Soon the company was on its way, moving at a hard canter down the path which Memla invoked from the Banefire. Her urgency and Covenant's tight dread infected the Stonedownors, marked even Linden. The quest rode in silence, as if they could feel the Grim poised like a blade at the backs of their necks.
The jungle under the sun of pestilence aggravated Covenant's sense of impending disaster. The insects thronged around him like incarnations of disease. Every malformed bough and bush was a-crawl with malformed bugs. Some of the trees were so heavily veined with termites that the wood looked leprous. And the smell of rot had become severe. Under the aegis of the Sunbane, his guts ached, half expecting the vegetation to break open and begin suppurating.
Time dragged. Weakness crept through his muscles again. When the company finally rode into the relief of sunset, his neck and shoulders throbbed from the strain of looking backward for some sign of the Grim. Shivers ran through the marrow of his bones. As soon as Memla picked a camping place under the shelter of a megalithic stand of eucalyptus, he dropped to the ground, hoping to steady himself on the Earth's underlying granite. But his hands and feet were too numb to feel anything.
Around him, his companions dismounted. Almost at once, Linden went over to Hollian. The flesh of Linden's face was pale and taut, stretched tight over her skull. She accosted the eh-Brand purposefully, but then had to fumble for words. “The insects,” she murmured. “The smell. It's worse. Worse than any other sun. I can't shut it all out.” Her eyes watched the way her hands clung together, as if only that knot held her in one piece. “I can't-What's it going to be tomorrow?”
Sunder had moved to stand near Hollian. As Linden fell silent, he nodded grimly. “Never in all my life have I faced a sun of pestilence and encountered so little harm.” His tone was hard. “I had not known the Clave could journey so untouched by that which is fear and abhorrence to the people of the Land. And now ur-Lord Covenant teaches us that the Clave's immunity has been purchased by the increase rather than the decline of the Sunbane.” His voice darkened as if he were remembering all the people he had shed. “I do not misdoubt him. But I, too, desire tidings of the morrow's sun.”
Memla indicated with a shrug that such tidings could not alter her anxiety. But Covenant joined Linden and Sunder. He felt suddenly sickened by the idea that perhaps the soothtell had been a lie designed by Gibbon-Raver to mislead him. If two days of rain were followed by only two days of pestilence-Gripping himself, he waited for Hollian's response.
She acceded easily. Her light smile reminded him that she was not like Sunder. With her Iianar and her skill, she had always been able to touch the Sunbane for the benefit of others; she had never had to kill people to obtain blood. Therefore she did not loathe her own capabilities as Sunder did his.
She stepped a short distance away to give herself space, then took out her dirk and wand. Seating herself on the leaves which littered the ground, she summoned her concentration. Covenant, Linden, and Sunder watched intently as she placed the Iianar on her lap, gripped her dirk in her left hand and directed the point against her right palm. The words of invocation soughed past her lips. They clasped the company like a liturgy of worship for something fatal. Even the Haruchai left their tasks to stand ready. The thought that she was about to cut herself made Covenant scowl; but he had long ago left behind the days when he could have protested what she was doing.
Slowly, she drew a small cut on her palm. As blood welled from the incision, she closed her fingers on the Iianar. Dusk had deepened into night around the quest, concealing her from the watchers. Yet even Covenant's impercipient senses could feel her power thickening like motes of fire concatenating towards flame. For a bated moment, the air was still. Then she sharpened her chant, and the wand took light.
Red flames bloomed like Sunbane orchids. They spread up into the air and down her forearm to the ground. Crimson tendrils curled about her as if she were being overgrown. They seemed bright; but they cast no illumination; the night remained dark.
Intuitively, Covenant understood her fire. With chanting and blood and Iianar, she reached out toward the morrow's sun; and the flames took their colour from what that sun would be. Her fire was the precise hue of the sun's pestilential aura.
A third sun of pestilence. He sighed his relief softly. Here, at least, he had no reason to believe that the soothtell had been false.
But before the eh-Brand could relax her concentration, release her foretelling, the fire abruptly changed.
A streak of blackness as absolute as Vain's skin shot from the wood, scarred the flames with ebony. At first, it was only a lash across the crimson. But it grew, expanded among the flames until it dominated them, obscured them.
Quenched them.
Instantly, night covered the companions, isolating them from each other. Covenant could perceive nothing except a fault tang of smoke in the air, as if Hollian's wand had been in danger of being consumed.
He swore hoarsely under his breath and swung out his arms until he touched Brian on one side, Linden on the other. Then he heard feet spring through the leaves and heard Sunder cry, “Hollian!”
The next moment, Memla also cried out in horror. “Sending!” Fire raged from her rukh, cracked like a flail among the trees, making the night lurid. “It comes!” Covenant saw Ceer standing behind the Rider as if to protect her from attack. The other Haruchai formed a defensive ring around the company.
“Gibbon!” Memla howled. “Abomination!” Her fire savaged the air as ft she were trying to strike at Revelstone from a distance of nearly two score leagues. “By all the Seven Hells-!”
Covenant reacted instinctively. He surged into the range of Memla's fire and gripped her forearms to prevent her from striking at him. “Memla!” he yelled into her face. “Memla! How much time have we got?”
His grip or his demand reached her. Her gaze came into focus on him. With a convulsive shudder, she dropped her fire, let darkness close over the quest. When she spoke, her voice came out of the night like the whispering of condor wings.
"There is time. The Grim cannot instantly cross so many leagues. Perhaps as much as a day remains to us.
“But it is the na-Mhoram's Grim, and has been two days in the raising. Such a sending might break Revelstone itself.”
She took a breath which trembled. “Ur-Lord, we cannot evade this Grim. It will follow my rukh and rend us utterly.” Her voice winced in her throat. “I had believed that the wild magic would give us hope. But if it is beyond your control-”
At Covenant's back, a small flame jumped into life and caught wood. Sunder had lit a faggot. He held it up like a torch, lifting the company out of the dark.
Hollian was gasping through her teeth, fighting not to cry out. The violation of her foretelling had hurt her intimately.
“That's right,” Covenant gritted. “I can't control it.” His hands manacled Memla's wrists, striving to keep her from hysteria, “Hang on. Think. We've got to do something about this.” His eyes locked hers. “Can you leave your rukh behind?”
“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 mid-morning, 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 untrammelled 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 conies!”
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 armoured 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 fore-skulls 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.”
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 pret
ernatural 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 sabre.
Covenant and Sunder sprang after her. But Brinn and Stell interposed themselves. Cursing, the Graveller 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.”
“Banner 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 Cavewightlike 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."
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