The Wounded Land

Covenant had barely finished his meal when a sudden change came over the flow. Without warning, the current seemed to leap upward, forward, like a pouncing predator; and some of the bushes shifted.

They were shallow-rooted. The stream tugged them free. They caught promptly in the limbs of the trees, hung there like desperation in the coils of the current. But the water built up against them. The trees themselves started to topple.

Soon uprooted trunks and branches thronged the River, beating irresistibly downstream. The water seethed with the force of an avalanche. Rain crashed into the Mithil, and it rose and ran avidly. Foot by foot, it swept itself clean.

The current was more than halfway up the banks when Sunder got to his feet. He spent a moment ensuring that his few possessions were secure, then stooped to the raft, lashed the sack of melons tightly to the wood.

A spasm of fear twisted Covenant's chest. “It's too dangerous!” he shouted through the noise of the rain. “We'll be battered to pieces!” I'm a leper!

“No!” Sunder returned. “We will ride with the current-with the trees! If the hazard surpasses you, we must wait! The River will not run clear until the morrow!”

Covenant thought about the Rider, about beings he had encountered who could sense the presence of white gold. Before he could respond, Linden barked, “I'll go crazy if I have to spend my time sitting here!”

Sunder picked up one end of the raft. “Cling to the wood, lest we become lost to each other!”

At once, she bent to the other end of the bundle, locked her hands among the branches, lifted them.

Cursing silently, Covenant placed himself beside her and tried to grip the wet branches. The numbness of his fingers threatened to betray him; he could not be sure of his hold.

“We must move as one!” Sunder warned. “Out into the centre!”

Covenant growled his understanding. He wanted to pause for a VSE. The watercourse looked like an abyss to his ready vertigo.

The next moment, Sunder yelled, “Now!” and hurled himself toward the edge.

Hellfire! The raft yanked at Covenant as Sunder and Linden heaved it forward. He lurched into motion.

Sunder sprang for the water. The raft dove over the bank. Covenant's grip tore him headlong past the edge. With a shattering jolt, he smashed into the water.

The impact snatched his inadequate fingers from the raft. The Mithil swept him away and down. He whirled tumbling along the current, lost himself in turbulence and suffocation. An instant of panic made his brain as dark as the water. He flailed about him without knowing how to find the surface.

Then a bush still clinched to its roots struck his leg a stinging blow. It righted him. He clawed upward.

With a gasp that made no sound, he broke water.

Amid the tumult of the rain, he was deaf to everything except air and fear, the current shoving at his face, and the gelid fire of the water. The cold stunned his mind.

But a frantic voice was howling, “Covenant!”

The urgency of Linden's cry reached him. Fighting the drag of his boots, he surged head and shoulders out of the racing boil, scanned the darkness.

Before he plunged underwater again, he caught a glimpse of the raft.

It was nearby, ten feet farther downriver. As he regained the surface, he struck out along the current.

An arm groped for him. He kicked forward, grabbed at Linden's wrist with his half-hand. His numb fingers could not hold. Water closed over his head.

Her hand clamped onto his forearm, heaved him toward the raft. He grappled for one of the branches and managed to fasten himself to the rough bark.

His weight upset Sunder's control of the raft. The bundle began to spin. Covenant had an impression of perilous speed. The riverbanks were only a vague looming; they seethed past him as he hurtled along the watercourse.

“Are you all right?” Linden shouted.

“Yes!”

Together, they battled the cold water, helped Sunder right the raft's plunging.

The rain deluged them, rendered them blind and mute. The current wrestled constantly for mastery of the raft. Repeatedly, they had to thrash their way out of vicious backwaters and fend off trees which came beating down the River like triremes. Only the width of the Mithil prevented logjams from developing at every bend.

And the water was cold. It seemed to suck at their muscles, draining their strength and warmth. Covenant felt as if his bones were being filled with ice. Soon he could hardly keep his head above water, hardly hold onto the wood.

But as the River rose, its surface gradually grew less turbulent. The current did not slow; but the increase of water blunted the moiling effect of the uneven bottom and banks. The raft became easier to manage. Then, at Sunder's instructions, the companions began to take turns riding prone on the raft while the other two steered, striving to delay the crisis of their exhaustion.

Later, the water became drinkable. It still left a layer of grit on Covenant's teeth; but rain and runoff slowly macerated the mud, clarifying the Mithil.

He began to hear an occasional dull booming like the sounds of battle. It was not thunder; no lightning accompanied it. Yet it broke through the loud water-sizzle of the rain.

Without warning, a sharp splintering rent the air. A monstrous shadow hove above him. At the last instant, the current rushed the raft out from under the fall of an immense tree. Too tall for its roots, overburdened by the weight of the storm, the tree had riven its moorings and toppled across the River.

Now Covenant heard the same rending everywhere, near and far. The Mithil traversed a region of megalithic trees; the clamour of their destruction broke and boomed incessantly.

He feared that one of them would strike the raft or dam the River. But that did not happen. The trees which landed in the Mithil occluded the current without blocking it. And then the noise of their ruin receded as the River left that region behind.

Rain continued to fall like the collapse of the sky. Covenant placed himself at one end of the raft and used the weight of his boots to steady its course. Half paralyzed with cold, he and his companions rode through a day that seemed to have no measure and no end. When the rain began to dwindle, that fact could not penetrate his dogged stupor. As the clouds rolled back from the east, uncovering the clear heavens of evening, he gaped at the open air as if it spoke a language which had become alien to him.

Together, the companions flopped like dying fish to the riverbank, crawled out of the water. Somehow, Sunder mustered the strength to secure the raft against the rising of the River. Then he joined Covenant and Linden in the wind-shelter of a copse of preternatural gorse, and slumped to the ground. The teeming black clouds slid away to the west; and the sun set, glorious with orange and red. The gloaming thickened toward night.

“Fire.” Linden's voice quivered; she was trembling from head to foot. “We've got to have a fire.”

Covenant groaned his mind out of the mud on which he lay, raised his head. Long vibrations of cold ran through him; shivers knotted his muscles. The sun had not shone on the Plains all day and the night was as clear as perfect ice.

“Yes,” Sunder said through locked teeth. “We must have fire.”

Fire. Covenant winced to himself. He was too cold to feel anything except dread. But the need was absolute. And he could not bear to think of blood. To forestall the Graveller, he struggled to his hands and knees, though his bones seemed to clatter together. I’ll do it'

They faced each other. The silence between them was marked only by the chill breeze rubbing its way through the copse, and by the clenched shudder of breathing. Sunder's expression showed that he did not trust Covenant's strength, did not want to set aside his responsibility for his companions. But Covenant kept repeating inwardly, You're not going to cut yourself for me, and did not relent. After a moment, Sunder handed him the orcrest.

Covenant accepted it with his trembling half-hand, placed it in contact with his ring, glared at it weakly. But then he faltered. Even in ten years, he had not been able to unlearn his instinctive fear of power.

“Hurry,” Linden whispered.

Hurry? He covered his face with his left hand, striving to hide his ague. Bloody hell. He lacked the strength. The orcrest lay inert in his fist; he could not even concentrate on it. You don't know what you're asking.