The Wounded Land

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 valour 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 Graveller 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 Clave 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 grey-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 smouldering. 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. Then: 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 defence. 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.