The Illearth War

kitchen beyond it was also empty. The stove fires had fallen into ash, but the cooks had not been killed there.

The sight dismayed Lord Hyrim. Groaning, he said, “They went to their homes to die! They knew their danger-and went to their homes to await it. They did not fight-or flee-or send for help. Melenkurion abatha! Only the children-What horror came upon them?”

The Bloodguard had no answer. They knew of no wrong potent enough to commit such a slaughter unresisted.

As he left the hall, Lord Hyrim wept openly.

From that rampart, he and the Bloodguard worked downward through the levels of Coercri. They took a crooked stairway which descended back into the cliff, then toward the Sea again. At the next level, they again went to look into the rooms. Here also all the Giants were dead.

Everywhere it was the same. The Unhomed had gone to their private dwellings to die.

Then an urgency came upon the Bloodguard and the Lord. They began to hasten. The Lord leaped down the high stairs, ran along the ramparts to inspect the apartments. In their black garb, the four flew downward like the ravens of midnight, taking the tale of shed blood and blasted skulls.

When they were more than halfway down The Grieve, Korik stopped them.. He had noticed a change in the air of the city. But the difference was subtle; for a moment, he could not identify it. Then he ran into the nearest apartment, hastened to the lone Giant dead in one of the back rooms, touched the pool of blood.

This Giant had been slain more recently; a few spots of the pool were still damp.

Perhaps the slayer was still in the city, stalking its last victims.

At once, Lord Hyrim whispered, “We must reach the lowest level swiftly. If any Giants yet live, they will be there.”

Korik nodded. Tull sprinted to scout ahead as the others ran to the stairs and started down them. On each level, they stopped long enough to find one dead Giant, test the condition of the blood. Then they raced on downward.

The blood grew steadily damper. Two levels above the piers, they found a child whose flesh still retained a vestige of warmth.

They explored the next level more carefully. And in one room they discovered a Giant with the last blood still dripping from her riven skull.

With great caution, they crept down the final stairs.

The stairway opened on a broad expanse of rock, the base of the two piers and the head of the levee between them. The tide was low and quiet-the waves broke far down the levee-but still the sound filled the air. Even here, the Bloodguard and the Lord could not see beyond the great cliff-bulge just north of the piers. This bulge, and the outward bend of Coercri's southern tip, formed a shallow cove around the levee. The fiat base of the city lay in the afternoon shadow of the cliff, and the unwarmed rock was damp with spray.

No one moved on the piers, or along the walkway which traversed the city from its southern end northward around the curve of the cliff.

Cut into the base of the cliff behind the walkway and the headrock of the piers were many openings. All had heavy stone doors to keep out the Sea in storms. But most of the doors were open. They led into workshops-high chambers where the Giants formed the planks and hawsers of their ships. Like the meeting halls and kitchens, these places were deserted. But, unlike the western vineyards and fields, the workshops had not been abandoned suddenly. All the tools hung in their racks on the walls; the tables and benches were free of work; even the floors were clean. The Giants labouring there had taken the time to put their shops in order before they went home to die. But one smaller door near the south end of the headrock was tightly closed. Lord Hyrim tried to open it, but it had no handle, and he could not grip the smooth stone.

Korik and Tull approached it together. Forcing their fingers into one crack of the door, they heaved at it. With a scraping noise like a gasp of pain, it swung outward, admitting shadow light to the chamber beyond.

The single room was bare; it contained nothing but a low bed against one side wall. It was lightless, and the air in it smelled stale.

On the floor against the back wall sat a Giant.

Even crouched with his knees drawn up before him, he was as tall as the Bloodguard. His staring eyes caught the light and gleamed.

He was alive. A shallow breath stirred his chest, and a thin trail of saliva ran from the corner of his mouth into his grizzled beard.

But he made no move as the four entered the cell. No blink or flicker of his eyes acknowledged them.

Lord Hyrim rushed toward him gladly, then stopped when he saw the look of horror on the Giant's face.

Korik approached the Giant, touched one of the bare arms which gripped his knees. The Giant was not cold; he was not another Hoerkin.

Korik shook the Giant's arm, but the Giant did not respond. He sat gaping blindly out the doorway. Korik looked a question at the Lord. When Hyrim nodded, Korik struck the Giant across the face.

His head lurched under the blow, but it did not penetrate him. Without blinking, he raised his head again, resumed his stare. Korik prepared to strike again with more force, but Lord Hyrim stopped him. “Do him no injury, Korik. He is closed to us.”

“We must reach him,” Korik said.

“Yes,” said Hyrim. “Yes, we must.” He moved close to the Giant, and called, “Rockbrother! Hear me! I am Hyrim son of Hoole, Lord of the Council of Revelstone. You must hear me. In the name of all the Unhomed-in the name of friendship and the Land-I adjure you Open your ears to me!”

The Giant made no reply. The slow rate of his breathing did not vary; his white gaze did not falter.

Lord Hyrim stepped back, studied the Giant. Then he said to Korik, “Free one of his hands.” He rubbed one heel of his staff, and when he took his hand away a blue flame sprang up on the metal. “I will attempt the caamora- the fire of grief.”

Korik understood. The caamora was a ritual by which the Giants purged themselves of grief and rage. They were impervious to any ordinary fire, but the flames hurt them, and they used that pain at need to help them master themselves. Swiftly, Korik pried the Giant's right hand loose from its grip, pulled the arm back so that its hand was extended toward Lord Hyrim.

Moaning softly, “Stone and Sea, Rockbrother! Stone and Sea!” the Lord increased the strength of his Lords- fire. He placed the flame directly under the Giant's hand, enveloped the fingers in fire.

At first, nothing happened; the ritual had no effect. The Giant's fingers hung motionless in the flame, and the flame did not consume them. But then they twitched, groped, clenched. The Giant pushed his hand farther into the fire, though his fingers were writhing in pain.

Abruptly, he drew a deep shuddering breath. His head snapped back, thudded against the wall, dropped forward onto his knees. Yet still he did not withdraw his hand. When he raised his head again, his eyes were full of tears.

Trembling, panting, he pulled back his hand. It was undamaged.

At once, Lord Hyrim extinguished his fire. “Rockbrother,” he cried softly. “Rockbrother. Forgive me.”

The Giant stared at his hand. Time passed as he became slowly aware of his situation. At last he recognized the Lord and the Bloodguard. Suddenly he flinched, jerked both hands to the sides of his head, gasped, “Alive?” Before Lord Hyrim could answer, he went on, “What of the others? My people?”

Lord Hyrim clutched his staff for support. “All dead.”

“Ah!” the Giant groaned. His hands dropped to his knees, and he leaned his head back against the wall. “Oh, my people!” The tears streamed down his cheeks like blood.

The Lord and the Bloodguard watched him in silence, waited for him. At last his grief eased, and his tears ceased. When he brought his head forward from the wall, he murmured as if in defeat, “He has left me to the last.”

With a visible effort, Lord Hyrim forced himself to ask, “Who is he?”

The Giant answered in misery, “He came soon-he came soon after we had learned the fate of the three brothers-the brothers of one birth-Damelon Rockbrother's omen of the end. This spring-ah, was it so recent? It needs more time. There should be years given to it. There-ah, my people! This spring-this- we knew at last that the old slumbering ill of the Sarangrave was awake. We thought to send word to brave Lord's Keep-” For a moment, he