White Gold Wielder

His eyes had a glazed aspect.

He held his palms open before him as if to demonstrate that he had come unarmed.

Covenant wrestled down his weakness, fought a little moisture into his throat so that he could speak. In a tone that should have warned the Rider, he said, “Don't waste my time. I want Gibbon.”

“Halfhand, I greet you,” the man replied. His voice was steady, but it suggested the shrillness of panic. “Gibbon na-Mhoram is entirely cognizant of you and will waste neither time nor life in your name. What is your purpose here?”

Impressions of danger crawled between Covenant's shoulder-blades. His mouth was full of the copper taste of fear. The Rider's trunk appeared, unnaturally thick; and his robe seemed to move slightly of its own accord as if the cloth were seething Covenant's scars began to burn like rats gnawing at his flesh. He hardly heard himself reply, “This has gone on too long. You make the whole world stink. I'm going to put a stop to it.”

The Rider bared his teeth-a grin that failed. His gaze did not focus on Covenant. “Then I must tell you that the na-Mhoram does not desire speech with you. His word has been given to me to speak, if you will hear it.”

Covenant started to ask. What word is that? But the question never reached utterance. With both hands, the Rider unbelted the sash of his robe. In prescient dread, Covenant watched the Rider open his raiment to the sun.

From the line of his shoulders to the flex of his knees, his entire body was covered with wasps.

Great yellow wasps, as big as Covenant's thumb.

When the light touched them, they began to snarl.

For one hideous moment, they writhed where they were; and the Rider wore them as if he were one of the Sunbane-warped, made savage and abominable by corruption. Then the swarm launched itself at Covenant.

In that instant, the world went black. Venom crashed against his heart like the blow of a sledgehammer.

Black fire; black poison; black ruin. The flame raging from his ring should have been as pure and argent as the metal from which it sprang; but it was not, was not. It was an abyss that yawned around him, a gulf striding through the air and the ground and the Keep to consume them, swallow the world and leave no trace. And every effort he made to turn the dark fire white, force it back to the clean pitch of its true nature, only raised the blaze higher, widened the void. Swiftly, it became as huge as the hillside, hungry for ruin.

Linden was not shouting at him. If she had torn her heart with screams, he would not have been able to hear her. She was too far away, and the gathering cataclysm of his power filled all his senses. Yet he heard her in his mind-heard her as she had once cried to him across the Worm's aura and the white ring's eruption, This is what Foul wants! — felt the remembered grasp of her arms as she had striven to wrest him back from doom. If he let his conflagration swell, they would all die, she and the others he loved and the Land he treasured, all of them ripped out of life and meaning by blackness.

The strain of self-mastery pushed him far beyond himself. He was driven to a stretched and tenuous desperation from which he would never be able to turn back-a hard, wild exigency that he would have to see through to its conclusion for good or ill, ravage or restitution. But the simple knowledge that he would not be able to turn back and did not mean to try enabled him to strangle the destruction pouring from him.

Abruptly, his vision cleared-and he had not been stung. Thousands of small, charred bodies still smoked on the bare ground. Not one of the wasps was left to threaten him.

The Rider remained standing with his mouth open and his eyes white, miraculously unscathed and astonished.

Covenant felt no triumph: he had gone too far for triumph. But he was certain of himself now, at least for the moment. To the Rider, he said, “Tell Gibbon he had his chance.” His voice held neither doubt nor mercy. 'Now I'm coming in after him.”

Slowly, the astonishment drained from the man's face. His frenzy and glee seemed to collapse as if he had suffered a relapse of mortality. Yet he remained a Rider of the Clave, and he knew his enemy. All the Land had been taught to believe that Covenant was a betrayer. The man looked human and frail, reduced by failure; but he did not recant his faith.

“You surpass me, Halfhand.” His voice shook. “You have learned to wield-and to restrain. But you have come to havoc the long service of our lives, and we will not permit you. Look to your power, for it will not aid you against us,”

Turning as if he were still able to dismiss Covenant from consideration, he followed the echoes of his feet back into the tunnel under the watchtower.

Covenant watched him go and cursed the mendacity which enabled Lord Foul to take such men and women, people of native courage and dedication, and convince them that the depredations of the Clave were virtuous. Revelstone was full of individuals who believed themselves responsible for the survival of the Land. And they would be the first to die. The Despiser would sacrifice them before hazarding his truer servants.

Yet even for them Covenant could not stop now. The fire still raved within him. He had not quenched it. He had only internalized it, sealed its fury inside himself. If he did not act on it, it would break out with redoubled vehemence, and he would never be able to contain it again.

Violence taut in his muscles, he started stiffly down the hillside toward his friends.

They began the ascent to meet him. Anxiously, they studied the way he moved as if they had seen him emerge from the teeth of hell and could hardly believe it.

Before he reached them, he heard the flat thunder of hooves.

He did not stop: he was wound to his purpose and unbreachable. But he looked back up at Revelstone over his shoulder.

Between the broken gates came Riders mounted on Coursers, half a dozen of them pounding in full career down the slope. The Sunbane-bred Coursers were large enough to carry four or five ordinary men and woman, would have been large enough to support Giants. They had malicious eyes, the faces and fangs of sabertooths, shaggy pelts, and poisoned spurs at the back of each ankle. And the Riders held their rukhs high and bright with flame as they charged. Together they rushed downward as if they believed they could sweep the company off the hillside, Yet for all their fury and speed they looked more like a charade than a true assault. The Banefire made them dangerous; but they were only six, and they were hurling themselves against ten Haruchai, four Giants, the Appointed of the Elohim, and four humans whose strength had not yet been fully measured Covenant himself had already killed Deliberately, he left the charge to his companions and walked on.

Behind him, the Coursers suddenly went wild.

Sunder had snatched out his Sunstone and the krill; but now he did not draw his power from the sun. Instead, he tapped the huge beam of the Banefire. And he was acquainted with Coursers. At one time, he had learned to use a rukh in order to master a group of the beasts: he knew how to command them. Fierce red flarings shot back and forth through the krill’s white light as he threw his force at the attack; but he did not falter, The impact of his countervailing instructions struck chaos into the Coursers. Two of them fell trying to lunge in several directions simultaneously. A third stumbled over them. The others attacked the fallen, tried to kill them.

Reft of control, the Riders sprawled to the hard ground. One was crushed under the massive body of a Courser. Another received a dangerous spur slash. She cried out to her comrades for help; but they were already in flight back toward the Keep, bearing the broken Rider for his blood. Weakly, she struggled after them.

Sunder ordered the Coursers out into the desert so that the Clave would not be able to use them again. But two of them squealed with pain when they tried to obey: they had broken legs. Gripping her falchion in both fists, the First stalked up to the maimed beasts and slew them.

Then Sunder, Linden, and Pitchwife approached Covenant The Graveler was panting heavily. “Gibbon does not put forth his full strength. I am not the equal of six Riders.” Yet there was a grim pride in his tone. At last he had struck an effective blow against the Clave.

“He's trying to provoke you,” Linden warned. “You almost didn't pull back in time. You've got to be careful.” Fear of Ravers twisted her face into a scowl.

“Earthfriend,” breathed Pitchwife, “what will you do?

There is a madness upon Grimmand Honninscrave. We will not be long able to withhold him.”

But Covenant made no reply. His legs were trembling now, and he could not stop what he was doing or turn