White Gold Wielder

the sleds pounded through hollows in the ice, bit and slewed across pressure-ridges Covenant and Linden were tossed urgently from side to side among the supplies. But Linden clung to the rails, made no protest. And Covenant wanted every stride of speed the Giants could attain. The Land and Lord Foul had taught him many things; but he had never learned how to leave behind friends who needed him. Hunching down into the heavy robes and blankets he had been given, he kept his face turned 'blear-eyed and cold bitten toward the west and let Honninscrave draw him at a hungry trot into the white wilderland.

Yet at last the thought of what he was doing impelled him to look back toward the dromond. Stark in the distance beyond Vain and Findail, the vessel shrank as if it were being slowly swallowed by the bleak floe; and the sight of its abandonment stuck in his throat. But then he descried the pennon flying from the aftermast. Sevinhand must have raised it as a salute to the departing company. Vivid with colour and jaunty in the wind, it captured for a moment the spirit of Starfare's Gem like a promise of valour and endurance. When Covenant's vision became too blurred to make out the Giantship any longer, he was able to face forward again and let the stone vessel go.

Linden studied him across the gap between their sleds; but he had nothing to say to her which would support being shouted over the hard scrunching of the runners, the rhythmic thud of the Giants’ feet and the gasp of their breathing. Once again he was being borne toward his goal and his fear, not by any effort of his own, but by the exertions of people who cared about him. At every crisis along his way, it was the same: for all his passion and power, he would have come to nothing without help. And what recompense did he make for that help? Only pain and peril and at least one lie; nothing more. But that was not something which his sore heart could cry out under these conditions, under the bitter blue of the sky and the gazes of his companions.

They were travelling due west. When they had left the vantage of Starfare's Gem, a strip of open water had still been visible against the southern horizon; and they could be certain that the closer they went to the sea the less reliable the floe would become. Under the circumstances Covenant only hoped that they would not be forced northward to find a safe passage.

The First had pushed several paces ahead of her companions to watch for flaws and fissures in the frozen expanse. Behind her trotted Pitchwife. Though he bore no burden except his own deformation, his gait betrayed that he was already being pressed to his limits. By comparison, Mistweave and Honninscrave appeared able to sustain this speed for days, dragging the heavy sleds behind them and never faltering. And Cail was one of the Haruchai, born to ice and arduous survival. Only the vapour that plumed from his nostrils and the white crystals which formed along his cheeks showed that he was breathing more deeply than usual.

As for Vain and Findail, they moved as though the long trek ahead meant nothing to them. Vain's wooden forearm dangled uselessly from his elbow, but in every other way he remained the structurally immaculate enigma which the ur-viles had created for their own secret reasons. And the Appointed had long since demonstrated his conclusive immunity to any physical peril or stress.

Around them, the plain of ice seemed featureless and devoid of any content except cold to the edges of the world. The sun came down hard on the white floe, making the ice glare, forcing Covenant to squint until his temples throbbed. And the cold soaked into him through every fold and clasp of his coverings. The beat of the Giants’ feet and the expulsion of their breath marked out the frigid silence. The sled jostled him incessantly against a bundle of firewood packed beside him. Grimly, he hugged his blankets and huddled into himself.

The First's fall took him by surprise. She was nothing more than a grey blur across his disfocused stare as she stepped into a fissure.

Scattering snow, she plunged heavily forward. Her chest struck the rim of the break. For an instant, she scrabbled frantically at the edge, then dropped out of sight Pitchwife was four or five strides behind her; but immediately be dove after her, skidding headlong to snatch at her disappearing arms.

He was too late. And he could not stop himself. In a flurry of limbs and snow, he toppled after his wife.

Slewing over the slick surface, Honninscrave and Mistweave wheeled the sleds to a halt The one bearing Linden was nearly overturned; but Cail caught it, slammed it back onto its runners.

Covenant pitched out of his sled, landed on the ice, lurched to his feet. Ahead of him, the Master and Mistweave wrestled at the bindings which harnessed them to then burdens. Findail and Vain had stopped; but Cail was already halfway to the fissure.

Covenant and the Giants reached the rim together, with Linden a scant step behind them. Cail stood there gazing downward as if he had forgotten urgency.

The First and Pitchwife hung a few feet below the edge. The fissure was only a little wider than her shoulders, and she had clamped herself between the walls, holding her position by main strength. Pitchwife's arms clasped her hips; he dangled awkwardly between her thighs.

Below his feet, the snow which had fallen into the fissure became grey slush as the sea absorbed it.

He jerked a glance upward. “Stone and Sea!” he gasped. 'Make haste!”

But the Master and Mistweave were not slow. Honninscrave threw himself flat on the ice with his head and shoulders over the rim. Mistweave braced the Master's legs; and Honninscrave reached down to take hold of the First.

In a moment, she scrambled out of the fissure, towing Pitchwife after her.

Her stem visage showed no reaction; but Pitchwife was breathing hard, and his gnarled hands trembled. “Stone and Seal” he panted again. “I am a Giant and love an eventful journey. But such happenings are not altogether to my taste.” Then a chuckle of relief came steaming between his bared teeth. “Also I am somewhat abashed. I sought to rescue my wife, yet it was she who caught my own fall.”

The First rested a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Mayhap if you were less impetuous in your rescuing- ” But as she turned to Honninscrave, her voice stiffened. “Master, it is my thought that we must bend our way somewhat northward. This ice is not safe.”

“Aye,” he growled. Ever since he had been forced to the realization that the company would have to leave Starfare's Gem, he had not been able to stifle the undertone of bitterness in his voice. 'But that way is longer, and we are in haste. Northward me ice will be not so easily travelled. And this north is perilous, as you know.”

The First nodded reluctantly. After a moment, she let out a long sigh and straightened her back. “Very well,” she said. “Let us attempt the west again.”

When no one moved, she gestured Covenant and Linden back to the sleds.

Linden turned to walk beside Covenant. Her face was red with cold and severe with concentration. In a flat, quiet voice, she asked. “Why is this north perilous?”

He shook his head. “I don't know.” The scars on his right forearm itched in reaction to the First's fall and the suggestion of other hazards. “I’ve never been north of Revelstone and Coercri.” He did not want to think about nameless dangers. The cold was already too much for him. And he could not figure out how the company was going to get across the fissure.

But that problem was simply solved. While he and Linden climbed into their sleds, the First and Pitchwife leaped the gap. Then Honninscrave and Mistweave drew the sleds to the rim of the crack. There Covenant saw that the sleds were long enough to span the fissure. Honninscrave and Mistweave pushed them out over the gap: the First and Pitchwife pulled them across. When the rest of the company had passed the crack, Honninscrave and Mistweave slipped their arms into the harnesses again, and the First went on her way westward.

Now she set a slower pace, in part for caution and in part to accommodate Pitchwife's weariness. Still her speed was greater than any Covenant could have matched afoot. The ice seemed to rush jolting and skidding under the runners of the sled. But whenever she saw something she distrusted, she dropped to a walk and probed ahead with her longsword until she was sure that the ground was safe.

For the rest of the morning, her care proved unnecessary. But shortly after the company had paused for a brief meal and a few warming swallows of diamondraught, the point of her sword bit into the crust, and several hundred feet of packed snow along a thin line to the north and south fell from sight. This fissure also was easily crossed; but when the companions gained the far side, the First faced Honninscrave again and said, “It is too much. This ice grows fragile beneath us.”

The Master breathed a curse through ha frosted beard. Yet he did not demur when the leader of the Search turned toward the northwest and thicker ice.

For most of the afternoon, the floe remained fiat, snow-brushed, and unreliable. From time to time Covenant sensed that the surface was sloping upward; but the brightness of the sun on the white landscape made him unsure