they had no choice. The wastes extended far to the north and south. They would need time to circumvent the thorns-time in which hunger could overcome them, pursuit overtake them.
Muttering to himself, Foamfollower scanned all the terrain as far as he could see, searching for any sign of the hunt. Then he led Covenant down the last slope into the thorns.
They found that the lowest branches of the trees were six or seven feet above the ground. Covenant could move erect along the crooked rows of trunks, but Foamfollower had to crouch or bend almost double to keep the barbs from ripping open his torso and head. He risked injury if he moved too quickly. As a result, their progress through the wastes was dangerously slow.
Thick dust covered the ground under their feet. All the rain of the past nights seemed to have left this valley untouched. The lifeless dirt faced the clouds as if years of torrents could never assuage the thirst of its ancient ruin. Choking billows rose up from the strides of the travellers, filled their lungs and stung their eyes-and plumed into the sky to mark their presence as clearly as smoke.
Soon they came to one of the gaps in the thorns. To their surprise, they found that it was a mud pit. Damp clay bubbled in a small pool. In contrast to the dead dust all around it, it seemed to be seething with some kind of muddy life, but it was as cold as the winter air. Covenant shied away from it as if it were dangerous, and hurried on through the thorns as fast as Foamfollower could go.
They were halfway to the eastern edge of the valley when they heard a hoarse shout of discovery in the distance behind them. Whirling, they saw two large bands of marauders spring out of different parts of the hills. The bands came together as they charged in among the thorn-trees, howling for the blood of their prey.
Covenant and Foamfollower turned and fled.
Covenant sprinted with the energy of fear. In the first surge of flight, he had room in his mind for nothing but the effort of running, the pumping of his legs and lungs. But shortly he realized that he was pulling away from Foamfollower. The Giant’s crouched stance cramped his speed; he could not use his long legs effectively without tearing his head off among the thorns. “Flee!” he shouted at Covenant. “I will hold them back!”
“Forget it!” Covenant slowed to match the Giant’s pace. “We’re in this together.”
“Flee!” Foamfollower repeated, flailing one arm urgently as if to hurl the Unbeliever ahead.
Instead of answering, Covenant rejoined his friend. He heard the savage outcry of the pursuit as if it were clawing at his back, but he stayed with Foamfollower. He had already lost too many people who were important to him.
Abruptly, Foamfollower lurched to a halt. “Go, I say! Stone and Sea!” He sounded furious. “Do you believe I can bear to see your purpose fail for my sake?”
Covenant wheeled and stopped. “Forget it,” he panted again. “I’m good for nothing without you.”
Foamfollower spun to look at the charging hunters. “Then you must find the way of your white gold now. They are too many.”
“Not if you keep moving! By hell! We can still beat them.”
The Giant swung back to face Covenant. For an instant, his muscles bunched to carry him forward again. But then he went rigid; his head jerked up. He stared hotly through the branches into the distance past Covenant’s head.
A new dread seized Covenant. He turned, followed the Giant’s gaze.
There were ur-viles on the eastern slope of the valley. They rushed in large numbers toward the wastes as if they were swarming, and as they moved, they coalesced into three wedges. Covenant could see them clearly through the thorns. When they reached the bottom, they halted, wielded their staves. All along the eastern edge of the forest, they set fire to the dead trees.
The thorns flared instantly. Flames leaped up with a roar, spread rapidly through the branches from tree to tree. Each trunk became a torch to light its neighbours. In moments, Covenant and Foamfollower were cut off from the east by a wall of conflagration.
Foamfollower snatched his gaze back and forth between the fire and the charging hunters, and his eyes shot gleams of fury like battle-lust from under his massive brows. “Trapped!” he shouted as if the impossibility of the situation outraged him. But his anger had a different meaning. “They have erred! I am not so vulnerable to fire. I can break through and attack!”
“I’m vulnerable,” Covenant replied numbly. He watched the Giant’s rising rage with a nausea of apprehension in his guts. He knew what his response should have been. Foamfollower was far better equipped than he to fight the Despiser. He should have said, Take my ring and go. You can find a way to use it. You can get past those ur- viles. But his throat would not form the words. And the fear that Foamfollower would ask for his wedding band churned in him, inspired him to find an alternative. He croaked, “Can you swim in quicksand?”
The Giant stared at him as if he had said something incomprehensible.
“The mud pits! We can hide in one of them-until the fire passes. If you can keep us from drowning.”
Still Foamfollower stared. Covenant feared that the Giant was too far gone in rage to understand what he said. But a moment later Foamfollower took hold of himself. With a sharp convulsion of will, he mastered his desire to fight. “Yes!” he snapped. “Come!” At once, he scuttled away toward the fire.
They raced to find a pool of the bubbling clay near the fire before the hunters caught up with them. Covenant feared that they would be too late; even through the wild roar of the fire, he could hear his pursuers howling.
But the blaze moved with frightful rapidity. While the creatures were still several hundred yards distant, he slapped into the heat of the flames and veered aside, searching for one of the pits.
He could not find one. The rush of heat stung his eyes, half blinded him. He was too close to the fire. It chewed its way through the tree tops toward him like a world-devouring beast. He called to Foamfollower, but his voice made no sound amid the tumult of the blaze.
The Giant caught his arm, snatched him up. Running crouched like a cripple, he headed toward a pool directly under the wall of flame. The twigs and thorns nearest the pit were already bursting into hot orange flower as if they had been brought back to life by fire.
Foamfollower leaped into the mud.
His impetus carried them in over their heads, but with the prodigious strength of his legs he thrust them to the surface again. The mounting heat seemed to scorch their faces instantly. But Covenant was more afraid of the mud. He thrashed frantically for a moment, then remembered that the swiftest way to die in quicksand was to struggle. Straining against his instinctive panic, he forced himself limp. At his back, he felt Foamfollower do the same. Only their heads protruded from the mud.
They did not sink. The fire swept over them while they floated, and long moments of pain seared Covenant’s face as he hung in the wet clay, hardly daring to breathe. His intense helplessness seemed to increase as the fire passed.
When the flames were gone, he and Foamfollower would be left floating in mire to defend themselves as best they could against three wedges of ur-viles without so much as moving their arms.
He tried to draw a large enough breath to shout to Foamfollower. But while he was still inhaling, hands deep in the mud pit caught his ankles and pulled him down.
Eighteen: The Corrupt
HE struggled desperately, trying to regain the surface. But the mud clogged his movements, sucked at his every effort, and the hands on his ankles tugged him downward swiftly. He grappled toward Foamfollower, but found nothing. Already, he felt he was far beneath the surface of the pit.
He held his breath grimly. His obdurate instinct for survival made him keep on fighting though he knew that he could never float to the surface from this cold depth. Straining against the mud, he bent, worked his hands down his legs in an effort to reach the fingers which held him. But he could not find them. They pulled him downward-he felt their wet clench on his ankles-but his own hands passed through where those hands should have been, must have been.
In his extremity, he seemed to feel the white gold pulsing for an instant. But the pulse gave him no sensation of power, and it disappeared as soon as he reached toward it with his mind.
The air in his lungs began to fail. Red veins of light intaglioed the insides of his eyelids. He began to cry
