But Linden lay under the Grim, surrounded by growing fires, and did not move.
TWENTY-TWO: Plain of Fire
Fires leaped in front of him, obscuring her from his sight. The Grim-fall darkened the air. The thrashing and clatter of the creatures filled his ears. He could not see if Linden were still alive. Brinn kept heaving him from side to side, kept lashing handfuls of grass around his head.
Sunder’s fire scored the atmosphere like straight red lightning. Now the corrosive flakes began to concentrate around him.
Covenant broke free of Brinn, went surging toward Linden.
Hergrom had lifted her from the ground. The Haruchai carried her in an elaborate dance of evasion. She hung limp in his arms. Blood seeping from the back of her head matted her hair.
An argent shout gathered in Covenant’s chest.
But as he raised his head to howl power, he saw the blackness around the sun fraying. Pestilential red glistered through the ebony. The last Grim-flakes were drifting toward Sunder’s head. The Graveler was able to consume them all.
At once, Covenant locked his throat, left the wild magic unspoken. In a rush, he reached Hergrom and Linden.
Cail stood nearby. He had torn a strip from his tunic; with Harn’s help, he bound the cloth as a tourniquet about his arm. His ripped flesh bled heavily.
The other Haruchai were marked with smoke and fire, but had not been injured. And Sunder and Hollian were unharmed, though his exertions left the Graveler tottering. Hollian supported him.
Vain stood a short distance away as if nothing had happened. Flames licked about his feet like crushed serpents.
Covenant ignored them all. Linden’s visage was lorn alabaster. Blood stained her wheaten tresses. Her lips wore an unconscious grimace of pain. He tried to take her from Hergrom’s arms; but Hergrom would not release her.
“Ur-Lord.” Brinn’s alien voice seemed incapable of urgency. “We must go. Already the gap closes.”
Covenant pulled uselessly at Hergrom’s grasp. It was intolerable that she might die! She was not meant to end like this. Or why had she been Chosen? He called out to her, but did not know how to reach her.
“Covenant!” Sunder’s ragged breathing made his tone hoarse. “It is as Brinn says. The na-Mhoram-in spent her life to provide this passage. We must go.”
Memla. That name pierced Covenant. She had given her life. Like Lena. And so many others. With a shudder, he turned from Hergrom. His hands groped for support. “Yes.” He could hardly hear himself through the flames. “Let’s go.”
At once, the Haruchai sprang into motion. Harn and Stell led the way; Hergrom and Brinn followed with Covenant; Cail guarded Sunder and Hollian. They paid no attention to Vain. In a body, they dodged the grassfires toward the breach in the march.
The creatures milled insanely around the scorched and pitted ground where Memla had fallen. Their leaders had already marched out of sight, incognizant of what had happened behind them. But more warped beings poured constantly from the south. They would have overrun the company immediately; but their own dead delayed them. The arriving creatures fell on the many slain and injured, tearing flesh apart with claws and mandibles, feeding ravenously. And the fires added fear to their hunger.
Into the confusion, the Haruchai guided Covenant and the Stonedownors.
The quest appeared small and fragile beside those large, blind creatures, vulnerable against those ferocious jaws, those plated limbs. But Brinn’s people threaded the roil with uncanny stealth. And whenever a creature blundered toward them, Stell and Harn struck cunningly, breaking the antennae so that the creature could not locate its prey. Thus maimed, the beasts were swept into mortal combat with other creatures. Covenant, Sunder, and Hollian were impelled past gaping jaws, under rearing bellies, across moments of clear ground, as if their lives were preserved by the charm of Haruchai competence.
A few shreds of red cloth marked the place of Memla’s death, unambergrised by any grave or chance for mourning.
Running as well as they could, the companions broke into the thick grass beyond the march. Creatures veered to follow. With all their strength, Stell and Harn attacked the grass, forcing a way through it. Only Vain did not make haste. He had no need for haste: every creature which touched him fell dead, and was devoured by the oncoming surge.
A short distance into the grass, Ceer joined the company. He did not speak; but the object he held explained what he had done.
Memla’s rukh.
The sight of it halted Covenant. Possibilities reeled through his head. He grappled to take hold of them.
But he had no time. A sharp crepitation cut the grass like a scythe; thousands of creatures were chewing their way in pursuit.
Brinn thrust Covenant forward. The company ran.
Ceer, Stell, Brinn, and Harn dropped back to defend the rear. Now Cail led. In spite of his wounded arm and the abrasion of the raw, stiff grass, he forced a path with his body. Hergrom followed, carrying Linden; and Covenant crowded on Hergrom’s heels, with Hollian and Sunder behind him.
The creatures gave chase as if they were prepared to reap the savannah in order to feast on human flesh. The noise of their charge hunted the company like fire.
Cail attacked the thick blades with all the ancient valor of the Haruchai; but he could not open a path swiftly enough to outdistance the pursuit. Covenant soon began to waver in exhaustion. He was still convalescing from the soothtell. Sunder and Hollian were in little better condition. Linden lay like defeat in Hergrom’s arms. And Cail left smears of blood across the grass.
In the back of Covenant’s desperation, a demand panted. Use your ring! But he could not, could not. He was so weak. He began to lose ground. Cail and Hergrom seemed to fade through the whipping backlash of the grass. If he let the venom rise in him, he did not know what he would kill. He heard himself yelling as if his exertions were a knife in his chest; but he could not silence the pain.
Suddenly Brinn was at his side. Speaking only loud enough to be heard, the Haruchai reported, “Cail has found a place which may be defended.”
Covenant staggered, fell thrashing among serrated grass-spears. A miasma of rot clogged his breathing. But Brinn heaved him back to his feet. Vertigo whirled through him. Clinging to Brinn’s shoulder as if it were the only solid thing left in the world, he let the Haruchai half carry him forward.
Cail’s path led to a pile of boulders rising incongruously out of the savannah, like a cairn left by Giants. It stood half again as high the surrounding grass. Hergrom had already climbed to the crown, set Linden down in relative safety, and returned to help Sunder and Hollian ascend. Ignoring his pain, Cail joined Hergrom. Stell and Harn followed. They caught Covenant when Brinn and Ceer boosted him upward.
He scrambled to Linden’s side, fought down his weakness, tried to examine her. Lifting her head, parting her hair as gently as he could with his numb fingers, he found that the wound in her scalp did not appear serious. The bleeding had almost ceased. Yet she remained unconscious. All her muscles were limp. Her face looked like the aftermath of a battle. His truncated senses could not measure her condition. He was useless to her.
Sunder and Hollian climbed up to him. Kneeling beside Linden, Sunder scrutinized her. Fatigue and trepidation dragged at his features. “Ah, Linden Avery,” he breathed. “This is a sore mischance.”
Covenant stifled a groan and sought to contradict the dismay in Sunder’s tone. “It doesn’t look that serious.”
The Graveler avoided Covenant’s stare. “The injury itself—Perhaps even Cail’s hurt does not threaten his life. But this is a sun of pestilence.” He faltered into silence.
“Ur-Lord,” Hollian said tightly, “any wound is fatal under a sun of pestilence. There is no healing for the Sunbane sickness.”
“None?” The word was torn from Covenant.
“None,” Sunder rasped through his teeth. And Hollian said with pain in her gaze, “None that is known to the people of the Land. If the Cl
ave has knowledge of a cure—”
She did not need to complete her thought. Covenant understood her; Memla was dead. Because she was honest, she had turned against the na-Mhoram; because she was brave she had drawn the Grim onto herself; and because Covenant had not used his wild magic, she was dead. His fear had cost her her life.
He had cost the company even the bare possibility that she might have known how to treat Linden. And Cail.
Any wound is fatal.
And that was not all. The Coursers were gone. The quest had no supplies.
It was his fault, because he had been afraid. With power, he tilled. Without power, he caused people to die.
Memla had given her life for him.
Eyes burning, he rose dangerously to his feet. The height of his perch threatened him; but he ignored it as if he were impervious to vertigo, or lost.
“Brinn!”
The Haruchai had ranged themselves defensively around the rocks at the level of the grass tops. Over his shoulder, Brinn said, “Ur-Lord?”
“Why did you let Memla die?”
Brinn replied with a shrug. “The choice was hers.” His confidence in his own rectitude seemed immaculate. “Ceer made offer of his life. She refused.”
Covenant nodded. Memla had refused. Because he had told her he could not control his ring.
He was not satisfied with Brinn’s answer. The Bloodguard had once made a similar decision about Kevin—and had never forgiven themselves for the outcome. But such questions did not matter now. Memla was dead. Linden and Cail were going to die. Blinking at the heat in his eyes, he looked around him.
The quest was poised on the mound of boulders—all except Vain, who remained below, as if he were comfortable among the grass and the stench. The jungle lay out of sight to the west. In all directions, the savannah stretched to the horizons, an inland sea of gray-green, waving lightly in the breeze.
But it wore a scar of bare dirt running imponderably northward. And from this scar, a similar swath had veered toward the company’s knoll. Already the fires of the Grim had faded to smoke and smoldering. Freed from that peril, the creatures rushed in a straight line toward the boulders. The grass boiled as it was thrust aside, tramped down, eaten. Soon the knoll stood alone among a seethe of beasts.
Covenant could barely discern Vain. The Demondim-spawn held his ground with perfect nonchalance, and every creature which touched him died.
The Haruchai were ready when the attack began. As the creatures scrambled up the rocks, Brinn and his people used the advantage of elevation to break each assailant’s antennae, then strove to dislodge the creature so that it fell back into the boil and was consumed.
They were surprisingly successful. Their strength, accuracy, and balance made them effective; and the fallen beasts slowed the rest of the attack.
But the knoll was too large; five Haruchai could not defend it completely. Gradually they were driven backward.
Covenant did not hesitate. Cold fury filled his bones like power. Snarling at himself, he pulled the bundle from under his belt and unwrapped the krill of Loric Vilesilencer.
The brightness of its gem stopped him momentarily; he had forgotten the intensity of that white, pure light, the keenness of the edges, the heat of the metal. A leper’s fear made him reluctant to touch the krill without the protection of cloth.
But then the company’s need came over him like a geas. His fingers were already numb, irrelevant. No burn could alter the doom which defined him. He dropped the cloth, took the krill in his half-hand, and went to join the Haruchai.
Beings like misborn Cavewights came jerking upward on their long limbs. Their claws scored the stone; their jaws gaped and clacked. One gouge could disembowel him; one bite could sever an arm. Their feelers reached toward him.
Moving as if he were accursed, he began to slash at them.
The krill sliced their plating like bare flesh, cut through antennae, even mandibles, as if the blade were a broadsword with the weight and puissance of a Giant behind it. The krill was a tool of Law, and the creatures were the Lawless spawn of the Sunbane. A dull ache of fire spread up through Covenant’s palm to his wrist, his arm; but he hacked and flailed urgently, and his every stroke sent a beast to the ungentle death of the mass below it.
Soon Sunder joined the defense. His poniard was not a good weapon for such work; but he was sturdy, and his blade could cripple feelers. He was unable to dislodge the beasts as the Haruchai did. But often that was unnecessary. With damaged antennae, the creatures became disoriented, turned aside, grappled with each other, toppled to the ground. And Stell or Ceer warded him.
The attack did not falter; hundreds of creatures replaced the scores which fell. But the company held. In time, all the ground around the knoll was denuded of grass; and a storm of mute rage covered the bare dirt, seeking to strike upward. But only a certain number of beasts could assail the boulders at any one moment. Against these limited numbers, the company held. Their ordeal dragged out like slow torture. Covenant’s arms became leaden; he had to grip the krill in both hands. Sunder kept up a mutter of curses, lashing himself to continue the struggle long after he had exhausted his strength. But Hollian gave him periods of rest by taking his place, using his poniard because her dirk was too small for the task. And Vain’s power helped, though he seemed unaware of what he did. The company held.
The afternoon wore on. Covenant became little more than a blank reflex. He grew numb to the passage of time, the progress of the assault. His joints were cramped with fire. Time and again, Brinn saved him from attacks he was too slow to meet.
He hardly noticed when the sun started to set, and the frenzy of the creatures began to abate. At the onset of twilight, the beasts seemed to lose purpose or direction. By ones and twos, then by scores, they scuttled away, wandering hurriedly into the grass. As dusk thickened over the savannah, the goad of the Sunbane faded. Soon all the creatures were fleeing.
Covenant stopped. His heart trembled like prostration in his chest. He was gasping for breath. He dropped the krill among the rocks. The knoll tilted under him. On his hands and knees, he tried to crawl up to Linden. But he could not reach her. His dizziness became suddenly violent. It whirled him out into the blind night.
Sometime after the moon had passed its apex, he was awakened by Linden’s knotted retching as she went into convulsions.
He lurched upright and groped through a blur of fatigue, hunger, thirst, to try to see what was happening.
The crown of the boulders was lit by the krill; it had been wedged among the stones so that it shed illumination over the company. Sunder and Hollian crouched beside Linden, watching her anxiously. Ceer and Hergrom restrained her so that she would not hurt herself, as long, mad clenchings shook her muscles.
On the lower boulders, the other Haruchai clustered as if they were fighting each other. With a quick glance, Covenant saw Brinn, Stell, and Harn struggling to quell Cail. Like Linden, the injured Haruchai lay in the grip of frenetic seizures.
Seeing Covenant, Sunder rasped grimly, “The sun of pestilence has infected her wound. From this sickness none recover.”
Oh, God.
A rush of panic started up in him, then shattered as he realized that Linden was gagging, choking on her tongue.
He grabbed for her face and tried to pry her jaws open. But he could not break the locking of her teeth. Her whole body sprang rigid.
“She’s swallowed her tongue! Get her mouth open!”
Instantly Ceer clinched both her wrists in his left hand. With his right, he tried to wedge open her jaws. For one heartbeat, even his strength was not enough. Then he succeeded in forcing her teeth apart. She quivered under a lash of pain. Holding her mouth open with the width of his hand, he reached deftly down her throat, cleared her tongue.
She drew breath as if she wanted to scream; but convulsions blocked the wail in her chest.
With a feral spasm, Cail hurled Brinn from him. Twisting in the air, Brinn landed lightly
on the ground, came bounding upward again as Stell and Harn grappled with their kinsman.
Linden’s face was ghastly in the sunlight. Her breathing wept in and out of her excruciated lungs.
Cail sounded as if he were asphyxiating. An obscure part of Covenant thought, He’s immune to the Sunbane. There must have been poison in the spur.
He concentrated on Linden as if he could keep her alive by sheer force of will. His hand shook as he stroked her forehead, wiped the sweat away; but he could feel nothing.
“Ur-Lord,” Hollian said in a stretched whisper, “I must speak of this. It must be uttered.” He could not read her countenance; her face was averted from the krill. Out of the shadow, she breathed, “I have consulted the lianar. The morrow will bring a desert sun.”
Covenant clung to Linden’s torment, willing it to ease. “I don’t give a damn.”
“There is more.” Hollian’s tone sharpened. She was an eh-Brand, accustomed to respect. “There will be fire, as if the sun were a sun of flame. This will become a place of ill. We must flee.”
“Now?”
“At once. We must return to the west—to the soil where trees grow. The earth of this grassland will be death to us.”
“She’s in no condition!” His sudden fury shocked the night, struck the company into a silence punctuated only by the hoarse breathing of the injured. With a wrench of his shoulders, he dismissed Hollian’s warning. “I’m not going to move her.”
She started to protest. Sunder interrupted her gruffly. “He is the ur-Lord.”
“He is wrong. The truth must be met. These deaths cannot be prevented. To remain here will be death for us all.”
“He is the ur-Lord.” Sunder’s roughness grew gentle. “Every task to which he sets his hand is impossible—yet it is accomplished. Have courage, eh-Brand.”
Linden broke into another series of spasms. Watching the way her illness brutalized her, Covenant feared that every breath would be her last. But then, abruptly, her convulsions ended; she fell limp as if the puppet strings of her plight had been cut. Slowly, her respiration deepened as she sank into the sleep of exhaustion.