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

wanted to embrace every creature within reach.
    In an instant, the point of a spear jutted from her back. A truncheon crashed onto her left shoulder. An axe bit between her ribs on the right. Her laughing was cut off; but she did not falter. Four, no, five Cavewights she hugged to her chest. Using them as a shield, she drove her great strength and weight against the pursuing creatures.
    For a moment, she was impossibly successful. Somehow she cleared a space between her comrades and their foes. Five paces. Seven. Ten. When the blade of an axe came down on her head, spilling brains and ruined bone, she sagged. Still her legs thrust her forward. Supporting herself on the creatures in her arms, she kept fighting.
    Then she was done. Strength and life drained out of her: her legs failed: she dropped to her knees. Propped upright by corpses, she knelt there until her foes hacked her to pieces.
    Screaming, the Anchormaster tried to follow her. Frothbreeze and Blustergale caught his arms, held him back.
    Rage filled Covenant’s throat. He could hardly breathe. “The
krill
,” he gasped. “I need the
krill
!”
    Scatterwit had opened a gap. If he could reach the rear before the Cavewights resumed their advance—
    Stave and Branl must have understood him. Without hesitation, Stave slapped the bright
krill
into Covenant’s hands. At the same time, Branl moved past Covenant. With one arm, the Humbled parted the sailors so that Covenant could pass.
    While Linden cried his name, Covenant brought up a rush of wild magic.
    But he did not unleash its raw force. Instead he shaped silver fire along the blade of the
krill
. As he had done against the Sandgorgons, he fashioned an argent sword fierce as the white core of a furnace.
    With Branl, he went to meet the Cavewights.
    Behind the two men, the rest of the company fled, following Handir’s embattled cadre and the striking Swordmainnir. Supported only by the last of the rearguard, Covenant and Branl carried bloodshed among their attackers.
    Covenant made no attempt to defend himself. He had no skill, and was burning too hotly to care. He left his own protection to Branl’s flamberge, to the fleet prowess of the few Masters. Wielding his chosen theurgy, Covenant became incarnate killing.
    With every slash and thrust, every frantic swing, he appalled himself. He had to goad himself with curses like groans in order to keep moving. Otherwise he would have plunged to his knees, crippled by abhorrence. The Cavewights were only simple in their thinking: they were not unintelligent. And they had a long history. On their own terms, they had a civilization. They had never deserved the use which Lord Foul had made of them. They did not deserve what Covenant did to them now.
    He promised himself that the Despiser would pay for this; but no promise sufficed to condone such slaughter.
    Branl and the Masters exacted their own toll. They were as precise as surgeons, as fluid as wind. But where they cut and blocked, punched and fended, Covenant ravaged.
    The Cavewights seemed endless. Those still alive after the struggle in the cave were joined by more issuing from the other passages, entire hordes of creatures mad with blood-lust and ancient resentments. Yet even they could not withstand a blade forged of wild magic that shone like condensed stars. Nor could they match the skill of the
Haruchai
. Their screams and shrieks raced back down the tunnel, pierced the hearts of the Cavewights behind them. Their rage became fear. It became terror and panic. Fighting the press of their fellows, they tried to flee.
    At first, they failed. The creatures advancing from the cave were not yet afraid. They resisted the impulse to retreat. But loud desperation filled the passage. It flooded through the Cavewights, carried away their fury. They turned to run, leaving their piled dead to guard their backs.
    There Covenant flinched to a halt. His eldritch longsword frayed and faded: the
krill
dangled in his numb clasp. Hellfire, he tried to say. Hell and damnation. But he could not catch his breath. There was no air anywhere. There was only blood.
    Blood and bodies, some still writhing in their last throes.
    If he had been able to speak, he would have asked Branl and the Masters to forgive him. Of the
Haruchai
guarding the rear, only seven remained; and most of them bore wounds. How many of them had already given their lives? Covenant could not bear to guess.
    Surely he had the right to defend himself? To