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

Cavewights pressed forward: a storm of red eyes and ferocity squalling like ghouls. Covenant did not know how much longer the company’s defenders could withstand the attack.
    Stonemage and Bluntfist. Coldspray and Stoutgirth. Branl with Longwrath’s flamberge. The eldritch blade’s magicks were meaningless here: its edges were not. Together the Humbled and the Giants were more effective than Covenant could comprehend.
    The Anchormaster’s remaining sailors had armed themselves with spears. Even Blustergale and Furledsail had regained their feet after Linden’s violent healing; had claimed weapons. But they could not enter the fray. The ledge was too narrow.
    Covenant loathed killing, but his abhorrence for the suffering and loss of those who stood with him was greater. To save them, he would have incinerated every Cavewight on the ledge. And he would have borne the cost; added those deaths to the stains on his soul. His ring seemed to plead for use.
    Yet he suppressed its fire, swallowed his ambiguous power. He did not have enough control to strike at the Cavewights without harming the people whom he longed to save. He could not protect Linden and Jeremiah. He had never been able to spare anyone who chose to fight for the Land.
    And he did not understand why the unfamiliar Master stared at him in such amazement.
    Surely the
Haruchai
had come for this? Summoned by Bhapa and Pahni, they must have rushed to Mount Thunder to join the Land’s last defense. Why else were they here? How else had they arrived when they were needed?
    “Thomas,” Linden panted. “Thomas.”
    Covenant barely heard her. He gripped Loric’s
krill
as if he had forgotten it.
    Why was this Master surprised?
    Fortunately he had not come alone. Armed with a Cavewight’s falchion, the other warrior now supported Branl. In perfect harmony, they appeared to flow and eddy among the creatures, delivering bloodshed and death with the grace of dancers: a cut here, a thrust there, a spinning feint, on and on, all too swift for Covenant to grasp. Maimed and dying Cavewights were flung like sleet into the fissure. And those that fought past the two Masters were met by the hard iron of the Swordmainnir, or by Stoutgirth’s spear.
    The strength and skill of the defenders slowed the charge. They halted it.
    “Ur-Lord.” Stave pitched his voice to pierce the clamor and rage, the screams of pain, the raw gasping. “Here is Canrik of the Masters. His comrade is Dast. Above us, Ulman and Ard await the outcome here.” Stave’s tone had a sardonic tinge, trenchant and vindicated. “They were unaware of your return to life.”
    Unaware—? The idea staggered Covenant. Realities shifted. The ledge tilted to one side. It began to turn. He stood on impossible stone, could not keep his balance. The crevice called his name, a chiaroscuro of alternating seductions and commands. The
krill
fell from his numb fingers.
    What had Bhapa and Pahni told the Masters? Had the Cords even reached Revelstone? Had the Ardent failed in his dying gift? Then why were the Masters here?
    Covenant wanted to howl silver until the ledge stopped; until everything stopped.
    Through the whirl, Linden’s arms found him. “Thomas!” He thought that he saw Stave holding the
krill
nearby; but he heard only his wife. “The Masters came. Stave says that two hundred of them came!” With every word, she tried to summon him back. “But they didn’t know where to look for us. There are too many tunnels. They had to spread out. Four of them found a place where the Wightwarrens open on this crevice. Somewhere up there.” She seemed to be pointing. “Two
hundred
, Thomas! We’ll have more help as soon as the others learn where we are.
    “Hang on, Thomas! You have to hang on.”
    Reeling, he struggled to focus on her. His hands fumbled their way to the sides of her face. He held her directly in front of him, almost nose to nose, so that she would wheel with him—or so that the truth of her would remain stationary. She was not spinning. The ledge was not. Even the world was not. It was all in his mind.
    He should have been accustomed to such things. He had been dizzy often enough—
    “Mom?” Jeremiah asked. He seemed to be pleading. “Are they going to save us?”
    Canrik spoke. “Ur-Lord.” His voice was hard. His amazement had become anger. “There are questions which must be answered.” Then he seemed to relent. “They cannot be answered here.
    “Giants!” he called.