He saluted them strictly; but their presence only made him more afraid. He did not know how to defend them from Gibbon.
And his fear increased as Sunder grew weaker. Even with Sunstone and krill, the Graveler was only one lone man.
While the obstacles swarming in front of him were simply bracken and heather, he was able to furrow them as effectively as any Rider. But then the soil changed: the terrain became a jungle of mad rhododendron, jacaranda, and honeysuckle. Through that tangle he could not force his way with anything like the direct accuracy which the Banefire made possible. He had to grope for the line of least resistance; and the jungle closed behind the travellers as if they were lost.
The sun had fallen near the Westron Mountains, and the light had become little more than a filtered gloom, when Linden and Hollian gasped simultaneously, “Sunder!”
Honninscrave jerked to a halt. The First wheeled to stare at the Graveler Covenant's throat constricted with panic as he scrambled forward at Linden's back.
The Master set Sunder down as the company crowded around them. At once, Sunder's knees buckled. His arms shook with a wild ague.
Covenant squeezed between the First and Pitchwife to confront the Graveler. Recognition whitened Hollian's face, made her raven hair look as stark as a dirge. Linden's eyes flicked back and forth between the Sunstone and the krill.
The vermeil shaft springing from his orcrest toward the setting sun had a frayed and charred appearance, as if it were being consumed by a hotter fire. And in the core of the krill's clear gem burned a hard knot of blackness like a canker.
“The na-Mhoram attempts to take him!” Hollian panted desperately. “How can he save himself, when he is so sorely weary?”
Sunder's eyes were fixed on something he could no longer see. New lines marked his ashen face, cut by the acid sweat that slicked his skin. Tremors knotted in his muscles. His expression was as naked and appalled as a seizure.
“Put them down!” Linden snapped at him, pitching her voice to pierce his fixation. “Let go! Don't let him do this to you!”
The comers of Sunder's jaw bulged dangerously. With a groan as if he were breaking his own arm, he forced down the Sunstone, dropped it to the ground. Instantly, its crimson beam vanished: the orcrest relapsed to elusive translucence.
But the blackness at the centre of the krill swelled and became stronger.
Grimly, Sunder clinched his free hand around the blade's wrappings. Heat shone from the metal. Bowing his head, he held the krill in a grip like fever and fought to throw off the Clave's touch-fought with the same human and indefeasible abandon by which he had once nearly convinced Gibbon that Covenant was dead.
Linden was shouting, “Sunder! Stop! It's killing you!” But the Graveler did not heed her.
Covenant put out his half-hand. Fire spattered from his ring as if the simple proximity of Gibbon's power made the silver white band unquenchable.
Findail's protest rang across the jungle Covenant ignored it. Sunder was his friend, and he had already failed too often. Perhaps he was not ready to test himself against the Clave and the Banefire. Perhaps he would never be ready. But he did not hesitate. Deliberately, he took hold of the krill. With the strength of fire, he lifted the blade from Sunder's grasp as if the Graveler's muscles had become sand.
But when he closed wild magic around the krill, all his flame went black.
Midnight conflagration as hungry as hate burst among the company, tore through the trees. A rage of darkness raved out of him as if at last the venom had triumphed, had become the whole truth of his power. For an instant, he quailed. Then Linden's wild cry reached him.
Savage with extremity, he ripped his fire out of the air, flung it down like a tapestry from the walls of his mind. The krill slipped between his numb fingers, stuck point first in the desecrated soil.
Before he could move, react, breathe, try to contain the horror clanging in his heart like the carillon of despair, a heavy blow was struck behind him; and Cail reeled through the brush.
Another blow: a fist like stone Covenant pitched forward, slammed against the rough trunk of a rhododendron, and sprawled on his back, gasping as if all the air had been taken out of the world. Glints of sunset came through the leaves like emerald stars, spun dizzily across his vision.
Around him, fighting pounded among the trees. But it made no sound. His hearing was gone. Linden's stretched shout was mute; the First's strenuous anger had no voice.
Galvanized by frenzy, Hollian dragged Sunder bodily out of the way of the battle. She passed in front of Covenant, blocked his view for a moment. But nothing could block the bright, breathless vertigo that wheeled through him, as compulsory and damning as the aura of the Worm.
Cail and the Giants were locked in combat with Harn, Durris, and the rest of the Haruchai.
The movements of the attackers were curiously sluggish, imprecise. They did not appear to be in control of themselves. But they struck with the full force of their native strength blows so hard that even the Giants were staggered. Pitchwife went down under the automatic might of Fole and another Haruchai. Swinging the flat of her falchion, the First struggled to her husband's aid Honninscrave levelled one of the Haruchai with each fist. Cail's people no longer had the balance or alertness to avoid his massive punches. But the attackers came back to their feet as if they were inured to pain and assailed him again. Mistweave bearhugged one Haruchai, knocked another away with a kick. But the Haruchai struck him a blow in the face that made his head crack backward, loosened his grasp.
Moving as stiffly as a man in a geas. Harn pursued Cail through the battle. Cail eluded him easily; but Harn did not relent. He looked as mindless as Durris, Fole, and the others.
They had been mastered by the Clave.
Slowly, the vertigo spinning across Covenant's sight came into focus; and he found himself staring at the krill. It stood in the dirt like a small cross scant feet from his face. Though fighting hit and tumbled everywhere, no one touched Loric's eldritch blade.
Its gem shone with a clear, clean argence; no taint marred the pure depths of the jewel.
Gibbon's attempt on it had been a feint a way of distracting the company until he could take hold of all the Haruchai.
All except Cail.
With the dreamy detachment of anoxia Covenant wondered why Cail was immune.
Abruptly, the knotting of his muscles eased. He jerked air into his lungs, biting raw hunks of it past the stunned paroxysm which had kept him from breathing; and sound began to leech back into the jungle-the slash of foliage, the grunt and impact of effort. For a moment, there were no voices; the battle was fought in bitter muteness. But then, as if from a great distance, he heard Linden call out, "Cail! The merewives! You got away from them!”
Covenant heaved himself up from the ground in time to see Cail's reaction.
With the suddenness of a panther, Cail pounced on Harn. Harn was too torpid to counter effectively. Ducking under Harn's blunt blows, Cail knocked him off balance, then grabbed him by the shoulder and hip, snatched him into the air. Harn lacked the bare self-command to twist aside as Cail plunged him toward a knee raised and braced to break his back.
Yet at the last instant Harn did twist aside. When Brinn and Cail had been caught in the trance of the merewives, Linden had threatened to snap Brinn's arm; and that particular peril had restored him to himself. Harn wrenched out of Cail's grasp, came to his feet facing his kinsman.