The Illearth War t1cotc-2

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  Quaan and Amorine took this stolidly; they were warriors, familiar with this kind of thinking. But before Troy could say anything else, Lord Verement sprang into the circle. “No!” he barked, striking the ground with his staff. “None will be left behind. I forbid it!”

  Now Troy could see him clearly. His lean face looked as sharp as if it had been taken to a grindstone, and his eyes flamed keenly. Troy's throat felt abruptly bone-dry. With difficulty, he said, “Lord Verement, I'm sorry. I've got no choice. This march'll kill the warriors unless they can go more slowly. So somebody has got to gain them time.”

  “Then I will do it!” Verement's tone was raw. “I will hold Doom's Retreat. It is a fit place for me.”

  “You can't,” Troy objected, almost stammering. “I can't let you. I'll need you with me.” Unable to bear the force of Verement's gaze, he turned to Lord Mhoram for help.

  “Warmark Troy speaks truly,” Mhoram said carefully. "Death will not heal your grief. And you will be sorely needed in the days ahead. You must come with us."

  “By the Seven!” Verement cried. “Do you not hear me? I have said that I will remain! Shetra my wife is lost! She whom I loved with all my strength, and yet did not love enough. Melenkurion! Do not speak to me of cannot or must! I will remain. No warriors will be left behind.”

  Mhoram cut in, “Lord Verement, do you believe that you are able to defeat Fleshharrower?”

  But Verement did not reply to that question. “Heal Callindrill,” he said harshly. “I will require you both. And call the Bloodguard from the Plains. I start at dawn.” Then he swung away, and stalked out of the circle into the night.

  His departure left Troy bewildered and exhausted. He felt that the burden of the Warward already clung to his shoulders, bent his back so that he moved as if he were decrepit. His confused fatigue made him unfit for speeches, and he dismissed the Hafts abruptly. As he did so, he felt that he was failing them-that they needed him to lead them, give them a strong figure around which they could rally. But he had no strength. He went to his blankets as if he hoped that some kind of fortitude would come to him in a dream.

  He sank at once into exhaustion, and slept until sleep was no longer possible for him until the sunrise above the mountains filled his brain with shapes and colours. When he arose, he discovered that he had slept through all the noise of the Warward as it broke camp and began its march. Already the last Eoward were shambling away from Doom's Retreat. They trudged as if they were maimed into the dry, heat pale land of the Southron Wastes.

  Cursing dully at his weakness, he grabbed a few bites of the food Ruel offered him, then hurried away toward the Retreat.

  There he found Callindrill and Mhoram, with a small group of Bloodguard. On either side of the defile's southern end, the Lords had climbed as high as they could up the scree into the jumbled boulders piled against the canyon walls. From these positions, they plied their staffs in a way that cast a haze across the air between them.

  Beyond them, in Doom's Retreat itself, Lord Verement clambered over the rocks and fallen shale. As he moved, he waved the fire of his staff like a torch against the darkness of the cliffs. Only Thomin accompanied him.

  Troy looked closely at Callindrill. The wounded Lord looked wan and tired, and sweat glistened on his pale forehead, but he stood on his own, and wielded his staff firmly. Troy saluted him, then climbed the scree on the other side to join Lord Mhoram.

  When he reached Mhoram, he sat and watched while the haze moved and took shape. It appeared to revolve slowly like a large wheel standing in the end of the Retreat. Its circumference fitted just within the scree and stone, so that it effectively blocked the canyon floor, and it turned as if it were hanging on a pivot between Mhoram and Callindrill. Beyond it, Troy could see only the empty Retreat-the raven-cleaned bones of the ur-viles and wolves-and the lone Lord struggling up and down the sides of the canyon with his flame bobbing like a will-o'-the-wisp.

  Soon, however, both Mhoram and Callindrill ended their exertions. They planted their staffs like anchors in the edges of the haze, and leaned back to rest. Lord Mhoram greeted Troy tiredly.

  After a moment's hesitation, Troy nodded toward Verement. “What's he doing?”

  Mhoram closed his eyes, and said as if he were answering Troy, “We have made a Word of Warning.”

  While he was thinking of ways to rephrase his question, Troy asked, “What does it do?”

  “It seals Doom's Retreat.”

  “How will it work? I can see it. It won't take Fleshharrower by surprise.”

  “Your sight is keen in some ways. I cannot see the Word.”

  Awkwardly, Troy asked, “Is there anyone still out there-besides Verement?”

  "No. All the warriors have left. The scouts have been recalled. None may pass this way now without encountering the Word."

  “So he's committed himself-he's stuck out there.”

  “Yes.” Mhoram bit at the word angrily.

  Troy returned to his first question. “What does he hope to gain? It's suicide.”

  Mhoram opened his eyes, and Troy felt the force of the Lord's gaze. “We will gain time,” Mhoram said. “You spoke of a need for time.” Then he sighed and looked away down the canyon. “And Lord Verement Shetra-mate will gain an end to anguish.”

  Numbly, Troy watched Verement. The hawkish Lord did not look like a man in search of relief. He threw himself up and down in the tumbled edges of the defile, kicked his way through the shale and the fleshless bones and the watchful silence of the ravens, as if he were possessed. And he was exhausting himself. Already his stride was unsteady, and he had fallen several times. Yet he had covered less than a third of Doom's Retreat with the invisible skein of his fire. But some power, some relentless coercion of will, kept him going. Throughout the morning, he continued his weird progress along the canyon, stopping only at rare moments to accept water and treasure-berries from Thomin. By midmorning, he was half done.

  Now, however, he could no longer keep up his pace. He had to lean on Thomin as he stumbled up into the rocks and down again, and his staff's fire guttered and smoked. A few ravens dropped out of their high nests and sailed around him as if to see how much longer he would endure. But he went on; the force which blazed in him did not waver.

  In the end, he was compelled to leave the last yards of the Retreat unwoven. Thomin pointed out to him the rising dust of Fleshharrower's approach. Shortly, the leading wave of yellow wolves came into view. Lord Verement dropped his task, straightened his shoulders; he gave Thomin one final order. Then he walked out of Doom's Retreat to meet the army of the Despiser.

  The wide front of wolves rushed toward him, suddenly eager for prey. But at the last they hesitated, halted. The unflinching challenge of his stance threw them into confusion. Though they snapped and snarled fiercely, they did not attack. They encircled the two men, and ran howling around them while the rest of the army made its approach.

  Fleshharrower's army marched out of the northeast until the dark line of it filled the horizon, and the tramping of its myriad feet shook the ground. The Despiser's hordes seemed to cover the whole Plains, and their tremendous numbers dwarfed Lord Verement like an ocean. When the Giant came forward, kicked his way through the wolves to confront the Lord and the Bloodguard, his size alone made the two men appear puny and insignificant.

  But when the Giant was within ten yards of him, Verement made a forbidding gesture. “Come no closer, moksha Raver!” he shouted hoarsely. “I know you, Jehannum Fleshharrower! Go back! Back to the evil which made you. I deny you passage-I, Verement Shetra-mate, Lord of the Council of Revelstone! You may not pass here!”

  Fleshharrower stopped. “Ah, a Lord,” he said, peering down at Verement as if the Lord were too tiny to be seen easily. “I am amazed.” His face was twisted, and his leer gave him an expression of acute pain, as if his flesh could not disguise the hurt of the rabid presence within it. But his voice seemed to suck and cling in the air like quicksand. It held only
derision and lust as he continued, “Have you come to welcome me to the slaughter of your army? But of course you know it is too small to be called an army. I have fought and followed you from Andelain, but do not think that you have outwitted me. I know you seek to meet me in Doom's Retreat because your army is too weak to fight elsewhere. Perhaps you have come to surrender-to join me.”

  “You speak like a fool,” Verement barked. “No friend of the Land will ever surrender to you, or join you. Admit the truth, and go. Go, I say! Melenkurion abatha!” Abruptly, he caught his staff in both hands and raised it over his head. "Duroc minas mill khabaal! With all the names of the Earthpower, I command you! There is no victory for the Despiser here!"

  As Verement shouted his Words, the Raver flinched. To defend himself, he thrust his hand into his leather jerkin, snatched out a smooth green stone that filled his fist. A lambent emerald flame played in its depths, and it steamed like boiling ice. He clenched it, made it steam more viciously, and exclaimed, “Verement Shetra-mate, for a hundred leagues I have driven two Lords before me like ants! Why do you believe that you can resist me now?”

  “Because you have killed Shetra my wife!” the Lord cried in rage. -“Because I have been unworthy of her all my life! Because I do not fear you, Raver! I am free of all restraint! No fear or love limits my strength! I match you hate for hate, moksha Raver! Melenkurion abatha!”

  His staff whirled about his head, and a livid blue bolt of power sprang from the wood at Fleshharrower. Simultaneously, Thomin rushed forward with his fingers crooked like claws, threw himself at the Giant's throat.

  Fleshharrower met the attack easily, disdainfully. He caught Verement's bolt on his Stone and held it burning there like a censer. Almost at once, the blue flame turned deep dazzling green, blazed up higher. And with his other hand the Giant dealt Thomin a blow which sent him sprawling behind Verement.

  Then Fleshharrower flung the fire back.

  The Lord's fury never winced. Swinging his staff, he jabbed its metal end like a lance into the gout of power. Savage cracking noises came from the wood as it bucked and bent-but the staff held. Verement shouted mighty words over the flame, compelled it to his will again. Slowly the green burned blue on his staff. When he had mastered it, he hurled it again at the Raver.

  Fleshharrower began to laugh. Verement's attack, multiplied by some of the Giant's own power, caught on the Stone as if the green rock were its wick. There it grew hungrily until the column of emerald fire reached high into the air.

  Laughing, the Raver shot this fire toward Verement. It splintered his staff, flash-burned the pieces to cinders, deluged him. But then the flame bent itself to his form, gripped him, clung and crawled all over him like a corona. His arms dropped, his head fell forward until his chin touched his chest, his eyes closed; he hung in the fire as if he had been nailed there.

  Triumphantly, Fleshharrower cried, “Now, Verement Shetra-mate! Where is your defiance now?” For a moment, his derision scaled upward, echoed off the cliffs. Then he went on: “Defeated, I see. But harken to me, puppet. It may be that I will let you live. Of course, to gain life you must change your allegiance. Repeat these words- `I worship Lord Foul the Despiser. He is the one word of truth.' ”

  Lord Verement's lips remained clamped shut. Within the paralyzing fire, his cheek muscles bulged as he set his jaws.

  “Speak it!” Fleshharrower roared. With a jerk of the Stone, he tightened the corona around Verement. A gasp of agony tore the Lord's lips apart. He began to speak.

  “I-worship-”

  He went no further. Behind him, Thomin jumped up to carry out his last duty. With one kick, the Bloodguard broke Lord Verement's back. Instantly, the Lord fell dead.

  Thomin's face was taut with murder as he sprang again at Fleshharrower's throat.

  This time, the Bloodguard's attack was so swift and ruthless that it broke past the Raver's defences. He caught Fleshharrower, dug his fingers into the Giant's neck. For a moment, the Giant could not tear him away. He ground his fingers into that thick throat with such passion that Fleshharrower could not break his hold.

  But then the Raver brought the Stone to his aid. With one blast, he burned Thomin's bones to ash within him. The Bloodguard collapsed in a heap of structureless flesh.

  Then for a time Fleshharrower seemed to go mad. Roaring like a cataclysm, he jumped and stamped on Thomin's form until the Bloodguard's bloody remains were crushed into the grass. And after that, he sent the vast hordes of his wolves howling into the gullet of Doom's Retreat. Driven by his fury, they ran blindly down the canyon, and hurtled into the Word of Warning.

  The first wolf to touch the Word triggered it. In that instant, the piled rock within the walls seemed to blow apart. The power which Verement had placed there threw down the sloped sides of the defile. A deadly rain of boulders and shale fell into the canyon, crushing thousands of wolves so swiftly that the pack had time for only one yowl of terror.

  When the dust blew clear, Fleshharrower could see that the Retreat was now blocked, crowded with crumbled rock and scree. An army might spend days struggling through the rubble.

  The setback appeared to calm him. The hunger for vengeance did not leave his eyes, but his voice was steady as he shouted his commands. He called forward the griffins. Flying heavily with ur-viles on their backs, they went into the Retreat to fight Verement's Word. And behind them Fleshharrower sent his rock-wise Cavewights to clear the way for the rest of the army.

  Compelled by his power, the creatures worked with headlong desperation. Many of the griffins were destroyed because they flew mindlessly against the Word. Scores of Cavewights killed each other in their frenzy to clear the debris from the canyon floor. But lore-wise ur-viles finally tore down the Word of Warning. And the Cavewights accomplished prodigious feats. Given sufficient time and numbers, they had the strength and skill to move mountains. Now they heaved and tore at the rubble. They worked through the night, and by dawn they had cleared a path ten yards wide down the centre of the Retreat.

  Holding the Stone high, Fleshharrower led his army through the canyon. At the south end of the Retreat, he found the Warward gone. The last of his enemies-a small band of riders including two Lords-were galloping away out of reach. He howled imprecations after them, vowing that he would pursue them to the death.

  But then his farseeing Giantish eyes made out the Warward, seven or eight leagues beyond the riders. He marked the direction of their march-saw where they were headed. And he began to laugh again. Peals of sarcasm and triumph echoed off the blank cliffs of Doom's Retreat.

  The Warward marched toward Garroting Deep.

  Nineteen: The Ruins of the Southron Wastes

  BY the time Warmark Troy rode away from Doom's Retreat with the Lords Mhoram and Callindrill and a group of Bloodguard, he had put aside his enervation, his half-conscious yearning to hide his head. Gone, too, was the sense of horror which had paralyzed him when Lord Verement died. He had pushed these things down during the dark night, while Mhoram and Callindrill fought to maintain the Word of Warning. Now he felt strangely cauterized. He was the Warmark, and he had returned to his work. He was thinking-measuring distances, gauging relative speeds, forecasting the Warward's attrition rate. He was in command.

  He could see his army's need for leadership as clearly as if it were in some way atrocious. Ahead of him, the Warward had swung slightly south to avoid the immediate foothills of the mountains, and across this easier ground it moved at a pace which would cover no more than seven leagues a day. But still the conditions of the march were horrendous. His army was travelling into the dry half-desert of the Southron Wastes.

  No vestige or hint of autumn ameliorated the arid breeze which blew northward off the parched, lifeless Grey Desert. Most of the grass had already failed, and the few rills and rivulets which ran down out of the mountains evaporated before they reached five leagues into the Wastes. And even south of the foothills the terrain was difficult-eroded and rasped and cut by long ag
es of sterile wind into jagged hills, gullies, arroyos. The result was a stark, heat-pale land possessed by a weird and unfriendly beauty. The Warward had to march over packed ground that felt as hard and hostile as rock underfoot, and yet sent up thick dust as if the soil were nothing but powder.

  Within three leagues of the Retreat, Troy and his companions found the first dead warrior. The Woodhelvennin corpse lay contorted on the ground like a torture victim. Exhaustion blackened its lips and tongue, and its staring eyes were full of dust. Troy had a mad impulse to stop and bury the warrior. But he was sure of his calculations; in this acrid heat, the losses of the Warward would probably double every day. None of the living could afford the time or strength to care for the dead.

  By the time the Warmark caught up with his army, he had counted ten more fallen warriors. Numbers thronged in his brain: eleven dead the first day, twenty-two the second, forty-four the third-six hundred and ninety-three human beings killed by the cruel demands of the march before he reached his destination. And God alone knew how many more He found himself wondering if he would ever be able to sleep again.

  But he forced himself to pay attention as Quaan and Amorine reported on their efforts to keep the warriors alive. Food was rationed; all water jugs were refilled at every stream, however small; every Haft and Warhaft moved on foot, so that their horses could carry the weakest men and women; Quaan's remaining riders also walked, and their damaged mounts bore packs and collapsed warriors; all scouting and water gathering were done by the Bloodguard. And every warrior who could go no farther was supplied with food, and ordered to seek safety in the mountains.

  There was nothing else the commanders could do.

  All this filled Troy with pain. But then Quaan described to him how very few warriors chose to leave the march and hide in the hills. That news steadied Troy; he felt it was both terrible and wonderful that so many men and women were willing to follow him to the utter end of his ideas. He mustered his confidence to answer Quaan's and Amorine's inevitable questions.