Illengond Page 41

  At once she began to move among the companions, using her health sense to probe for wounds and to heal. It was too late for Kachtin and Aram, as it was for Lyn and Keet. But several others—Regon, Hrevia, Kayam, Armas, Krag, and Jama—though grievously wounded, still clung to life. Tienna moved from one to the next as quickly as she could, starting with the most seriously wounded. Even from a distance, the power emanating from Thimeon and the stone was so potent that the act of healing was quick and did not drain her. With each life saved, each healed body, her hope grew.

  The hope did not last long. She had barely finished restoring Regon’s crushed leg when she felt, and then she saw, against the darkness of the early evening sky an even deeper darkness—a vast shadow moving across the sky. The shadow was a palpable illness, a festering wound. And with the shadow came a fear that was deeper and darker than the worst fear brought on by the Daegmons.

  Tienna felt her healing power slip away. A deep and awful silence fell over both sides. She was looking downward, trying to probe a break in Falien’s arm. The sky went dark as though a huge thundercloud, or even the moon itself, had passed over the sun. Almost at once Tienna was smote by a terrible stench, like rotting flesh, or smoke from things not meant to burn.

  It was, Tienna realized with sudden insight, the smell of death. The air grew heavy with it. Tienna could feel her companions grow ill, as though the rot were entering into them. And after the stench of smoke and rot there came a biting cold that froze her flesh.

  Tienna did not want to look upward, but her head was drawn that way. A huge form filled the air—a form that was in shape like that of a Daegmon, only many times larger and darker, and not as distinct. It was more like a cloud of smoke than a solid object, yet it was moving upwind against the cold air that blew down the mountain. An eerie howl whistled through the trees. The last two Daegmons landed, and the four of them bowed their necks in obeisance.

  The companions shook. Some cast themselves upon the ground. Others cried out in terror. Tienna knew they were in the presence of a power so great and so dark that the Daegmons themselves were little more than insects in comparison.

  “What is it?” whispered Prince Dhan.

  “The Daegmon Lord,” Thimeon breathed. “It has come.”

  The sky grew darker. The shade was coming closer, though there was nothing in its shape on which their eyes could focus. The companions—those able to stand—huddled together. Still the sky grew darker, and the air more chill. Until then, the companions had escaped the paralysis of the Daegmon-terror, either because of the Henetos, or perhaps the potency of Illengond itself. Now the blue light around Thimeon faded, and as it did Tienna’s terror increased. The dark shape descended and grew. The Daegmons began to call in honor, while Koranth and the Gaergaen raised their staffs in tribute.

  Awful knowledge flooded over Thimeon. Knowledge of the past and of power. Knowledge of the enemy he now faced. Knowledge of his own weakness.

  Many times the Daegmon Lord had waged war against Gondisle and her Holy Mountain. Many times had he sent his servants into the land to do his work. Nine Daegmons there once were who did his bidding, and many other beings akin to the Daegmons, though of different form. Yet a thousand years had passed, and a thousand more since the Dark King himself had left his throne and come north into the world. Even the eldest histories of the realm had only the faintest rumor of the terrible power of that enemy’s presence: a power that dwarfed even the Captain of his Daegmon Host, the mightiest of the Daegmons. If he had come forth, then his victory must be nearly complete.

  Still, Thimeon knew he must resist. With all his remaining might, he willed the stone to send forth its protective power. For a moment, like a star that glitters through a gap in the clouds on a dark night, the stone flashed forth and a faint halo of blue light once again encompassed the companions. Then the weight of the enemy fell. The shell was crushed inward beneath the awful pressure: overwhelmed by a force more terrible than they could have imagined. Like old pottery, the protective shield shattered and the companions were alone and naked.

  All the heroic things Thimeon thought he had done, he saw now as triflings or pride. All his good deeds were acts of selfishness. Even his wielding of the stone was mere pride.

  And his power? It was weakness. Whatever power the stone might have had that sufficed against the lesser beings was utterly overwhelmed now.

  Though the sun still hovered well above the horizon, the day had turned as dark as winter twilight. Eventually, though Thimeon did not know how he knew, he had the sense that the Daegmon Lord had landed. Its brooding force blotted out the western horizon, and the ground ached in contact with such evil. A long moment passed, as the companions cowered in terror. Then Thimeon became aware that their enemies were speaking.

  The victory is achieved, Koranth said, though no audible voice was heard. We await only your presence for its completion.

  The Daegmon Lord did not answer.

  The Captain of the Daegmons spoke next. These are the last of the Power-Wielders. All others in the land have been destroyed.

  Why are there only four of you? Came the thunderous weight of the Daegmon Lord’s thought.

  The Daegmon Captain trembled and cowed. We have brought together all who were left to oppose you. Here you can crush them and take your rule.

  The darkness grew. The cold became numbing, and the stench was worse than death. Yes, the being finally said. You have done that. And I will crush them, but you will not taste of it.

  Tienna crawled toward Thimeon’s side. She spoke in a broken whisper. “Do we have any hope?”

  “We cannot fight it,” Thimeon replied. “If we have any hope, it is the hope you called me to before this battle began.”

  “What hope is that?”

  Thimeon did not have a chance to answer. The Daegmon Lord had risen and spread its shadowed wings so that the mountain itself seemed enveloped. One word only, it spoke, but with an audible sound so that its human enemies could understand the command it had given to its servants. “Destroy.”

  Like arrows on a taut bowstring, the Daegmons rushed inward. The Gaergaen and Koranth raised their staffs and struck. Thimeon raised the Henetos weakly, but its light was gone, crushed by the darkness. Bolts of fiery red light shot at the companions, now too full of terror even to fight back. The ground shook with the concussion of the blows. And even when the power of those blasts had faded, the tremors went on.

  High above, black lightning cracked through the darkness. It was enough to make the ground tremble in faraway Aeti, and to turn the eyes of wives and daughters toward the skies in terror. In the villages of the Westwash, fathers would look to the sea wondering if a great wave was coming. Anghare merchants in the markets of Anghata, hearing such a sound, would grab their wares as wagons trembled and children ran to their homes.

  Elynna wept. Jhonna fell over faint. Dhan threw his arm across his face. The duke paled. Even Namha’s face paled. For this was the Power to which the Daegmons bowed; a Power that had brought on the preternatural winter; a Power to which centuries meant nothing. That it could call lightning from the sky and shake the foundations of Illengond itself was no surprise. Thimeon understood now. The Daegmon-Lord had merely been toying with its human prey. It was as much more powerful than the Daegmons as they were more powerful than one of their human servants. Thimeon had thought the battle against the human foes was the distraction and that the real battle was against the Daegmons. That was true, but only part of the truth. Even if they could have defeated the Daegmons and Gaergaen together, they could never have stood against this new power. Not even if Cane were still alive to fight beside his brother. Not with all the army of Gondisle on their side.

  Thimeon held his head and wept. And still the ground quaked. Mount Illengond itself, the ancient immovable seat of the Power, was convulsing as if it was going to fall. And so violent was the shaking of the
Great Mountain that even the Daegmons paused and looked up at their Lord. Wind screeched through the trees with hurricane force. Branches broke all around them, and fell crashing to the ground. Giant boulders began to rumble and shake along the hillside.

  Tienna turned to Thimeon. She shouted to make herself heard over the turmoil, but it was not a shout of panic. Thimeon saw a strange gleam in her eyes. “The ill. I can feel it, but it does not affect the mountain.”

  Thimeon held up the stone, now glowing weakly. “Yes. I feel it too. What does it mean?”

  “The storm. The lightning. The shaking ground. There is another Power at work. This—this storm, is not the work of the Enemy. Look at the Daegmons.”

  The Daegmons, who had come to a halt just yards away from the cornered companions, were bending their necks back and forth, looking into the skies in confusion. In answer, the dark shapeless cloud of the Daegmon-Lord drew closer. The blackness grew.

  DESTROY! The soundless voice boomed in their thoughts.

  The largest Daegmon—once the captain of nine, then of five, and now of four—turned again toward its beleaguered foes and advanced. Only Cathros and Thimeon, their talismans in hand, rose to face it. But their weapons of power were lifeless in their grips. “The battle strength has left me,” Cathros said with a grim realization. His voice was almost lost in the raging winds, but Thimeon understood him. The Daegmon-Lord’s power had destroyed their own. They were now utterly defenseless. The Daegmon raised its head to strike. Heeding the call of their Master, it’s brothers moved in also. Jaws open, two of them lunged forward with a great snap.

  Thimeon closed his eyes. A jarring crash shook the earth. He was knocked off his feet as a heavy darkness closed round him. Spinning and twisting beneath the blow, he felt a crushing weight, and imagined the giant jaws rending him. Strangely, the Daegmon’s jaws felt less hard than he expected. He opened his eyes. Cathros was lying on top of him. Four feet away, on the opposite side of the cliff, lay a boulder at least six feet across and weighing several tons. From the other side, came the pained and startled screech of a Daegmon.

  Thimeon barely had time to roll Cathros off of him before he looked and saw another boulder, as large or larger than the first, hurtling through the air. He heard the sickening crush as it slammed into a great mass of muscles and flesh of a second Daegmon. With the tumbling of the boulders, the shaking of the ground grew worse.

  Thimeon tried to rise and clamber back toward the others. His feet were shaken out from under him and he fell again, this time landing atop Cathros instead of beneath him. More boulders came tumbling and crashing down the mountain, bouncing across the earth and ledge like children’s toy balls. The Daegmons shrieked, but even that terrifying sound was drowned by the roar of the awakened mountain.

  Boulders landed all around now, some just feet from where the companions lay crouched against the mountain or sprawled on the ground. Thimeon sensed the blasts of power leveled at them from the staffs of Koranth and the Gaergaen, but they detonated harmlessly off the ever-growing crush of the avalanche of boulders falling from above.

  Finally, Thimeon understood. At the top of his lungs, he shouted to the others. “Don’t move!”

  Whether the companions heard him over the tumult or not was irrelevant. They could not have moved if they had wanted. The mountain shook with a violence and force that threatened to bury them all. The huge rocks tumbled past them so quickly and furiously they could not be counted. Yet however close they fell, none landed in the small circle occupied by the companions. All around, the pile of rock rose like the ruins of some ancient fortress, slowly blocking out the horrified screams of the Daegmons and the angered wails of their lord.

  Then all was dark.

  44

  AFTER THE STORM

  Elynna awoke lying flat on her back. For a moment she thought she was on her bed in her house in Lienford. Was she waking from a dream? It had been a dark one. Then she remembered. She opened her eyes to see a patch of sky directly overhead. A single cloud floated past, light pink with early morning light. All seemed peaceful. She felt as though she ought to be worried about her companions, but she was not.

  After a moment she heard low voices somewhere nearby. She recognized Tienna and Thimeon. As she drew more fully awake, she became more aware of her numerous aches and pains. Still, she did not move. She had not felt such peace in many months. She breathed it for several seconds before she rose gingerly to her feet and looked around. What she saw made her forget her many hurts. Surrounding her on all sides was a huge wall of boulders, extending ten feet high or more on the uphill side, and twenty on the downhill side. The only visible sky was directly overhead. Her companions, most of whom still slept, lay huddled in a circle right in the middle.

  Then Elynna realized why it felt so quiet and peaceful. She had no sense of a Daegmon’s presence. No scent or heat assaulted her sense. She looked at Thimeon and Tienna who sat leaning against a boulder a short distance way. “What happened?” she asked them.

  “The battle is over,” Thimeon replied. “The Daegmons are destroyed.”

  Elynna stared in stunned silence for several seconds before she was able to speak. “Totally destroyed? And the—the other thing too? Gone forever?”

  Thimeon shook his head. “Alas, the Daegmon Lord will not be killed until time as we know it comes to an end. But it suffered a defeat that will give peace to our realm for many years, I think. As for the Daegmons and the two Gaergaen, their bodies were destroyed. Decades or centuries may pass before they are able to return with power to torment Gondisle.”

  “But how?” Elynna asked. “Was it you—I mean, the power of the stone?”

  “No,” Thimeon replied emphatically. “I wielded barely enough power to fight the Daegmons. When their Lord showed up, he crushed that power as if it were nothing.”

  “Then how did we win?” Elynna asked in wonder. Before Thimeon could speak, she turned and looked around. “How are we even still alive? How were we not all crushed.”

  “The answer to both of your questions is the same, I think,” Tienna replied. “Another Power was at work here—a Power as much greater than our enemy’s as our enemy’s power was greater than ours. Indeed, it is a Power that cannot be measured or compared. At the last, when all of our own strength failed, that Power came to our aid.”

  Elynna was slow to comprehend. “Is that what protected us from these boulders our enemies hurled at us?”

  Thimeon shook his head. “I don’t think the enemy was responsible for these boulders at all. Tienna and I just spoke of this. We do not believe the Daegmon Lord caused that avalanche.”

  “But I saw… I heard… the roaring and the command to destroy us…”

  “We heard also,” Thimeon said. “When the boulders began to fall, I was terrified. Any one of these, had it landed but a few feet closer, could have crushed a third of our number with one blow. But I sensed something else also, perhaps by the power of the Henetos that flowed through me. When the Mountain began to tremble, the Daegmons were afraid. I felt it. The quaking of the earth was not their doing. They were as surprised as we were.”

  Elynna paused and searched through her own memory of the battle. Then she nodded. “Yes. I felt that too, though I did not understand it at the time. Or perhaps I was too terrified to think.”

  Thimeon smiled. “I didn’t think too much then either. Only now, sitting in this quiet, have we been putting together the pieces as one might repair a broken bowl. Some of it is just guessing, but some comes from the knowledge I gained from the ancient tome, and from what we observed in battle. These boulders, I think, were put here to protect us, not to destroy us.”

  “Put here by whom?” Elynna wondered aloud. “Not even Cathros is capable of this. Or is that another riddle?”

  Thimeon shrugged. “Not a riddle. Say, rather, a Mystery.”

  “Riddle or mystery,
you don’t do much to help me understand it.”

  “Don’t I? To speak as plainly as I know, this mountain is a hallowed place. Through ages without count, it is where the All-Maker has come among us. I think we were drawn here all along, because this is where the Power wanted us. This is where he strengthened us to fight the battle we could fight. And this, also, is where he fought the battle we could not fight.”

  “Why here?”

  Thimeon lifted his hands and shoulders. “I don’t know. Of course, he could have done it anywhere. But he has chosen this place to be holy. I think we are meant to have this mountain as a visible sign of his power so that we can trust him.”

  Elynna was silent for a time, unsure what to think. Deep down, she had never truly believed there would be a victory, and now the victory they had been given was so sudden and complete. “What of the wounded? There were so many…” her voice trailed off at the memory.

  “Tienna has been busy,” Thimeon answered.

  Elynna turned in amazement toward her huntress friend. The Plainswoman showed no fatigue. “Thimeon has been busy, too,” Tienna explained, as if reading Elynna’s thoughts. “He supported me in the healing so that I did not grow tired. Great power came to me through him.”

  Elynna nodded. She looked around at the other companions. Most of them still slept off their exhaustion, but despite their ragged attire none showed any visible wound or injury. “How many were lost in the final attack?” she asked, unwilling to bring herself to the task of counting and naming them.

  “None,” Tienna answered.

  “None?” Elynna looked again at the boulders strewn and stacked all around, remembering the incredible force of their impact. “But bodies were strewn across the slope. Was it all only a bad dream?” She paused, and then asked more quietly, “Or is this the dream now?”