Against All Things Ending Part 55

Everything is simpler than you make it sound.

Simpler, h.e.l.l!

In that instant, a bolt of lightning struck through the blazing house into her chest. The concussion knocked her flat, expelled the anguish from her lungs, stunned every muscle. But the shock was brief. Night swallowed the flames, effaced fire from the world. Before her heart knew that it had died, it beat again. She lay on damp gra.s.s while realities wheeled around her, spinning too fast to be understood. When she gasped for breath, the air had become cool bliss.

At once, the shouting changed. Crying, "Linden Giantfriend!" Frostheart Grueburn scooped Linden into her arms. The Swordmain's muscles strained with urgency.

"Is she harmed?" demanded Stormpast Galesend. Her voice was so loud that it covered Mahrtiir's tense query.

Like a blaring horn, Rime Coldspray roared, "No! This I will not permit! This I will not permit!

"Stave! The Staff!"

Vaguely Linden realized that she was no longer holding the Staff of Law. Her nerves remembered throwing it-Her medical bag: every drug, every instrument. The darkness held a greenish tinge, wan and frail, so faint that it scarcely dimmed the unregarded stars.

The m.u.f.fled thud of a Giant's strides receded. They became splas.h.i.+ng, a rush into water: shallow water that grew deeper at every step.

Other feet sprinted in pursuit. Smaller splashes: a smaller body. Stave? Linden's heart clenched again, and a clamor of water arose. Something greater than a Giant reared and thrashed.

In the distance, aghast children wailed in little voices that sounded like mud.

"Linden!" Grueburn insisted. She held Linden hard against her armor. "You must speak! Some horror has befallen you! Why did you cast away your Staff? Why did you cast away your Staff?"

Somehow the Manethrall made himself heard through the clamor of Giants, the turmoil of water, the gasp and pound of struggle. "She returns to herself! Ringthane, hear us! Why did you prevent our aid? What madness possessed you?"

Linden did not reply. She could not. She hardly had the strength to lift her head, focus her eyes. But she heard desperation, combat, fear. She should have died. Instead she tried to see.

At first, everything was a blur of darkness. Emerald flames shed no illumination: ordinary vision was useless. With her health-sense, however, her Land-given sight, she discerned spa.r.s.e gra.s.s in damp sandy soil, an agitated boundary of water. Beyond that, details smeared into each other. Shapes bled until they became confusion, a flurry of writhing that flung water in all directions. The water smelled of rot, thick with muck and mold, like a marsh that did not drain.

Why had had she discarded her Staff? She needed it now. she discarded her Staff? She needed it now.

It was hers. Hers Hers. She did not have to hold it in order to call up its strength. As long as she could sense its presence- She could not. It was gone.

Or it was masked- Christ!

-by a looming evil as thick as trees, as dense as a grove.

From the verge of the gra.s.s, a fen spread farther than her percipience could reach: a wetland clotted with mold and mud and swamp vegetation. Between small eyots of roots and muck, water lay dense and stagnant-and deeper as it stretched into the distance. It had been undisturbed for an age: it was not so now. Its ancient decay was in chaos, scourged and writhing, a welter of froth and spray. And from it came the stench of corpses, bodies by the thousands so long immersed that their putrefaction clogged the air.

The Sarangrave, Linden thought numbly. Sarangrave Flat. What was she doing here here? Why had her companions brought her? They knew the danger- Grueburn's chest shuddered at each rank breath. From somewhere nearby, Mahrtiir made retching sounds. Galesend cupped her hand over Jeremiah's mouth and nose as if she hoped to filter the reek with her fingers.

Gagging helplessly, Linden forced her perceptions farther.

Latebirth, Cirrus Kindwind, and Onyx Stonemage stood to the ankles in the edge of the marsh, poised to fling themselves into some fray. Yet they appeared to hesitate, uncertain of their enemy-or enemies. Latebirth faced the fen, aimed her sword toward the struggle that lashed the water; searched for an opportunity to attack. But Kindwind and Stonemage kept their backs to the Flat. Across a gap of a dozen or more paces, they confronted two cl.u.s.ters of the small, hairless creatures, the Feroce, one off to the left, the other on the right of Grueburn and Galesend, Linden, Jeremiah, and Mahrtiir.

Green flames gibbered in the hands of the creatures. Their muddy wailing rose through the stench and clash from the wetland, and was swallowed into silence.

Kindwind and Stonemage seemed to be waiting for the Feroce to attempt an a.s.sault.

Rank humidity clogged the air. It filled Linden's lungs like stagnant muck. Her leg throbbed in response to the panicked theurgy of the creatures. But they paid no attention to her.

She had already thrown away her Staff. They had no further interest in her.

Out in the marsh, Coldspray, Cabledarm, Halewhole Bluntfist, and Stave fought the lurker of the Sarangrave.

Oh, G.o.d. Linden knew knew that evil, that fierce hunger. She remembered it. She could hardly breathe. Years or millennia ago, it had come close to killing her and everyone with her. In strength and savagery and sheer size, it dwarfed even Giants. Without Covenant and the that evil, that fierce hunger. She remembered it. She could hardly breathe. Years or millennia ago, it had come close to killing her and everyone with her. In strength and savagery and sheer size, it dwarfed even Giants. Without Covenant and the krill krill and wild magic- and wild magic- She counted three tentacles standing up from the water, no, four, each as thick as one of the Swordmainnir. Each could have stretched to three times the height of any Giant. To her, they tasted like the Illearth Stone and the shrieking bane; like the effluvium of the darkest deeds of the Viles and Demondim in their loreworks. They were reified corruption: long ages of seeping poisons, acrid and malign, acc.u.mulating until they became flesh swollen with craving.

Although the lurker had once commanded the skest skest, it wielded no magicks that Linden could perceive. Its physical bulk and muscle sufficed to feed it. Braced on its own immensity beneath the water, it struck at its opponents with enough force to shatter granite.

Cabledarm and Bluntfist stood against the tentacles, hacking with their swords, fending off blows; floundering through water that reached their thighs when they could not otherwise evade the lurker's limbs. At first, Linden did not see Stave or the Ironhand. They had been driven underwater, were being held down- No, they were not. The hard intransigence of Stave's aura was there there. Rime Coldspray's courage shouted against the darkness.

When Linden concentrated on the former Master and the Ironhand, she caught a hint of her Staff.

Her leg hurt as if her cuts had become acid. As if the marks on her jeans were being etched into her bones.

Etched by an acid the hue of malign verdure.

Eruptions of water and violence bewildered her senses; thwarted her efforts to interpret what was happening. But she still had her map. She could still follow it.

Through the tumid obstruction of the air, the untrammeled logic of gra.s.s stains and pain led her to Coldspray, Stave, and the Staff of Law.

She had missed them in the rapid flurry of blows, the mad lash and slash of tentacles and swords, because they were not with Cabledarm and Bluntfist. They were not in the water at all.

Supple as snakes, the twisting arms of the lurker had caught them.

One had coiled around the Ironhand's chest, heaved her into the air. Now it held her there, shaking her viciously and squeezing squeezing-Through the rancid fetor of corpses, the wet bellow of the swamp, Linden sensed the lurker's tremendous might. If the monster could not snap Coldspray's spine or neck, it meant to crush the life from her body.

Coldspray flailed with her glaive; but the tentacle's thras.h.i.+ng kept her blade from its target.

The lurker was powerful enough to kill her. Its clench should already have collapsed her chest, driven ribs into her heart and lungs, sent blood spurting from her mouth and nose. Yet she was not crushed. She still lived and fought.

For the moment, at least, her armor withstood the hideous pressure of the monster's arm.

Another tentacle had taken the Staff. Wrapped several times around the shaft, the arm drew back from the contest. The inner surface of the arm was thick with small fingers: it could grip grip. And Cabledarm and Bluntfist were not near enough to a.s.sail it. Other tentacles held the Swordmainnir at bay.

But Stave clung to the Staff. In spite of the lurker's efforts to fling him off, he gripped the wood with both hands. Bracing his feet against the heavy coils, he strove to pull the Staff loose.

He could not out-muscle the tentacle: not directly. To the lurker, his strength was a child's. And the arm had too many fingers. But the Staff was small in the monster's clutch, a mere twig compared to the tentacle's thickness. Stave fought, not to break the lurker's hold outright, but rather to haul the Staff free from one end.

He was succeeding. By increments so small that Linden could barely discern them, he dragged the wood out of the coils.

If the monster tried to s.h.i.+ft its grasp, it would lose the Staff altogether.

Nevertheless Stave could not win. Linden saw that. The lurker would change its tactics. Another tentacle would arise to toss the Haruchai Haruchai aside. Or he would be punched down into the water and mud, forced under until he drowned. aside. Or he would be punched down into the water and mud, forced under until he drowned.

He needed help.

The Swordmainnir understood his peril as clearly as Linden did. With a Giantish battle cry, Latebirth charged into the marsh. Three against two tentacles, she, Bluntfist, and Cabledarm fought to create an opening so that one of them could reach Stave. An instant later, Onyx Stonemage abandoned her watch against the Feroce and rushed to Coldspray's a.s.sistance.

In response, a fifth tentacle joined the fray.

Linden could not bear it. Covenant had told her repeatedly to trust herself. She can do this She can do this. The pain in her leg demanded deeds that had no name.

She was too weak to shout. Her lungs held too much water. Stonemage, Latebirth, and the other were too embattled to hear her. Trusting herself meant trusting her friends. It meant trusting Frostheart Grueburn.

"Tell them," she gasped. Her throat felt raw, scorched by flame, sc.r.a.ped by smoke. "Save Coldspray. I'll help Stave."

Grueburn must have heard her. Must have believed her. Clarion as a thunderclap, the Giant roared over the tumult, "To the Ironhand! Linden Giantfriend aids Stave!" Linden Giantfriend aids Stave!"

They all must have believed in Linden. Cras.h.i.+ng like a berserker, Latebirth turned to head toward Rime Coldspray with Stonemage. An instant later, Halewhole Bluntfist did the same, leaving Cabledarm to engage three tentacles alone.

Without hesitation, Cabledarm dove beneath the fouled surface, the scourged spray. Then she surged to her feet near one of the arms. Streaming with muck and fronds, with gobbets of putrid flesh, she swung her sword two-handed; hacked into the thick muscle and sinew of the tentacle.

Her blow bit deep. The Feroce wailed as though they had been pierced. Acid pulsed in Linden's leg.

Another tentacle struck Cabledarm down. But the arm that she had hurt toppled, loud as a scream, back into the fen.

It did not rise again. Instead it fled, plowing a writhen furrow in the water.

At the same time, Stonemage drove a headlong thrust into the heavy ma.s.s striving to crush Coldsprayand Latebirth threw her whole body into a horizontal slash- -and Linden reached out with percipience and desperation for the Staff of Law.

It was hers. It was hers hers, G.o.ddammit! She had fas.h.i.+oned it with wild magic from her own love and bereavement as much as from Vain and Findail. Only its iron heels had once belonged to Berek. And it had answered her call when she had needed Earthpower to heal a dying Waynhim. It would answer her now.

While one tentacle held Cabledarm underwater, and another swatted Bluntfist aside, knocking the Swordmain away as if she were weightless, Linden summoned fire from her Staff.

Panting the Seven Words, she did her best to spare Stave. But she could not afford to concentrate on his safety. To harm the lurker, she needed her fiercest flame. For reasons that she did not try to understand, the monster wanted the Staff. It would not let go unless she made it flinch.

From the Staff, she called one small tongue of fire, flame blacker than the tinged darkness. Then another. Another.

Every sign of Earthpower and Law made Linden stronger. The Seven Words filled her mouth. She could not recover the lost cleanliness of her theurgy; but she could make it hurtful. Between one heartbeat and the next, her little flames became ebon incandescence: a deflagration of condensed midnight.

The wails of the Feroce turned to bereft shrieks as power like a piece of an obsidian sun burned into the lurker's flesh.

Floundering, the tentacle released its grip. Stave clung to the Staff as the monster dropped it and him into the marsh.

Instantly water quenched Linden's fire. Her alarm for Stave extinguished it. A dark wind like an in-rush seemed to sweep every vestige of her power from the Sarangrave.

But she had done enough. A convulsion of pain clutched the lurker. Twisting in anguish, tentacles cudgeled the night. One blade-bitten arm released Rime Coldspray. As the Ironhand fell heavily between Latebirth and Stonemage, Cabledarm gained her feet; broke the surface and whooped for rank air. The tentacle that Linden had burned squirmed away beneath the whipped water.

In flailing pain, the monster withdrew. The suction of ma.s.sive shapes moving away hit the fen like an eruption. Waves high enough to reach the chests of the Giants crashed in all directions: a thunder of water and rot. The pressure of moisture in Linden's chest eased as if a thunderstorm had pa.s.sed.

At the same time, the Feroce ran after the lurker. Wailing as one, they dashed for the refuge of the Sarangrave. And as they splashed into the Flat, their fires winked out. In water, they appeared to have no need or use for magicks.

Before the last flame vanished, however, Linden saw Stave stand up from the muck. Clots of mud and bits of corpses stuck to his skin. Rancid fronds and stems hung like vestments from his shoulders. But in his hands he held the Staff of Law as if it could not hurt him; as if even the black savagery with which Linden had wounded the lurker could not touch him.

When she saw him-when she discerned Coldspray upright with Latebirth and Stonemage, and Cabledarm apparently unscathed, and Bluntfist wading vehemently through the swamp-Linden felt relief rise in her like a tide.

Relaxing at last in Grueburn's arms, she hardly noticed that the pain of her cut s.h.i.+n and calf was gone.

The Amends of the Ranyhyn

Heading into the teeth of a bitter wind, the companions trudged toward the comparative shelter where they had intended to spend the night.

As soon as Stave handed the Staff to Linden, she stroked dark fire from the wood to counter the effects of her eerie ordeal. Then she extended Earthpower to soothe everyone around her.

They did not need it to the same extent that she did. Even Rime Coldspray did not require healing: her cataphract and bulk of muscle had preserved her. And Stave was Haruchai Haruchai. He had been scalded by Linden's burst of incandescence: beneath their coating of muck, his palms and forearms were blistered. Yet he seemed to shed his pain like water until it was gone.

Like Cirrus Kindwind, Stormpast Galesend, and Grueburn, Manethrall Mahrtiir and Jeremiah had played no part in the struggle. They had no discernible hurts.

Nevertheless Linden tended them all. She had put them in peril. Without knowing it, she had succ.u.mbed to the theurgies of the Feroce. She did not understand what the creatures had done, or how; but she felt sure that they had sent her mind back to Haven Farm. By some means, their green flames had caused that rupture in her reality. They had broken her connection to her present. And she had believed believed- Somehow the fact that she had cut herself the previous night had left her vulnerable. Driven by memories, she had led or compelled her companions toward the Sarangrave. Where the lurker could reach them-and her Staff.

Now she tried to make rest.i.tution. At least for a time, she was not ashamed of the hue of her power. She felt more chagrin over the immediate consequences of her weakness.

And other issues were more important.

Who or what were the Feroce? What manner of magic did they wield? Why did they serve the lurker? Why did the lurker crave her Staff?

And why had the Ranyhyn abandoned their riders?

Carried in Grueburn's arms, Linden felt Mahrtiir's presence nearby. The long strides of the Giants forced him to trot, but the effort suited his compressed anger, his silent fulmination at his own uselessness. And at the actions of the Ranyhyn? Linden could not tell.

Slack as a discarded puppet, Jeremiah dangled in the cradle of Galesend's clasp. He stared at nothing, as though the sky were empty of stars. Linden still did not know whether he ever blinked. Yet Earthpower pulsed in his veins. It had become part of him, as essential and vibrant as blood-and as devoid of purpose as his sealed thoughts.

Stave had dismissed his pain; but he was still covered in filth, stained from head to foot with mud, despoiled flesh, and the shredded remains of plants that fed on rot. And Coldspray, Cabledarm, and Bluntfist were no cleaner. Fetid water drained from the confines of their armor as they plodded between barricades of hills. Latebirth and Onyx Stonemage had not fallen: only their legs were caked and sodden, roped with mire and stems and putrid skin like vines. Yet their strides were as leaden as those of their comrades, clogged with old death, as if the touch of the Flat's foulness had wounded them emotionally.

Or as if- Linden groaned to herself.

-they had suffered some spiritual blight while she had floundered to escape the conflagration of the farmhouse.

Why did you prevent our aid?

G.o.d, what had she done?

In the confusion of flames and terror, she had thrown her medical bag. Because Covenant had told her, Do something they don't expect Do something they don't expect. And because the marks on her jeans had shown the way. She must have thrown the Staff at the same time; must have believed that the Staff was was her bag. her bag.

Over and over again, she had used her bag to beat back flames while she fled from ruin to ruin along the throat of She Who Must Not Be Named. The lurker's creatures had found such things in her mind. Appalled past endurance, she had wielded her bag like a weapon against incineration. An instrument of power- Some horror has befallen you!

Oh, h.e.l.l. She must have used Staff-fire to repel her friends-to keep them away from her-as she ran down the engulfed hallway of hallucination or memory toward Sarangrave Flat.

Fortunately the Giants could withstand flames. Stave must have evaded her desperation. The Manethrall must have kept his distance, knowing himself powerless.

Nevertheless she was a danger to all of her companions.

But Covenant had also said, Just trust yourself Just trust yourself. She must have done that; must have obeyed her instincts as well as her fears. She had seen a map in the random stains of blood and gra.s.s. And she had cast her Staff into the heart of her dismay. If she had not done so, the lurker would have taken her as well. The rupture imposed by the Feroce would have closed too late. No one would have been able to save her.