Through the stone, Mhoram could feel the strain on the gates mounting. He could feel Trevor’s fire and Trell’s mighty subterranean song supporting the interlocked gates, while hundreds, thousands, of the blind, mute forms pressed against them, crushed forward in lifeless savagery like an avalanche leaping impossibly up out of the ground. He could feel the groaning retorts of pressure as if the bones of the tower were grinding together. And still the dead came, shambling out of the earth until they seemed as vast as the Raver’s army and as irresistible as a cataclysm. Mhoram and Amatin broke hundreds of them and had no effect.
Behind the High Lord, Tohrm was on his knees, sharing the tower’s pain with his hands and sobbing openly, “Revelstone! Oh, Revelstone, alas! Oh, Revelstone, Revelstone!”
Mhoram tore himself away from the fighting, caught hold of Tohrm’s tunic, hauled the Hearthrall to his feet. Into Tohrm’s broken face, he shouted, “Gravelingas! Remember who you are! You are the Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep.”
“I am nothing!” Tohrm wept. “Ah! the Earth —!”
“You are Hearthrall and Gravelingas! Hear me-I, High Lord Mhoram, command you. Study this attack-learn to know it. The inner gates must not fall. The rhadhamaerl must preserve Revelstone’s inner gates!”
He felt the change in the attack. Satansfist’s Stone now threw bolts against the gates. Amatin tried to resist, but the Raver brushed her efforts aside as if they were nothing. Yet Mhoram stayed with Tohrm, focused his strength on the Hearthrall until Tohrm met the demand of his eyes and hands.
“Who will mourn the stone if I do not?” Tohrm moaned.
Mhoram controlled his desire to yell. “No harm will receive its due grief if we do not survive.”
The next instant, he forgot Tohrm, forgot everything except the silent screams that detonated through him from the base of the tower. Over Trell’s shrill rage and the vehemence of Trevor’s fire, the gates shrieked in agony.
A shattering concussion convulsed the stone. The people atop the tower fell, tumbled across the floor. Huge thunder like a howl of victory crashed somewhere between earth and sky, as if the very firmament of existence had been rent asunder.
The gates split inward.
Torrents of dead stone flooded into the tunnel under the tower.
Mhoram was shouting at Quaan and Amatin, “Defend the tower!” The shaking subsided, and he staggered erect. Pulling Tohrm with him, he yelled, “Come! Rally the Gravelingases! The inner gates must not fall.” Though the tower was still trembling, he started toward the stairs.
But before he could descend, he heard a rush of cries, human cries. An anguish like rage lashed through the roiling throng of his emotions. “Quaan!” he roared, though the old Warmark had almost caught up with him. “The warriors attack!” Quaan nodded bitterly as he reached Mhoram’s side. “Stop them! They cannot fight these dead. Swords will not avail.”
With Tohrm and Quaan, the High Lord raced down the stairs, leaving Amatin to wield her fire from the edge of the parapet.
Quaan went straight down through the tower, but Mhoram took Tohrm out over the courtyard between the tower and the Keep on the highest crosswalk. From there, he saw that Trell and Lord Trevor had already been driven back out of the tunnel. They were fighting for their lives against the slow, blind march of the dead. Trevor exerted an extreme force like nothing Mhoram had ever seen in him before, battering the foremost attackers, breaking them rapidly, continuously, into sand. And Trell wielded in both hands a massive fragment of one gate. He used the fragment like a club with such ferocious strength that even shapes vaguely resembling horses and Giants went down under his blows.
But the two men had no chance. Swords and spears and arrows had no effect on the marching shapes; scores of warriors who leaped into the tunnel and the courtyard were simply crushed underfoot; and the cries of the crushed were fearful to hear. While Mhoram watched, the dead pushed Trell and Trevor back past the old Gilden tree toward the closed inner gates.
Mhoram shouted to the warriors on the battlements below him, commanding them to stay out of the courtyard. Then he ran across to the Keep and dashed down the stairways toward the lower levels. With Tohrm behind him, he reached the first abutment over the inner gates in time to see Cavewights spill through the tunnel, squirming their way among the dead to attack the side doors which provided the only access to the tower.
Some of them fell at once with arrows in their throats and bellies, and others were cut down by the few warriors in the court who had avoided being crushed. But their thick, heavy jerkins protected them from most of the shafts and swords. With their great strength and their knowledge of stone, they threw themselves at the doors. And soon the gangrel creatures were swarming through the tunnel in large numbers. The High Lord saw that the warriors alone could not keep samadhi’s creatures out of the tower.
For a harsh moment, he pushed Trevor and Trell, Cavewights, warriors, animated dead earth from his mind, and faced the decision he had to make. If Revelstone were to retain any viable defence, either the tower or the inner gates must be preserved. Without the gates, the tower might still restrict Satansfist’s approach enough to keep Revelstone alive; without the tower, the gates could still seal out Satansfist. Without one or the other, Revelstone was defeated. But Mhoram could not fight for both, could not be in both places at once. He had to choose where to concentrate the Keep’s defence.
He chose the gates.
At once, he sent Tohrm to gather the Gravelingases. Then he turned to the battle of the courtyard. He ignored the Cavewights, focused instead on the shambling dead as they trampled the Gilden tree and pushed Trell and Trevor back against the walls. Shouting to the warriors around him for clingor, he hurled his Lords-fire down at the faceless shapes, battered them into sand. Together, he and Trevor cleared a space in which the trapped men could make their escape.
Almost immediately, the sentries brought two tough clingor lines, anchored them, tossed them down to Trevor and Trell. But in the brief delay, a new wave of Cavewights rode into the courtyard on the shoulders of the dead and joined the assault on the doors. With a nauseating sound like the breaking of bones, they tore the doors off the hinges, tossed the stone slabs aside, and charged roaring into the tower. They were met instantly by staunch, dour-handed warriors, but the momentum and strength of the Cavewights carried them inward.
When he saw the doors broken, Trell gave a cry of outrage, and tried to attack the Cavewights. Slapping aside the clingor line, he rushed the dead as if he believed he could fight his way through them to join the defence of the tower. For a moment, his granite club and his rhadhamaerl lore broke passage for him, and he advanced a few steps across the court. But then even his club snapped. He went down under the prodigious weight of the dead.
Trevor sprang after him. Aided by Mhoram’s fire, the Lord reached Trell. One of the dead stamped a glancing blow along his ankle, but he ignored the pain, took hold of Trell’s shoulders, dragged him back.
As soon as he was able to regain his feet, Trell pushed Trevor away and attacked the insensate forms with his fists.
Trevor snatched up one of the clingor lines and whipped it several times around his chest. Then he pounced at Trell’s back. With his arms under Trell’s, he gripped his staff like a bar across Trell’s chest, and shouted for the warriors to pull him up. Instantly, ten warriors caught the line and hauled. While Mhoram protected the two men, they were drawn up the wall and over the parapet of the abutment.
With a sickening jolt, the dead thudded against the inner gates.
Amid the cries of battle from the tower, and the mute pressure building sharply against the gates, High Lord Mhoram turned his attention to Trell and Lord Trevor.
The Gravelingas struggled free of Trevor’s hold and the hands of the warriors, thrust himself erect, and faced Mhoram as if he meant to leap at the High Lord’s throat. His face flamed with exertion and fury.
“Intact!” he rasped horribly. “The tower lost-intact for Sheol’s us
e! Is that your purpose for Revelstone? Better that we destroy it ourselves!”
Swinging his powerful arms to keep anyone from touching him, he spun wildly and lurched away into the Keep.
Mhoram’s gaze burned dangerously, but he bit his lips, kept himself from rushing after the Gravelingas. Trell had spent himself extravagantly, and failed. He could not be blamed for hating his inadequacy; he should be left in peace. But his voice had sounded like the voice of a man who had lost all peace forever. Torn within himself, Mhoram sent two warriors to watch over Trell, then turned toward Trevor.
The Lord stood panting against the back wall. Blood streamed from his injured ankle; his face was stained with the grime of battle, and he shuddered as the effort of breathing wracked his chest. Yet he seemed unconscious of his pain, unconscious of himself. His eyes gleamed with eldritch perceptions. When Mhoram faced him, he gasped, “I have felt it. I know what it is.”
Mhoram shouted for a Healer, but Trevor shrugged away any suggestion that he needed help. He met the High Lord like a man exalted, and repeated, “I have felt it, Mhoram.”
Mhoram controlled his concern. “Felt it?”
“Lord Foul’s power. The power which makes all this possible.”
“The Stone-” Mhoram began.
“The Stone does not suffice. This weather-the speed with which he became so mighty after his defeat in Garroting Deep-the force of this army, though it is so far from his command-these dead shapes, compelled from the very ground by power so vast-!
“The Stone does not suffice. I have felt it. Even Lord Foul the Despiser could not become so much more unconquerable in seven short years.”
“Then how?” the High Lord breathed.
“This weather-this winter. It sustains and drives the army-it frees Satansfist-it frees the Despiser himself for other work-the work of the Stone. The work of these dead. Mhoram, do you remember Drool Rock-worm’s power over the weather-and the moon?”
Mhoram nodded in growing amazement and dread.
“I have felt it. Lord Foul holds the Staff of Law.”
A cry tore itself past Mhoram’s lips, despite his instantaneous conviction that Trevor was right. “How is it possible? The Staff fell with High Lord Elena under Melenkurion Sky weir.”
“I do not know. Perhaps the same being who slew Elena bore the Staff to Foul’s Creche-perhaps it is dead Kevin himself who wields the Staff on Foul’s behalf, so that the Despiser need not personally use a power not apt for his control. But I have felt the Staff, Mhoram-the Staff of Law beyond all question.”
Mhoram nodded, fought to contain the amazed fear that seemed to echo inimitably within him. The Staff! Battle raged around him; he could afford neither time nor strength for anything but the immediate task. Lord Foul held the Staff! If he allowed himself to think about such a thing, he might lose himself in panic. Eyes flashing, he gave Trevor’s shoulder a hard clasp of praise and comradeship, then turned back toward the courtyard.
For a moment, he pushed his perceptions through the din and clangour, bent his senses to assess Revelstone’s situation. He could feel Lord Amatin atop the tower, still waging her fire against the dead. She was weakening-her continuous exertions had long since passed the normal limits of her stamina-yet she kept her ragged blaze striking downward, fighting as if she meant to spend her last pulse or breath in the tower’s defence. And her labour had its effect. Though she could not stop even a tenth of the shambling shapes, she had now broken so many of them that the unbound sand clogged the approaches to the tunnel. Fewer of the dead could plough forward at one time; her work, and the constriction of the tunnel, slowed their march, slowed the multiplication of their pressure on the inner gates.
But while she strove, battle began to mount up through the tower toward her. Few Cavewights now tried to enter through the doors. Their own dead blocked the corridors; and while they fought for access, they were exposed to the archers of the Keep. But enemies were breaching the tower somehow; Mhoram could hear loud combat surging upward through the tower’s complex passages. With an effort, he ignored everything else around him, concentrated on the tower. Then through the hoarse commands, the clash of weapons, the raw cries of hunger and pain, the tumult of urgent feet, he sensed Satansfist’s attack on the outer wall of the tower. The Raver threw fierce bolts of Illearth power at the exposed coigns and windows, occasionally at Lord Amatin herself; and under the cover of these blasts, his creatures threw up ladders against the wall, swarmed through the openings.
In the stone under his feet, High Lord Mhoram could feel the inner gates groaning.
Quickly, he turned to one of the warriors, a tense Stonedownor woman. “Go to the tower. Find Warmark Quaan. Say that I command him to withdraw from the tower. Say that he must bring Lord Amatin with him. Go.”
She saluted and ran. A few moments later, he saw her dash over the courtyard along one of the crosswalks.
By that time, he had already returned to the battle. With Lord Trevor working doggedly at his side, he renewed his attack on the earthen pressure building against Revelstone’s inner gates. While the supportive power of the Gravelingases vibrated in the stone under him, he gathered all his accumulated ferocity and drove it at the crush of dead. Now he knew clearly what he hoped to achieve; he wanted to cover the flagstones of the courtyard with so much sand that the blind, shambling shapes would have no solid footing from which to press forward. Trevor’s aid seemed to uplift his effectiveness, and he shattered dead by tens and scores until his staff hummed in his hands and the air around him became so charged with blue force that he appeared to emanate Lords-fire.
Yet while he laboured, wielded his power like a scythe through Satansfist’s ill crop, he kept part of his attention cocked toward the crosswalks. He was watching for Quaan and Amatin.
A short time later, the first crosswalk fell. The battered remnant of an Eoman dashed along it out of the tower, rabidly pursued by Cavewights. Archers sent the Cavewights plunging to the courtyard, and as soon as the warriors were safe, the walk’s cables were cut. The wooden span swung clattering down and crashed against the wall of the tower.
The tumult of battle echoed out of the tower. Abruptly, Warmark Quaan appeared on one of the upper spans. Yelling stridently to make himself heard, he ordered all except the two highest crosswalks cut.
Mhoram shouted up to the Warmark, “Amatin!”
Quaan nodded, ran back into the tower.
The next two spans fell promptly, but the sentries at the third waited. After a moment, several injured warriors stumbled out onto the walk. Supporting each other, carrying the crippled, they struggled toward the Keep. But then a score of Stone-born creatures charged madly out of the tower. Defying arrows and swords, they threw the injured off the span and rushed on across the walk.
Grimly, deliberately, the sentries cut the cables.
Every enemy that appeared in the doorways where the spans had been was killed or beaten back by a hail of fiery arrows. The higher crosswalks fell in swift succession. Only two remained for the survivors in the tower.
Now Lord Trevor was panting dizzily at the High Lord’s side, and Mhoram himself felt weak with strain. But he could not afford to rest. Tohrm’s Gravelingases would not be able to hold the gates alone.
Yet his flame lost its vehemence as the urgent moments passed. Fear for Quaan and Amatin disrupted his concentration. He wanted intensely to go after them. Warriors were escaping constantly across the last two spans, and he watched their flight with dread in his throat, aching to see their leaders.
One more span went down.
He stopped fighting altogether when Quaan appeared alone in the doorway of the last crosswalk.
Quaan shouted across to the Keep, but Mhoram could not make out the words. He watched with clenched breath as four warriors raced toward the Warmark.
Then a blue-robed figure moved behind Quaan — Amatin. But the two made no move to escape. When the warriors reached them, they both disappeared back into the tow
er.
Stifling in helplessness, Mhoram stared at the empty doorway as if the strength of his desire might bring the two back. He could hear the Raver’s hordes surging constantly upward.
A moment later, the four warriors reappeared. Between them, they carried Hearthrall Borillar.
He dangled in their hands as if he were dead.
Quaan and Amatin followed the four. When they all had gained the Keep, the last crosswalk fell. It seemed to make no sound amid the clamour from the tower.
A mist passed across Mhoram’s sight. He found that he was leaning heavily on Trevor; while he gasped for breath, he could not stand alone. But the Lord upheld him. When his faintness receded, he met Trevor’s gaze and smiled wanly.
Without a word, they turned back to the defence of the gates.
The tower had been lost, but the battle was not done. Unhindered now by Amatin’s fire, the dead were slowly able to push a path through the sand. The weight of their assault began to mount again. And the sensation of wrong that they sent shuddering through the stone increased. The High Lord felt Revelstone’s pain growing around him until it seemed to come from all sides. If he had not been so starkly confronted with these dead, he might have believed that the Keep was under attack at other points as well. But the present need consumed his attention. Revelstone’s only hope lay in burying the gates with sand before they broke.
He sensed Tohrm’s arrival behind him, but did not turn until Quaan and Lord Amatin had joined the Hearthrall. Then he dropped his power and faced the three of them.
Amatin was on the edge of prostration. Her eyes ached in the waifish pallor of her face; her hair stuck to her face in sweaty strands. When she spoke, her voice quivered. “He took a bolt meant for me. Borillar-he- I did not see samadhi’s aim in time.”
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