White Gold Wielder

“Damnation!” Covenant muttered. Creeping back a short way from the rim, he turned to the Giants. “What're we going to do?”

The First did not hesitate. She gestured eastward along the valley below the ridge. 'There lies our way. Passing their flank unseen, we may hope to outrun them toward Andelain.”

Covenant shook his head. “That won't work. This isn't exactly the direct route to Andelain-or Mount Thunder, for that matter-but Foul still knew where to find us. He has some way of locating us. It's been done before.” He glared at his memories, then thrust the past side. “If we try to get around them, they'll know it.”

The First scowled and said nothing, momentarily at a loss for alternatives. Linden put her back to the boulder, braced her dread on the hard stone. “We can retreat,” she said. “Back the way we came.” Covenant started to protest; but she overrode him. “Until tomorrow. When the rain starts. I don't care how well they know where we are. They're going to have trouble finding us in the rain.” She was sure of that. She knew from experience that the Sunbane's torrents were as effective as a wall, “Once the rain starts, we can ride the river right through the middle of them.”

Covenant frowned. His jaws chewed a lump of bitterness. After a moment, he asked, “Can you do it? Those ur-viles aren't likely to rest at night. We'll have to keep going until dawn. And we'll have to stay right in front of them. So they won't have time to react when we try to get past them.” He faltered out of consideration for her, then forced himself to say, “You're already having trouble just staying on your feet.”

She gave him a glare of vexation, started to say, What choice have we got? I can do whatever I have to. But a black movement caught the edge of her sight. She turned her head in time to see Vain go striding down the slope to meet the ur-viles.

Covenant snapped the Demondim-spawn's name. Pitchwife started after Vain; the First snatched him back. Sunder hurried to the rim to see what would happen, leaving Hollian with taut concentration on her face.

Linden ignored them. For the first time, she felt an emotion radiating from Vain's impenetrable form.

It was anger.

The horde reacted as if it could smell his presence even from this range. Perhaps that was bow they knew where to find the company. A spatter of barking burst from the ur-viles; they quickened their pace. Their wide mass converged toward him. At the foot of the slope, he halted. The ur-viles were no great distance from him now. In a few moments, they would reach him. As they moved, their barking resolved into one word:

“Nekhrimah!”

The word of command, by which Covenant had once compelled Vain to save his life. But Foamfollower had said that the Demondim-spawn would not obey it a second time.

For a moment, he remained still, as if he had forgotten motion. His right hand dangled, useless, from his wooden forearm. Nothing else marred his passive perfection. The scraps of his raiment only emphasized how beautifully he had been made.

“Nekhrimah!”

Then he raised his left arm. His fingers curved into claws. His hand made a feral, clutching gesture.

The leading ur-vile was snatched to the ground as if Vain had taken hold of its heart and ripped the organ apart, Snarling furiously, the horde broke into a run.

Vain did not hurry. His good arm struck a sideward blow The eh-brand through the air: two ur-viles went down with crushed skulls. His fingers knotted and twisted: one of the approaching faces turned to pulp. Another was split open by a punching movement that did not touch his assailant.

Then they were on him, a tide of black, monstrous flesh breaking against his ebon hardness. They seemed to have no interest in the company. Perhaps Vain had always been their target. All of them tried to hurl themselves at him. Even the ur-viles on the far bank of the river surged toward him.

“Now!” breathed the First eagerly. “Now is our opportunity! While they are thus engaged, we may pass them by.”

Linden swung toward the Giant. The fury she had felt from Vain whipped through her. “We can do that,” she grated. “As long as we leave him to die. Those are ur-viles. They know how he was made. As soon as he kills enough of them to get their attention, they're going to remember how to unmake him.” She rose to her feet, knotted her fists at her sides. “We've got to make him stop.”

Behind her, she felt the violence of Vain's struggle, sensed the blood of ur-viles spurting and flowing. They would never kill him by physical force. He would reduce them one at a time to crushed, raw meat. All that butchery-! Even the abominable products of the Sunbane did not deserve to be slaughtered. But she knew she was right. Before long, the frenzy of the horde would pass; the or viles would begin to mink. They had shown that they were still capable of recognition and thought when they had used the word of command. Then Vain would die.

Covenant appeared to accept her assertion. But he responded bitterly, 'You stop him. He doesn't listen to me.”

“Earthfriend!” the First snapped. “Chosen! Will you remain here and be slain because you can neither redeem nor command this Vain? We must flee!”

That's right. Linden was thinking something different; but it led to the same conclusion. Findail had moved to the ridgecrest. He stood watching the bloody fray with a particular hunger or hope in his eyes. In Elemesnedene, the Elohim had imprisoned Vain to prevent him from the purpose for which he had been designed. But they had been thwarted because Linden had insisted on leaving the area-and Vain's instinct to follow her or Covenant had proved stronger than his bonds.

Now Findail seemed to see before him another means by which the Demondim-spawn could be stopped. And the answer was unchanged: flee so that Vain would follow.

But how? The company could not hope to outrun the ur-viles now.

“Perhaps it may be done,” said Hollian, speaking so quietly that she could barely be heard over the savage din. “Assuredly it is conceivable. The way of it is plain. Is it not possible?”

Sunder turned back from the rim to gape at her. Inchoate protests tumbled together in him, fell voiceless.

“Conceivable?” Covenant demanded. “What're you talking about?”

Hollian's pale face was intense with exaltation or vision. Her meaning was so clear to her that she seemed beyond question.

“Sunder and I have spoken of it. In Crystal Stonedown Sivit na-Mhoram-wist titled me Sun-Sage- and that naming was false. But does not his very fear argue that such work is possible?”

Linden flinched. She had never done anything to earn the epithet the Elohim had given her. She feared even to consider its implications. Did Hollian think that she. Linden, could change the Sunbane?

But Sunder strode toward Hollian urgently, then stopped and stood trembling a few steps away. “No,” he murmured. “We are mortal, you and I. The attempt would reave us to the marrow. Such power must not be touched.”

She shook her head. “The need is absolute. Do you wish to lose the lives of the ur-Lord and the Chose-n the hope of the Land-because we dare not hazard our own?” He started to expostulate. Suddenly, her voice rose like flame. “Sunder, I have not been tested! I am unknown to myself. No measure has been taken of that which I may accomplish.” Then she grew gentle again. 'But your strength is known to me. I have no doubt of it I have given my heart into your hands, and I say to you, it is possible. It may be done.”

From beyond the ridge came harsh screams as Vain ripped and mangled the ur-viles. But the pace of their cries had diminished; he was killing fewer of them. Linden's senses registered a rippling of power in the horde. Some of the clamour The eh-brand had taken on a chanting cadence. The monsters were summoning their lore against the Demondim-spawn, “Hellfire!” Covenant ejaculated. “Make sense! We've got to do something!”

Hollian looked toward him. “I speak of the alteration of the Sunbane.”

Surprise leaped in his face. At once, she went on, “Not of its power or its ill. But of its course, in the way that the shifting of a stone may alter the course of a river.”

His incomprehension was plain. Patiently, she added, “The morrow's sun will be a sun of rain. And the pace of the Sunbane increases as its power grows, ever shortening the space of days between the suns. It is my thought that perhaps the morrow's sun may be brought forward, so that its rain will fall upon us now.”

At that. Linden's apprehension jerked into clarity, and she understood Sunder's protest. The strength required would be enormous! And Hollian was pregnant, doubly vulnerable. If the attempt ran out of control, she