The Runes of the Earth

“Ur-viles!” Stave told her firmly. “The old evil. Against their might we cannot stand. Only wild magic may ward us.

“You must strike down the loremaster. There”-he pointed again-”at the focus of the wedge. Otherwise we perish, and the Ramen with us.”

Ramen-? she wondered dumbly. Had she heard that name before?

She had seen ur-viles: she recognised them now. Long ago, they had turned against Lord Foul and been punished by the Sunbane. With Sunder and Hollian, she and Covenant had been attacked by a horde of them made monstrous and insane. They had caused Hollian’s death. Indirectly, they were responsible for her resurrection-and Anele’s.

Yet these creatures were not monstrous. Dire though they seemed, they remained themselves: nothing had twisted their given nature.

“I thought they were dead,” she panted. Surely Lord Foul had destroyed them all? They had betrayed him by creating Vain.

“As we did,” Stave replied. “We cannot account for them. We know only that they are Demondim-spawn, servants of Corruption.

“Chosen, you must strike at them while you may.”

Like Anele-if the old man spoke the truth-they did not belong here. Somehow they had appeared out of time.

“I can’t!” she countered urgently. “I don’t know how.”

Who else could have produced the black concussion which had cast the kresh into confusion?

Before Stave could protest, a woman came swiftly toward them over the rock. Like the human fighters-the Ramen? – she seemed to emerge from within the stones. She, too, was slim and lithe, ready for quickness, with long black hair and dark skin, and clad in leggings of leather and a snug leather jerkin. But she wore her hair tied back with a length of rope: her garrote. About her neck hung a small band of yellow flowers.

“The Ringthane’s power is not needed, sleepless one.” Her voice sounded like nickering. “The ur-viles will not harm you.”

Stave stared at her for an instant, then bowed as if she had appeared out of legends to greet him. “Manethrall.” He sounded stiff, like a man deliberately withholding wonder. “This cannot be. Ur-viles are evil, and the Ramen do not serve Corruption.”

The woman did not return his bow. “Nevertheless,” she retorted. “They will harm none of you.”

“Stave!” Liand shouted frantically. “They come!”

Below the Stonedownor, the Ramen fought fiercely, fluidly. And they seemed improbably successful. Some of them must have fallen by now, bitten and torn. Yet they continued to disrupt the pack’s course, ten or more of them: rearing up from the struggle, leaping past teeth and claws; wielding their ropes to dislocate limbs, break necks, crush windpipes.

But they could only hamper the kresh, not halt them. Already wolves had broken from the melee to pelt upward.

Toward Liand and Somo.

The first of them sprang for Liand’s chest. At the last instant, he stepped aside. As the wolf passed him, he ripped both of his knives underhand through its belly. It crashed to the stone, screaming at its wounds.

Before he could recover, another beast charged. Two more went for the mustang’s throat.

Liand fell, overborne by the wolf’s impact. Together they rolled and thrashed on the stone.

Bounding downward, the woman whom Stave had called Manethrall flipped the rope from her hair and in the same motion looped it around the neck of Liand’s attacker. Her momentum carried her over the kresh; wrenched the beast aside.

At the same time, another Raman sped to Somo’s aid. Jumping onto one wolf’s back, the man bunched himself and leaped to plunge down onto the spine of another. Bones broke with a sickening crunch. The man rolled free while the kresh collapsed, grovelling helplessly.

Wheeling, Somo lashed out with its hooves to crush the other wolf’s skull.

Still the wedge of ur-viles poured downward, barking in cadence like an incantation. Power flared and spat from their glowing blades. In another heartbeat, they would reach the plane of native stone which had snared Anele in his memories.

Linden stared at them. They will harm none of you. She believed the Manethrall. Yet the force which she felt from the ur-viles was harm incarnate: it had been devised for death.

Covenant had told her of such creatures-and of butchery in Andelain

Grimly she held herself back, though her knuckles were white with fear, and the raw din of fighting kresh filled her head. She could see now that the wedge was not aimed at her.

The woman who had spoken to her trusted ur-viles.

And Stave must have trusted the Ramen. Instead of urging Linden to power, he followed the Manethrall into battle; met the brunt of the attack with his imponderable strength and skill.

Anele’s hands plucked at Linden’s shoulders. When she turned to him, he gripped her weakly, needing her support. “Linden Avery,” he pleaded. “Chosen.” He had ceased weeping: his pain had grown too great for tears. “You must heed me.” His head flinched from side to side, straining his thin neck. “I cannot bear it else.”

The ur-viles went past her at a run. Shouting in their harsh, incomprehensible tongue, they swept across the open rock and drove their wedge deep into the heart of the pack.

Crimson blades flashed. The staff of the loremaster lashed black acid to both sides. Ramen vaulted out of the path of the wedge; began to withdraw from the struggle.

Wherever the fluid force of the ur-viles touched fur, black flames burst. Acid knives parted flesh and bone as easily as rotten fabric. The frantic snarling of the kresh became torn yelps and shrieks.

Trembling, Linden met Anele’s supplication. The muscles of her legs quivered so that she could scarcely stand. Nevertheless she gazed into his ravaged face.

“I’m here.” Speaking required so much effort that her words came out in gasps. I’m listening. Go on.” There was nothing that she could do to aid her defenders. And the old man needed her. “Tell me what you remember.”

He replied with a fragile nod. For a moment, he mumbled to himself, apparently searching to find his place in the tale. Then he resumed the granitic dirge of his life.

“After many and many years of service,” he said, half-singing his grief and remorse, “Sunder and Hollian my parents elected at last to rest, and so they placed the Staff of Law in my hand.”

Below them, the fight intensified as the kresh raved for some point of weakness which would allow them to break open the wedge; but Linden no longer attended to the battle. Events had exceeded her frayed capacity to understand them. Instead she concentrated on Anele. His tale had become the only thing that made sense to her.

“Yet I could not continue their work.” His distress ached to her senses. “Daunted by astonishment, and inadequate to their example, I needed to discover my own use for my birthright. All other courses led to despair.

“So it transpired that when my parents had lapsed gently into death, and I had shared in the inexpressible mourning of Mithil Stonedown, and of all the Land, I did not take up the task left to me. Instead I took the Staff of Law and departed from my home so that I might seek out some more personal form of service.”

At the edges of the wedge, a few ur-viles fell to claws and fangs. Instantly, however, ur-viles within the wedge shifted to replace the fallen. And the loremaster’s distilled puissance dealt out fury as though it could not be quenched. Already more than a score of kresh writhed in flames; and still more caught fire with each acrid splash of power. Stave guarded the bare gutrock, delivering death whenever a wolf dared challenge him. Liand and Somo remained safely behind him, watching the fight. And at the walls of the rift, using the cliffs to guard their backs, the surviving Ramen crippled or slew every beast that came within reach.

Anele ignored them all. He might have forgotten their existence.

“High among these crests and vales,” he explained, nodding to the mountains, “I made a place for myself- not so distant from Mithil Stonedown that I could not hasten to the Land’s aid at need, but far enough to attain the