Yet her greatest fear was for Jeremiah. It shackled her. She could too easily imagine the fluid motion of Galt’s arm as he pulled the krill across the croyel’s throat—

“How,” she managed to croak, “did they get here so fast?”

“I am uncertain,” Stave told her without apparent curiosity. “However, I speculate that Kastenessen has wielded his strange magicks to aid them. Through Anele, he has become certain of our location. And there is precedent. The attack of the ur-Lord’s son and his Cavewights at First Woodhelven defied mundane forms of travel. The distance from Gravin Threndor was too great, and the Cavewights know little of theurgy. Yet the ur-Lord’s son contrived to strike when we were vulnerable, as we are here.

“If we judge by Esmer’s condition, Kastenessen does not ease the straits of his servants when they have displeased him. Perhaps this accounts for the ur-Lord’s son’s flight on the shoulders of a Cavewight when he had failed against us.”

The cacophony of howling became a kind of ululation, a full-throated demand for killing. In their eagerness, several Cavewights flung their spears. But they had not yet reached the foot of the ridge, and their shafts fell short. Those that struck within reach, the Giants snatched up and returned with startling vehemence.

The company had the advantage of elevation. Roger and his forces would have to fight an uphill battle. Nevertheless half that many Cavewights would have been enough to overwhelm the ridge eventually.

More sharply, Stave urged, “Ready yourself, Chosen.” But she was already too late.

Shouting avidly, Roger hurled a second blast of brimstone and lava. In a frenzy, Linden tried to haul fire from her Staff, impose concentration on her conflicted heart. She could only persuade Galt to stay his hand by driving back the assault: she had no other argument that he would heed. But distress slowed her efforts to summon Earthpower.

Unimpeded, Roger’s fury slammed into the side of the cairn.

Anele!

Heavy stones erupted outward, shattering as they slashed the air. In a welter of rubble and spraying shards, nearly a third of the cairn was torn away. A few smaller fragments pelted the Giants and Clyme; but most of the wreckage carried beyond the company.

Roger had attacked the cairn, the cairn. He was trying to kill Anele. Or destroy the Sunstone.

For the duration of a heartbeat, no more than that, Linden searched the crown of the pile for the old man, her first companion, the hope of the Land. She spotted him almost instantly, crouched and gibbering on the south side of the cairn.

Then she reached far down into herself for Jeremiah’s sake, and for her friends, and brought up a cyclone of flame from the willing wood of the Staff.

Her fire was as black as the shaft itself; as the lightless depths of mountains. And as it gyred into the pale sky, the runes written into the Staff shone like purest silver, articulating Caerroil Wildwood’s ire and grief. Arcane symbols gave their consent.