Since Lady Alif had said that she was taking Covenant to the Kemper, they head to Kemper’s Pitch. Unfortunately, it’s being guarded by scores of hustin. But as the hustin begin to advance on the company, the Lady Alif (gloriously naked, btw
) comes to their rescue. Mad at the Kemper for having said mean things to her in the previous chapter, she threatens and bluffs the guards into letting the company pass. When they get in, they see Covenant where the last chapter ended, Hergrom over the body of the dead Guard.Kasreyn claims all innocence, saying he was trying to help Covenant, and that he would have succeeded if Hergrom hadn’t busted in. Blah blah blah. So in comes the gaddhi. The short of the next couple of pages is that the gaddhi is adamant about having Hergrom punished for killing one of his guards. Kasreyn puts on his geas, and touches Hergrom’s forehead. Nothing appears to happen, but Hergrom’s eyes widen slightly.
Everybody but the Kemper and our heroes leave. Kemper tells them they can return to their rooms, and they’ll be summoned later. Brinn, with only his gaze, asks first Linden, then the First, if they can kill the Kemper, but neither give their consent.
In the morning, they are, rather politely, summoned to accompany the gaddhi as he walks along the Sandwall. They’re promised a wonderful view of the Great Desert. And they get it. Huge, horribly bright and hot, and completely dead.
They also see Sandgorgons Doom. This looks like a big deal! A huge storm that Linden seems to perceive as self-sustaining!
Even the Haruchai stared at it as if they sought to estimate themselves against it.
THAT’S pretty cool insight into the Haruchai!And Rant Absolain tells them about the Sandgorgons that the Doom holds:
Yikes!“The Sandgorgons. You do not know them – but I tell you this. Granted time and freedom, one such creature might tear the Sandhold stone from stone. One! They are more fearsome than madness or nightmare.”
OK, the short of these couple of pages is that Hergrom climbs a rope down the wall, the open desert in front of him. Ceer quickly follows, so that Hergrom isn’t alone in this entirely unknown situation.
Finally, after the gaddhi threatens to kill Lady Alif and Linden, Hergrom speaks what seems like a harmless enough syllable: Nom. Apparently, Kasreyn planted that word into Hergrom's head the previous night in the Pitch. The gaddhi is overjoyed, though we can’t imagine why. But as we wait, the Kemper explains what’s happening:
It sounds like he’s saying you can’t make a perpetual machine. Also that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. But I digress. The point is, Kasreyn can think what he wants, but no Sandgorgon, whatever they are, has ever faced a Haruchai before! I think they’re both in for a surprise! Heh! Heh! Heh!“The power of any art depends upon its flaw. Perfection cannot endure in an imperfect world. Thus when I bound the Sandgorgons to their Doom, I was compelled to place a flaw within my theurgy. The flaw I chose is this, that any Sandgorgon will be released if its name is spoken. It will be free while it discovers the one who spoke its name. Then it must slay the speaker and return to its Doom.”
Although…. Now that I think about it, Foamfollower said that two hundred Giants died fighting the Sandgorgons. Hmmm, I hope this won’t be trouble. Ah well, not to worry.
But we’ve finally arrived at the moment we’ve all been waiting for:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - THE MAIN EVENT!!!!!
In one corner, the challenger. He’s got the home-field advantage, here in the Great Desert. He’s a mean one, folks! Just out of prison, he’s looking to make a name for himself. Introducing The Beast With No Face – The Bhrathairealm Battering Ram – it’s Nom “Bird-Legs” Saaaaaandgooooorgoooooon!
And in the other corner, the champions. All the way from the chilly Westron Mountains, these guys haven’t stopped complaining about the heat since they got here. They’re rat-crushers, Grim-dodgers, and dromond-sailers - Iiiiiit’s Hergrom and Ceer “What’s with all this sand?” Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuchaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!
Joking aside, I assume everybody knows that this battle is a big moment for me. We’ve seen Haruchai fighting against foes that presented no problem whatsoever. No single human, husta, Cavewight, or most anything else, stands a chance. Even large numbers of any of these will pay dearly before they take down a single Haruchai. Without question, a trained Giant, like the First, would be a very worthy foe. I’m not placing any bets on that fight! We’ve only seen Haruchai vs Giant twice. If not for the Illearth Stone fragment, Thomin would have won the only such fight that was to the death, but we can’t know if Fleshharrower fought as well as the unpossessed Giant would have. And Brinn and Honninscrave didn’t go on long enough to see what would have happened. As Honninscrave was rubbing his chin, was Brinn ignoring the pain of blows that would have permanently crippled me?
But now we have a foe that the Haruchai cannot beat. That’s a shocking thing to say, and NOBODY likes saying it less than I do. But facts are facts. It failed to hit Hergrom with its first charge, slammed into the Sandhold’s wall, cracking it, knocking chunks out of it, and making those on top feel “as if the entire Sandhold had shifted.” Holy moley!! Up against such elemental might, we have two Haruchai:
Think about what those parts I put in bold mean! How much damage can TWO Haruchai do when they’re going all out!!! Their punches could break a telephone pole, and Hergrom’s squeezing would have snapped it in half! My house would be a pile of rubble if these two did to it what they did to the Sandgorgon. But what effect did all of that have on this creature?Striking with all their skill and strength, they hammered at its neck.
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Ceer butted the beast’s chin with such force that the Sandgorgon rebounded a stop. Immediately, he followed, raining blows.
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Straining every muscle, he clamped his forearm into the beast’s throat, fought to throttle the creature.
Ceer was actually able to move the Sandgorgon twice! His skill and strength were sufficient to make it lose its balance enough that it had to step back, but it was in no danger. This creature is, perhaps, a truly irresistible force.It took the blows as if they were handsful of sand.
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But they had no effect.
But, as I tend to do with everything, I see the Sandgorgon, impressive as he is in his own right, as a sort of lens through which we can view the Haruchai. Bannor once told Covenant, “The Bloodguard know doubt.” But the doubt was in the intentions of others, not in their own ability. A few pages ago, just before Hergrom went down the wall, Linden told him not to - “You don’t have to do this.” Brinn replies:
Before the fight began, before the blows of Hergrom and Ceer were all but ignored, something of “staggering speed” was charging them. Something that “was larger than the Haruchai awaiting it, but it hardly had size enough to contain such might.” But I imagine this was obvious even to those who didn’t have Linden’s Sight. And the Haruchai, having faced all manner of foe for millennia, certainly knew what was coming. What did their telepathic conversation sound like as it got closer and closer? Something like this:“Chosen, we desire to meet this punishment, that we may see it ended.” His tone expressed nothing except an entire belief in his own competence – the same self-trust which had led the Bloodguard to defy death and time in the service of the Lords.
-This creature possesses extreme power.
-Yes. We must defeat it quickly, so that we may safeguard the ur-Lord and his companions.
And what would their conversation sound like if the surviving Haruchai ran up against another Sandgorgon at any point? Something like this:
-This creature possesses extreme power.
-Yes. We must defeat it quickly, so that we may safeguard the ur-Lord and his companions.
They are perfect fighters, and they have learned from one battle with a Sandgorgon, so they would go into it confident that they would win.
And their thoughts during the battle? This:
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The Haruchai do not think at all as they fight. They merely fight. With the no-minds of Zen masters, they become akin to elementals of warfare, achieving perfection by not striving for it, but by simply doing.
I’m reminded of an episode of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars. (Great series, btw
) There’s a planet where the gems for lightsabers come from. It looks to be an arctic planet, and the gems are in underground tunnels. The Jedi Master in charge is instructing what seems to be a Knight constructing her first saber. They’re attacked by hundreds of droids. These two ladies kick some serious butt before the cavern collapses from the damage. They use the Force to hold the boulders up, but there are so many tons of rock falling on them that they can’t even attempt to clear them all away, and free themselves. The Knight looks over to say something to the Master, and sees her kneeling, head bowed, doing and thinking nothing other than holding the boulders up. The Knight assumes the same position, and the episode ends with the two in that position. They aren’t thinking, “How will we get out of this?” “Are the Jedi aware of our situation?” “Are there more droids about to attack?” The only way they can survive is to abandon all thought, all fear, all physical discomfort, and hold up that damned ceiling! If they are rescued, they live. If they aren’t, they will eventually tire and die. With pure concentration, they can last some time. But if they think about anything at all, they’ll die very soon. Same thing as when you fight a Sandgorgon.I don’t think it’s likely that the Haruchai traveled to a galaxy far, far away, so I assume the Jedi learned what they know by traveling to the Westron Mountains.
Um, sorry folks. This one ran a little long I guess.
Thanks! 
