But it appeared that he had begun to recover too late. Deep in the dark night, the grip of the mud bore the raft into an open flat devoid of trees. There the current eddied, turned back on itself, formed a slow whirlpool just broad enough to catch all four sides of the raft and start sucking it down.
And the Bloodguard could do nothing. Here all strength and fidelity lost their worth; here no Vow had meaning. The mission was in Lord Hyrim's hands, and he was weak.
But when Korik wakened him, the Lord's eyes were lucid. He listened as Korik told him of the mission's plight. Then after a time he said, “How far must we go to escape?”
“A league, Lord.” Korik indicated the direction with a nod.
“So far? Friend Korik, someday you must tell me how we came to these straits.” Sighing, he pulled himself close to the fire and began eating the mission's store of aliantha. He made no attempt to rise until he had eaten it all.
Then, with Sill's help, he climbed to his feet on the slowly revolving raft, and moved into position. Bracing himself against the Bloodguard, he thrust his staff between the logs into the mud.
A snatch of song broke through his teeth; the staff began to pulse in his hands.
For a time, his exertions had no effect. Power mounted in his staff, grew higher at the command of his uncertain strength, but the raft still sank deeper into the Swamp. The stench of decay and death thickened. Lord Hyrim groaned at the strain, and summoned more of his strength. He began to sing aloud.
Blue sparks burst from the wood of his staff, ran down into the muck. With a loud sucking noise, the raft pulled free of the eddy, lumbered away. Swinging around the whirlpool, it started northward.
For a long time, Lord Hyrim kept the raft moving. Then he reached the marshwaders on the north side of the eddy. There the Bloodguard threw out clingor lines to the trees ahead, used the ropes to pull the raft along. At once, Hyrim dropped his power and slumped forward. Sill bore him back to the centre of the raft. As soon as he lay down by the embers of the fire, he was asleep.
But now the Bloodguard no longer needed his help.
They cast out the clingor ropes and heaved on them, hauled the raft between the trees. Their progress was slow, but they did not falter. And when the mud became so thick that their ropes broke under the strain, they strung lines between the trees and left the raft. Sill carried Lord Hyrim lashed to his back, and moved through the mire by pulling himself along the lines while the other Bloodguard strung new ropes ahead and released the ones behind. Then, at last, in the light of dawn, the mud changed to soft wet clay, the trees gave way to stands of cane and marshgrass, and the Bloodguard began to feel solid ground with their bare toes.
Thus they came out into the wide belt of marsh that bordered Lifeswallower.
In the distance ahead, they could see the steep hills which formed the southern edge of Seareach.
The mission had lost three days.
Yet the Bloodguard did not begrudge Lord Hyrim the time to cook a hot meal from the last supplies. The Lord was worn and wasted; his once-round face had become as lean as a wolf’s. He needed food and rest. And the mission would make good speed across Seareach toward Coercri. If necessary, the Bloodguard could carry Lord Hyrim.
When he had eaten, the Lord groaned to his feet, and started toward the hills. He set a slow pace; he was forced to rest long and often. The Bloodguard soon saw that at this rate they would need all day to cross the five leagues to the hills. But the Lord refused their offer of aid. “Haste?” he said. “I have no heart for haste.” And his voice had a bitterness which surprised them until Korik reminded them of what they had heard from Warhaft Hoerkin, and of what the Lord's response had been. Hyrim apparently believed Hoerkin's prophecy concerning the downfall of the Giants.
Yet the Lord laboured throughout the day to reach the hills, and the next day he strove to climb the hills as if he had changed during the night, recovered his sense of urgency. Rolling his eyes at the arduous slope, he pushed himself, laboured upward at the limit of his returning strength.
When at last-he crested the hill, he and all the Bloodguard paused to look at Seareach.
The land which the Old Lords had given to the Giants for a home was wide and fair. Enclosed by hills on the south, mountains on the west, and the Sunbirth Sea on the east, it was a green haven for the shipwrecked voyagers. But although they used the Land-cultivated the rolling countryside with crops of all kinds, planted immense vineyards, grew whole forests of the special redwood and teak trees from which they crafted their huge ships-they did not people it. They were lovers of the sea, and. preferred to make their dwelling places in the cliffs of the rocky coast, forty leagues east from where the mission now stood.
During the age of Damelon Giantfriend, when the Unhomed were more numerous, they had spread out along the coast, building homes and villages across the whole eastern side of Seareach. But their numbers had slowly declined, until now they were only a third of what they had once been. Yet they were a long-lived, story-loving, gay people and the lack of children hurt them cruelly. Out of slow loneliness, they had left their scattered homes in the north and south of Seareach, and had formed one community-a sea-cliff city where they could share their few children and their songs and their long tales. Despite their ancient custom of long names-names which told the tale of the thing named-they called their city simply Coercri, The Grieve. There they had lived since High Lord Kevin's youth.
Looking out over the land of the Giants, Lord Hyrim gave a low cry. “Korik! Pray that Hoerkin lied! Pray that his message was a lie! Ah, my heart!” He clutched at his chest with both hands, and started down the soft slope into Seareach at a run.
Korik and Sill caught him swiftly, placed a hand under each of his arms. They bore him up between them so that he could move more easily. Thus the mission began its journey toward The Grieve.
Lord Hyrim ran that way for the rest of the day, resting only at moments when the pain in his chest became unendurable. And the Bloodguard knew that he had good reason. Lord Mhoram had said, Twenty days. This was the twentieth day of the mission.
The next dawn, when Lord Hyrim arose from his exhausted sleep, he spurned Korik and Sill, and ran alone.
His pace soon brought the mission to the westmost of the Giants' vineyards. Korik sent Doar and Shull through the rows, searching for some sign. But they reported that the Giants who had been working this vineyard had left it together in haste. The matter was clear. Giantish hoes and rakes as tall as men lay scattered among the vines with their blades and teeth still in the marks of their work, and several of the leather sacks in which the Giants usually carried their food and belongings had been thrown to the ground and abandoned. Apparently, the Unhomed had received some kind of signal, and had dropped their work at once to answer it.
Their footprints in the open earth of the vineyard ran in the direction of Coercri.
That day, the mission passed through vineyards, teak stands, fields. In all of them, the scattered tools and supplies told the same tale. But the next day came a rain which effaced the footprints and work signs. The Bloodguard were able to gain no more knowledge from such things.
During the night, the rain ended. In the slow breeze, the Bloodguard could smell sea salt. The clear sky appeared to promise a clear day, but the dawn of the twenty-third day had a red cast scored at moments with baleful glints of green, and it gave the Lord no relief. After he had eaten the treasure-berries Sill offered him, he did not arise. Rather, he wrapped his arms around his knees and bowed his head as if he were cowering.
For the sake of the mission, Korik spoke. “Lord, we must go. The Grieve is near.”
The Lord did not raise his head. His voice was muffled between his knees. "Are you impervious to fear? Do you not know what we will find? Or does it not touch you?"
“We are the Bloodguard,” Korik replied.
“Yes,” Lord Hyrim sighed. “The Bloodguard. And I am Hyrim son of Hoole, Lord of the Council of Revelstone. I am swor
n to the services of the Land. I should have died in Shetra's place. If I had her strength.”
Abruptly, he sprang to his feet. Spreading his arms, he cried in the words of the old ritual, “ `We are the new preservers of the Land-votaries of the Earthpower. Sworn and dedicate-dedicate- We will not rest- ' ” But he could not complete it. “Melenkurion!” he moaned, clutching his black robe at his chest. “Melenkurion Skyweir! Help me!”
Korik was loath to speak, but the mission compelled him. “If the Giants are to be aided, we must do it.”
“Aided?” Lord Hyrim gasped. “There is no aid for them!” He stooped, snatched up his staff. -For several shuddering breaths, he held it, gripped it as if to wrest courage from it. “But there are other things. We must learn-The High Lord must be told what power performed this abomination!” His eyes had a shadow across them, and their lids were red as if with panic. Trembling, he turned and started toward Coercri.
Now the mission did not hasten. It moved cautiously toward the Sea, warding against an ambush. Yet the morning passed swiftly. Before noon, the Bloodguard and the Lord reached the high lighthouse of The Grieve.
The lighthouse was a tall spire of open stonework that stood on the last and highest hill before the cliffs of the coast. The Giants had built it to guide their roving ships, and someone was always there to tend the focused light beam of the signal fire.
But as the Bloodguard crept up the hill toward the foot of the spire, they could see that the fire was dead. No gleam of light or wisp of smoke came from the cupola atop the tower.
They found blood on the steps of a lighthouse. It was dry and black, old enough to resist the washing of the rain.
At a command from Korik, Vale ran up the steep steps into the spire. The rest of the Bloodguard waited, looking out over Coercri and the Sunbirth Sea.
In the noon sun under a clear sky, the Sea was bright with dazzles, and out of sight below the rim of the cliff the waves made muffled thunder against the piers and levees of The Grieve.
There, like a honeycomb in the cliff, was the city of the Giants. All its homes and halls and passages, all its entrances and battlements, had been delved into the rock of the coast. And it was immense. It had halls where five hundred Giants could gather for their Giantclaves and their stories which consumed days in the telling; it had docks for eight or ten of the mighty Giant ships; it had hearths and homes enough for all the remnant of the Unhomed.
Yet it showed no sign of habitation. The back of The Grieve, the side facing inland, looked abandoned. Above it, an occasional gull screamed. And below, the Sea beat. But it revealed no life.
However, Coercri had been built to face the Sea. Still the Bloodguard hoped to find Giants there.
Then Vale came down out of the lighthouse. He spoke directly to Lord Hyrim. “One Giant is there.” He indicated the cupola of the spire with a jerk of his head. “She is dead.” After a moment, he said, “She was killed. Her face and the top of her head are gone. Her brain is gone. Consumed.”
All the Bloodguard looked at Lord Hyrim.
He was staring at Vale with red in his eyes. His lean face was twisted. In his throat, he made a confused noise like a snarl. His knuckles were white on his staff. Without a word, he turned and started down toward the main entrance of The Grieve.
Then Korik gave his commands. Of the eleven Bloodguard, Vale, Doar, Shull, and two others he instructed to remain at the lighthouse, to watch, and to give warning if necessary, and to carry out the mission if the others fell. Three he sent northward to begin exploring Coercri from that end. And with Tull and Sill, he followed Lord Hyrim. These three took the Lord away from the main entrance toward the south of the city.
Together, the four crept into The Grieve on its southern side.
The entrance they chose was a tunnel that led straight through the cliff, sloping slightly downward. They passed along it to its end, where it opened into a roofless rampart overhanging the Sea. From this vantage, they could see much of the city's cliff front. Ramparts like the one on which they stood alternately projected and receded along the wall of rock for several levels below them, giving the face of the city a knuckled appearance. They could see into many of the projections until the whole city passed out, of sight north of them behind a bulge in the cliff. Don at sea level, just south of this bulge, was a wide levee between two long stone piers.
The levee and the piers were deserted. Nothing moved on any of the ramparts. Except for the noise of the Sea, the city was still.
But when Lord Hyrim opened a high stone door and entered the apartments beyond it, he found two Giants lying cold in a pool of dried blood. Both their skulls were broken asunder and empty, as if the bones had been blasted apart from within.
In the next set of rooms were three more Giants, and in the next set three more, one of them a child-all dead. They lay among pools of their blood, and the blood was spattered around as if someone had stamped through the pools while they were still fresh. All including the child had been slain by having their heads rent open.
But they were not decayed. They had not been long dead-not above three days.
“Three days,” Korik said.
And Lord Hyrim said bitterly, “Three days.”
They went on with the search.
They looked into every apartment along the rampart until they were directly above the levee. In each set of rooms, they found one or two or three Giants, all slaughtered in the same way. And none but the youngest children showed any sign of resistance, of struggle.
The few youngest bodies were contorted and frantic; all the rest lay as if they had been simply struck dead where they stood or sat.
When the searchers entered one round meeting hall, they discovered that it was empty. And the huge kitchen beyond it was also empty. The stove fires had fallen into ash, but the cooks had not been killed there.
The sight dismayed Lord Hyrim. Groaning, he said, “They went to their homes to die! They knew their danger-and went to their homes to await it. They did not fight-or flee-or send for help. Melenkurion abatha! Only the children-What horror came upon them?”
The Bloodguard had no answer. They knew of no wrong potent enough to commit such a slaughter unresisted.
As he left the hall, Lord Hyrim wept openly.
From that rampart, he and the Bloodguard worked downward through the levels of Coercri. They took a crooked stairway which descended back into the cliff, then toward the Sea again. At the next level, they again went to look into the rooms. Here also all the Giants were dead.
Everywhere it was the same. The Unhomed had gone to their private dwellings to die.
Then an urgency came upon the Bloodguard and the Lord. They began to hasten. The Lord leaped down the high stairs, ran along the ramparts to inspect the apartments. In their black garb, the four flew downward like the ravens of midnight, taking the tale of shed blood and blasted skulls.
When they were more than halfway down The Grieve, Korik stopped them.. He had noticed a change in the air of the city. But the difference was subtle; for a moment, he could not identify it. Then he ran into the nearest apartment, hastened to the lone Giant dead in one of the back rooms, touched the pool of blood.
This Giant had been slain more recently; a few spots of the pool were still damp.
Perhaps the slayer was still in the city, stalking its last victims.
At once, Lord Hyrim whispered, “We must reach the lowest level swiftly. If any Giants yet live, they will be there.”
Korik nodded. Tull sprinted to scout ahead as the others ran to the stairs and started down them. On each level, they stopped long enough to find one dead Giant, test the condition of the blood. Then they raced on downward.
The blood grew steadily damper. Two levels above the piers, they found a child whose flesh still retained a vestige of warmth.
They explored the next level more carefully. And in one room they discovered a Giant with the last blood still dripping from her riven skull.
W
ith great caution, they crept down the final stairs.
The stairway opened on a broad expanse of rock, the base of the two piers and the head of the levee between them. The tide was low and quiet-the waves broke far down the levee-but still the sound filled the air. Even here, the Bloodguard and the Lord could not see beyond the great cliff-bulge just north of the piers. This bulge, and the outward bend of Coercri's southern tip, formed a shallow cove around the levee. The fiat base of the city lay in the afternoon shadow of the cliff, and the unwarmed rock was damp with spray.
No one moved on the piers, or along the walkway which traversed the city from its southern end northward around the curve of the cliff.
Cut into the base of the cliff behind the walkway and the headrock of the piers were many openings. All had heavy stone doors to keep out the Sea in storms. But most of the doors were open. They led into workshops-high chambers where the Giants formed the planks and hawsers of their ships. Like the meeting halls and kitchens, these places were deserted. But, unlike the western vineyards and fields, the workshops had not been abandoned suddenly. All the tools hung in their racks on the walls; the tables and benches were free of work; even the floors were clean. The Giants labouring there had taken the time to put their shops in order before they went home to die. But one smaller door near the south end of the headrock was tightly closed. Lord Hyrim tried to open it, but it had no handle, and he could not grip the smooth stone.
Korik and Tull approached it together. Forcing their fingers into one crack of the door, they heaved at it. With a scraping noise like a gasp of pain, it swung outward, admitting shadow light to the chamber beyond.
The single room was bare; it contained nothing but a low bed against one side wall. It was lightless, and the air in it smelled stale.
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