is new to me.”
But Mhoram's reply held no hesitation. “You are Manethrall Lithe of the Ramen. You have served the Ranyhyn. You know grass and sky. Trust your heart.”
After a moment, Lithe accepted his counsel.
Two Bloodguard helped Prothall to his feet. Supporting him between them, they joined the company and followed Lithe's instinct into the tunnel.
This passage soon began to descend slowly, and they set a good pace down it. They were buoyed along by the hope that their pursuers would not guess what they were doing, and so would neither cut them off nor follow them directly. But in the universal darkness and silence, they had no assurances. Their way met no branchings, but it wavered as if it were tracing a vein in the mountain. Finally it opened into a vast impression of blank space, and began to climb a steep, serrated rock face through a series of switchbacks. Now the company had to toil upward.
The difficulties of the ascent slowed them as much as the climbing. The higher they went, the colder the air became, and the more there seemed to be a wind blowing in the dark gulf beside them. But the cold and the wind only accented their dripping sweat and the exhausted wrack of their respiration. The Bloodguard alone appeared unworn by the long days of their exertion; they strode steadily up the slope as if it were just a variation of their restless devotion. But their companions were more death-prone. The warriors and Covenant began to stagger like cripples in the climb.
Finally Mhoram called a halt. Covenant dropped to sit with his back to the rock, facing the black-blown, measureless cavern. The sweat seemed to freeze on his face. The last of the food and drink was passed around, but in this buried place, both appeared to have lost their capacity to refresh-as if at last even sustenance were daunted by the darkness of the catacombs. Covenant ate and drank numbly. Then he shut his eyes to close out the empty blackness for a time. But he saw it whether his eyes were open or not.
Some time later-Covenant no longer measured duration-Lord Mhoram said in a stinging whisper, “I hear them.”
Korik's reply sounded as hollow as a sigh from a tomb. “Yes. They follow. They are a great many.”
Lurching as if stricken, the Questers began to climb again, pushing themselves beyond the limits of their strength. They felt weak with failure, as if they were moving only because Mhoram's blue flame pulled them forward, compelled them, beseeched, cajoled, urged, inspired, refused to accept anything from them except endurance and more endurance. Disregarding every exigency except the need for escape, they continued to climb.
Then the wind began to howl around them, and their way changed. The chasm abruptly narrowed; they found themselves on a thin, spiral stair carved into the wall of a vertical shaft. The width of the rude steps made them ascend in single file. And the wind went yelling up the shaft as if it fled the catacombs in stark terror. Covenant groaned when he realized that he would have to risk yet another perilous height, but the rush of the wind was so powerful that it seemed to make falling impossible. Cycling dizzily, he struggled up the stair.
The shaft went straight upward, and the wind yowled in pain; and the company climbed as if they were being dragged by the air. But as the shaft narrowed, the force of the wind increased; the air began to move past them too fast for breathing. As they gasped upward, a light-headed vertigo came over them. The shaft seemed to cant precariously from side to side. Covenant moved on his hands and knees.
Soon the whole company was crawling.
After an airless ache which extended interminably around him, Covenant lay stretched out on the stairs. He was not moving. Dimly, he heard voices trying to shout over the roar of the wind. But he was past listening. He felt that he had reached the verge of suffocation, and the only thing he wanted to do was weep. He could hardly remember what prevented him even now from releasing his misery.
Hands grabbed his shoulders, hauled him up onto flat stone. They dragged him ten or fifteen feet along the bottom of a thin crevice. The howl of the wind receded.
He heard Quaan give a choked, panting cheer. With an effort, he raised his head. He was sprawled in the crevice where it opened on one of the eastern faces of Mount Thunder. Across a flat, grey expanse far below him, the sun rose redly.
To his stunned ears, the cheering itself sounded like sobs. It spread as the warriors one by one climbed out past him into the dawn. Lithe had already leaped down a few feet from the crevice, and was on her knees kissing the earth. Far away, across the Sarangrave and the gleaming line of the Defiles Course and the Great Swamp, the sun stood up regally, wreathed in red splendour.
Covenant pushed himself into a sitting position and looked over at the Lords to see their victory.
They had no aspect of triumph. The High Lord sat crumpled like a sack of old bones, with the Staff of Law on his knees. His head was bowed, and he covered his face with both hands. Beside him, Mhoram stood still and dour, and his eyes were as bleak as a wilderness.
Covenant did not understand.
Then Bannor said, “We can defend here.”
Mhoram's reply was soft and violent. “How? Drool knows many ways. If we prevent him here, he will attack from below-above. He can bring thousands against us.”
“Then close this gap to delay them.”
Mhoram's voice became softer still. “The High Lord has no staff. I cannot forbid the gap alone-I have not the power. Do you believe that I am strong enough to bring down the walls of this crevice? No-not even if I were willing to damage the Earth in that way. We must escape. There-” He pointed down the mountainside with a hand that trembled.
Covenant looked downward. The crevice opened into the bottom of a ravine which ran straight down the side of Mount Thunder like a knife wound. The spine of this cut was jumbled and tossed with huge rocks-fallen boulders, pieces of the higher cliffs like dead fragments of the mountain. And its walls were sheer, unclimbable. The Questers would have to pick their way tortuously along the bottom of the cut for half a league. There the walls gave way, and the ravine dropped over a cliff. When the company reached the cliff, they would have to try to work around the mountainsides until they found another descent.
Still Covenant did not understand. He groaned at the difficulty of the ravine, but it was escape. He could feel sunlight on his face. Heaving himself to his feet, he muttered, “Let's get going.”
Mhoram gave him a look thick with suppressed pain. But he did not voice it. Instead, he spoke stiffly to Quaan and Korik. In a few moments, the Questers started down the ravine.
Their progress was deadly slow. In order to make their way, they had to climb from rock to rock, swing themselves over rough boulders, squeeze on hands and knees through narrow gaps between huge fists of stone. And they were weak. The strongest of the warriors needed help time and again from the Bloodguard.
Prothall had to be almost entirely carried. He clutched the Staff, and scrabbled frailly at the climbs. Whenever he jumped from a rock, he fell to his knees; soon the front of his robe was spattered with blood.
Covenant began to sense their danger. Their pace might be fatal. If Drool knew other ways onto the slope, his forces might reach the end of the ravine before the company did.
He was not alone in his perception. After their first relief, the warriors took on a haunted look. Soon they were trudging, clambering, struggling with their heads bowed and backs bent as if the weight of all they had ever known were tied around their necks. The sunlight did not allow them to be ignorant of their peril.
Like a prophecy, their fear was fulfilled before the company was halfway down the ravine. One of the Eoman gave a broken cry, pointed back up the mountain. There they saw a horde of ur-viles rushing out of the cleft from which they had come.
They tried to push faster down the littered spine of the cut. But the ur-viles poured after them like a black flood. The creatures seemed to spring over the rocks without danger of misstep, as if borne along by a rush of savagery. They gained on the company with sickening speed.
And the ur-viles were not alone. Near the end of the ravine, Cavewights suddenly appeared atop one wall. As soon as they spotted the Questers, they began throwing ropes over the edge, scaling down the wall.
The company was caught like a group of mites in the pincers of Drool's power.
They stopped where they were, paralyzed by dismay. For a moment, even Quaan's sense of responsibility for his Eoman failed; he stared blankly about him, and did not move. Covenant sagged against a boulder. He wanted to scream at the mountain that this was not fair. He had already survived so much, endured so much, lost so much.
