White Gold Wielder

the direction he was going, and Cail bore him up. The Haruchai seemed more certain than ever. It must have been the mental communion of his people which had drawn Durris and Fole, with the Stonedownors behind them, toward the company. And now Cail was no longer alone. Mud and streams and rain could not make him miss his footing. He supported Covenant like a figure of granite.

Covenant had lost all sense of his companions; but he was not concerned. He trusted the other Haruchai as he trusted Cail. Directing his attention to the struggle for movement, he followed Sunder as quickly as his imbalance and fatigue allowed.

The way seemed long and harsh in clutches of the storm. At last, however, be and Call neared an impression of rock and saw Sunder's krill-light reflecting wetly off the edges of a wide entrance to a cave. Sunder went directly in, used the argent heat of the krill to set a ready pile of wood afire. Then he rewrapped the blade and tucked it away within his leather jerkin.

The flames were dimmer than the krill, but they spread illumination around a larger area, revealing bundles of wood and bedding stacked against the walls. The Stonedownors and Haruchai had already established a camp here.

The cave was high but shallow, hardly more than a depression m the side of a hill. The angle of the ceiling's overhang let rainwater run inward and drizzle to the floor, with the result that the cave was damp and the fire, not easily kept alight But even that relative shelter was a balm to Covenant's battered nerves. He stood over the. flames and tried to rub the dead chill out of his skin, watching Sunder while the company arrived to join him.

Durris brought the four Giants. Fole guided Linden as if he had already arrogated to himself Mistweave's chosen place at her side. Vain and Findail came of their own accord, though they did not move far enough into the cave to avoid the lashing rain. And Hollian was accompanied by Harn, the Haruchai who had taken the eh-brand under his care in the days when Covenant had rescued them from the hold of Revelstone and the Banefire.

Covenant stared at him. When Sunder and Hollian had left Seareach to begin their mission against the Clave, Harn had gone with them. But not alone: they had also been accompanied by Stell, the Haruchai who had watched over Sunder.

Where was Stell?

No, more than that; worse than that. Where were the men and women of the Land, the villagers Sunder and Hollian had gone to muster? And where were the rest of the Haruchai After the heinous slaughter which the Gave had wrought upon their people, why had only Durris and Fole been sent to give battle?

You will find none here.

Had the na-Mhoram already won?

Gaping at Sunder across the guttering fire Covenant moved his jaw. but no words came. In the cover of the cave, the storm was muffled but incessant-fierce and hungry as a great beast And Sunder was changed. In spite of all the blood his role as the Graveler of Mithil Stonedown had forced him to shed, he had never looked like a man who knew how to kill. But he did now.

When Covenant had first met him, the Stonedownor's youthful features had been strangely confused and conflicted by the unresolved demands of his duty. His father had taught him that the world was not what the Riders claimed it to be-a punishment for human offense-and so be had never learned to accept or forgive the acts which the rule of the Clave and the stricture of the Sunbane required him to commit. Unacknowledged revulsion had marked his forehead; his eyes had been worn dull by accumulated remorse; his teeth had ground together, chewing the bitter gristle of his irreconciliation. But now he appeared as honed and whetted as the poniard he had once used to take the lives of the people he loved. His eyes gleamed like daggers in the firelight. And all his movements were tense with coiled anger-a savage and baffled rage that he could not utter.

His visage held no welcome. The First had told him that the quest had failed. Yet his manner suggested that his tautness was not directed at the Unbeliever-that even bare relief and pleasure had become impossible to articulate.

In dismay Covenant looked to Hollian for an explanation. The eh-brand also showed the marks of her recent life. Her leather shift was tattered in places, poorly mended. Her arms and legs exposed the thinness of scant rations and constant danger. Yet she formed a particular contrast to Sunder.

They were both of sturdy Stonedownor stock, dark-haired and short, though she was younger than be. But her background had been entirely different than his. Until the shock which had cost her her home in Crystal Stonedown-the crisis of the Rider's demand for her life, and of her rescue by Covenant, Linden, and Sunder-she had been the most prized member of her community. As an eh-brand, able to foretell the phases of the Sunbane, she had given her people a precious advantage. Her past had contained little of the self-doubt and bereavement which had filled Sunder's days, And that difference was more striking now. She was luminous rather than angry-as warm of welcome as he was rigid. If the glances she cast at the Graveler had not been so full of endearment Covenant might have thought that the two Stonedownors had become strangers to each other.

But the black hair that flew like raven wings about her shoulders when she moved had not changed. It still gave her an aspect of fatality, a suggestion of doom.

In shame Covenant found that he did not know what to say to her either. She and Sunder were too vivid to him; they mattered too much. You will find none here. With a perception as acute as intuition, he saw that they were not at all strangers to each other. Sunder was so tight and bitter precisely because of the way Hollian glowed; and her luminescence came from the same root as his pain. But that insight did not give Covenant any words he could bear to say.

Where was Stell?

Where were the people of the Land? And the Haruchai And what had happened to the Stonedownors?

The First tried to bridge the awkward silence with Giantish courtesy. In the past, the role of spokesman in such situations had belonged to Honninscrave; but he had lost heart for it.

“Stone and Sea!” she began. “It gladdens me to greet you again. Sunder Graveler and Hollian eh-brand. When we parted, I hardly dared dream that we would meet again. It is- “

Linden's abrupt whisper stopped the First. She had been staring intensely at Hollian; and her exclamation stilled the gathering, bore clearly through the thick barrage of the rain.

“Covenant. She's pregnant.”

Oh my God.

Hollian's slim shape showed nothing. But hardly ninety days had passed since the Stonedownors had left Seareach. Linden's assertion carried instant conviction; her percipience would not be mistaken about such a thing.

The sudden weight of understanding forced him to the floor. His legs refused to support the revelation. Pregnant.

That was why Hollian glowed and Sunder raged. She was glad of it because she loved him. And because he loved her, he was appalled. The quest for the One Tree had failed. The purpose for which Covenant had sent the Stonedownors back to the Upper Land had failed. And Sunder had already been compelled to kill one wife and child. He had nowhere left to turn.

“Oh, Sunder.” Covenant was not certain that he spoke aloud. Eyes streaming, he bowed his head. It should have been covered with ashes and execration. “Forgive me. I'm so sorry.”

“Is the fault yours then that the quest has failed?” asked Sunder. He sounded as severe as hate. “Have you brought us to this pass, that my own failure has opened the last door of doom?”

Yes, Covenant replied-aloud or silent, it made no difference.

“Then hear me, ur-Lord.” Sunder's voice came closer. Now it was occluded with grief. “Unbeliever and white gold wielder. IlIender and Prover of Life.” His hands gripped Covenant's shoulders. 'Hear me.”

Covenant looked up, fighting for self control. The Graveler crouched before him. Sunder's eyes were blurred; beads of wet firelight coursed his hard jaws.

“When first you persuaded me from my home and duty in Mithil Stonedown,” he said thickly, 'I demanded of you that you should not betray me. You impelled me on a mad search of the desert sun for my friend Marid, whom you could not save-and you refused me the use of my blood to aid you-and you required of me that I eat aliantha which I knew to be poison-and so I beseeched of you something greater than