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

sentries,
Haruchai
sprinted toward the chamber’s openings. Around the company and the Cords, a few Masters formed a protective circle: Handir and Canrik, Samil and Vortin, Dast and Ulman. Stave held the
krill
high in one hand, hefted Cabledarm’s longsword in the other. Branl readied Longwrath’s flamberge.
    “Cavewights,” the Voice of the Masters announced, passionless as stone. “They have massed their forces. Now they advance.”
    Covenant spun, scanned the entrances. “Where?”
    “On all sides, ur-Lord,” Branl replied.
    Nodding to the Anchormaster, Rime Coldspray and her comrades joined Handir’s defensive formation. The sailors arranged themselves to support the Swordmainnir.
    “Hellfire!” Covenant’s ring itched for use. He felt an irrational desire to fling wild magic at the knuckled ceiling. “Then pick one! Which one goes toward Kiril Threndor?”
    Linden’s face was pallid with fright as she grasped Jeremiah’s arm, prepared herself to pull him into motion.
    He threw her off. “Again?” he protested petulantly. Then his voice darkened. “Of course. We’re always attacked.” He sounded like a different person, someone older, inured to abuse. “Somebody should tell them they’re as doomed as we are.”
    “Jeremiah!” cried Linden softly. “Honey? What’s happening to you?”
    For an instant, the boy’s eyes rolled back in his head. Then he bared his teeth. His gaze came into focus.
    “I’m getting it, Mom.” Again he sounded different, as if this time he had arisen from some other grave. “I don’t care what Stave says. I’ll show you.”
    “We do not know the way,” Handir told Covenant. “None here have trod familiar passages. We must estimate our road. We are certain only that Kiril Threndor lies in that direction.” He pointed above and behind Covenant. “We will endeavor to clear a path there”—he indicated the tunnel closest to Kiril Threndor’s heading—“hoping to encounter other Masters. Their knowledge may extend farther.”
    “Sure,” Jeremiah muttered. “Why not?”
    Bhapa and Pahni stood with Stave beside Linden and Jeremiah. The Cords held their garrotes in their fists.
    Covenant heard a noise like the sizzle of rain on hot stone: running feet. It swept closer. Before he could respond to Handir, Cavewights charged into the cave on all sides. In an instant, they filled the space with chaos and howling.
    They came brandishing spears and truncheons, falchions heavy as spars, axes shaped to behead Giants. They burst into the cave from every entrance in such numbers that they could have inundated their foes, left no one standing.
    But they did not come so far. Three strides into the chamber, they crashed like breakers against a seawall of Masters.
    Hardly able to understand what he saw, Covenant watched the warriors meet the attack with a fanged front. At each entrance, tight wedges of three or four men bit like teeth into the brunt of the charge. Even as they fell in spurts and gushes of blood, the
Haruchai
drove confusion among the first creatures; forced them to veer away on both sides. Some of the Cavewights tripped over bodies, did not rise again. Others spilled past the formations and scattered their lives against a bulwark of Masters.
    The wedges did not hold. They could not. There were too many Cavewights. But the
Haruchai
were at their most devastating when they fought singly. As their front failed, they spun among their assailants, fighting as though carnage exalted them. They leapt and ducked, avoided and struck. Punches snapped arms, broke necks. Kicks dislocated knees, smashed feet. And many of the Masters snatched up weapons. They cut like scythes through the Cavewights, reaping entrails, brains, gore.
    Nevertheless the creatures were many; and they had spent millennia nurturing their hatred and savagery, their resentment of peoples who had repeatedly foiled their singular dreams. They fought with the ferocity of beasts. Slaughtered themselves, they delivered slaughter in return. Covenant watched dozens of Masters go down amid scores of Cavewights. Wherever he looked, he seemed to see
Haruchai
killing or crippling creatures—and yet at every moment the Masters were driven back. Axes took heads, ripped torsos. Spears, bludgeons, brutal swords: all wrought havoc. Even the armed warriors died, cut down from behind while they slew the foes in front of them.
    Covenant could have stopped this—but only by killing everyone in the cave,