have Covenant near her again, to see if he had been harmed.

  He and his rescuers were out of sight beyond the edge of Foodfendhall. She could not bear to wait. But she had to wait. Struggling for self-possession, she went to examine Pitchwife, the First, and Hergrom.

  They were recovering well. The two stricken Giants appeared to have suffered no lingering damage. The First was already strong enough to curse the loss of her sword; and Pitchwife was muttering as if he were bemused by the fool-hardiness with which he had charged the eels. Their Giantish immunity to burns had protected them.

  Beside them, Hergrom seemed both less and more severely hurt. He had not lost consciousness; his mind had remained clear. But the twitching of his muscles was slow to depart. Apparently, his resistance to the eel-blast had prolonged its effect upon him. His limbs were steady for the most part, but the corners of his face continued to wince and tick like an exaggerated display of trepidation.

  Perhaps, Linden thought as if his grimacing were an augury, perhaps the Raver had not been defeated. Perhaps it had simply learned enough about the condition of Covenant and the ques
t and had gone to inform Lord Foul.

  Then she turned to meet the return of Ceer and Bruin, Honninscrave and Seadreamer. With the Unbeliever.

  They came carefully along the lifelines. Like Hergrom, Brinn suffered from erratic muscular spasms. But they were receding. Seadreamer was sorely weary after his struggles; but his solid form showed no other hurt.

  Honninscrave carried Covenant. At the sight, Linden's eyes filled with tears. She had never been able to control the way her orbs misted and ran at any provocation; and now she did not try. Covenant was unchanged-as empty of mind or will as an abandoned crypt. But he was safe. Safe. When the Master set him down, she went to him at once. Though she was unacquainted with such gestures, perhaps had no right to them, she put her arms around him and did not care who saw the fervour of her embrace.

  But the night was long and cold, and the storm still raved like all fury incarnate. Starfare's Gem skidded in a mad rush along the seas, tenuously poised between life and death. There was nothing anybody could do except clinch survival and hope. In the bone-deep shivers which wracked her, the weariness which enervated her limbs so thoroughly that even diamondraught scarcely palliated it, Linden was surprised to find that she was as capable of hope as the Giants,

  Their spirit seemed to express its essence in Honninscrave, who bore the command of the ship as if Starfare's Gem itself were indomitable. At Shipsheartthew, Galewrath no longer appeared too frozen by duty to meet the strain. Rather, her great arms gripped the spokes as if she were more indefeasible than the very storm. Brinn and Hergrom had recovered their characteristic imperviousness. The dromond lived. Hope was possible.

  Yet when dawn came at last, Linden had fallen so far into bare knotted endurance that the sun took her by surprise. Stupefied by exhaustion, she did not know which astonished her more-the simple return of day, unlooked-for after the interminable battery of that night, or the fact that the sky was free of clouds.

  She could hardly credit her eyes. Covered by the vessel's lee, she had not noticed that the rain had stopped sometime during the night. Now the heavens macerated from purple to blue as the sun appeared almost directly behind the Giantship's stern. The clouds were gone as if they had been worn away by the incessant tearing of the wind. And yet the gale continued to blow, unabated and unappeased.