The Last Dark: The climax of the entire Thomas Covenant Chronicles (Last Chronicles of Thomas Cove)

His force was of another kind altogether. He focused it with curses as familiar as leprosy.
    Facing a group of Sandgorgons, with more on the way, he did not hesitate.
    He had slashed one and pierced another before they appeared to realize that he had become dangerous. Suddenly chary, they retreated from the cut of wild magic.
    Covenant’s world contracted until it contained only Sandgorgons. Somewhere at the edges of his marred vision, innominate shapes swirled in and out of the fog; but he had no time to recognize them. Praying that they were some manifestation of the lurker’s magicks—that Branl had not fallen—that Linden could contrive to preserve herself and Jeremiah and the Giants—he anchored himself on his argent blade and assailed the creatures in front of him.
    His wife had cried out to him, but he had not answered. He had only one answer left: one answer—and no opportunity to try it. No way of knowing whether it would suffice.
    The lurker’s remaining arm pounded at the Sandgorgons again. Again. Some lurched, apparently hurt. One crumpled and did not rise again. Most withstood the blows as if they lived for such tests of their puissance.
    Impassive and lethal, Branl fought on. But his foes had changed their tactics again. He could no longer spin hacking and thrusting among them. Instead they backed away, gained a little distance. Then they spread out to surround him.
    And from the mountainsides still more Sandgorgons plunged downward. They seemed numberless: a horde of havoc.
    Higher up in the valley, Linden flung Earthpower like screams at the
skurj
. Her Staff sent out an unremitting barrage of flame, as black as death in the Lost Deep, and as extravagant as her struggle against Roger and the
croyel
under
Melenkurion
Skyweir. Theurgy that might have carved gutrock blasted monsters on all sides. Many she hurt, delayed, enraged. Some she slew. But they were creatures of lava, spawned in magma. They could shrug aside appalling quantities of her fire. And more came: so many that her every gasp filled her lungs with brimstone and putrescence.
Moksha
Jehannum must have brought every living
skurj
here from their former prison in the far north.
    Her horror was gone. She had sweated it out in heat and fury. Spots of anoxia danced across her vision like burgeoning infections. The wood of her Staff bucked and recoiled as though it might break into splinters at any moment. Her pulse had become an undifferentiated stutter in her veins, too ragged and urgent for individual beats. Even Jeremiah’s sporadic shouts and warnings did not reach her. There was no room left in her for anything except Earthpower and
skurj
.
    She was failing. For all her frenzy and desperation, her exertions did not suffice. The monsters far outnumbered her abilities. Even if she had been galvanized by the EarthBlood, as she had been under
Melenkurion
Skyweir, she would have been no match for the host surging against her.
    Around her, her friends strove like demons against impossible odds. They fought in pairs, supporting each other: Stonemage and Galesend, Grueburn and Bluntfist. Cabledarm also had left Jeremiah. With Stave like a Giant at her side, she committed all of her strength to the fray. Exchanging feints and cuts, they wrought bloodshed among the monsters. Only Rime Coldspray stayed to ward Linden. Only maimed Cirrus Kindwind watched over Jeremiah.
    In small bursts, momentary and localized, the Swordmainnir succeeded. They appeared to kill or cripple every creature they met. And Stave did as much as any titan—until an untimely snap of jaws broke his longsword. After that, he had no choice except to throw the shard of his blade down the monster’s throat, and to withdraw while he searched for some other weapon. His bare flesh could not survive any contact with the monsters.
    Without him, Cabledarm fought alone.
    Nevertheless the companions were doomed. The
skurj
were simply too many to be overcome by frenetic Earthpower and a few Giants. And those creatures which did not attack fed. They multiplied. Much of the valley bottom had become a mad seethe of monsters as vicious as scoria, as fatal as the white core of a furnace. Many of the trees had gone up in flames, but their destruction made no difference.
    Linden no longer thought. In some sense, she no longer cared. She was too far gone to count her concerns. As far as she knew, her husband and Branl were already dead. She had only moments left. Jeremiah would survive only