Lord Foul's Bane

A cry of amazement and admiration came from the Ramen. Few of the oldest Manethralls had ever seen so many Ranyhyn at one time.

And Covenant knew that he was looking at the proudest flesh of the Land. He feared that they were going to trample him.

But the pounding wall broke away to his left, ran around him until he was completely encircled. Manes and tails tossing, forehead stars catching the firelight as they flashed past, five score Ranyhyn thundered on the turf and enclosed him. The sound of their hooves roared in his ears.

Their circle drew tighter as they ran. Their reeling strength snatched at his fear, pulled him around with them as if he were trying to face them all at once. His heart laboured painfully. He could not turn fast enough to keep up with them. The effort made him stumble, lose his balance, fall to his knees.

But the next instant, he was erect again, with his legs planted against the vertigo of their circling, and his face contorted as if he were screaming-a cry lost in the thunder of Ranyhyn hooves. His arms spread as if they were braced against opposing walls of night.

Slowly, tortuously, the circle came stamping and fretting to a halt. The Ranyhyn faced inward toward Covenant. Their eyes rolled, and several of them had froth on their lips. At first, he failed to comprehend their emotion.

From the onlookers came a sudden cry: He recognized Llaura's voice. Turning, he saw Pietten running toward the horses, with Llaura struggling after him, too far behind to catch him. The child had caught everyone by surprise; they had been watching Covenant. Now Pietten reached the circle and scrambled among the frenzied feet of the Ranyhyn.

It seemed impossible that he would not be trampled. His head was no larger than one of their hooves, and the chargers were stamping, skittering. Then Covenant saw his chance. With an instinctive leap, he snatched Pietten from under one of the horses.

His half-unfingered hand could not retain its grip; Pietten sprawled away from him. Immediately, the child jumped to his feet. He dashed at Covenant and struck as hard as he could.

“They hate you!” he raged. “Go away!”

Moonlight fell into the flat as if it had sprung from the sides of the mountain. In the crimson glow, Pietten's little face looked like a wasteland.

The child struggled, but Covenant lifted him off the ground, gripped him to his chest with both arms. Restraining Pietten in his hug, he looked up at the Ranyhyn.

Now he understood. In the past, he had been too busy avoiding them to notice how they reacted to him. They were not threatening him. These great chargers were terrified-terrified of him. Their eyes shied off his face, and they scattered foam flecks about them. The muscles of their legs and chests quivered. Yet they came agonized forward. Their old role was reversed. Instead of choosing their riders, they were submitting themselves to his choice.

On an impulse, he unwrapped his left arm from Pietten and flourished his cold red ring at one of the horses. It flinched and ducked as if he had thrust a serpent at it, but it held its ground.

He gripped Pietten again. The child's struggles were weaker now, as if Covenant's hug slowly smothered him. But the Unbeliever clung. He stared wildly at the Ranyhyn, and wavered as if he could not regain his balance.

But he had already made his decision. He had seen the Ranyhyn recognize his ring. Clenching Pietten to his heart like a helm, he cried, “Listen!” in a voice as hoarse as a sob. “Listen. I'll make a bargain with you. Get it right. Hellfire! Get it right. A bargain. Listen. I can't stand-I'm falling apart. Apart.” He clenched Pietten. “I see-I see what's happening to you. You're afraid. You're afraid of me. You think I'm some kind of-All right. You're free. I don't choose any of you.”

The Ranyhyn watched him fearfully.

“But you've got to do things for me. You've got to back off!” That wail almost took the last of his strength. “You-the Land-” he panted, pleaded, Let me be! “Don't ask so much.” But he knew that he needed something more from them in return for his forbearance, something more than their willingness to suffer his Unbelief.

“Listen-listen. If I need you, you had better come. So that I don't have to be a hero. Get it right.” His eyes bled tears, but he was not weeping.

“And-and there's one more thing. One more. Lena-” Lena! “A girl. She lives in Mithil Stonedown. Daughter of Trell and Atiaran. I want-I want one of you to go to her. Tonight. And every year. At the last full moon before the middle of spring. Ranyhyn are what she dreams about.”

He shook the tears out of his eyes, and saw the Ranyhyn regarding him as if they understood everything he had tried to say.

“Now go,” he gasped. “Have mercy on me.”

With a sudden, bursting, united neigh, all the Ranyhyn reared around him, pawing the air over his head as if they were delivering promises. Then they wheeled, whinnying with relief, and charged away from Manhome. The moonlight did not appear to touch them. They dropped over the edge of the flat and vanished as if they were being welcomed into the arms of the earth.

Almost at once, Llaura reached Covenant's side. Slowly, he released Pietten to her. She gave him a long look that he could not read, then turned away. He followed her, trudging as if he were overburdened with the pieces of himself. He could hear the amazement of the Ramen-amazement too strong for them to feel any offense at what he had done. He was beyond them; he could hear it. “They reared to him,” the whispers ran. But he did not care. He was perversely sick with the sense that he had mastered nothing, proved nothing, resolved nothing.

Lord Mhoram came out to join him. Covenant did not meet Mhoram's gaze, but he heard complex wonder in the Lord's voice as he said, “Ur-Lord- ah! Such honour has never been done to mortal man or woman. Many have come to the Plains, and have been offered to the Ranyhyn-and refused. And when Lord Tamarantha my mother was offered, five Ranyhyn came to consider her-five. It was a higher honour than she had dreamed possible. We could not hear. Have you refused them? Refused?”

“Refused,” Covenant groaned. They hate me.

He pushed past Mhoram and shambled into Manhome. Moving unsteadily, like a ship with a broken keel, he headed toward the nearest cooking fire. The Ramen made way for him, watched him pass with awe in their faces. He did not care. He reached the fire and grabbed the first food he saw. The meat slipped in his halfhand, so he held it with his left fist and devoured it.

He ate, blankly, swallowing food in chunks and taking more by the fistful. Then he wanted something to drink. He looked around, discovered Foamfollower standing nearby with a flagon of diamondraught dwarfed in his huge hand.

Covenant took the flagon and drained it. Then he stood numbly still, waiting for the diamondraught's effect.

It came swiftly. Soon mist began to fill his head. His hearing seemed hollow, as if he were listening to Manhome from the bottom of a well. He knew that he was going to pass out-wanted hungrily to pass out-but before he lost consciousness, the hurt in his chest made him say, “Giant, I–I need friends.”

“Why do you believe that you have none?”

Covenant blinked, and saw everything that he had done in the Land. “Don't be ridiculous.”

“Then you do believe that we are real.”

“What?” Covenant groped for the Giant's meaning with hands which had no fingers.

“You think us capable of not forgiving you,” Foamfollower explained. “Who would forgive you more readily than your dream?”

“No,” the Unbeliever said. “Dreams-never forgive.”

Then he lost the firelight and Foamfollower's kind face, and stumbled into sleep.

Twenty: A Question of Hope