time there came faint screams through the night, as he caught escaping Cavewights.
Tuvor asked Prothall if some of the Bloodguard should join Foamfollower, but the High Lord shook his head. “We have done enough,” he panted. “Remember the Oath of Peace.”
For a time of exhaustion and relief, the company stood in silence underscored by the gasp of their breathing and the groans of the disabled Cavewights. No one moved; to Covenant's ears, the silence sounded like a prayer. Unsteadily, he pulled himself out of the trench. Looking about him with glazed eyes, he took the toll of the battle.
Cavewights sprawled around the camp in twisted heaps-nearly a hundred of them, dead, dying, and unconscious-and their blood lay everywhere like a dew of death. There were ten ur-viles dead. Five warriors would not ride again with their Eoman, and none of Quaan's command had escaped injury. But of the Bloodguard only one had fallen.
With a groan that belied his words, High Lord Prothall said, “We are fortunate.”
“Fortunate?” Covenant echoed in vague disbelief.
“We are fortunate.” An accent of anger emphasized the old rheumy rattle of Prothall's voice. “Consider that we might all have died. Consider such an attack during the full of the moon. Consider that while Drool's thoughts are turned here, he is not multiplying defences in Mount Thunder. We have paid”- his voice choked for a moment “paid but little for our lives and hope.”
Covenant did not reply for a moment. Images of violence dizzied him. All the Woodhelvennin were dead- Cavewights- ur-viles- the warrior who had chosen to watch over him. He did not even know her name. Foamfollower had killed-he himself had killed five-five.
He was trembling, but he needed to speak, needed to defend himself. He was sick with horror.
“Foamfollower's right,” he rasped hoarsely. “This is Foul's doing.”
No one appeared to hear him. The Bloodguard went to the Ranyhyn and brought their fallen comrade's mount close to the fire. Lifting the man gently, they set him on the Ranyhyn's back and bound him in place with
“Foul planned the whole thing.”
When the Ranyhyn had vanished into the night, some of the Bloodguard tended the injuries of their mounts, while others resumed their sentry duty.
Meanwhile, the warriors began moving among the Cavewights, finding the living among the dead. All that were not mortally wounded were dragged to their feet and chased away from the camp. The rest were piled on the north side of the tree for a pyre.
“It means two things.” Covenant strove to master the quaver in his voice. “It's the same thing that he's doing to me. It's a lesson-like what happened to Llaura. Foul is telling us what he's doing to us because he's sure that knowing won't help. He wants to milk us for all the despair we're worth.”
With the aid of two warriors, Prothall released Llaura and Pietten from their tomb. Llaura looked exhausted to the limit; she was practically prostrate on her feet. But little Pietten ran his hands over the blood-wet grass, then licked his fingers.
Covenant turned away with a groan. “The other thing is that Foul really wants us to get at Drool. To die or not. He tricked Drool into this attack so that he wouldn't be busy defending himself. So Foul must know what we're doing, even if Drool doesn't.”
Prothall seemed troubled by the occasional distant screams, but Mhoram did not notice them. While the rest of the company set about their tasks, the Lord went and knelt beside Variol and Tamarantha. He bent over his parents, and under his red-stained robe his body was rigid.
“I tell you, this is all part of Foul's plan. Hellfire! Aren't you listening to me?”
Abruptly, Mhoram stood and faced Covenant. He moved as if he were about to hurl a curse at Covenant's head. But his eyes bled with tears, and his voice wept as he said, “They are dead. Variol and Tamarantha my parents-father and mother of me, body and soul.”
Covenant could see the hue of death on their old skin.
“It cannot be!” one of the warriors cried. “I saw. No weapon touched them. They were kept by the Bloodguard.”
Prothall hastened to examine the two Lords. He touched their hearts and heads, then sagged and sighed, “Nevertheless.”
Both Variol and Tamarantha were smiling.
The warriors stopped what they were doing; in silence, the Eoman put aside its own fatigue and grief to stand bowed in respect before Mhoram and his dead. Stooping, Mhoram lifted both Variol and Tamarantha in his arms. Their thin bones were light in his embrace, as if they had lost the weight of mortality. On his cheeks, tears gleamed orangely, but his shoulders were steady, un-sob-shaken, to uphold his parents.
Covenant's mind was beclouded. He wandered in mist, and his words were wind-torn from him. “Do you mean to tell me that we-that I-we-? For a couple of corpses?”
Mhoram showed no sign of having heard. But a scowl passed like a spasm across Prothall's face, and Quaan stepped to the Unbeliever's side at once, gripped his elbow, whispered into his ear, “If you speak again, I will break your arm.”
“Don't touch me,” Covenant returned. But his voice was forceless. He submitted, swirling in lost fog., Around him, the company took on an attitude of ritual. Leaving his staff with one of the warriors, High Lord Prothall retrieved the staffs of the dead Lords and held them like an offering across his arms. And Mhoram turned toward the blaze of the tree with Variol and Tamarantha clasped erect in his embrace. The silence quivered painfully. After a long moment, he began to sing. His rough song sighed like a river, and he sang hardly louder than the flow of water between quiet banks.
Death reaps the beauty of the world—
bundles old crops to hasten new.
Be still, heart:
hold peace.
Growing is better than decay:
I hear the blade which severs life from life.
Be still, peace:
hold heart.
Death is passing on—
the making way of life and time for life.
Hate dying and killing, not death.
Be still, heart:
make no expostulation.
Hold peace and grief
and be still.
As he finished, his shoulders lurched as if unable to bear their burden without giving at least one sob to the dead. “Ah, Creator!” he cried in a voice full of bereavement. “How can I honour them? I am stricken at heart, and consumed with the work that I must do. You must honour them-for they have honoured you.”
At the edge of the firelight, the Ranyhyn Hynaril gave a whinny like a cry of grief. The great roan mare reared and pawed the air with her forelegs, then whirled and galloped away eastward.
Then Mhoram murmured again,
Be still, heart:
make no expostulation.
Hold peace and grief
and be still.
Gently, he laid Variol on the grass and lifted Tamarantha in both arms. Calling hoarsely, “Hail!” he placed her
