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

strides; bewildered the
skurj
so badly that some of them turned on each other. Sights that should have been clear blurred and merged. The slopes on both sides of the river trembled.
    After the concussion came stillness: a quiet so profound that it appeared to stop time. Existence held its breath. The Sandgorgons began strides which they did not complete.
Skurj
paused with their lurid jaws wide. Fangs or brains forgot themselves. Giants tried to flick glances at each other, or at Covenant, and found that they could not move. Only Branl—
    Lowering his blade, the Humbled bowed to Covenant as if he understood. As if he approved.
    A moment later, the entire sky became thunderheads, black as ur-viles, impenetrable as gutrock. The heavens poised themselves for a blast which would rattle Gravin Threndor to its roots.
    As if on command, the lurker struck. From the Defiles Course, a tentacle lashed at the baffled
skurj
. It wrapped itself around one of the monsters.
    Shrieking in pain, Horrim Carabal lifted the creature.
    The tentacle caught fire: it burned like aged wood. Rabid flames streaked the air. The lurker’s agony must have been extreme: worse than
turiya
Raver’s violation; worse than self-mutilation. Yet the sovereign of the Sarangrave did not let go. Instead it flung the
skurj
eastward over the wetland.
    That creature did not return.
    Nor did the lurker. Its arm collapsed into the river, smothered flames in water and corruption. Sounds like the sobbing of marshes roiled through the fog. No other tentacles appeared.
    Through Horrim Carabal’s wailing came a deep concussion as unanswerable as a tectonic shift. Mount Thunder itself seemed to howl as gouts of sizzling rock swept downward. Storms boiled lower until they shrouded Gravin Threndor’s high crown.
    And from the depths of the Flat, waters rose against the current of the Defiles Course as if they had been summoned by the mountain. Dark thrashing swelled between the riverbanks.
    Covenant hardly noticed the river. Dimly in the distance, he thought that he saw yellow fires break through the clouds. He thought that he saw discrete flames surge lower like the onset of an avalanche. They roared as if the very air had become conflagration.
    “You are answered, ur-Lord,” Branl announced distinctly. “A worthy effort in all sooth. How the forces which you have unleashed may combat
skurj
, who are themselves a form of fire, I cannot conceive. Nonetheless the summons is both valiant and unforeseen. I am proud that I am Humbled in your name.”
    At last, Covenant began to see the fires more clearly. They looked impossibly far away: too far away to reach the valley before the Sandgorgons and the
skurj
remembered their savagery. But now he was sure that those flames were Fire-Lions. They embodied Earthpower and Mount Thunder’s enduring spirit. They could be as swift as the theurgy which had called them forth.
    The Sandgorgons rallied more quickly than the
skurj
. But the monsters of the Great Desert did not resume their charge toward Linden and her few companions. Their strange senses marked the rush of a new threat. And some deep part of them—an instinct too atavistic to heed
samadhi
Sheol—responded with eagerness. They had been bred in scorching heat and flaying winds, and had been trapped for millennia within the scouring energies of Sandgorgons Doom. Their urge to prove themselves against any and every foe outweighed
samadhi
’s urgings. It outweighed self-preservation.
    Together they turned away from Linden, strode deliberately down into the bottom of the valley. There they stood like a wall, awaiting the landslide fury of the Fire-Lions.
    They had already demonstrated that they had no cause to fear the rising waters.
    Beasts of flame became torrents on the mountainsides. They spread like wildfires toward the sheer drop above the river.
    Muttering mute curses like supplications, Covenant watched the cliff and the Sandgorgons. If
samadhi
and
moksha
did not regain control of those creatures—if the uncertainty of the
skurj
lasted just a little longer—
    Behind Covenant, the Feroce gibbered for his attention. “Pure One, hear us.” Their pleading was a damp clamor, scarcely audible through the tumult of Fire-Lions, the scald and crash of ancient magicks. “Our High God’s flesh cannot endure the worms of fire. He must not hazard them. Yet the alliance has been sealed. Even in his anguish, our High God upholds it.
    “You must seek higher ground. We