The Wounded Land
Page 44
“Covenant!” she wailed in immediate anguish. “It is who I am! I am nothing to you without it.” He tightened his grasp. She flinched away from his gaze. Her voice became a dry moan. “Without my rukh, I cannot part the trees. And I cannot command the Coursers. It is the power to which they have been bred. Losing it, my hold upon them will be lost. They will scatter from us. Perhaps they will turn against us.” Her mien appeared to be crumbling in the unsteady torchlight. “This doom is upon my head,” she breathed. “In ignorance and folly, I lured you to Revelstone.”
“Damnation!” Covenant rasped, cursing half to himself. He felt trapped; and yet he did not want Memla to blame herself. He had asked for her help. He wrestled down his dismay. “All right,” he panted. “Call the Coursers. Let’s try to outrun it.”
She gaped at him. “It is the Grim! It cannot be outrun.”
“Goddamn it, he’s only one Raver!” His fear made him livid. “The farther he has to send it, the weaker it’s going to be. Let’s try!”
For one more moment, Memla could not recover her courage. But then the muscles of her face tightened, and a look of resolution or fatality came into her eyes. “Yes, ur-Lord,” she gritted. “It will be weakened somewhat. Let us make the attempt.”
As he released her, she began shouting for the Coursers.
They came out of the night like huge chunks of darkness. The Haruchai threw sacks of supplies and bundles of firewood onto the broad backs. Covenant wheeled to face his companions.
Sunder and Hollian stood behind Linden. She crouched among the leaves, with her hands clamped over her face. The Stonedownors made truncated gestures toward her but did not know how to reach her. Her voice came out as if it were being throttled.
“I can’t—”
Covenant exploded. “Move!”
She flinched, recoiled to her feet. Sunder and Hollian jerked into motion as if they were breaking free of a trance. Cail abruptly swept Linden from the ground and boosted her lightly onto Clash. Scrambling forward, Covenant climbed up behind Memla. In a whirl, he saw Sunder and Hollian on their mounts, saw the Haruchai spring into position, saw Memla’s rukh gutter, then burst alive like a scar across the dark.
At once, the Coursers launched themselves down the line of Memla’s path.
The night on either side of her fire seemed to roil like thunderheads. Covenant could not see past her back; he feared that Din would careen at any moment into a failure of the path, crash against boulders, plunge into lurking ravines or gullies. But more than that, he feared his ring, feared the demand of power which the Grim would put upon him.
Memla permitted no disaster. At unexpected moments, her line veered past sudden obstacles; yet with her fire and her will she kept the company safe and swift. She was running for her life, for Covenant’s life, for the hope of the Land; and she took her Coursers through the ruinous jungle like bolts from a crossbow.
They ran while the moon rose—ran as it arced overhead—ran and still ran after it had set. The Coursers were creatures of the Sunbane, and did not tire. Just after dawn, Memla slapped them to a halt. When Covenant dismounted, his legs trembled. Linden moved as if her entire body had been beaten with clubs. Even Sunder and Hollian seemed to have lost their hardiness. But Memla’s visage was set in lines of extremity; and she held her rukh as if she strove to tune her soul to the pitch of iron.
She allowed the company only a brief rest for a meal. But even that time was too long. Without warning, Stell pointed toward the sun. The mute intensity of his gesture snatched every eye eastward.
The sun stood above the horizon, its sick red aura burning like a promise of infirmity. But the corona was no longer perfect. Its leading edge wore a stark black flaw.
The mark was wedge-shaped, like an attack of ur-viles, and aligned as if it were being hammered into the sun from Revelstone.
Linden’s groan was more eloquent than any outcry.
Shouting a curse, Memla drove her companions back to the Coursers. In moments, the quest had remounted, and the beasts raced against black malice.
They could not win. Though Memla’s path was strong and true—though the Coursers ran at the full stretch of their great legs—the blackness grew swiftly. By midmorning, it had devoured half the sun’s anadem.
Pressure mounted against Covenant’s back. His thoughts took on the rhythm of Din’s strides: I must not—Must not—Visions of killing came: ten years or four millennia ago, at the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, he had slain Cavewights. And later, he had driven a knife into the heart of the man who had murdered Lena. He could not think of power except in terms of killing.
He had no control over his ring.
Then the company burst out of thick jungle toward a savannah. There, nothing obstructed the terrain except the coarse grass, growing twice as tall as the Coursers, north, south, and east, and the isolated mounds of rock standing like prodigious cairns at great distances from each other. Covenant had an instant of overview before the company plunged down the last hillside into the savannah. The sky opened; and he could not understand how the heavens remained so untrammeled around such a sun. Then Memla’s path sank into the depths of the grass.
The quest ran for another league before Hollian cried over the rumble of hooves, “It comes!”
Covenant flung a look behind him.
A thunderhead as stark as the sun’s wound boiled out of the west. Its seething was poised like a fist; and it moved with such swiftness that the Coursers seemed not to be racing at all.
“Run!” he gasped at Memla’s back.
As if in contradiction, she wrenched Din to a halt. The Courser skidded, almost fell. Covenant nearly lost his seat. The other beasts veered away, crashing frenetically through the grass. “Heaven and Earth!” Sunder barked. Controlling all the Coursers, Memla sent them wheeling and stamping around her, battering down the grass to clear a large circle.
As the vegetation east of him was crushed, Covenant saw why she had stopped.
Directly across her path marched a furious column of creatures.
For a moment, he thought that they were Cavewights—Cavewights running on all fours in a tight swath sixty feet wide, crowding shoulder to shoulder out of the south in a stream without beginning or end. They had the stocky frames, gangrel limbs, blunt heads of Cavewights. But if these were Cavewights they had been hideously altered by the Sunbane. Chitinous plating armored their backs and appendages; their fingers and toes had become claws; their chins were split into horned jaws like mandibles. And they had no eyes, no features; their faces had been erased. Nothing marked their foreskulls except long antennae which hunted ahead of them, searching out their way.
They rushed as if they were running headlong toward prey. The line of their march had already been torn down to bare dirt by the leaders. In their haste, they sounded like the swarming of gargantuan ants—formication punctuated by the sharp clack of jaws.
“Hellfire!” Covenant panted. The blackness around the sun was nearly complete; the Grim was scant leagues away, and closing rapidly. And he could see no way past this river of pestilential creatures. If they were of Cavewightish stock—He shuddered at the thought. The Cavewights had been mighty earth delvers, tremendously strong. And these creatures were almost as large as horses. If anything interrupted their single-minded march, they would tear even Memla’s beasts limb from limb.
Linden began to whimper, then bit herself into silence. Sunder stared at the creatures with dread-glazed eyes. Hollian’s hair lay on her shoulders like raven wings, emphasizing her pale features as if she were marked for death. Memla sagged in front of Covenant like a woman with a broken spine.
Turning to Brinn, Covenant asked urgently, “Will it pass?”
In answer, Brinn nodded toward Hergrom and Ceer. Ceer had risen to stand erect on Annoy’s back. Hergrom promptly climbed onto Ceer’s shoulders, balanced there to gain a view over the grass. A moment later, Brinn reported, “We are farsighted, but the end of this cannot be seen.�
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Bloody hell! He was afraid of wild magic, power beyond control or choice. I must not—! But he knew that he would use it if he had to. He could not simply let his companions die.
The thunderhead approached like the blow of an axe. Blackness garroted the sun. The light began to dim.
A rush of protest went through him. Fear or no fear, this doom was intolerable. “All right.” Ignoring the distance to the ground, he dropped from Din’s back. “We’ll have to fight here.”
Brinn joined him. Sunder and Stell dismounted from Clang, Hollian and Harn from Clangor. Cail pulled Linden down from Clash and set her on her feet. Her hands twitched as if they were searching for courage; but she found none. Covenant tore his gaze away, so that her distress would not make him more dangerous. “Sunder,” he rapped out, “you’ve got your orcrest. Memla has her rukh. Is there some way you can work together? Can you hit that thing”—he grimaced at the Grim—“before it hits us?”
The cloud was almost overhead. It shed a preternatural twilight across the savannah, quenching the day.
“No.” Memla had not dismounted. She spoke as if her mouth were full of ashes. “There is not time. It is too great.”
Her dismay hurt Covenant like a demand for wild magic. He wanted to shout, I can’t control it! Don’t you understand? I might kill you all! But she went on speaking as if his power or incapacity had become irrelevant. “You must not die. That is certain.” Her quietness seemed suddenly terrible. “When the way is clear, cross instantly. This march will seal the gap swiftly.” She straightened her shoulders and lifted her face to the sky. “The Grim has found you because of me. Let it be upon my head.”
Before anyone could react, she turned Din and guided it toward the blind rushing creatures. As she moved, she brought up the fire of her rukh, holding it before her like a saber.
Covenant and Sunder sprang after her. But Brinn and Stell interposed themselves. Cursing, the Graveler fought to break free; but Stell mastered him without effort. Furiously Sunder shouted, “Release me! Do you not see that she means to die?”
Covenant ignored Sunder: he locked himself to Brinn’s flat eyes. Softly, dangerously, he breathed, “Don’t do this.”
Brinn shrugged. “I have sworn to preserve your life.”
“Bannor took the same Vow.” Covenant did not struggle. But he glared straight at the Haruchai. People have died because of me. How much more do you think I can stand? “That’s how Elena got killed. I might have been able to save her.”
The Grim began to boil almost directly above the quest. But the Cavewight-like creatures were unaware of it. They marched on like blind doom, shredding the dirt of the plains.
“Bannor maintained his Vow,” Brinn said, as if it cost him no effort to refute Covenant. “So the old tellers say, and their tale has descended from Bannor himself. It was First Mark Morin, sworn to the High Lord, who failed.” He nodded toward Ceer. In response, Ceer sprinted after Memla and vaulted lightly onto Din’s back. “We also,” Brinn concluded, “will maintain the promise we have made, to the limit of our strength.”
But Memla reacted in rage too thick for shouting. “By the Seven Hells!” she panted, “I will not have this. You have sworn nothing to me.” Brandishing her rukh, she faced Ceer. “If you do not dismount, I will burn you with my last breath, and all this company shall die for naught!”
Memla! Covenant tried to yell. But he could not. He had nothing to offer her; his fear of wild magic choked him. Helplessly he watched as Ceer hesitated, glanced toward Brinn. The Haruchai consulted together in silence, weighing their commitments. Then Ceer sprang to the ground and stepped out of Din’s way.
No! Covenant protested. She’s going to get herself killed!
He had no time to think. Gloaming occluded the atmosphere. The ravening Grim poised itself above Memla, focused on her fire. The heavens around the cloud remained impossibly cerulean; but the cloud itself was pitch and midnight. It descended as it seethed, dropping toward its victims.
Under it, the air crackled as if it were being scorched.
The Coursers skittered. Sunder took out his orcrest, then seized Hollian’s hand and pulled her to the far side of the circle, away from Memla. The Haruchai flowed into defensive positions among the companions and the milling beasts.
Amid the swirl of movement, Vain stood, black under black, as if he were inured to darkness.
Hergrom placed himself near Vain. But Memla was planning to die; Linden was foundering in ill; and Covenant felt outraged by the unanswerable must/must not of his ring. He yelled at Hergrom, “Let him take care of himself!”
The next instant, he staggered to his knees. The air shattered with a heart-stopping concussion. The Grim broke into bits, became intense black flakes floating downward like a fall of snow.
With fearsome slowness, they fell—crystals of sun-darkness, tangible night, force which not even stone could withstand.
Howling defiance, Memla launched fire at the sky.
Din bunched under her and charged out into the march of the creatures. A series of tremendous heaves carried beast and Rider toward the center of the stream.
The flakes of the Grim drifted in her direction, following the lodestone of her rukh. Its dense center, the nexus of its might, passed beyond the quest.
The creatures immediately mobbed her mount. Din let out a piercing scream at the tearing of claws and mandibles. Only the plunging of its hooves, the slash of its spurs, the thickness of its coat, protected it.
Then the Grim fell skirling around her head. Her fire blazed: she lashed out, trying to keep herself and Din from being touched. Every flake her flame struck burst in a glare of darkness, and was gone. But for every flake she destroyed, she was assailed by a hundred more.
Covenant watched her in an agony of helplessness, knowing that if he turned to his ring now he could not strike for her without striking her. The Grim was thickest around her; but its edges covered the march as well as the quest. The creatures were swept into confusion as killing bits as big as fists fell among them.
Vermeil shot from Sunder’s orcrest toward the darkened sun. Covenant yelled in encouragement. By waving the Sunstone back and forth, the Graveler picked flakes out of the air with his shaft, consuming them before they could reach him or Hollian.
Around the company, the Haruchai dodged like dervishes. They used flails of pampas grass to strike down the flakes. Each flake destroyed the whip which touched it; but the Haruchai snatched up more blades and went on fighting.
Abruptly Covenant was thrust from his feet. A piece of blackness missed his face. Brinn pitched him past it, then jerked him up again. Heaving Covenant from side to side, Brinn danced among the falling Grim. Several flakes hit where they had been standing. Obsidian flares set fire to the grass.
The grass began to burn in scores of places.
Yet Vain stood motionless, with a look of concentration on his face. Flakes struck his skin, his tunic. Instead of detonating, they melted on him and ran hissing down his raiment, his legs, like water on hot metal.
Covenant gaped at the Demondim-spawn, then lost sight of him as Brinn went dodging through the smoke.
He caught a glimpse of Memla. She fought extravagantly for her life, hurled fire with all the outrage of her betrayal by the na-Mhoram. But the focus of the Grim formed a mad swarm around her. And the moiling creatures had already torn Din to its knees. In patches, its hide had been bared to the bone.
Without warning, a flake struck the Courser’s head. Din collapsed, tumbling the Rider headlong among the creatures.
Memla! Covenant struggled to take hold of his power. But Brinn’s thrusting and dodging reft nun of concentration. And already he was too late.
Yet Ceer leaped forward with the calm abandon of the Haruchai. Charging into the savagery, he fought toward Memla.
She regained her feet in a splash of fire. For an instant, she stood, gallant and tattered, hacking fury at the creatures. Ceer almost reached her.
As she died and dropped her rukh, the four remaining Coursers went berserk.
They erupted as if only her will had contained the madness of their fear. Yowling among the grassfires, two of them dashed out of the circle and fled across the savannah. Another plowed into the breach the Grim had made in the march. As it passed, Ceer suddenly appeared at its side. Fighting free of the creatures, he grabbed at the Courser’s hair and used the beast to pull him away.
The fourth beast attacked the company. Its vehemence caught the Haruchai unprepared. Its eyes burned scarlet as it plunged against Hergrom, struck him down with its chest.
Hergrom had been helping Cail to protect Linden.
Instantly the beast reared at her.
Cail tried to shove her aside. She stumbled, fell the wrong way.
Covenant saw her sprawl under the Courser’s hooves. One of them clipped her head as the beast stamped, trying to crush her.
Again the Courser reared.
Cail stood over her. Covenant could not strike without hitting the Haruchai. He fought to run forward.
As the Courser hammered down, Cail caught its legs. For one impossible moment, he held the huge animal off her. Then it began to bend him.
Linden!
With a prodigious effort, Cail heaved the Courser to the side. Its hooves missed Linden as they landed.
Blood appeared. From shoulder to elbow, Cail’s left arm had been ripped open by one of the beast’s spurs.
It reared again.
Covenant’s mind went instantly white with power. But before he could grasp it, use it, Brinn knocked him away from another cluster of flakes. The grass was giddy fire and death, whirling. He flipped to his feet and swung back toward Linden; but his heart had already frozen within him.
As his vision cleared, he saw Sunder hurl a blast of Sunbane-fire which struck the Courser’s chest, knocking it to its knees. Lurching upright again, it pounded its pain away from the quest.