Linden was almost too late to protect the mound that shielded Anele. At the last instant, however, she realized what Roger was doing. Frenzy pounded in her temples as she nudged his bolt aside. It ruptured the far corner of the pile, sent a small rain of boulders and shards onto the Cavewights in the east, but did no serious harm to the stones where Anele cowered.

The old man looked like he was screaming, but Linden heard nothing except the loud rage of the creatures and the vicious sizzle of Roger’s onslaught.

Retreating by increments, Pahni and Bhapa tugged Covenant from side to side to avoid spears and hurled axes, thrown scraps of rock. Even now, he showed no sign that he would ever return from his memories. Nevertheless Linden thought that she felt Galt’s grip tighten on the krill.

With nothing to guide him except his health-sense, Manethrall Mahrtiir suddenly dove headlong down the slope; hit fouled mud and rolled; collided with the legs of Cavewights scrambling for purchase on the slick ridgeside. Instead of trying to hurt single creatures, he twisted among them, kicking at their ankles and knees, fighting beneath the reach of their weapons to knock them off balance. On a slope made treacherous by blood and spilled guts, he was impossibly successful. Below the Ironhand and her comrades, a small swath of Cavewights went down as if he had scythed them from their feet.

He would be dead in moments, suffocated under the weight of falling bodies if no weapon pierced him. While he lived, however, he wrought such turmoil that two of the Swordmainnir were freed to fight elsewhere. Heaving for breath, Latebirth ran to join Cirrus Kindwind and Clyme. Drenched in blood, Bluntfist followed Stormpast Galesend around the cairn.

Nonetheless more and more Cavewights reached the long spine among the hills. Then they no longer had to struggle upward. On gypsum crushed to dust, they gathered from east and west. Only the comparative narrowness of the ridge kept them from over-running the Giants immediately.

With Clyme, Kindwind and Latebirth fought like berserkers. Their great strength and uncounted years of training wrought devastation. But the Cavewights were too many—

Linden could not see Galesend and Bluntfist past the cairn; but she did not doubt that they would soon be overwhelmed.

Branl needed no request to go after the Manethrall. Like a boulder pitched from a rampart, he plunged out of sight into the melee around Mahrtiir.

Stave did not so much as glance at Galt as he moved to take Branl’s place with Coldspray and Stonemage, Grueburn and Cabledarm. Screams and shrieking punctuated the battle-howl of the Cavewights—and still they came.