The Wounded Land

together, dabbed red onto his forehead and cheeks, then picked up the Sunstone.

The rigid accents of his invocation formed a counterpoint to her lilting murmur. Together, they wove the silence into a skein of Sunbane-power: bloodshed and fire.

Soon, his familiar vermeil shaft shot like a quarrel toward the sun. A crepitation like the discharge of slow lightning made the air squirm.

He lifted the rukh and held it so that the Sunstone's beam ran along the iron. His knuckles whitened, cording the backs of his hands.

Delicate flames opened like buds along the Iianar. Hollian closed her eyes. Her fire turned slowly to the colour of the sun's brown aura, began to put out tendrils. One of them reached Sunder's hands. It wound around his grasp, then started to climb the rukh and the Sunstone shaft.

He blinked fiercely at the sweat in his eyes, glared as if the rukh were an adder he could neither hold nor release.

The poignance in Covenant's chest told him that he had forgotten to breathe. When he forced himself to inhale, he seemed to suck in vertigo from the air. Only his braced arms kept him from losing his balance.

None of the Haruchai were watching Sunder and Hollian. Cail had gone into convulsions. The others fought to keep him still.

Memories of Linden wrung Covenant's guts. He shut his eyes against the nausea.

He looked up again when the chanting ended. Sunder's shaft and Hollian's flame vanished. The Stonedownors clung to each other. The Graveller's shoulders shook.

Covenant knelt without knowing how he had lost his feet.

When Sunder spoke, his voice was muffled against Hollian's neck. “After all, it is not greatly difficult to be a Rider. I am attuned to the rukh. The Coursers are distant. But they have heard. They will come.”

Eventually, Cail's seizure receded. For a while, he regained consciousness; but he spoke in the alien tongue of the Haruchai, and Covenant did not understand what he said.

The first of the great beasts returned shortly before noon. By then, thirst and hunger had reduced Covenant to stupefaction; he could not focus his eyes to see which of the Coursers it was, or whether the animal still bore any supplies. But Brinn reported, “It is Clangor, the Courser which assailed Linden Avery. It limps. Its chest is burned. But it suffers no harm from the graveling.” A moment later, he added, “Its burdens are intact.”

Intact, Covenant thought dizzily. He peered through the haze as Ceer and Stell leaped down to the Courser, then returned carrying sacks of water and food. Oh dear God.

By the time he and the Stonedownors had satisfied the first desperation of their thirst and had begun to eat a meal, Annoy came galloping from the south. Like Clangor, it was unscathed by the graveling; but it skittered uncomfortably around the knoll, champing to escape the fire-stones.

Clash and Clang also returned. Sunder frowned at them as if he did not like the pride he felt in what he had achieved; but Hollian's smile shone.

At once, the Haruchai began to prepare for departure.

Using the piece of cloth he had discarded, Covenant rewrapped the krill and tucked it under his belt. Then he descended the boulders to the level of the Coursers' backs.

At close range, the heat of the graveling felt severe enough to char his flesh. It triggered involuntary memories of Hotash Slay and Saltheart Foamfollower. The Giant had spent himself in lava and agony to help Covenant.

Distrusting the Coursers and himself, Covenant could not leap the small distance to a mount. No more, he yearned. Don't let any more friends die for me. He had to cling where he was, squinting against the radiance, until the Haruchai could help him.

In a moment, Ceer and Brinn joined him, carrying Cail. Sunder raised the rukh, uncertain of his mastery; but the Coursers obeyed, crowding close to the knoll. Leaving Cail, Ceer stepped to Annoy's back. Harn tossed the sacks to him. He placed them across Annoy's huge withers, then accepted Cail from Brinn.

Cail's arm was livid and suppurating badly. It made Covenant groan. Cail needed Linden. She was a doctor.

She was as sick as the Haruchai.

Practicing his control, Sunder sent Annoy out of the way of the other Coursers. Then Ham and Hollian mounted Clangor. The Graveller joined Stell on Clang. Before Covenant could suppress his dread, Brinn lifted him onto Clash.

He dropped to the broad back, knotted his fists in Clash's hair. Heat blasted at him like slow roasting and suffocation. But he fought to raise his voice. “Find Vain. Fast.”

With a gesture, Sunder launched the beasts eastward. They galloped away through air burnished orange by graveling.

Clang bore Sunder and the rukh at a staggering pace; but the other mounts matched it. Even Clangor, oozing pain from its wound, did not fall behind; it ran like a storm-wind with frenzy in its red eyes. It had been formed by the power of the Banefire to obey any rukh. It could not refuse Sunder's authority.

Covenant could not gauge their speed; he could hardly keep his eyes open against the sharp heat, hardly breathe. He only knew that he was travelling swiftly. But he did not know how fast Vain could run. The Demondim- spawn's lead was as long as the morning.

Wind scorched his face. His clothes felt hot on his skin, as if the fabric had begun to smoulder. He wore warm sweat down the length of his body. His eyes bled tears against the shine and heat of the graveling. But the Coursers ran as if they were being borne by the passion of the fire-stones. Hollian clung to Harn's back. Sunder hunched over Clang's neck. The Haruchai rode with magisterial detachment. And the Coursers ran.

The graveling unfurled as if it would never end. Fire deepened the sky, collared the heavens with molten grandeur. Through the haze, the sun's coronal looked like an outer ring of incandescence. The entire savannah was a bed of coals; the Coursers were traversing an accentuated hell. But Sunder had mastered the rukh. While he lived, the beasts could not falter.

They did not. They ran as if they had been born in flames. Smoothly, indefatigably, they swept the leagues behind them like dead leaves into a furnace.

Covenant's breathing sobbed, not because he lacked air, but rather because his lungs were being seared. He began to have visions of Glimmermere, the cool tarn tinged with Earthpower. His bones throbbed to inhale water. And the Coursers ran.

When they broke out of the graveling onto hard dirt, the suddenness of the change made the desert air feel like bliss. It snatched his head up. Relief slammed into his chest like a polar wind. In an instant, the Coursers were clattering across dead, sun-baked soil, raising pennons of dust. The haze retreated; abruptly, the terrain had features, texture, meaning.

As his sight cleared, he saw Vain ahead of him.

The Demondim-spawn stood, black and fatal, on the bank of a gully which twisted emptily across the company's way. The dull iron bands of the Staff of Law emphasized his midnight form. He watched the Coursers thunder toward him as if he had been waiting for them.

He was alone,

Alone?

Covenant tumbled from Clash's back as the beast pounded to a halt. He landed hard, sprawled across the dirt. Rolling his feet under him, he hurled himself at Vain.

“What have you done with her?”

Vain did not move: Covenant crashed into the Demondim-spawn, recoiled as if he had hit a wall of obsidian.

The next moment, Hergrom appeared out of the gully. He seemed uninjured, though his raiment had been singed by the gravelling. Without expression, as if he did not deign to judge Covenant's precipitation, he said, “She is here. In the shade.”

Covenant surged past him, jumped down into the gully.