The Wounded Land

The foothills were clear for some distance before they rolled down into the peril of the Sarangrave. Brinn took the Coursers forward at a clattering run, as if he meant to plunge straight into the verdant sea. But he stopped on the verge of the thick marshgrass which lapped the hills. For a moment, he surveyed the quest, studying Vain briefly, as if he wondered what to expect from the Demondim-spawn. Then he addressed Linden.

“Chosen,” he said with flat formality, “the old tellers say that the Bloodguard had eyes such as yours. That is not true of us. We understand caution. But we also understand that your sight surpasses ours. You must watch with me, lest we fall to the snares of the Sarangrave.”

Linden swallowed. Her posture was taut, keyed beyond speech by dread. But she answered with a stiff nod.

Now Clash led. Covenant glared out past Linden and Brinn, past Clash's massive head, toward the Sarangrave. The hillside descended into a breeze-ruffled lake of marshgrass, and beyond the grass stood the first gnarled brush of the Flat. Dark shrubs piled toward trees which concealed the horizon. The green of their leaves seemed vaguely poisonous under the pale red sun. In the distance, a bird cried, then fell silent. The Sarangrave was still, as if it waited with bated breath. Covenant could hardly force himself to say, “Let's go.”

Brinn nudged Clash forward. Bunched together like a fist, the company entered Sarangrave Flat.

Clash stepped into the marshgrass, and immediately sank to its knees in hidden mire.

“Chosen,” Brinn murmured in reproof as the Courser lumbered backward to extricate itself.

Linden winced. “Sorry. I'm not-” She took a deep breath, straightened her back. “Solid ground to the left.”

Clash veered in that direction. This time, the footing held. Soon, the beast was breasting its way through chest-high grass.

An animal the size of a crocodile suddenly thrashed out from under Clash's hooves-a predator with no taste for such large prey. Clash shied; but the rukh steadied it quickly. Clinging to his seat, Covenant forced his gaze ahead and tried not to believe that he was riding into a morass from which there was no outlet and no escape.

Guided by Linden's senses, Brinn led the company toward the trees. In spite of past suns, the growth here was of normal size; yet even to Covenant's blunt perceptions, the atmosphere felt brooding and chancrous, like an exhalation of disease, the palpable leprosy of pollution.

As they reached the trees, the quest passed under thickening blotches of shade. At first, clear ground lay between the trunks, wind-riffled swaths of bland grass concealed things at which Covenant could not guess. But as the riders moved inward, the trees intensified. The grass gave way to shallow puddles, stretches of mud which sucked like hunger at the hooves of the Coursers. Branches and vines variegated the sky. At the edges of hearing came the sounds of water, almost subliminal, as if wary behemoths were drinking from a nearby pool. The ambience of the Sarangrave settled in Covenant's chest like a miasma.

Abruptly, an iridescent bird blundered, squalling, skyward out of the brush. His guts lurched. Sweating, he gaped about him. The jungle was complete; he could not see more than fifty feet in any direction. The Coursers followed a path which wandered out of sight between squat grey trees with cracked bark and swollen trunks. But when he looked behind him, he could see no sign of the way he had come. The Sarangrave sealed itself after the company. Somewhere not far away, he could hear water dripping, like the last blood from Marid's throat.

His companions' nerves were raw. Sunder's eyes seemed to flinch from place to place. Hollian's mien wore a look of unconscious fright, as if she were a child expecting to be terrified. Linden sat hunched forward, gripping Brinn's shoulders. Whenever she spoke, her voice was thin and tense, etiolated by her vulnerability to the ill on all sides. Yet Vain looked as careless as the accursed, untouched even by the possibility of wrong.

Covenant felt that his lungs were filling up with moisture.

The Coursers seemed to share his difficulty. He could hear them snuffling stertorously. They grew restive by degrees, choppy of gait, alternately headstrong and timorous. What do they-? he began. But the question daunted him, and he did not finish it.

At noon, Brinn halted the company on a hillock covered with pimpernels, and defended on two sides by a pool of viscid sludge which smelled like tar. In it, pale flagellant creatures swam. They broke the surface, spread sluggish ripples about them, then disappeared. They looked like corpses, wan and necrotic, against the darkness of the fluid.

Then Linden pointed through the branches toward the sun. When Covenant peered at the faint aura, he saw it change, just as she had predicted. The full power of the Sunbane returned, restoring pestilence to the Sarangrave.

At the sight, a nameless chill clutched his viscera. The Sarangrave under a sun of pestilence-

Hollian's gasp yanked the company toward her. She was gaping at the pool, with her knuckles jammed between her teeth.

At every spot where sunlight touched the dark surface, pale creatures rose. They thrust blind heads into the light, seemed to yearn upward. A slight wind ruffled the trees, shifting pieces of sunshine back and forth. The creatures flailed to follow the spots of light.

When any creature had kept its head in the light for several moments, it began to expand. It swelled like ripening fruit, then split open, scattering green droplets around the pool. The droplets which fell in shadow quickly turned black and faded. But the ones which fell in light became bright-Covenant closed his eyes; but he could not shut out the sight. Green flecks danced against red behind his eyelids. He looked again. The droplets were luminescent and baleful, like liquid emeralds. They grew as they swam, feeding on sludge and pestilence.

“Good God!” Horror compacted Linden's whisper. “We've got to get out of here!”

Her tone carried complete conviction. The Haruchai sprang into motion. Sunder called the Coursers forward. Cail boosted first Linden, then Covenant, upward, so that Clash would not have to kneel. Stell and Ham did the same for the Stonedownors.

Skirting the pool, Brinn guided the beasts eastward as swiftly as he dared, deeper into the toils of Sarangrave Hat.

Fortunately, the Sunbane seemed to steady the Coursers, enforcing the hold of Sunder's rukh. Their ponderous skittishness eased. When malformed animals scuttled out from under their hooves, or shrieking birds flapped past their heads, they remained manageable. After half a league, the riders were able to eat a meal without dismounting.

As they ate, Covenant looked for a way to question Linden. But she forestalled him. “Don't ask.” Spectres haunted the backs of her eyes. “It hurt. I just knew we were in danger. I don't want to know what it was.”

He nodded. The plight of the company required her to accept visions which wrung her soul. She was so exposed. And he had no way to help her.

The Haruchai passed around a pouch of voure. As he dabbed the pungent sap on his face and arms, Covenant became aware that the air was alive with butterflies.

Fluttering red and blue, yellow like clean sunshine, gleams of purple and peacock-green, they clouded the spaces between the trees like particoloured snow, alert and lovely. The dance of the Sarangrave-Sarangrave Flat under a sun of pestilence. The insects made him feel strangely bemused and violent. They were beautiful. And they were born of the Sunbane. The venom in him answered their entrancement as if, despite himself, he yearned to fry every lambent wing in sight. He hardly noticed when the company began moving again through the clutches of the marsh. At one time, he had watched helplessly while Wraiths died. Now every memory increased the pressure in him, urged him toward power. But in this place power was suicide.

Piloted by Bruin's caution and Linden's sight, the questors worked eastward. For a time, they travelled the edges of a water channel clogged with lilies. But then the channel cut toward the north, and they were forced to a decision. Linden said that the water was safe. Brinn feared that the lily-stems might fatally tangle the legs of the Coursers.

The choice was taken out of their hands. Hergrom directed their attention northwestward. For a moment, Covenant could see nothing through the obscure jungle. Then he caught a glimpse.

Fragments of livid green. The same green he had watched aborning in the pool of tar.

They were moving. Advancing-

Linden swore urgently. “Come on.” She clinched Brinn's shoulders. “Cross. We've got to stay away from those things.”

Without hesitation, Brinn sent Clash into the water.