Covenant came to Linden's side. “Watch them,” he breathed. “Watch them hard. If they get into trouble, we've got to stop them. I can't stand- “ He muttered a curse at himself. ”Can't afford to lose them.”
She nodded mutely. The clangour of battle frayed her attention, urged it away from the Stonedownors. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself into focus on Sunder and Hollian. Around her, the edges of the landscape throbbed with the sun's lambency, the hue of blood.
Sunder bowed his head for a moment, then reached into his jerkin and drew out his Sunstone and the wrapped krill. The orcrest he set down squarely between himself and Hollian. It lay like a hollow space in the dead dirt; its strange translucence revealed nothing.
Hollian produced her lianar, placed it across her ankles. A soft invocation began to sough between her lips as she raised her palms to Sunder. She was the eh-brand: she would have to guide the power to its purpose.
Dread twisted Sunder's visage. His hands shook as he exposed the krill, let its light shine into his eyes. Using the cloth to protect his grip from the krill's heat, he directed its tip at Hollian's palms.
Covenant winced as the Graveler drew a cut down the centre of each of her hands.
Blood streaked her wrists. Her face was pale with pain, but she did not flinch. Lowering her arms, she let thick drops fall onto the orcrest until all its surface was wet. Then she took up her wand.
Sunder sat before her as if he wanted to scream; but somehow he forced his passion to serve him. With both fists, he gripped the handle of the krill, its tip aimed upward in front of his chest. The eh-brand held her lianar likewise, echoing his posture.
The sun was almost directly above them.
Faintly, Linden heard the First cursing, felt an emanation of Giantish pain. Pieces of the ur-viles' power gathered together, became more effective. With a groan like a sob, Pitchwife fore himself from the Stonedownors and ran past the ridge to help his wife.
Sweating under the sun of pestilence, Linden watched as Sunder and the eh-brand reached krill and lianar toward each other.
His arms shook slightly; hers were precise. Her knuckles touched his, wand rested against krill-gem, along a line between the bloodied orcrest and the sun.
And hot force stung through Linden as a vermeil shaft sprang from the Sunstone. It encompassed the hands of the Stonedownors, the blade and the wand, and shot away into the heart of the sun.
Power as savage as lightning: the keen might of the Sunbane. Sunder's lips pulled back from his teeth. Hollian's eyes widened as if the sheer size of what she was attempting suddenly appalled her. But neither she nor the Graveler withdrew.
Covenant's half-hand had taken hold of Linden's arm. Three points of pain dug into her flesh. On the Sandwall, for entirely different reasons, Cail had gripped her in that same way. She thought she could hear the First's sword hacking against distorted limbs, hideous torsos. Vain's anger did not relent. The strain of Pitchwife's breathing came clearly through the blood-fury of the ur-viles.
Their lore grew sharper.
But the scalding shaft of Sunbane force had a white core. Argent blazed within the beam, reaching like the will of the Stonedownors to pierce the sun. It came from the gem of the krill and the clenched strength of Sunder's determination.
It pulled him so far out of himself that Linden feared he was already lost.
She started forward, wildly intending to hurl herself upon him, call him back. But then the eh-brand put forth her purpose; and Linden froze in astonishment.
In the heart of the gem appeared a frail, blue glimmer.
Sensations of power howled silently against Linden's nerves, scaled upward out of comprehension, as the blue gleam steadied, became stronger. Flickers of it bled into the beam and flashed toward the sun. Still it became stronger, fed by the eh-brand's resolve. At first, it appeared molten and limited, torn from itself drop after drop by a force more compelling than gravity. But Hollian renewed it faster than it bled. Soon it was running up the beam in bursts so rapid that the shaft seemed to Sicker.
Yet the aura around the sun showed no sign of alteration.
The Stonedownors chanted desperately, driving their exertion higher; but their voices made no sound. The incandescent beam absorbed their invocations directly into itself. Soundless force screamed across Linden's hearing. Something inside her gibbered. Stop them stop they'll kill themselves stop! But she could not. She could not tell the difference between their agony and the wailing in her mind.
The krill's jewel shone blue. Constant azure filled the core of the shaft, hurled itself upward. Still the aura around the sun did not change.
The next instant, the power became too great.
The lianar caught fire. It burst in Hollian's hands, shedding a bright vehemence that nearly blinded Linden. The wood flared to cinders, burned the eh-Brand's palms to the bone. A cry ripped through her. The shaft wavered, faltered.
But she did not fall back. Leaning into the power, she closed her naked hands around the blade of the krill.
At her touch, the shaft erupted, shattering the Sunstone, shattering the heavens. The ground wrenched itself aside in a convulsion of pain, sent Linden and Covenant sprawling. She landed on him while the hills reeled. The air was driven from his lungs. She rolled off him, fought to get her feet under her. The earth quivered like outraged flesh.
Another concussion seemed to wipe everything else out of the world. It rent the sky as if the sun had exploded. Linden fell again, writhed on the heaving dirt. Before her face, the dust danced like shocked water, leaving fine whorls in the wake of the blast. The light faded as if the fist of the heavens had begun to close.
When she raised her head, she saw tremendous thunderheads teeming toward her from all the horizons, rushing to seal themselves over the sun's blue corona.
For an instant, she could not think, had forgotten how to move. There was no sound at all except the oncoming passion of the rain. Perhaps the battle beyond the ridge was over. But then awareness recoiled through her like a thunderclap. Surging in panic to her hands and knees, she flung her percipience toward the Stonedownors.
Sunder sat as if the detonation of earth and sky had not touched him. His head was bowed. The krill lay on the ground in front of him, its handle still partially covered. The fringes of the cloth were charred. His breathing was shallow, almost indiscernible. In his chest, his heart limped like a mauled thing from beat to beat. To Linden's first alarm, his life looked like the fading smoke of a snuffed wick. Then her health-sense reached deeper, and she saw that he would live.
But Hollian lay twisted on her back, her cut and heat-mangled palms open to the mounting dark. Her black hair framed the pale vulnerability of her face, pillowed her head like the cupped hand of death. Between her lost lips trickled a delicate trail of blood.
Scrambling wildly across the dirt. Linden dove for the eh-brand, plunged her touch into HoIlian and tried to call back her spirit before it Bed altogether. But it was going fast; Linden could not hold it. Hollian had been damaged too severely. Linden's fingers clutched at the slack shoulders, tried to shake breath back into the lungs; but there was nothing she could do. Her hands were useless. She was just an ordinary woman, incapable of miracles-able to see nothing dearly except the extent of her failure.
As she watched, the life ran out of the eh-brand. The red rivulet from her mouth slowed and stopped.
Power: Linden had to have power. But grief closed her off from everything. She could not reach the sun. The Earth was desecrated and dying. And Covenant had changed. At times in the past, she had tapped wild magic from him without his volition; but that was no longer possible. He was a new being, an alloy of fire and person. His might was inaccessible without possession. And if she had been capable of doing that to him, it would have taken time-time which Hollian had already lost.
The eh-Brand looked pitifully small in death, valiant and fragile beyond endurance. And her son also, gone without so much as a single chance at li
fe. Linden stared blindly at the failure of her hands. The krill-gem glared into her face.
From all directions at once, the rain ran forward, hissing like flame across the dirt.
Drops of water splashed around her as Covenant took hold of her, yanked her toward him. Unwillingly, she felt the feral thrust of his pain. “I told you to watch!” he raged, yelling at her because he had asked the Stonedownors to take this risk in spite of his inability to protect them from the consequences. “I told you to watch.”
Through the approaching clamour of the rain, she heard Sunder groan.
He took an unsteady breath, raised his head. His eyes were glazed, unseeing, empty of mind. For an instant, she thought he was lost as well. But then his hands opened, stretching the cramps from his fingers and forearms, and he blinked several times. His eyes focused on the krill. He reached out to it stiffly, wrapped it back in its cloth, tucked it away under his jerkin.
Then the drizzle caught his attention. He looked toward Hollian.
At once, he lurched to his feet. Fighting the knots in his muscles, the ravages of power, he started toward her.
Linden shoved herself in front of him. “Sunder!” she tried to say. It's my fault. I'm so sorry. From the beginning, failure had dogged her steps as if it could never be redeemed.
He did not heed her. With one arm, he swept her out of his way so forcefully that she stumbled. A blood-ridden intensity glared from his orbs. He had lost one wife and son before he had met Linden and Covenant. Now they had cost him another. He bent over Hollian for a moment as if he feared to touch her. His arms hugged the anguish in his chest. Then, fiercely, he stooped to her and rose again, lifting her out of the new mud, cradling her like a child. His howl rang through the rain, transforming the downpour to grief:
“Hollian!”
Abruptly, the First hove out of the thickening dark with Pitchwife behind her. She was panting hugely. Blood squeezed from the wide wound in her side where the lore of the ur-viles had burned her. Pitchwife's face was aghast at the things he had done.
Neither of them seemed to see Hollian. “Come!” called the First. “We must make our way now! Vain yet withholds the ur-viles from us. If we flee, we may hope that he will follow and be saved!”
No one moved. The rain belaboured Linden's head and shoulders Covenant had covered his face with his hands. He stood immobile in the storm as if he could no longer bear the cost of what he had become. Sunder breathed in great, raw hunks of hurt, but did not weep. He remained hunched over Hollian, concentrating on her as if the sheer strength of his desire might bring her back.
The First gave a snarl of exasperation. Still she appeared unaware of what had happened. Aggravated by her injury, she brooked no refusal. “Come, I say!” Roughly, she took hold of Covenant and Linden, dragged them toward the watercourse.
Pitchwife followed, tugging Sunder.
They scrambled down into the riverbed. The water racing there frothed against the thick limbs of the Giants, Linden could hardly keep her feet. She clung to the First. Soon the river rose high enough to carry the company away.
Rain hammered at them as if it were outraged by its untimely birth. The riverbanks were invisible. Linden saw no sign of the ur-viles or Vain. She did not know whether she and her friends had escaped.
But the lightning that tore the heavens gave her sudden glimpses around her. One of them revealed Sunder. He swam ahead of Pitchwife. The Giant braced him with one hand from behind.
He still bore Hollian in his arms. Carefully, he kept her head above water as if she were alive.
At intervals through the loud rain and the thunder. Linden heard him keening.
Fourteen: The Last Bourne
AT first, the water was so muddy that it sickened Linden. Every involuntary mouthful left sand in her throat, grit on her teeth. Rain and thunder fragmented her hearing. At one moment, she felt totally deaf; the next, sound went through her like a slap. Dragged down by her clothes and heavy shoes, she would have been exhausted in a short time without the First's support. The Swordmain's wound was a throbbing pain that reached Linden in spite of the chaos of water, the exertion of swimming. Yet the Giant bore both Covenant and the Chosen through the turmoil.
But as the water rose it became clearer, less conflicted-and colder. Linden had forgotten how cold a fast river could be with no sunlight on it anywhere. The chill leeched into her, sucking at her bones. It whispered to her sore nerves that she would be warmer if she lowered herself beneath the surface, out of the air and the battering rain. Only for a moment, it suggested kindly. Until you feel warmer. You've already failed. It doesn't matter anymore. You deserve to feel warmer.
She knew what she deserved. But she ignored the seduction, clung instead to the First-concentrated on the hurt in the Giant's side. The cleaner water washed most of the sand and blood from the burn; and the First was hardy. Linden was not worried about infection. Yet she poured her percipience toward that wound, put herself into it until her own side wailed as if she had been gored, then, deliberately, she numbed the sensation, reducing the First's pain to a dull ache.
The cold frayed her senses, sapped her courage. Lightning and thunder blared above her, and she was too small to endure them. Rain nailed the face of the river. But she clinched herself to her chosen use and did not let go while the current bore the company hurtling down the length of the long afternoon.
At last the day ended. The torrents thinned; the clouds rolled back. Legs scissoring, the First laboured across to the west bank, then struggled out of the water and stood trembling on the sodden ground. In a moment, Pitchwife joined her. Linden seemed to feel his bones rattling in an ague of weariness.
Covenant looked as pale as a weathered tombstone, his lips blue with cold, gall heavy on his features. “We need a fire,” he said as if that, too, were his fault.
Sunder walked up the wet slope without a glance at his companions. He was hunched over Hollian as though his chest were full of broken glass. Beyond the reach of the river, he stumbled to his knees, lowered Hollian gently to the ground. He settled her limbs to make her comfortable. His blunt fingers caressed the black strands of hair from her face, tenderly combed her tresses out around her head. Then he seated himself beside her and wrapped his arms over his heart, huddling there as if his sanity had snapped.
Pitchwife unshouldered his pack, took out a Giantish firepot which had somehow remained sealed against the water. Next he produced a few faggots from his scant supply of firewood. They were soaked, and he was exhausted; but he bent over them and blew raggedly until they took flame from the firepot. Nursing the blaze, he made it hot enough to sustain itself. Though it was small and pitiable, it gave enough heat to soften the chill in Linden's joints, the gaunt misery in Covenant's eyes.
Then Pitchwife offered them diamondraught. But they refused it until he and the First had each swallowed a quantity of the potent liquor. Because of his cramped lungs and her injury, the Giants were in sore need of sustenance. After that, however. Linden took a few sips which ran true warmth at last into her stomach.
Bitterly, as if he were punishing himself, Covenant accepted the pouch of diamondraught from her; but he did not drink. Instead, he forced his stiff muscles and brittle bones toward Sunder.
His offer produced no reaction from the Graveler. In a burned and gutted voice Covenant urged, pleaded. Sunder did not raise his head. He remained focused on Hollian as if his world had shrunk to that frail compass and his companions no longer impinged upon him. After a while Covenant shambled back to the fire, sat down, and covered his face with his hands.
A moment later, Vain appeared.
He emerged from the night into the campfire's small illumination and resumed at once his familiar blank stance. An ambiguous smile curved his mouth. The passion Linden had felt from him was gone. He appeared as insentient and unreachable as ever. His wooden forearm had been darkened and charred, but the damage was only superficial.
His left arm was withered and
useless, like a congenital deformity. Pain oozed from several deep sores. Mottled streaks the colour of ash marred his ebony flesh.
Instinctively, Linden started toward him, though she knew that she could not help him, that his wounds were as imponderable as his essential nature. She sensed that he had attacked the ur-viles for his own reasons, not to aid or even acknowledge the company; yet she felt viscerally that the wrong his sculptured perfection had suffered was intolerable. Once he had bowed to her. And more than once he had saved her life. Someone had to at least try to help him.
But before she reached him, a wide, winged shape came out of the stars like the plunge of a condor. Changing shapes as it descended, it landed lightly beside the Demondim-spawn in human form.
Findail.
He did not look at Covenant or Linden, ignored Sunder’s hunched and single minded grief; instead, he addressed Vain.
“Do not believe that you will win my heart with bravery.” His voice was congested with old dismay, covert and unmistakable fear. His eyes seemed to search the Demondim-spawn's inscrutable soul. “I desire your death. If it lay within the permit of my wϋrd, I would slay you. But these comrades for whom you care nothing have again contrived to redeem you.” He paused as if he were groping for courage, then concluded softly, “Though I abhor your purpose, the Earth must not suffer the cost of your pain.”
Suddenly lambent, his right hand reached out to Vain's left shoulder. An instant of fire blazed from the touch, cast startling implications which only Linden could hear into the fathomless night. Then it was gone. Findail left Vain, went to stand like a sentinel confronting the moonlit prospect of tile east.
The First breathed a soft oath of surprise. Pitchwife gaped in wonder Covenant murmured curses as if he could not believe what he had seen.
Vain's left arm was whole, completely restored to its original beauty and function.
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