Linden wanted to protest, They can’t be here. We’re too far from Mount Thunder. But she could not breathe, and had no voice.

Once again, Roger Covenant had caught the company by surprise. Cavewights charging closer should have raised a cloud of dust—unless the air was too still for dust, or the creatures ran entirely on stone. Or Roger’s glamour was so complete that it masked every sign of his coming.

Grimly Manethrall Mahrtiir ordered his Cords to protect Covenant. “Doubtless Branl will aid you! Entrust the Ringthane to Stave, and to me!”

For a moment, Linden saw nothing except Clyme’s pelting haste. The spear was stone, massive and ungainly; yet he carried it with ease. Several hills intervened between him and the ridge, all lower than the crest he had left. He dropped into a valley, then reappeared, still some distance away.

Then she felt a silent shock. With her health-sense rather than her ears, she heard a shredding sound like the rip of claws through fabric. An instant later, her foes became visible as if they had been translated here by some immense magic.

A wave of Cavewights had already broken over the hill where Clyme had stood, scores of them. More poured around the slopes on either side, tall and gangling, with disproportionately long limbs, club-heads, eyes like molten crimson, too much strength. They all wielded weapons: swords as crude as claymores, truncheons like battering-rams, heavy spears, axes chipped from blocks of flint. Like the creatures that had attacked after the destruction of First Woodhelven, they wore slabs of armor fashioned from the benighted stone of Gravin Threndor. And they kept coming, more Cavewights than the rocks of Liand’s cairn; more than Linden had ever seen before: more than enough to sweep even Giants away like debris in a flood.

How—?

Unable to match their pace on his own legs, Roger rode the shoulders of a Cavewight. Glee and triumph distorted his features, effacing any resemblance to his father. His right fist was a blaze of power like deep magma. He seemed to hold the savagery of a dozen skurj in one hand: a piece of Kastenessen’s essential agony and rage.

How had he and the Cavewights come so far in so short a time?

Alone among the Giants, Stormpast Galesend held back. She held her longsword ready in one hand. With the other arm, she cradled Anele’s flinching terror.

“Ironhand!” she yelled through the advancing clamor. “What must I do? The old man hampers me!”

Swiftly Coldspray scanned the company’s formation. She glanced at Linden’s dismay, then turned away, cursing.

“Set him upon the cairn! Its stone will ward him! Against so many, we must trust that he will evade spears!”

Perhaps Anele would draw enough sanity from Liand’s orcrest to duck and dodge.