He had covered half a league before he glimpsed the fire again. It lay beyond still another rise. But he was close enough now to see that it was large. As he ascended the second rise, he remembered caution and slowed his pace. Climbing the last way in a stealthy crouch, he carefully peered over the ridge.
There: the fire.
Holding his breath, he scanned the area around the blaze,
From the ridge, the ground sloped sharply, then swept away in a long shallow curve for several hundred feet before curling steeply upward to form a wide escarpment. In a place roughly opposite his position, the contour of the ground and the overhang of the escarpment combined to make a depression like a bowl half-buried on edge against the wall of the higher terrain.
The fire burned in this vertical concavity. The half bowl reflected much of the light, but the distance still obscured some details. He could barely see that the fire blazed in a long, narrow mound of wood. The mound lay aimed toward the heart of the bowl; and the fire had obviously been started at the end away from the escarpment, so that, as new wood caught flame, the blaze moved into the bowl. Half the length of the woodpile had already been consumed.
The surrounding area was deserted. Covenant descried no sign of whoever had contrived such a fire. Yet the arrangement was manifestly premeditated. Except for the hunger of the flames, an eerie silence lay over the Plains.
A figure snagged the corner of Covenant's vision. He turned, and saw Vain standing beside him. The Demondim-spawn made no attempt to conceal himself below the ridge.
“Idiot!” whispered Covenant fiercely. “Get down!”
Vain paid no attention. He regarded the fire with the same blind, ambiguous smile that he had worn while travelling through
Andelain. Or while killing the people of Stonemight Woodhelven. Covenant grabbed at his arm; but Vain was immovable.
Through his teeth, Covenant muttered, “Damn you, anyway. Someday you're going to be the death of me.”
When he looked back toward the fire, it had moved noticeably toward the escarpment, and the bowl was brighter. With a sudden rush of dismay, he saw that the mound of wood ended in a pile around an upright stake as tall and heavy as a man.
Someone or something was tied to the stake. Tied alive. The indistinct figure was struggling.
Hell and blood! Covenant instinctively recognized a trap. For a moment, he was paralyzed. He could not depart, leave that bound figure to burn. And he could not approach closer. An abominable purpose was at work here, malice designed to snare him-or someone else equally vulnerable. Someone else? That question had no answer. But as he gritted himself, trying to squeeze a decision out of his paralysis, he remembered Mhoram's words:
Abruptly, he rose to his feet. “Stay here,” he breathed at Vain. “No sense both of us getting into trouble.” Then he went down the slope and strode grimly toward the fire.
Vain followed as usual. Covenant could hardly keep from raging at the Demondim-spawn. But he did not stop.
As he neared the escarpment, the fire began to lick at the woodpile around the stake. He broke into a run. In moments, he was within the bowl and staring at the bait of the trap.
The creature hound to the stake was one of the Waynhim.
Like the ur-viles, the Waynhim were Demondim-spawn. Except for their grey skin and smaller stature, they resembled the ur-viles closely. Their hairless bodies had long trunks and short limbs, with the arms and legs matched in length so that the creatures could run on all fours as well as walk erect. Their pointed ears sat high on their bald skulls; then-mouths were like slits. And they had no eyes; they used scent instead of vision. Wide nostrils gaped in the centres of their faces.
As products of the Demondim, the Waynhim were lore-wise and cunning. But, unlike their black kindred, they had broken with Lord Foul after the Ritual of Desecration. Covenant had heard that the Waynhim as a race served the Land according to their private standards; but he had seen nothing more of them since his last stay at Revelstone, when a Waynhim had escaped from Foul's Creche to bring the Council word of Lord Foul's power.
The creature before Covenant now was in tremendous pain. Its skin was raw. Dark blood oozed from scores of lash-marks. One of its arms bent at an angle of agony, and its left ear had been ripped away. But it was conscious. Its head followed his approach, nostrils quivering. When he stopped to consider its situation, it strained toward him, begging for rescue.
“Hang on,” he rasped, though he did not know if the creature could understand him. “I'll get you out.” Fuming in outrage, he began to scatter the wood, kicking dead boughs and brush out of his way as he reached toward the stake.
But then the creature seemed to become aware of a new scent. Perhaps it caught the smell of his wedding ring. He knew that Demondim-spawn were capable of such perceptions. It burst into a fit of agitation, began barking in its harsh, guttural tongue. Urgency filled its voice. Covenant grasped none of its language; but he heard one word which sent a chill of apprehension down his spine. Again and again, the Waynhim barked, “
Bloody hell! The creature was trying to give Vain some kind of command.
Covenant did not stop. The creature's desperation became his. Heaving wood aside, he cleared a path to the stake. At once, he snatched the Graveller's knife from his belt and began to slash the vines binding the Waynhim.
In a moment, the creature was free. Covenant helped it limp out of the woodpile. Immediately, the creature turned on Vain, emitted a stream of language like a curse. Then it grabbed Covenant's arm and tugged him away from the fire.
Southward.
“No.” He detached his arm with difficulty. Though the Waynhim probably could not comprehend him, he tried to explain. “I'm going north. I've got to get to Revelstone.”
The creature let out a muffled cry as if it knew the significance of that word
Covenant's dread mounted. What had the Waynhim tried to tell him? It had infected him with a vivid sense of peril. But he did not intend to take even one step that increased the distance between him and Linden. His only alternative was to flee as quickly as possible. He turned back toward Vain.
The suddenness of the surprise froze him,
A man stood on the other side of the fire.
He had a ragged beard and frenzied eyes. In contrast, his lips wore a shy smile. “Let it be,” he said, nodding after the Waynhim. “We have no more need of it.” He moved slowly around the fire, drawing closer to Covenant and Vain. For all its surface nonchalance, his voice was edged with hysteria.
He reached Covenant's side of the blaze. A sharp intake of air hissed through Covenant's teeth.
The man was naked to the waist, and his torso was behung with salamanders. They grew out of him like excrescences. Their bodies twitched as he moved. Then: eyes glinted redly in the firelight, and their jaws snapped.
A victim of the Sunbane!
Remembering Marid, Covenant brandished his knife. “That's close enough,” he warned; but his voice shook, exposing his fear. “I don't want to hurt you.”
“No,” the man replied, “you do not wish to hurt me.” He grinned like a friendly gargoyle. “And I have no wish to hurt you.” His hands were clasped together in front of him as if they contained something precious. “I wish to give you a gift.”
Covenant groped for anger to master his fear. “You hurt that Waynhim. You were going to kill it. What's the matter with you? There isn't enough murder in the world-you have to add more?”
The man was not listening. He gazed at his hands with an expression of mad delight. “It is a wondrous gift.” He shuffled forward as if he did not know that he was moving. “No man but you can know the wonder of it.”
Covenant willed himself to retreat; but his feet remained rooted to the ground. The man exerted a horrific
