The Runes of the Earth

doubt and chagrin which later blossomed in Kevin Landwaster and the Ritual of Desecration.”

Shades of evening still held the sky, but night now filled the rift, welling up from the memories of the rubble; flowing downward from the dark past of the ur-viles. And with it came the ice-sharp wind which Manethrall Hami had promised. Cold soughed and hissed in the background of Stave’s words.

Yet he was not chilled. His people made their home among the ice and snows of the Westron Mountains. The passion in his veins gave him all the warmth he required.

Bearing Linden upward appeared to cost him no effort at all.

“The Bloodguard,” he stated flatly, “heard only tales of the Viles, but of the Demondim their experience was certain. Among other causes, High Lord Kevin was driven to Desecration by his failure to answer the darkness of the Vile-spawn.

“The Viles were in some form wraiths, as enduring and insidious as mist. The ur-viles were”- he hesitated momentarily, corrected himself- “are as you see them, tangible flesh which may be slain, despite their deep lore. But the Demondim possessed a middle nature, at once both and neither, partaking of miasma and flesh together. As did the Viles, they persisted outside or beyond life and death. As do the ur-viles, they had forms which could be touched and harmed.”

“I do not understand,” Liand put in. “How is it possible?”

“The Demondim were animate dead,” Stave answered, “creatures such as those that came near to causing the fall of Revelstone in the time of High Lord Mhoram. Those creatures, however, were mere lifeless forms serving the power of the Illearth Stone. The Demondim were the lore and bitterness of the Viles made manifest in slain flesh, corpses with the puissance of Lords. The vitriol which the ur-viles wield for destruction pulsed in their hearts. Clad in cerements and rot, the Demondim arose from the graves of the fallen, and their touch was fire.

“They might be halted by blade or flame, but they could not be extinguished. From them, High Lord Kevin learned lessons of despair which doomed his spirit. Given time, an army of such creatures might overrun the Earth “

Out of the night, Manethrall Hami said, “The Ramen remember. We named them Fangs, the Teeth of the Render, and all their deeds were dire.”

“Indeed,” Stave responded. “The Ramen fought valiantly and often along the Roamsedge to bar the Demondim from the Plains of Ra, and were not defeated.

“Yet the Demondim did not comprise an army. Their numbers were too few. Neither scruple nor opposition restricted them, but they had turned against their makers, and therefore the Viles were gone. Nor did the Demondim turn their lore to the spawning of yet more Demondim. They had learned to abhor themselves, and had no desire to seek their own increase. Rather they studied and laboured to re-fashion themselves in living flesh.”

Covenant had told Linden similar things. She had met both ur-viles and Waynhim. However, she had no wish to interrupt what Stave was saying.

“While Corruption wrought covertly to mar the Council of Lords,” he told the dark climb, “the Demondim also laboured in secret, wielding their lore over breeding vats and fens in the Lost Deep, the lightless pits and caverns beneath the Wightwarrens of ‘Mount Thunder-There among forgotten banes and ancient cruelties, they strove with lore and Power to make of themselves new creatures.

“And from their labours emerged living flesh at last. Some were ur-viles, while others came forth as Waynhim, smaller than ur-viles, more grey than black, and less inclined to bloodshed. Why this should be so, the Haruchai do not know. Perhaps among the Demondim lingered the memory that they had once stood apart from the lust and loathing of the Viles. Perhaps some aspect or faction of the Demondim had not been entirely seduced by Despite. Whatever the cause, the truth remains that both ur-viles and Waynhim were created in the same fashion. Yet the Waynhim sought to heal their abhorrence in service rather than to quench it in slaughter, as the ur-viles did.

“So the downfall of the Demondim came upon them. They were undone by the Ritual of Desecration. Corruption had not forewarned his servants, or they had declined to heed their peril. It may be that they desired their own destruction. Thus the Landwaster’s despair achieved this one victory. Though ur-viles and Waynhim endured, the Demondim were swept aside.”

“That also,” announced Manethrall Hami softly, “the Ramen do not forget. We have known both Waynhim and ur-viles. In that time, an extravagant cruelty ruled the ur-viles, and all the Land feared them. They had indeed become mortal, however, and could be slain.” Her voice held relish. “Many were the creatures which perished at the hands of the Ramen.”

Stave nodded. “Yet they had become less than they were, for in the Ritual of Desecration even such beings as ur-viles and Waynhim were diminished. Much of the black lore of the Viles and the Demondim endured to them-and much did not.

“This the new Lords knew because in numbers both Waynhim and ur-viles continued to dwindle. Indeed, both had become the last of their kind. They created no descendants, and when they were slain nothing returned of them.”

Linden squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable in the Haruchai’s arms. He seemed to imply that the success of the Ramen against the ur-viles would not have been possible if the lore of the Demondim-spawn had retained its original force.

The Manethrall responded sharply, “And do you therefore discount us, Bloodguard? Do you deem that our battles were less fiercely fought, or our blood less freely spilled, because our foes had become less than they were?

“Much has been altered since the Bloodguard were turned to Fangthane’s service. You are Masters now, and a threat to harmless old men. Yet I see that the arrogance of your kind persists.”

Linden groaned to herself. She could not imagine what had caused the almost subcutaneous animosity between Stave and the Ramen. They had just met; could not know each other. Any grievance between them was several thousand years old.

However, Stave’s reply sounded courteous enough, if not conciliatory. “You mistake me, Manethrall. I speak only of ur-viles and Waynhim, not of Ramen. The courage of the Ramen was beyond question, and their devotion to the Ranyhyn proved greater than the fidelity of the Bloodguard.”

But then his tone grew harder. “Yet we “persist” in the Lands service. What has become of the Ramen and their devotion?

“In the time of the Sunbane, they withdrew the Ranyhyn from the Land. That was wisely done, for the Ranyhyn required preservation. Yet many centuries have now passed, and where are the great horses?

“The Ramen remain. That we see. They live secretly among these mountains, for purposes which are likewise secret. But what of the Ranyhyn? Do they also remain, Manethrall? Have they expired in some inhospitable region? Were they led from ruin to ruin by their Ramen? Or have you returned without them, thinking to deny them the birthright of their true home?”

Linden expected an angry rejoinder from the Manethrall; but instead she heard the rush of bare feet, the whisper of skin running over stone. The dark felt suddenly ominous around her, fretted with cold.

In the last glow of the sky, she saw ur-viles crowding between her and the Ramen. They barked to each other harshly, or to her, but she could not understand them.

Oh, shit.

Trying to forestall a conflict, she snapped, “Stave, stop. Put me down. We don’t need this. The Ramen are helping us. What more do you want?”

For a moment, the Haruchai strode up the rocks in silence. Then he stopped against an abrupt wall of ur-viles. The creatures had barred his way completely.

Facing them, he dropped Linden’s legs to set her on her feet. Liand scrambled to her side as she groped for balance on the uneven surface. She feared that she would see red blades gleaming among the black creatures, but no weapons marked the night.

The ur-viles smelled of decaying leaves and carrion: things which had become rotten.

What in hell was going on?

And what were “Ranyhyn”? Both Hami and Stave had mentioned them earlier, but she did not know what the name implied.