reported, “We are farsighted, but the end of this cannot be seen.”
Bloody hell! He was afraid of wild magic, power beyond control or choice. I must not-! But he knew that he would use it if he had to. He could not simply let his companions die.
The thunderhead approached like the blow of an axe. Blackness garroted the sun. The light began to dim.
A rush of protest went through him. Fear or no fear, this doom was intolerable. “All right.” Ignoring the distance to the ground, he dropped from Din's back. “We'll have to fight here.”
Brinn joined him. Sunder and Stell dismounted from Clang, Hollian and Harn from Clangor. Cail pulled Linden down from Clash and set her on her feet. Her hands twitched as if they were searching for courage; but she found none. Covenant tore his gaze away, so that her distress would not make him more dangerous. “Sunder,” he rapped out, “you've got your orcrest. Memla has her rukh. Is there some way you can work together? Can you hit that thing”- he grimaced at the Grim — “before it hits us?”
The cloud was almost overhead. It shed a preternatural twilight across the savannah, quenching the day.
“No.” Memla had not dismounted. She spoke as if her mouth were full of ashes. “There is not time. It is too great.”
Her dismay hurt Covenant like a demand for wild magic. He wanted to shout, I can't control it! Don't you understand? I might kill you all! But she went on speaking as if his power or incapacity had become irrelevant. “You must not die. That is certain.” Her quietness seemed suddenly terrible. “When the way is clear, cross instantly. This march will seal the gap swiftly.” She straightened her shoulders and lifted her face to the sky. “The Grim has found you because of me. Let it be upon my head.”
Before anyone could react, she turned Din and guided it toward the blind rushing creatures. As she moved, she brought up the fire of her rukh, holding it before her like a sabre.
Covenant and Sunder sprang after her. But Brinn and Stell interposed themselves. Cursing, the Graveller fought to break free; but Stell mastered him without effort. Furiously, Sunder shouted, “Release me! Do you not see that she means to die?”
Covenant ignored Sunder: he locked himself to Brinn's flat eyes. Softly, dangerously, he breathed, “Don't do this.”
Brinn shrugged. “I have sworn to preserve your life.”
“Banner took the same Vow.” Covenant did not struggle. But he glared straight at the Haruchai. People have died because of me. How much more do you think I can stand? “That's how Elena got killed. I might have been able to save her.”
The Grim began to boil almost directly above the quest. But the Cavewightlike creatures were unaware of it. They marched on like blind doom, shredding the dirt of the plains.
“Bannor maintained his Vow,” Brinn said, as if it cost him no effort to refute Covenant. 'So the old tellers say, and their tale has descended from Bannor himself. It was First Mark Morin, sworn to the High Lord, who failed.“ He nodded toward Ceer. In response, Ceer sprinted after Memla and vaulted lightly onto Din's back. ”We also,“ Brinn concluded, ”will maintain the promise we have made, to the limit of our strength.'
But Memla reacted in rage too thick for shouting. “By the Seven Hells!” she panted, “I will not have this. You have sworn nothing to me.” Brandishing her rukh, she faced Ceer. “If you do not dismount, I will burn you with my last breath, and all this company shall die for naught!”
Memla! Covenant tried to yell. But he could not. He had nothing to offer her; his fear of wild magic choked him. Helplessly, he watched as Ceer hesitated, glanced toward Brinn. The Haruchai consulted together in silence, weighing their commitments. Then Ceer sprang to the ground and stepped out of Din's way.
No! Covenant protested. She's going to get herself killed!
He had no time to think. Gloaming occluded the atmosphere. The ravening Grim poised itself above Memla, focused on her fire. The heavens around the cloud remained impossibly cerulean; but the cloud itself was pitch and midnight. It descended as it seethed, dropping toward its victims.
Under it, the air crackled as if it were being scorched.
The Coursers skittered. Sunder took out his orcrest, then seized Hollian's hand and pulled her to the far side of the circle, away from Memla. The Haruchai flowed into defensive positions among the companions and the milling beasts.
Amid the swirl of movement, Vain stood, black under black, as if he were inured to darkness.
Hergrom placed himself near Vain. But Memla was planning to die; Linden was foundering in ill; and Covenant felt outraged by the unanswerable must must not‹i› of his ring. He yelled at Hergrom, “Let him take care of himself!”
The next instant, he staggered to his knees. The air shattered with a heart-stopping concussion. The Grim broke into bits, became intense black flakes floating downward like a fall of snow.
With fearsome slowness, they fell-crystals of sun-darkness, tangible night, force which not even stone could withstand.
Howling defiance, Memla launched fire at the sky.
Din bunched under her and charged out into the march of the creatures. A series of tremendous heaves carried beast and Rider toward the centre of the stream.
The flakes of the Grim drifted in her direction, following the lodestone of her rukh. Its dense centre, the nexus of its might, passed beyond the quest.
The creatures immediately mobbed her mount. Din let out a piercing scream at the tearing of claws and mandibles. Only the plunging of its hooves, the slash of its spurs, the thickness of its coat, protected it.
Then the Grim fell skirling around her head. Her fire blazed: she lashed out, trying to keep herself and Din from being touched. Every flake her flame struck burst in a glare of darkness, and was gone. But for every flake she destroyed, she was assailed by a hundred more.
Covenant watched her in an agony of helplessness, knowing that if he turned to his ring now he could not strike for her without striking her. The Grim was thickest around her; but its edges covered the march as well as the quest. The creatures were swept into confusion as killing bits as big as fists fell among them.
Vermeil shot from Sunder's orcrest toward the darkened sun. Covenant yelled in encouragement. By waving the Sunstone back and forth, the Graveller picked flakes out of the air with his shaft, consuming them before they could reach him or Hollian.
Around the company, the Haruchai dodged like dervishes. They used flails of pampas grass to strike down the flakes. Each flake destroyed the whip which touched it; but the Haruchai snatched up more blades and went on fighting.
Abruptly, Covenant was thrust from his feet. A piece of blackness missed his face. Brinn pitched him past it, then jerked him up again. Heaving Covenant from side to side, Brinn danced among the falling Grim. Several flakes hit where they had been standing. Obsidian flares set fire to the grass.
The grass began to burn in scores of places.
Yet Vain stood motionless, with a look of concentration on his face. Flakes struck his skin, his tunic. Instead of detonating, they melted on him and ran hissing down his raiment, his legs, like water on hot metal.
Covenant gaped at the Demondim-spawn, then lost sight of him as Brinn went dodging through the smoke.
He caught a glimpse of Memla. She fought extravagantly for her life, hurled fire with all the outrage of her betrayal by the na-Mhoram. But the focus of the Grim formed a mad swarm around her. And the moiling creatures had already torn Din to its knees. In patches, its hide had been bared to the bone.
Without warning, a flake struck the Courser's head. Din collapsed, tumbling the Rider headlong among the creatures.
Memla! Covenant struggled to take hold of his power. But Brinn's thrusting and dodging reft nun
