snow.
“Twice now Giants have led Fangthane’s rending armies north of the Plains of Ra. These ‘Rockbrothers’ have sent fangs and claws in scores of thousands to tear the flesh of Ranyhyn. Behold!” With a swift tug, he snatched his cord from his hair and grasped it taut like a garrote. “Every Ramen cord is black with blood.” His knuckles tightened as if he were about to leap at the Giant. “Manhome is abandoned. Ramen and Ranyhyn are scattered. Giants!” He spat again as if the very taste of the word disgusted him.
“Yet you know me,” Foamfollower said to Bannor. “You know that I am not one of the three who fell to the Ravers.”
Bannor shrugged noncommittally. “Two of the three are dead. Who can say where those Ravers have gone?”
“I am a Giant, Bannor!” Foamfollower insisted in a tone of supplication, as if that fact were the only proof of his fidelity. “It was I who first brought Thomas Covenant to Revelstone.”
Bannor was unmoved. “Then how is it that you are alive?”
At this, Foamfollower’s eyes glinted painfully. In a thin tone, he said, “I was absent from
The Bloodguard cocked an eyebrow, but did not relent. After a moment, Covenant realized that the resolution of this impasse was in his hands. He was in no condition to deal with such problems, but he knew he had to say something. With an effort, he turned to Bannor. “You can’t claim you don’t remember me. You probably have nightmares about me, even if you don’t ever sleep.”
“I know you, ur-Lord Covenant.” As he spoke, Bannor’s nostrils flared as if they were offended by the smell of illness.
“You know me, too,” Covenant said with mounting urgency to the Manethrall. “Your people call me Ringthane. The Ranyhyn reared to me.”
The Manethrall looked away from Covenant’s demanding gaze, and for an instant the haunted look filled his face like an ongoing tragedy. “Of the Ringthane we do not speak,” he said quietly. “The Ranyhyn have chosen. It is not our place to question the choices of the Ranyhyn.”
“Then back off!” Covenant did not intend to shout, but he was too full of undefined fears to contain himself. “Leave us alone! Hellfire! We’ve got enough trouble as it is.”
His tone brought back the Manethrall’s pride. Severely, the man asked, “Why have you come?”
“I haven’t ‘come.’ I don’t want to be here at all.”
“What is your purpose?”
In a voice full of mordant inflections, Covenant said, “I intend to pay a little visit to Foul’s Creche.”
His words jolted the Cords, and their breath hissed through their teeth. The Manethrall’s hands twitched on his weapon.
A flare of savage desire widened Bannor’s eyes momentarily. But his flat dispassion returned at once. He shared a clear glance with the Manethrall, then said, “Ur-Lord, you and your companions must accompany us. We will take you to a place where more Ramen may give thought to you.”
“Are we your prisoners?” Covenant glowered.
“Ur-Lord, no hand will be raised against you in my presence. But these matters must be given consideration.”
Covenant glared hard into Bannor’s expressionlessness, then turned to Foamfollower. “What do you think?”
“I do not like this treatment,” Lena interjected. ”Saltheart Foamfollower is a true friend of the Land. Atiaran my mother spoke of all Giants with gladness. And you are the Unbeliever, the bearer of white gold. They show disrespect. Let us leave them and go our way.”
Foamfollower replied to them both, “The Ramen are not blind. Bannor is not blind. They will see me more clearly in time. And their help is worth seeking.”
“All right,” Covenant muttered. “I’m no good at fighting anyway.” To Bannor, he said stiffly, “We’ll go with you.” Then, for the sake of everything that had happened between himself and the Bloodguard, he added, “No matter what else is going on here, you’ve saved my life too often for me to start distrusting you now.”
Bannor gave Covenant another fractional bow. At once, the Manethrall snapped a few orders to the Cords. Two of them left at a flat run toward the northeast, and two more moved off to take scouting positions on either side of the company, while the rest gathered small knapsacks from hiding places around the hollow. Watching them, Covenant was amazed once again at how easily, swiftly, they could disappear into their surroundings. Even their footprints seemed to vanish before his eyes. By the time Foamfollower had packed his leather sack, they had effaced all signs of their presence from the hollow. It looked as untroubled as if they had never been there.
Before long, Covenant found himself trudging between Lena and Foamfollower in the same general direction taken by the two runners. The Manethrall and Bannor strode briskly ahead of them, and the three remaining Cords marched at their backs like guards. They seemed to be moving openly, as if they had no fear of enemies. But twice when he looked back Covenant saw the Cords erasing the traces of their passage from the grey drifts and the cold ground.
The presence of those three ready garrotes behind him only aggravated his confusion. Despite his long experience with hostility, he was not prepared for such distrust from the Ramen. Clearly, important events had taken place-events of which he had no conception. His ignorance afflicted him with a powerful sense that the fate of the Land was moving toward a crisis, a fundamental concatenation in which his own role was beclouded, obscure. The facts were being kept from him. This feeling cast the whole harsh edifice of his purpose into doubt, as if it were erected on slow quicksand. He needed to ask questions, to get answers. But the unspoken threat of those Ramen ropes disconcerted him. And Bannor-! He could not frame his questions, even to himself.
And he was tired. He had already travelled all night, had not slept since the previous afternoon. Only four days had passed since his summoning. As he laboured to keep up the pace, he found that he lacked the strength of concentration to think.
Lena was in no better condition. Although she was healthier than he, she was old, and not hardened to walking. Gradually, he became as worried about her as he was weary himself. When she began to droop against him, he told Banner flatly that he would have to rest.
They slept until midafternoon, then travelled late into the night before camping again. And the next morning, they were on their way before dawn. But Covenant and Lena did better now. The food which the Ramen gave them was hot and nourishing. And soon after grey dim day had shambled into the laden air, they reached the edge of the hills, came in sight of the Plains of Ra. At this point, they swung northward, staying in the rumbled terrain of the hills-edge rather than venturing into the bleak, winter-bitten openness of the Plains. But still they found the going easier. In time, Covenant recovered enough to begin asking questions.
As usual, he had trouble talking to Banner. The Bloodguard’s unbreachable dispassion daunted him, often made him malicious or angry through simple frustration; such reticence seemed outrageously immune from judgment-the antithesis of leprosy. Now all the Bloodguard had abandoned the Lords, Revelstone, death refusal. Lord’s Keep would fall without them. And yet Bannor was here, living and working with the Ramen. When Covenant tried to ask questions, he felt that he no longer knew the man to whom he spoke.
Bannor met his first tentative inquiries by introducing Covenant to the Ramen — Manethrall Kam, and his Cords, Whane, Lal, and Puhl — and by assuring him that they would reach their destination by evening the next day. He explained that this band of Ramen was a scouting patrol responsible for detecting marauders along the western marge of Ra; they had found Covenant and his companions by chance rather than design. When Covenant asked about Rue, the Manethrall who had brought word of Fleshharrower’s army to Revelstone seven years ago, Bannor replied flatly that she had died soon after her return home. But after that, Covenant had to wrestle for what he wanted to know.
At last he could find no graceful way to frame his question. “You left the Lords,” he rasped awkwardly. “Why are you here?”
“The Vow was broken. How could we remain?”
“They need you. They couldn’t need you more.”
“Ur-Lord, I say to you that the Vow was broken. Many things were broken. You were present. We could not- ur-Lord, I am old now. I, Bannor, First Mark of the Bloodguard. I require sleep and hot food. Though I was bred for mountains, this cold penetrates my bones. I am no fit server for Revelstone-no, nor for the Lords, though they do
