Wrath erupted in him like the madness of venom.

Fire and rage consumed all is pain. The triangle and the will of the Clave splintered and fell away.

A wind of passion blew through him. Wild argent exploded from his ring.

White blazed over his right fist. Acute incandescence covered his hand as if his flesh were power. Conflagration tore the red air.

For a moment, Covenant remained where he was. His ring flamed like one white torch among the vermeil rukhs. Deliberately, he drew power to his right wrist; shaping the fire with his will, he stopped the flow of blood, closed the knife wound. A flash of fire seared and sealed the cut. Then he turned the magic to his left wrist.

His concentration allowed Gibbon time to marshal a defense. Covenant could feel the Riders surging around him, mustering the Banfire to their rukhs. But he did not care. The venom in him counted no opposition, no cost. When his wrists were healed, he rose directly to his feet and stood erect like a man who had lost no blood and could not be touched.

His force staggered the atmosphere of the court. It blasted from his entire body as if his very bones were avid for fire.

Gibbon stood before him. The Raver wielded a crosier so fraught with heat and might that the iron screamed. A shaft of red malice howled at Covenant's heart.

Covenant quenched it with a shrug.

One of the Riders hurled a coruscating rukh at his back.

Wild magic evaporated the metal in mid-flight.

Then Covenant's wrath became ecstasy, savage beyond all restraint. In an instant of fury which shocked the very gut rock of Revelstone , his wild magic detonated.

Riders screamed, fell. Doors in the cosigns above the floor burst from their hinges. The air sizzled like frying flesh.

Gibbon shouted orders Covenant could not hear, threw an arc of emerald across the court and then disappeared.

Under a moil of force, the floor began to shine like silver magma.

Somewhere amid the wreckage of the Soothtell, he heard Lord Foul laughing.