But in the end, that effort failed, too. The fire burned fiercely for a time, then began to die out. The wronk climbed clear of the flames once more, blackened with ash and heat-seared, but still mobile.
Quentin stepped back in dismay. The Rindge would have been better prepared for this than they were. They would have had a backup plan for dealing with the trapped wronk. They would have been able to rely on strength of numbers. But the Rindge weren’t there to help. No one was.
“This isn’t working!” Tamis screamed at him.
Without waiting for his answer, she darted into the trees. For an instant, he thought she had abandoned him, that she was fleeing. He stared back down into the pit, where the last of the burning wood was turning to ash and the wronk was slowly digging out hand- and footholds on its torturous, but implacable ascent.
Then Tamis was back, dragging a huge limb by one end, dead-wood, well over eight feet in length, most of its smaller branches reduced to broken stubs.
“We’ll use this to knock him back down each time he tries to climb out!” she shouted. “Help me!”
He leapt forward to do so, and together they hauled the branch to the side of the pit and tipped it downward, seizing the slender end and using the limb like a battering ram to hammer at the wronk. Grunting and huffing, they slammed their makeshift weapon into its metal body and sent it tumbling back down again. Again and again, they stopped its ascent, trying unsuccessfully to smash its mechanisms, to break up its working parts. Each time it just picked itself up and began the climb out anew. So the struggle continued, with no progress being made on either side. It was a battle that Tamis and he must lose, Quentin realized, because they would wear out sooner than the wronk. They had to find a way to disable it if they were to win. But he could not think of how to do that without getting close, and getting close was unthinkable.
Then they made a mistake. They let the end of the branch get too close to the wronk while preparing to use it, and the wronk dropped its weapons and seized it in both hands. Its weight was enormous, and they were forced to let go of the branch. The wronk dropped back into the pit. But it had a ladder with which to climb out, and picking up its weapons, it began to do so.
Quentin and Tamis watched helplessly. “We have to get out of here,” he whispered.
“No!” she screamed at him. Her dusty, sweat-streaked face was contorted with rage and frustration. “You promised!”
“We can’t stop it alone!”
“We have to! I’ll do it myself!”
She began snatching up clots of dirt and throwing them at the wronk, shrieking at it. Then abruptly, she dashed away, searching for another ram to knock it loose again. Quentin stayed where he was, waiting. The wronk was more than halfway out. When it reached him, he would try to knock it back down again. His hands tightened on the Sword of Leah. He could feel its power coursing through him, singing in his blood, making him light-headed and oddly detached. He watched the magic racing up and down the blade, tiny flickers of brilliant light.
He glanced down into the pit. The wronk could see the magic, too. The knowledge of what it meant reflected in Ard Patrinell’s desperate, haunted eyes.
Then Tamis was back, hauling another dead branch, one shorter and less stout than the first. Her face was so intense and her eyes so wild that he rushed to help her, and once again they tried to knock the wronk loose from its perch.
But the wronk was ready for them. It snatched the ram out of their hands before they could bring it to bear and, one-handed, swept the deadwood into them, knocking them backwards with a single, powerful blow. Quentin lost his grip on the Sword of Leah, and it flew out into the darkness. He went down in a heap, his ribs and chest throbbing with pain, the breath knocked from his body.