The Wounded Land

irrefragable filth. As sewage spread throughout the Flat from the river, it corrupted a once-fair region, changed a marsh home for egrets and orchids into a wild haven for the misborn. During the last wars, Lord Foul had found much of the raw material for his armies in Sarangrave Flat.

Covenant knew about the Flat because at one time he had seen it for himself, from Landsdrop to the south of Mount Thunder. He had seen with Land-sharpened eyes, vision he no longer possessed. But he had other knowledge of the region as well. He had heard some things during his visits to Revelstone. And he had learned more from Runnik of the Bloodguard. At one time, Runnik had accompanied Korik and two Lords, Hyrim and Shetra, on a mission to Seareach, to ask the aid of the Giants against Lord Foul. Lord Shetra had been slain in the Sarangrave, and Runnik had barely survived to bring back the tale.

Covenant's guts squirmed at the thought of the Sarangrave under a sun of pestilence. Beyond doubt, he was going to have to tell Runnik's tale to his companions.

The Haruchai set camp a stone's throw from the great cliff because Covenant refused to go any closer in the dark; he already felt too susceptible to the lure of precipices. After he had eaten, fortified himself with metheglin, he huddled near the jumping allusions of the campfire, wrapped his memories around him, and asked the quest to listen.

Linden sat down opposite him. He wanted to feel that she was nearby; but the intervening fire distanced her. Sunder and Hollian were vague at the edges of his sight. His attention narrowed to the crackling wood and the recollection of Runnik's tale.

Fist and faith, the Bloodguard had said. We will not fail. But they had failed. Covenant knew that now. They had failed, and fallen into Corruption, and died. The Vow had been broken. And the Giants had been slain.

But such things were not part of what he had to tell. To control the old ache of remembrance, he envisioned Runnik's face before him. The Bloodguard had stood, with a pang in his eyes, before High Lord Elena, Lord Mhoram, Hile Troy, and the Unbeliever. A bonfire had made the night poignant. Covenant could recall Runnik's exact words. The attacks of the lurker. The fall of Lord Shetra. Bloody hell.

In a dull tone, he told the essentials of that tale. When he had first seen the Sarangrave, it had been a place of fervid luxuriance and subtle death: alive with shy water-bred animals and malicious trees; adorned with pools of clear poison; waylaid with quicksand; spangled with flowers of loveliness and insanity. A place where nature had become vastly treacherous, polluted and hungry. But not evil. It was blameless in the same way that storms and predators were blameless. The Giants, who knew how to be wary, had always been able to travel the Flat.

But forty years later, when Korik's mission had looked out from Landsdrop, the Sarangrave had changed. Slumbering ill had been stirred to wakefulness. And this ill, which Runnik had called the lurker of the Sarangrave, had snatched Lord Shetra to her death, despite the fact that she had been under the protection of fifteen Bloodguard. Fifteen-The lurker had been alert to strength, attracted to power. First the Ranyhyn, then the Bloodguard themselves, had unwittingly brought peril down on Korik's mission. And of the messengers Korik had sent to carry the tale back to the High Lord, only Runnik had survived.

After Covenant fell silent, his companions remained still for a moment. Then Hollian asked unsurely, “May we not ride around this place of risk?”

Covenant did not raise his head. “That used to be a hundred leagues out of the way. I don't know what it is now.” Had Sarangrave Flat grown or dwindled under the Sunbane?

“We have not such time,” Sunder said immediately. “Do you desire to confront a second Grim? The Clave reads us as we speak of such matters. When I place my hand upon the iron, I feel the eyes of the Banefire fixed in my heart. They hold no benison.”

“The Clave can't-” Linden began, then stopped herself.

“The Clave,” Covenant responded, “kills people every day. To keep that bloody Banefire going. How many lives do you think a hundred leagues are going to cost?”

Hollian squirmed. “Mayhap this lurker no longer lives? The Sunbane alters all else. Will not Sarangrave Flat be altered also?”

“No,” Linden said. But when Covenant and the Stonedownors looked at her sharply, she muttered, “I'll tell you about it in the morning.” Wrapping blankets around her as if they were a buckler against being touched, she turned away.

For a while after Sunder and Hollian had gone to their rest, Covenant sat and watched the fire die, striving with himself, trying to resist the way Landsdrop plucked at the bottom of his mind, to guess what Linden had learned about the Sunbane, to find the courage he needed for the Sarangrave.

You are mine.

He awoke, haggard and power-haunted, shortly before dawn and found that Linden and the Stonedownors, with Cail, Harn, and Stell, had already left their beds to stand on the edge of Landsdrop. The air was cold; and his face felt stiff and dirty, as if his beard were the grip of his dreams, clutching his visage with, unclean fingers. Shivering, he arose, slapped his arms to warm them, then accepted a drink of metheglin from Brinn.

As Covenant drank, Brinn said, “Ur-Lord.”

His manner caught Covenant's attention like a hand on his shoulder. Brinn looked as inscrutable as stone in the crepuscular air; yet his very posture gave an impression of importance.

“We do not trust these Coursers.”

Covenant frowned. Brinn had taken him by surprise.

“The old tellers,” Brinn explained, 'know the tale which Runnik of the Bloodguard told to High Lord Elena. We have heard that the mission to the Giants of Seareach was betrayed to the lurker of the Sarangrave by Earthpower. The Earthpower of the Ranyhyn was plain to all who rode them. And the Vow of the Bloodguard was a thing of Earthpower.

“But we have sworn no life-shaping Vow. The wild magic need not be used. The Graveller and the eh-Brand need not employ their lore. The lurker need not be aware of us.”

Covenant nodded as he caught Brinn's meaning. “The Coursers,” he muttered. “Creatures of the Sunbane. You're afraid they'll give us away.”

“Yes, ur-Lord.”

Covenant winced, then shrugged. “We don't have any choice. We'll lose too much time on foot.”

Brinn acquiesced with a slight bow. For an instant, the Haruchai seemed so much like Banner that Covenant almost groaned. Bannor, too, would have voiced his doubt-and then would have accepted Covenant's decision without question. Suddenly, Covenant felt that his Dead were coming back to life, that Bannor was present in Brinn, impassive and infrangibly faithful; that Elena was reborn in Linden. The thought wrenched his heart.

But then a shout snatched him toward Landsdrop.

The sun was rising.

Gritting himself against incipient vertigo, he hurried to join his companions on the lip of the cliff.

Across the east, the sun came up in pale red, as if it had just begun to ooze blood. Light washed the top of the precipice, but left all the Lower Land dark, like a vast region where night was slowly sucked into the ground. But though he could see nothing of the Flat, the sun itself was vivid to him.

Its aura was weaker.

Weaker than it had been the previous morning.

Linden stared intently at it for a moment, then whirled and sent her gaze arcing up and down the length of Landsdrop. Covenant could hear insects burring as if they had been resurrected from the dead ground.

“By God.” She was exultant. “I was right.”

He held himself still, hardly daring to exhale.

“This is the line.” She spoke in bursts of excitement, comprehension. “Landsdrop. It's like a border.” Her hands traced consequences in the air. “You'll see. When the sun passes over the cliff-at noon-the Sunbane will be as strong as ever.”

Covenant swallowed thickly. “Why?”

“Because the atmosphere is different. It doesn't have anything to do with the sun. That corona is an illusion. We see it because we're looking at the sun through the atmosphere. The Sunbane is in the air. The sun doesn't