break the grip. Then a flat, alien voice said into his ear, “Remain still or I will break your back.”
His helplessness infuriated him.’ Then break it,” he panted under his breath as he struggled. “Just let her go.” Lena was resisting frantically, yelping in frustration and outrage as she failed to free herself.
“Foamfollower!” Covenant shouted hoarsely.
But he saw in shocked amazement that the Giant was not fighting. His attackers stood back from him, and he sat motionless, regarding Covenant’s captor gravely.
Covenant went limp with chagrin.
Roughly, the attackers pulled Lena from her blankets. They had already lashed her wrists with cords. She still struggled, but now her only aim seemed to be to break loose so that she could run to Covenant.
Then Foamfollower spoke. Levelly, dangerously, he said, “Release him.” When the arms holding Covenant did not loosen, the Giant went on: “Stone and Sea! You will regret it if you have harmed him. Do you not know me?”
“The Giants are dead,” the voice in Covenant’s ear said dispassionately. “Only Giant-Ravers remain.”
“Let me go!” Lena hissed. “Oh, look at him, you fools!
His captor ignored her. “We have seen-I have seen The Grieve. I have made that journey to behold the work of Ravers.”
A shadow tightened in Foamfollower’s eyes, but his voice did not flicker. “Distrust me, then. Look at him, as Lena daughter of Atiaran suggests. He is Thomas Covenant.”
Abruptly, the strong arms spun Covenant. He found himself facing a compact man with flat eyes and a magisterial mien. The man wore nothing but a thin, short, vellum robe, as if he were impervious to the cold. In some ways he had changed; his eyebrows were stark white against his brown skin; his hair had aged to a mottled grey; and deep lines ran like the erosion of time down his cheeks past the corners of his mouth. But still Covenant recognized him.
He was Banner of the Bloodguard.
Nine: Ramen Covert
THE sight of him stunned Covenant. Lithe, loam-collared forms, some wearing light robes shaded to match the grey-white snow, moved closer to him as if to verify his identify; a few of them muttered “Ringthane” in tense voices. He hardly saw them. “But Mhoram said-“
But Mhoram had said that the Bloodguard were lost.
“Ur-Lord Covenant.” Banner inclined his head in a slight bow. “Pardon my error. You are well disguised.”
“Disguised?” Covenant had no conception of what Banner was talking about. Mhoram’s pain had carried so much conviction. Numbly, he glanced downward as if he expected to find two fingers missing from Banner’s right hand.
“A Stonedownor jacket. Sandals. A Giant for a companion.” Banner’s impassive eyes held Covenant’s face. “And you stink of infection. Only your countenance may be recognized.”
“Recognized.” Covenant could not stop himself. He repeated the word because it was the last thing Banner had said. Fighting for self-control, he croaked, “Why aren’t you with the Lords?”
“The Vow was Corrupted. We no longer serve the Lords.”
Covenant gaped at this answer as if it were nonsense. Confusion befogged his comprehension. Had Mhoram said anything like this? He found that his knees were trembling as if the ground under him had shifted.
But then the sounds of Lena’s struggle penetrated him. “You have harmed him,” she gasped fiercely. “Release me!”
He made an effort to pull himself together. “Let her go,” he said to Banner. “Don’t you understand who she is?”
“Did the Giant speak truly?”
“What? Did he what?” Covenant almost lapsed back into his stupor at the jolt of this distrust. But for Lena’s sake he took a deep breath, resisted. “She is the mother of High Lord Elena,” he grated. “Tell them to let her go.”
Banner glanced past Covenant at Lena, then said distantly, “The Lords spoke of her. They were unable to heal her.” He shrugged slightly. “They were unable to heal many things.”
Before Covenant could respond, the Bloodguard signalled to his companions. A moment later, Lena was at Covenant’s side. From somewhere in her robes, she produced a stone knife and brandished it between Bannor and Covenant. “If you have harmed him, “she fumed, “I will take the price of it from your skin, old man.”
The Bloodguard cocked an eyebrow at her. Covenant reached for her arm to hold her back, but he was still too staggered to think of a way to calm her, reassure her. “Lena,” he murmured ineffectively, “Lena.” When Foamfollower joined them, Covenant’s eyes appealed to the Giant for help.
“Ah, my Queen,” Foamfollower said softly. “Remember your Oath of Peace.”
“Peace!” Lena snapped in a brittle voice. “Speak to them of Peace. They attacked the Unbeliever.”
“Yet they are not our enemies. They are the Ramen.”
She jerked incredulously to face the Giant. “Ramen? The tenders of the Ranyhyn?”
Covenant stared as well. Ramen? He had unconsciously assumed that Banner’s companions were other Bloodguard. The Ramen had always secretly hated the Bloodguard because so many Ranyhyn had died while bearing the Bloodguard in battle. Ramen and Bloodguard? The ground seemed to lurch palpably under him. Nothing was as he believed it to be; everything in the Land would either astound or appall him, if only he were told the truth.
“Yes,” Foamfollower replied to Lena. And now Covenant recognized the Ramen for himself. Eight of them, men and women, stood around him. They were lean, swift people, with the keen faces of hunters, and skin so deeply tanned from their years in the open air that even this winter could not pale them. Except for their scanty robes, their camouflage, they dressed in the Ramen fashion as Covenant remembered it-short shifts and tunics which left their legs and arms free; bare feet. Seven of them had the cropped hair and roped waists characteristic of Cords; and the eighth was marked as a Manethrall by the way his fighting thong tied his long black hair into one strand, and by the small, woven circlet of yellow flowers on the crown of his head.
Yet they had changed; they were not like the Ramen he had known forty-seven years ago. The easiest alteration for him to see was in their attitude toward him. During his first visit to the Land, they had looked at him in awed respect. He was the Ringthane, the man to whom the Ranyhyn had reared a hundred strong. But now their proud, severe faces regarded him with asperity backed by ready rage, as if he had violated their honour by committing some nameless perfidy.
But that was not the only change in them. As he scrutinized the uncompromising eyes around him, he became conscious of a more significant difference, something he could not define. Perhaps they carried themselves with less confidence or pride; perhaps they had been attacked so often that they had developed a habitual flinch; perhaps this ratio of seven Cords to one Manethrall, instead of three or four to one, as it should have been, indicated a crippling loss of life among their leaders, the teachers of the Ranyhyn-lore. Whatever the reason, they had a haunted look, an aspect of erosion, as if some subliminal ghoul were gnawing at the bones of their courage. Studying them, Covenant was suddenly convinced that they endured Bannor, even followed him, because they were no longer self-sure enough to refuse a Bloodguard.
After a moment, he became aware that Lena was speaking, more in confusion than in anger now. “Why did you attack us? Can you not recognize the Unbeliever? Do you not remember the Rockbrothers of the Land? Can you not see that I have ridden Ranyhyn?”
“Ridden!” spat the Manethrall.
“My Queen,” Foamfollower said softly, “the Ramen do not ride.”
“As for Giants,” the man went on, “they betray.”
“Betray?” Covenant’s pulse pounded in his temples, as if he were too close to an abyss hidden in the
