White Gold Wielder

When he reached his companions, he stopped, raised his hands before him like a gesture of a futility. His gaze was shrouded. His fingers were essentially undamaged; but the after-effects of his pain were vivid. Linden hugged her own hands under her arms in instinctive empathy.

The First's voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Is it well with you, Grimmand Honninscrave?”

He shook his head in simple bafflement “It does not suffice. Naught suffices. It bums in my breast-and will not burn out.”

Then as if the will which held him upright had broken he dropped to his knees and thrust his hands into a drift of snow. Tattered wisps of steam rose around his wrists.

Dumb with helpless concern, the Giants stood around him. Linden bit her lips. The wind drew a cold scud across the ice, and the air was sharp with rue Covenant's eyes blurred and ran. In self-defence there were many things for which he could claim he was not culpable; but Seadreamer's death was not among them.

At last, the First spoke. “Come, Master,” she breathed thickly. “Arise and be about your work. We must hope or die.”

Hope or die. Kneeling on the frozen waste, Honninscrave looked like he had lost his way between those choices. But then slowly he gathered his legs under him, stretched his tall frame erect. His eyes had hardened, and his visage was rigid and ominous. For a moment, he stood still, let all the company witness the manner in which he bore himself. Then without a word he went and began to break camp.

Covenant caught a glimpse of the distress in Linden's gaze. But when she met his look of inquiry, she shook her head, unable to articulate what she had perceived in Honninscrave.

Together, they followed the Master's example.

While Honninscrave packed the canvas and bedding, Mistweave set out a cold breakfast. His red-rimmed eyes and weary demeanour held a cast of abashment: he was a Giant and had not expected Fail's endurance to be greater than his. Now he appeared determined to work harder in compensation-and in support of Honninscrave. While Covenant, Linden, and the other Giants ate, Mistweave toiled about the camp, readying everything for departure.

As Covenant and Linden settled into their sleds, bundled themselves against the mounting edge of the wind, the First addressed Honninscrave once more. She spoke softly, and the wind frayed away the sound of her voice.

“From the vantage of your caamora, saw you any sign?”

His new hardness made his reply sound oddly brutal:

“None.”

He and Mistweave shrugged themselves into the lines of the sleds. The First and Pitchwife went ahead. With Cail between the sleds and Vain and Findail in the rear, the company set off.

Their progress was not as swift as it had been the previous day. The increased difficulty of the terrain was complicated by the air pouring and gusting down from the ridge. Fistfuls of ice-crystals rattled against the wood of me sleds, stung the faces of the travellers. White plumes and devils danced among the company. The edges of the landscape ached in the wind. Diamondraught and food formed a core of sustenance within him, but failed to spread any warmth into his limbs. He did not know how long he could hold out against the alluring and fatal somnolence of the cold.

The next time he rubbed the ice from his lashes and raised his head, he found that he had not held out. Half the morning was gone. Unwittingly, he had drifted into the passive stupor by which winter and leprosy snared their victims.

Linden was sitting upright in her sled. Her head shifted tensely from side to side as if she were searching. For a groggy instant Covenant thought that she was using her senses to probe the safety of the ice. But then she wrenched forward, and her voice snapped over the waste:

“Stop!”

Echoes rode eerily back along the wind: Stop! Stop! But ice and cold changed the tone of her shout, made it sound as forlorn as a cry raised from the Soulbiter.

At once, the First turned to meet the sleds.

They halted immediately below a pile of broken ice like the rubble of a tremendous fortress reduced by siege. Megalithic blocks and shards towered and loomed as if they were leaning to fall on the company.

Linden scrambled out of her sled. Before anyone could ask her what she wanted, she coughed, “It's getting colder.”

The First and Pitchwife glanced at each other Covenant moved to stand beside Linden, though he did not comprehend her. After a moment, the First said, “Colder, Chosen? We do not feel it.”

“I don't mean the winter,” Linden began at once, urgent to be understood. “It's not the same.” Then she caught herself, straightened her shoulders. Slowly and sharply, she said, “You don't feel it-but I tell you it's there. It's making the air colder. Not ice. Not wind. Not winter. Something else.” Her lips were blue and trembling. “Something dangerous.”

And this north is perilous Covenant thought dully, as if the chill made him stupid. What kind of peril? But when he opened his mouth, no words came.

Honninscrave's head jerked up. Pitchwife's eyes glared white in his misshaped face.

At the same instant, the First barked, “Arghule!” and sprang at Covenant and Linden.

Thrusting them toward the sleds, she shouted, “We must flee!” Then she wheeled to scan the region.

Covenant lost his footing, skidded into Cail's grasp. The Haruchai flipped him unceremoniously onto his sled. Linden vaulted to her place. At once, Honninscrave and Mistweave heaved the sleds forward as quickly as the slick surface allowed.

Before they had taken three strides, the ice a stone's throw ahead rose up and came toward them.

The moving shape was as wide as the height of a Giant, as thick as the reach of Covenant's arms. Short legs bore it forward with deceptive speed. Dark gaps around its edge looked like maws.

Cold radiated from it like a shout The First slid to a halt, planted herself in the path of the creature. “Arghule!” she cried again. “Avoid!”

Pitchwife's answering yell snatched her around. His arm nailed a gesture toward the ridge. “Arghuleh!”

Two more creatures like the first had detached themselves from the rubble and were rushing toward the company.

In the south appeared a fourth.

Together, they emitted cold as fierce as the cruel heart of winter.

For an instant, the First froze. Her protest carried lornly across the wind. “But the arghuleh do not act thus.”

Abruptly, Findail melted into a hawk and flew away.

Honninscrave roared a command: “Westward!” He was the Master of Starfare's Gem, trained for emergencies. With a wrench that threw Covenant backward, he hauled his sled into motion. “We must break past!”

Mistweave followed. As he laboured for speed, he called over his shoulder to Linden, “Do not fear! We are Giants, proof against cold!”

The next moment, the arghuleh attacked.

The creature approaching the First stopped. At Pitchwife’s warning shout, she whirled to face the arghule. But it did not advance. Instead, it waved one of its legs.

From the arc of the gesture, the air suddenly condensed into a web of ice.

Expanding and thickening as it moved, the web sailed toward the First like a hunter's net. Before it reached her, it grew huge and heavy enough to snare even a Giant At the same time, the arghule coming from the south halted, settled itself as though it were burrowing into the waste. Then violence boomed beneath it: ice shattered in all directions. And a crack sprang through the surface, ran like lightning toward the company. In the space between one heart-beat and another, the crack became as wide as the sleds.

It passed directly under Vain. The Demondim-spawn disappeared so quickly that Covenant did not see him fall.

Instinctively, Covenant turned to look toward the other two arghuleh.