The 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #2: The Illearth War (44 page)

Quaan’s strategy was cunning-cunning and fatal. The warriors also could not rest.

They were vulnerable to every spurt of speed from the kresh. And any warrior who was unseated for any reason was instantly torn to pieces. Another Eoward had already been lost this way. But if Quaan could maintain these tactics, the marching Eoward would have until late afternoon to reach their positions in Doom’s Retreat.

The Warmark did not bother to calculate the odds. He urged Mehryl ahead. At full stretch, the Ranyhyn raced to join Quaan.

When they saw Troy and Lord Mhoram, the warriors gave a raw, dry cheer.

Quaan, Callindrill, and Verement dashed out toward the Warmark. But there was little joy in their reunion. The plight of the Eoward was desperate. When he drew close to them, Troy saw that most of the horses were virtually prostrate on their feet; only their fear of the wolves kept them up and running. And the warriors were in no better condition. They had ridden for days without proper food or sleep. None of them lacked injuries. The dust of the Plains clung to their faces and clotted their wounds, making the cuts and rents look like premature scars. Troy had to tear his aching gaze from them to salute the Hiltmark.

Through the thunder of the hooves, Quaan shouted, “Hail, Warmark! Well met!”

As Troy swung Mehryl into place beside him, he added, “Not eight days, I fear!”

“Did you send word to Amorine?” Troy yelled.

“Yes!”

“Then it’s all right! Seven will be enough!” He clapped the Hiltmark’s shoulder, then slowed Mehryl, and dropped back among the warriors.

Immediately, dust and fear and tension swirled around him like the hot breath of the kresh. Now he could hear the hunting snarl of the wolves, and the roynish barking of the ur-viles. He felt their presence as if they were his fault-as if they had been created by his folly. Yet he forced himself to smile at his warriors, shout encouragement through the din. He could not afford self-recrimination. The burden of saving the Warward was on his shoulders now.

Moments later, a surge ran through the barking commands of the ur-viles. Troy guessed that the pursuers were about to attempt another spurt.

He looked ahead quickly toward the sheer cliffs of Doom’s Retreat. They were no more than two leagues away. There the western tip of the Southron Range swung northward to meet the southeast corner of the mountain wedge which separated the South Plains from Garroting Deep, and between these two ranges was the defile of Doom’s Retreat. The narrow canyon

lay like a gash through the rock, and its crooked length provided the Land’s only access to the Wastes and the Gray Desert.

Troy’s gaze sprang to the mouth of the canyon.

The last marching Eoward were still arriving at the Retreat.

If they were not given more time, they would be caught outside the canyon by the kresh. Their ambush would fail.

The Warmark was moving too swiftly for hesitation. When he was sure that the Warward had been Quaan’s riders, he pushed Mehryl ahead, away from the kresh, and caught the Hiltmarks’ attention with a wave of his arm. Then he gave Quaan a hand signal which ordered the Eoward to turn and attack.

Quaan did not falter; he understood the need for the order. Despite the maimed condition of his command, he sent up a shrill, piercing whistle which drew the eyes of his officers toward him. With hand signals, he gave the Hafts and Warhafts their instructions.

Almost at once, the riders responded. The outer Eoward peeled back, and the warriors in the center tried to turn where they were. Frantically, they fought their horses around to face the wolves.

Disaster struck the maneuver immediately. As soon as the riders stopped fleeing, kresh crashed in among them. The whole trailing edge of Quaan’s command went down under the onslaught; and the ur-vile loremasters whirled their iron staves, throwing acid power gleefully over the fallen humans and horses. The screaming of the horses shot through the tumult of snarls and cries. Instantly, a wide swath of gray-green bracken turned blood-red.

But the abrupt profusion of corpses broke the charge of the kresh. Their leaders stopped to kill and tear and eat, and this threw the. following wolves into confusion. Only the ur-vile wedges drove straight ahead, into the milling heart of the Eoward.

Bloodguard raced to the aid of the warriors. The three Lords threw themselves at the nearest ur-viles. Other warriors rallied and struck. And through the center of the fight Warmark Troy charged like a madman, hacking at every wolf within reach.

For a time, the kresh were held. The warriors fought with a desperate fury, and the cool Bloodguard broke wolves in all directions. Working together, the Lords blasted one ur-vile wedge apart, then another. But that accounted for only a tenth of the mounted urviles. The others regrouped, began to restore order, coordination, to the kresh. Some of the horses lost their footing on the slick ground. Others went out of control with fear, threw their riders, and lost themselves in futile plunges among the wolves.

Troy saw that if any of the warriors were to survive this fight they would have to flee soon.

He battled his way toward the Lords. But suddenly a whole pack of kresh swirled about him. Mehryl spun, dodging the fangs and kicking. Troy fought as best he could, but Mehryl’s whirling unbalanced him. Twice he almost lost his seat. A wolf leaped up at him, and he barely saved himself by jabbing his sword into its belly.

Then Ruel brought other Bloodguard to his aid. In a concerted charge, ten of them hammered into the pack, shattered it. Troy righted himself, tried uselessly to straighten his missing sunglasses, then cursed himself and sent Mehryl toward the Lords again.

As he moved, he snapped a glance at the Retreat. The last of the marchers were just disappearing down the canyon.

“Do something!” he howled when he neared Lord Mhoram. “We’re being slaughtered!”

Mhoram spun and shouted to Callindrill and Verement, then returned to the Warmark. “On my signal!” he yelled over the din. “Flee on my signal!” Without waiting for a reply, he pushed his Ranyhyn into a gallop and dashed toward the Retreat with the other Lords.

In a hundred yards, they separated. Verement stopped directly between the conflict and the Retreat, while Mhoram raced straight north and Callindrill ran south.

When they were in position, they formed a long line across the approach to Doom’s Retreat.

They dismounted. Lord Verement held his staff upright on the ground in the center as Mhoram and Callindrill whirled their staffs and shouted strange invocations through the noise of battle. While they prepared, Troy fought his way to Quaan’s side, told him what Mhoram had said. The Hiltmark accepted it without pausing. They separated, battled away toward the flanks of the struggle, spreading the command.

Troy feared that Mhoram’s call would come too late. The power of ninetyscore urviles rapidly organized the turbulent kresh. As the Eoward gathered themselves to flee, the ur-viles wrenched the kresh away from the tearing of carcasses, bunched them again into fighting wedges, and hurled them at the warriors.

In that instant, ‘Lord Mhoram signaled with his staff.

The riders sent their horses running straight toward Doom’s Retreat. They seemed to rush out from under the piled spring of the wolves. Once again, the trailing warriors crashed to the ground under a massive breaker of kresh. But this time the remaining riders did not fight back. They gave free rein to the fear of their horses, and fled.

The suddenness of their flight opened a gap between them and the wolves, and the gap widened slowly as the horses at last found release for all their accumulated dread. In moments, Troy and Quaan with the last three Eoward and little more than a hundred Bloodguard flashed by on either side of Lord Verement. As they passed him, he took his staff from where he had planted it in the line between Mhoram and Callindrill, caught it by one end with both hands, and cocked it behind his head.

Then the last rider had crossed the line.

Verement swung his staff and struck the ground of the line with all his might.

Instantly, a shimmering wall of force sprang up between Mhoram and Callindrill.

When the first kresh charged it, it flared into brilliant blue flame, and hurled them back.

Seeing that the wall held, Lord Mhoram leaped on —

to the Ranyhyn, and sprinted after the warriors. Lord Verement followed as swiftly as his sturdy mustang could carry him. When they neared Troy and Quaan, Mhoram shouted, “Make haste! The forbidding cannot hold! The ur-viles will break it!

Flee!”

The warriors needed no urging, and Quaan dashed after them, stridently herding them toward the Retreat. Troy went with him. For a moment, Mhoram and Verement were right behind them. But suddenly the Lords stopped. At the same time, all the Bloodguard wheeled their Ranyhyn, and pounded back toward the forbidding.

Cursing in dismay, Troy turned to see what had happened.

Lord Callindrill was on the ground near the wall. Several badly wounded warriors had fallen from their mounts within yards of the blue fire, and Callindrill was trying to help them. Rapidly, he tore their clothing into strips, made tourniquets and bandages.

He did not look up to see his danger.

Already the ur-viles were preparing to fight the wall. They sent most of the riderless kresh running to pass around the ends of the fire. Three ur-vile wedges moved forward to attack. The rest retreated a short distance and began re-forming themselves into a huge, single wedge.

Troy kicked Mehryl into a gallop, and joined the Bloodguard following Mhoram and Verement.

Lord Mhoram was twenty vards ahead of Troy, but he could not reach Callindrill in time. The three ur-vile wedges near the fire attacked. They did not try to break the Lords’ wall. Instead, the loremasters concentrated all their power in one place. With a harsh clang, they struck their iron staves together. A great spew of liquid force gushed from the impact, splashed into the forbidding fire, and passed through it.

In black, burning gouts, the corrosive fluid dropped toward Callindrill. It fell just short of him, did not touch him. But it hit the ground with a concussion that flung him and the injured warriors into the air like limp bundles.

When they flopped down again, they lay still.

At once; the three wedges hurried aside, and the new, single, massed wedge started lumbering toward the wall.

Simultaneously, the first kresh rounded both ends of the fire.

The next instant, Lord Mhoram threw himself from his Ranyhyn’s back, landed beside Callindrill. A quick glance told him that the warriors were dead; the force of the concussion had killed them. He concentrated on Callindrill. Touching the Lord’s chest with his hands, he confirmed what his eyes told him; life still flickered in Callindrill, but his heart was not beating.

Then Troy reached Mhoram’s side, and the Bloodguard poised themselves to defend the Lords. On horseback, Verement worked at the wall of forbidding, tightened’ it against the assault of the wedge. But it could not withstand fifteen hundred ur-viles. The wedge moved slowly, but it was hardly twenty yards from the fire. And kresh poured around the ends of the wall now. pelting toward the Bloodguard and Lords. The Bloodguard moved out to meet the wolves, but a hundred Bloodguard could not hold back five thousand kresh for long.

“Flee!” Mhoram yelled. “Go! Save yourselves! We must not all die here!”

But he did not wait to observe that no one obeyed him. Instead, he bent over the fallen Lord again. Holding, his lower lip in his teeth, he massaged Callindrill’s chest, honing to renew his pulse. But his heart remained motionless.

Mhoram drew a sudden sharp breath, raised his fist, and hammered once with all his might on Callindrill’s chest.

The blow jolted the Lord’s heart. It lurched, stumbled, then broke into a limping beat.

Mhoram shouted for Morril. At once, the Bloodguard leaped down from his Ranyhyn, caught Callindrill in his arms, and sprang up again. Seeing this, Lord Verement broke away from the forbidding wall, started back toward Doom’s Retreat. Mhoram and Troy mounted, surged away from the wall after him.

The Bloodguard followed in a protective ring around the Lords.

A moment later, the massed ur-vile wedge hit the wall and tore it. Dark, liquid power shredded the blue flame, ripped it into fragments and scattered it. Instantly, the rest of the kresh flooded after the escaping Ranyhyn. And the wolves pouring around the ends of the wall changed direction to intercept the riders.

But the Ranyhyn outdistanced them. The great horses of Ra pulled past Verement and thundered toward Doom’s Retreat.

Ahead, under the late afternoon shadow of the cliffs, Hiltmark Quaan was urging the last of his warriors into the canyon.

Maddened by the escape of so many prey, the kresh howled with rage, and

-swung to converge on Lord Verement.

His mustang ran hard and bravely. But it was already exhausted; slowly the kresh gained on it. Before it had covered half the distance to the Retreat, Troy could see that it would lose the race.

He called for help, but the Bloodguard did not respond. Only Thomin, the Bloodguard personally responsible for Verement, remained behind. Incensed, Troy started to go back himself, but Mhoram stopped him by shouting, “There is no need!”

Thomin waited until the last possible moment-until the kresh were raging at the heels of the mustang. Then he pulled the Lord onto his own Ranyhyn, and carried him away toward the Retreat.

Almost at once, the mustang fell screaming under an avalanche of wolves.

For an instant, the haze of the cliff shadow turned sickly red in Troy’s sight. But then Mehryls’ taut run bore him beyond the scream, took him straight toward the gap in the cliffs. He flashed into the deeper gloom of the defile. Except for the slit of light ahead, he could see nothing. The sharp change made him feel that he was foundering.

The rumble of hooves pounded back at him from the cliffs, and behind the echo came the shrill croaking derision of the ravens. He felt waters of darkness closing over his head.