wielder had shown himself to be a man of consequence.
The Ranyhyn were terrified! he snapped to himself. They saw Foul's hold on me, and they were terrified. But he did not remonstrate aloud. He had made a promise of forbearance in return for his survival. Despite the tacit dishonesty of allowing his companions to believe what they wished of him, he held himself still.
As the riders laughed and joked, Manethrall Lithe came to stand before them, followed by several other Manethralls and a large group of Cords. When she had the company's attention, she said, “The Lords have asked for the help of the Ramen in their fight against Fangthane the Render. The Ramen serve the Ranyhyn. We do not leave the Plains of Ra. That is life, and it is good-we ask for nothing else until the end, when all the Earth is Andelain, and man and Ranyhyn live together in peace without wolves or hunger. But we must aid the foes of Fangthane as we can. This we will do. I will go with you. My Cords will go with you if they choose. We will care for your horses on the way. And when you leave them to seek Fangthane's hiding in the ground, we will keep them safe. Lords, accept this service as honour among friends and loyalty among allies.”
At once, the Cords Hurn, Thew, Grace, and Rustah stepped forward and avowed their willingness to go wherever Manethrall Lithe would lead them.
Prothall bowed to Lithe in the Ramen fashion. “The service you offer is great. We know that your hearts are with the Ranyhyn. As friends we would refuse this honour if our need as allies were not so great. The doom of these times compels us to refuse no aid or succour. Be welcome among us. Your hunter skill will greatly ease the hazards of our way. We hope to do you honour in return-if we survive our Quest.”
“Kill Fangthane,” said Lithe. “That will do us honour enough to the end of our days.” She returned Prothall's bow, and all the assembled Ramen joined her.
Then the High Lord spoke to his companions. In a moment, the Quest for the Staff of Law was mounted and ready to ride. Led by Manethrall Lithe and her Cords, the company cantered away from Manhome as if in the village of the Ramen they had found abundant courage.
Twenty One: Treacher's Gorge
THEY crossed the Plains northward in confidence and good spirits. No danger or report of danger appeared anywhere along their way. And the Ranyhyn rode the grasslands like live blazonry, challenges uttered in flesh. Foamfollower told gay tales as if he wished to show that he had reached the end of a passing travail. Quaan and his warriors responded with ripostes and jests. And the Ramen entertained them with displays of hunting skill. The company rode late into the first night, in defiance of the dismal moon. And the second night, they camped on the south bank of Roamsedge Ford.
But early the next morning they crossed the Ford and turned northeast up a broad way between the Roamsedge and Morinmoss. By mid-afternoon, they reached the eastmost edge of the Forest. From there, the Roamsedge, the northern border of the Plains, swung more directly eastward, and the company went on northeast, away from both Morinmoss and the Plains of Ra. That night, they slept on the edge of a stark, unfriendly flatland where no people lived and few willingly travelled. The whole region north of them was cut and scarred and darkened like an ancient battleground, a huge field that had been ruined by the shedding of too much blood. Scrub grass, stunted trees, and a few scattered
As the Quest angled northeastward across this land, Mhoram told Covenant some of its history. It spread east to Landsdrop, and formed the natural front of attack for Lord Foul's armies in the ancient wars. From the Fall of the River Landrider to Mount Thunder was open terrain along the great cliff of Landsdrop. The hordes issuing from Foul's Creche could ascend in scores of places to bring battle to the Upper Land. So it was that the first great battles in all the Land's wars against the Despiser occurred across this ravaged plain. Age after age, the defenders strove to halt Lord Foul at Landsdrop, and failed because they could not block all the ways up from the Spoiled Plains and Sarangrave Flat. Then Lord Foul's armies passed westward along the Mithil, and struck deep into the Centre Plains. In the last war, before Kevin Landwaster had been finally driven to invoke the Ritual of Desecration, Lord Foul had crushed through the heart of the Centre Plains, and had turned north to force the Lords to their final battle at Kurash Plenethor, now named Trothgard.
In the presence of so much old death, the riders did not travel loudly. But they sang songs during the first few days, and several times they returned to the legend telling of Berek Halfhand and the Fire-Lions of Mount Thunder. On this wilderland Berek had fought, suffering the deaths of his friends and the loss of his fingers in battle. Here he had met despair, and had fled to the slopes of Gravin Threndor, the Peak of the Fire-Lions. And there he had found both Earthfriendship and Earthpower. It was a comforting song, and the riders sang its refrain together as if they sought to make it true for themselves:
Berek! Earthfriend! help and weal,
Battle aid against the foe!
Earth gives and answers Power's peal,
Ringing, Earthfriend! Help and heal!
Cleanse the Land from bloody death and woe!
They needed its comfort. The hard, reft and harrowed war-land seemed to say that Berek's victory was an illusion-that all his Earthfriendship and his Staff of Law and his lineage of Lords, his mighty works and the works of his descendants, amounted to so much scrub grass and charred rock and dust-that the true history of the Land was written here, in the bare topsoil and stone which lay like a litter of graves from the Plains of Ra to Mount Thunder, from Andelain to Landsdrop.
The atmosphere of the region agitated Foamfollower. He strode at Covenant's side with an air of concealed urgency, as if he were repressing a desire to break into a run. And he talked incessantly, striving to buoy up his spirits with a constant stream of stories and legends and songs. At first, his efforts pleased the riders, appeased their deepening, hungry gloom like treasure-berries of entertainment. But the Questers were on their way toward the bleak, black prospect of Drool Rockworm, crouched like a bane in the catacombs of Mount Thunder. By the fourth day from Roamsedge Ford, Covenant felt that he was drowning in Giantish talk; and the voices of the warriors when they sang sounded more pleading than confident-like whistling against inexorable night.
With the Ramen to help him, Prothall found rapid ways over the rough terrain. Long after sunset on that fourth day when the growing moon stood high and baleful in the night sky-the Quest made a weary camp on the edge of Landsdrop.
The next dawn, Covenant resisted the temptation to go and look over the great cliff. He wanted to catch a glimpse of the Lower Land, of the Spoiled Plains and Sarangrave Flat-regions which had filled Foamfollower's talk in the past days. But he had no intention of exposing himself to an attack of vertigo. The fragile stability of his bargain did not cover gratuitous risks. So he remained in the camp when most of his companions went to gaze out over Landsdrop. But later, as the company rode north within a stone's throw of the edge, he asked Lord Mhoram to tell him about the great cliff.
“Ah, Landsdrop,” Mhoram responded quietly. “There is talk, unfounded even in the oldest legends, that the cleft of Landsdrop was caused by the sacrilege which buried immense banes under Mount Thunder's roots. In a cataclysm that shook its very heart, the Earth heaved with revulsion at the evils it was forced to contain. And the force of that dismay broke the Upper Land from the Lower, lifted it toward the sky. So this cliff reaches from deep in the Southron Range, past the Fall of the River Landrider, through the heart of Mount Thunder, at least half a thousand leagues into the mapless winter of the Northron Climbs. It varies in height from place to place. But it stands across all the Land, and does not allow us to forget.”
The Lord's rough voice only sharpened Covenant's anxiety. As the company rode, he held his gaze away to the west, trusting the wilderland to anchor him against his instinctive fear of heights.
Before noon, the weather changed. Without warning, a sharp wind bristling with grim, preternatural associations sprang out of the north. In moments, black clouds seethed across the sky. Lightning ripped the air;
