The Wounded Land

He drew breath; a spasm knotted his visage. But she gave a nod of reassurance. “You're lucky. The lung isn't punctured.” She demanded a blanket from one of the Haruchai, then addressed Sunder again. “I'm going to strap your chest-immobilize those ribs as much as possible. It's going to hurt. But you'll be able to move without damaging yourself.” Stell handed her a blanket, which she promptly tore into wide strips. Caring for Sunder seemed to calm her. Her voice lost its raw edge.

Covenant left her to her work and moved toward the fire Hergrom and Ceer were building. Then a wave of reaction flooded him, and he had to squat on the wet grass, hunch inward with his arms wrapped around his stomach to keep himself from whimpering. He could hear Sunder hissing thickly through his teeth as Linden bound his chest; but the sound was like the sound of the rain, and Covenant was already soaked. He concentrated instead on the way his heart flinched from beat to beat, and fought for control. When the attack passed, he climbed to his feet, and went in search of metheglin.

Brinn and Ceer had been able to save only half the supplies; but Covenant drank freely of the mead which remained. The future would have to fend for itself. He was balanced precariously on the outer edge of himself and did not want to fall.

He had come within instants of calling up the wild magic-of declaring to the lurker that the Coursers were not the only available prey. If Linden had not stopped him-The drizzle felt like mortification against his skin. If she had not stopped him, he and his companions might already have met Lord Shetra's doom. His friends-he was a snare for them, a walking deathwatch. How many of them were going to die before Lord Foul's plans fructified?

He drank metheglin as if he were trying to drown a fire, the fire in which he was fated to burn, the fire of himself. Leper outcast unclean. Power and doubt. He seemed to feel the venom gnawing hungrily at the verges of his mind.

Vaguely, he watched the Haruchai fashion scant shelters out of the remaining blankets, so that the people they guarded would not have to lie in rain. When Linden ordered Sunder and Hollian to rest, he joined them.

He awoke, muzzy-headed, in the dawn. The two women were still asleep-Linden lay like a battered wife with her hair sticking damply to her face-but Sunder was up before him. The rain had stopped. Sunder paced the grass slowly, carrying his damaged ribs with care. Concentration or pain accentuated his forehead.

Covenant lurched out of his sodden bed and shambled to the supplies for a drink of water. Then, because he needed companionship, he went to stand with the Graveller.

Sunder nodded in welcome. The lines above his nose seemed to complicate his vision. Covenant expected him to say something about the rukh or the Coursers; but he did not. Instead, he muttered tightly, “Covenant, I do not like this Sarangrave. Is all life thus, in the absence of the Sunbane?”

Covenant winced at the idea. It made him think of Andelain. The Land was like the Dead; it lived only in Andelain, where for a while yet the Sunbane could not stain or ravish. He remembered Caer-Caveral's song:

But while I can I heed the call

Of green and tree; and for their worth,

I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.

The mourning of that music brought back grief and old rage. Was he not Thomas Covenant, who had beaten the Despiser and cast Foul's Creche into the Sea? “If it is,” he answered to the tone of dirges, poisons, “I'm going to tear that bastard's heart out.”

Distantly, the Graveller asked, “Is hate such a good thing? Should we not then have remained at Revelstone, and given battle to the Clave?”

Covenant's tongue groped for a reply; but it was blocked by recollections. Unexpectedly, he saw turiya Raver in the body of Triock, a Stonedownor who had loved Lena. The Raver was saying, Only those who hate are immortal. His ire hesitated. Hate? With an effort, he took hold of himself. “No. Whatever else happens, I've already got too much innocent blood on my hands.”

“I hear you,” Sunder breathed. His wife and son were in his eyes; he had reason to understand Covenant's denial.

Sunlight had begun to angle into the clearing through the trees, painting streaks across the damp air. A sunrise free of the Sunbane. Covenant stared at it for a moment, but it was indecipherable to him.

The sun roused Linden and Hollian. Soon the company began to prepare for travel. No one spoke Vain's name, but the loss of him cast a pall over the camp. Covenant had been trying not to think about it. The Demondim-spawn was unscrupulous and lethal. He smiled at unreined power. But he was also a gift from Saltheart Foamfollower. And Covenant felt irrationally shamed by the thought that he had let a companion, any companion, sink into that quagmire, even though Linden had said that Vain was not alive.

A short time later, the Haruchai shouldered the supplies, and the quest set off. Now no one spoke at all. They were afoot in Sarangrave Flat, surrounded by hazards and by the ears of the lurker. Betrayals seemed to wait for them behind every tree, in every stream. None of them had the heart to speak.

Brian and Cail led the way, with Linden between them. Turning slightly north of east, they crossed the clearing, and made their way back into the jungle.

For a while, the morning was white and luminous with sun-gilt mist. It shrouded the trees in evanescence. The company seemed to be alone in the Flat, as if every other form of life had fled. But as the mist frayed into wisps of humidity and faded, the marsh began to stir. Birds rose in brown flocks or individual blurs of colour; secretive beasts scurried away from the travellers. At one point, the quest encountered a group of large grey monkeys, feeding at a thicket of berries as scarlet as poison. The monkeys had canine faces and snarled menacingly. But Brinn walked straight toward them with no expression in his flat eyes. The monkeys broke for the trees, barking like hyenas.

For most of the morning, the company edged through a stretch of jungle with solid ground underfoot. But during the afternoon, they had to creep across a wide bog, where hillocks of sodden and mangy grass were interspersed with obscure pools and splotches of quicksand. Some of the pools were clear; others, gravid and mephitic. At sudden intervals, one or another of them was disturbed, as if something vile lay on its bottom. Linden and the Haruchai were hard pressed to find a safe path through the region.

In the distance behind them, the sun passed over Landsdrop and took on the blue aura of rain. But the sky over Sarangrave Flat stayed deep cerulean, untainted and unscathed.

By sunset, they had travelled little more than five leagues.

It would have been better, Covenant thought as he chewed his disconsolate supper, if we'd ridden around. But he knew that such regrets had no meaning. It would have been better if he had never harmed Lena or Elena- never lost Joan-never contracted leprosy. The past was as indefeasible as an amputation. But he could have borne his slow progress more lightly if so many lives, so much of the Land, had not been at stake.

That night came rain. It filled the dark, drenched the dawn, and did not lift until the company had been slogging through mud for half the morning.

In the afternoon, they had to wade a wetland of weeds and bulrushes. The water covered Covenant's thighs; the rushes grew higher than his head. A preterite fear of hidden pits and predators scraped at his nerves. But the company had no choice; this swamp blocked their way as far as the Haruchai could see.

The density of the rushes forced them to move in single file. Brinn led, followed immediately by Linden and Cail; then went Harn, Hollian, Stell, Sunder, Covenant, Ceer, and Hergrom. The water was dark and oily; Covenant's legs vanished as if they had been cut off at the waterline. The air was clouded with mosquitoes; and the marsh stank faintly, as if its bottom were littered with carcasses. The sack perched high on Stell's shoulders blocked Covenant's view ahead; he did not know how far he would have to go like this. Instinctively, he tried to hurry, but his boots could not keep their footing in the mud, and the water was as heavy as blood.

The mirk dragged at his legs, stained his clothes. His hands clutched the reeds involuntarily, though they could not have saved him if he fell. His mind cursed at thoughts of Vain. The Demondim-spawn had not even looked at the people who were trying to rescue him. Covenant's pulse laboured in his temples.

Without warning, the rushes beside him thrashed. The water seethed. A coil as thick as his thigh broke the