The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War (49 page)

The implications of that gave Troy a feeling of grim gratification. His strategy was justified at least to the extent that the main body of the Warward would be spared this particular attack. But he knew that such justification was not enough. His final play lay like a dead weight in his stomach. He expected to lose command of the Warward as soon as he revealed it; it would appall the warriors so much that they would rebel. After all his promises of victory, he felt like a false prophet. Yet his plan was the Warward’s only hope, the Land’s only hope.

He prayed that Lord Mhoram would be equal to it.

With the sunset, his sight failed. He was forced to rely on Mhoram to report the Raver’s progress. In the darkness, he felt trapped, bereft of command. All that he could see was the amorphous, dull glow of the liquid earth. Occasionally, he made out flares and flashes of lurid green across the red, but they meant nothing to him. His only consolation lay in the fact that Fleshharrower’s preparations were consuming time.

Along the wall on both sides of him, First Haft Amorine’s Eoward kept watch over the Raver’s labors. No one slept; the poised threat of Fleshharrower’s army transfixed everyone. Moonrise did not ease the blackness; the dark of the moon was only three nights away. But the Raver’s forge-work was bright enough to pale the stars.

During the whole long watch, Fleshharrower never left his molten circle.

Sometime after midnight, he retrieved his newly made scepter, and cooled it by waving it in a shower of sparks over his head. Then he affixed his fragment of the Stone to its end.

But when that was done, he remained by the circle. As night waned toward day, he gestured and sang over

the molten stone, weaving incantations out of its hot power. It lit his movements luridly, and the Stone flashed across it at intervals, giving green glimpses of his malice.

But this was indistinct to Troy. He clung to his hope. In the darkness, his calculations were the only reality left to him, and he recited them like counters against the night. When the first slit of dawn touched him from the east, he felt a kind of elation.

Softly, he asked for Amorine.

“Warmark.” She was right beside him.

“Amorine, listen. That monster has made his mistake-he’s wasted too much time.

Now we’re going to make him pay for it. Get the warriors out of here. Send them after the Warward. Whatever happens, that Giant won’t get as many of us as he thinks. Just keep one warrior for every good horse we have”

“Perhaps all should depart now,” she replied, “before the Raver attacks.”

Troy grinned at the idea. He could imagine Fleshharrower’s fury if the Giant’s attack found Doriendor Corishev empty. But he knew that he had not yet gained enough time. He answered, “I want to squeeze another half day out of him. With the Bloodguard and a couple hundred warriors, we’ll be able to do it. Now get going.”

“Yes, Warmark.” She left his side at once, and soon he could hear most of the warriors withdrawing. He gripped the wall again, and stared away into the sunrise, waiting for sight.

Shortly, he became aware that the dry breeze out of the south was stiffening.

Then the haze faded from his mind. First he became able to see the ruined wall, then the hillside; finally he caught sight of the waiting army.

It had not moved during the night.

It did not need to move.

Fleshharrower still stood beside his circle. The fire in the ground had died, but before it failed, he had used it to wrap himself in a shimmering, translucent cocoon of power. Within the power, he was as erect as an icon. He held his scepter rigidly above his head;

he did not move; he made no sound. But when the sunlight touched him, the wind leaped suddenly into a hard blow like a violent exhalation through the teeth of the Desert.

And it increased in ragged gusts like the leading edge of a sirocco.

Then a low cry from one of the warriors pulled Troy’s attention away from Fleshharrower. Turning his head, he looked down the throat of the mounting gale..

From the southeast, where the Southron Range met the Gray Desert, a tornado came rushing toward Doriendor Corishev. Its undulating shaft plowed straight across the Wastes.

It conveyed such an impression of might that several moments passed before Troy realized it was not the kind of whirlwind he understood.

It brought no rain or clouds with it; it was as dry as the Desert. And it carried no dust or sand; it was as clean as empty air. It should not have been visible at all. But its sheer force made it palpable to Troy’s sight. He could feel it coming. It was so vivid to him that at first he could not grasp the fact that the tornado was not moving with the wind.

The gale blew straight out of the south, tearing dust savagely from the ground as it came. And the tornado cut diagonally across it, ignored the wind to howl straight toward Doriendor Corishev.

Troy stared at it. Dust clogged his mouth, but he did not know this until he tried to shout something. Then, coughing convulsively, he wrenched himself away from the sight. At once, the sirocco hit him. When he stopped looking at the tornado, the force of the wind sent him reeling. Ruel caught him. He pivoted around the Bloodguard, and threw himself toward Lord Mhoram.

When he reached Mhoram, he shouted, “What is it.

“Creator preserve us!” Mhoram replied. The yowling wind whipped his voice from his lips, and Troy barely heard him. “It is a vortex of trepidation.”

Troy tried to thrust his words past the wind to Mhoram’s ears. “What will it do?”

Shouting squarely into Troy’s face, Mhoram answered, “It will make us afraid!”

The next moment, he pulled at Troy’s arm, and pointed upward, toward the top of the tornado. There a score of dark creatures flew, riding the upper reaches of the vortex.

The tornado had already covered more than half the distance to Doriendor Corishev, and Troy saw the creatures vividly. They were birds as large as kresh. They had clenched satanic faces like bats, wide eaglewings, and massive barbed claws. As they flew, they called to each other, showing double rows of hooked teeth. Their wings beat with lust.

They were the most fearsome creatures Troy had ever seen. As he stared, he tried to rally himself against them-judge their speed, calculate the time left before their arrival, plan a defense. But they staggered his mind; he could not comprehend an existence which permitted them.

He struggled to move, regain his balance enough to tell himself that he was already tasting the vortex of trepidation. But he was paralyzed. Voices shouted around him. He had a vague impression that Fleshharrower’s hordes greeted the vortex with glee-or were they afraid of it, too? He could not tell.

Then Ruel grabbed his arm, snatched him away from the wall, shouted into his ear, “Warmark, come! We must make a defense!”

Troy could not remember ever having heard a Bloodguard shout before. But even now Ruel’s voice did not sound like panic. Troy felt that there was something terrible in such immunity. He tried to look around him, but the wind lashed so much dust across the ruins that all details were lost. Both Lords were gone. Warriors ran in all directions, stumbling against the wind. Bloodguard bobbed in and out of view like ghouls.

Ruel shouted at him again. “We must save the horses! They will go mad with fear!”

For one long moment, Troy wished High Lord Elena were with him, so that he could tell her this was not his fault. Then, abruptly, he realized that he had made another mistake. If he were killed, no one would know how to save the Warward. His final plan would die with him, and every man and woman of his army would be butchered as a result.

The realization seemed to push him over an edge. He plunged to his knees. The sirocco and the dust were strangling him.

Ruel shouted, “Warmark! Corruption attacks!”

At the word Corruption, a complete lucidity came over Troy. Fear filled all his thoughts with crystalline incisiveness. At once, he perceived that the Bloodguard was trying to undo him; Ruel’s impenetrable fidelity was a deliberate assault upon his fitness for command.

The understanding made him reel, but he reacted lucidly, adroitly. He took one last look around him, saw one or two figures still surging back and forth through the livid anguish of the dust. Ruel was moving to capture him. Overhead, the dark birds dropped toward the ruins. Troy picked up a rock and climbed to his feet. When Ruel touched him, he suddenly gestured away behind the Bloodguard. Ruel turned to look. Troy hit him on the back of the skull with the rock.

Then the Warmark ran. He could not make progress against the wind, so he worked across it. The walls of buildings loomed out of the dust at him. He started toward a door.

Without warning, he stumbled into First Haft Amorive.

She caught at him, buffeted him with cries like fear. But she, too, was someone faithful, someone who threatened him. He lunged at her with his shoulder, sent her sprawling. Immediately, he dodged into the maze of the masterplace.

He fell several times as the wind sprang at him through unexpected gaps in the walls. But he forced himself ahead. The clarity of his terror was complete; he knew what he had to do.

After a swift, chaotic battle, he found what he needed. With a rush, he lurched out into the center of a large, open space-the remains of one of Doriendor Corishev’s meeting halls. In this unsheltered expanse, the force of the wind belabored him venomously. He welcomed it. He felt a paradoxical glee of fear; his own terror delighted him. He stood like an exalted fanatic in the open space, and looked up to see how long he would have to wait.

When he glanced behind him, his heart leaped. One of the birds glided effortlessly toward him, as if it were in total command of the wind. It had a clear approach to him.

The ease of its movement thrilled him, and he poised himself to jump into its jaws.

But as it neared him, he saw that it carried Ruel’s crumpled body in its mighty talons. He could see Ruel’s flat, dispassionate features. The Bloodguard looked as if he had been betrayed.

A convulsion shook Troy. As the bird swooped toward him, he remembered who he was. The strength of terror galvanized his muscles; he snatched out his sword and struck.

His blow split the bird’s skull. Its weight bowled him over. Green blood spewed from it over his head and shoulders. The hot blood burned him like a corrosive, and it smelled so thickly of attar that it asphyxiated him. With a choked cry, he clawed at his forehead, trying to tear the pain away. But the acid fire consumed his headband, burned through his skull into his brain. He lost consciousness.

He awoke to silence and the darkness of night.

After a long lapse of time like an interminable scream, he raised his head. The wind had piled dust over him, and his movement disturbed it. It filled his throat and mouth and lungs. But he bit back a spasm of coughing, and listened to the darkness.

All around him, Doriendor Corishev was as still as a cairn. The wind and the vortex were gone, leaving only midnight dust and death to mark their path. Silence lay over the ruins like a bane.

Then he had to cough. Gasping, retching, he pushed himself to his knees. He sounded explosively loud to himself. He tried to control the violence of his coughing, but he was helpless until the spasm passed.

As it released him, he realized that he was still clutching his sword. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on it. He cursed his night blindness, then told himself that the darkness was his only hope.

His face throbbed painfully, but he ignored it.

He kept himself still while he thought.

This long after the vortex, he reasoned, all his allies were either dead or gone. If the vortex and the birds had not killed them, they had been swept from the ruins by Fleshharrower’s army. So they could not help him. He did not know how much of that army had stayed behind in the masterplace.

And he could not see. He was vulnerable until daylight. Only the darkness protected him; he could not defend himself.

His first reaction was to remain where he was, and pray that he was not discovered. But he recognized the futility of that plan. At best, it would only postpone his death. When dawn came, he would still be alone against an unknown number of enemies.

No, his one chance was to sneak out of the city now and lose himself in the Wastes.

There he might find a gully or hole in which to hide.

That escape was possible, barely possible, because he had one advantage; none of Fleshharrower’s creatures except the ur-viles could move through the ruins at night as well as he. And the Raver would not have left ur-viles behind. They were too valuable. If Troy could remember his former skills-his sense of ambience, his memory for terrain-he would be able to navigate the city.

He would have to rely on his hearing to warn him of enemies.

He began by sliding his sword quietly into its scabbard. Then he started groping his way over the hot sand. He needed to verify where he was, and knew only one way to do it.

Nearby, his hands found a patch of ground that felt burned. The dirt which stuck to his fingers reeked of attar. And in the patch, he located Ruel’s twisted body. His sense of touch told him that Ruel was badly charred. The dark bird must have caught fire when it

died, and burned away, leaving the Bloodguard’s corpse behind.

The touch of that place nauseated him, and he backed away from it. He was sweating heavily. Sweat stung his burns. The night was hot; sunset had brought no relief to the ruins. Folding his arms over his stomach, he climbed to his feet.

Standing unsteadily in the open, he tried to clear his mind of Ruel and the bird. He needed to remember how to deal with blindness, how to orient himself in the ruins. But he could not determine which way he had come into this open place. Waving his arms before him, he went in search of a wall.

His feet distrusted the ground-he could not put them down securely-and he moved awkwardly. His sense of balance had deserted him. His face felt raw, and sweat seared his eye sockets. But he clenched his concentration, and measured the distance.