The Runes of the Earth

her surprise, she began to enjoy Hyn’s swiftness. The adoration and service of the Ramen were not difficult to understand. Like so much of the Land outside Lord Foul’s influence, the Ranyhyn were tangibly precious.

But she could not be sure that she would prove equal to what they wished of her.

“What happened?” she asked her companion.

“In the High Lord’s tale,” Stave answered, “Myrha bore her to an eldritch tarn enclosed within the Southron Range, where Ranyhyn had gathered by the hundreds. Around the vale of the tarn, the Ranyhyn galloped as though in ecstasy, only pausing at intervals to drink of the tarn’s dark waters.

“When the High Lord also drank, she found herself united in spirit with the great horses, sharing their thoughts and purposes. Thus she learned that she had been brought to partake of the horserite of Kelenbhrabanal, Father of Horses, Stallion of the First Herd. This rite the Ranyhyn held in secret, generation after generation, so that Kelenbhrabanal’s doom would never be forgotten.

“I know not what Hynyn and Hyn desire of us,” he added. “It may be that they wish us also to partake of the horserite. Or they may have some purpose which lies outside the ken of the Haruchai.”

His tone conveyed a shrug through the muted thunder of hooves. Whatever the intentions of the Ranyhyn might be, he apparently did not mean to let them interfere with his own commitments.

Or perhaps he was not so single-minded. His people loved the great horses. And Hyn and Hynyn had imposed their will on him as well as on Linden.

And he seemed reluctant to tell her the rest-

“What was it?” she asked. “Kelenbhrabanal’s doom?”

What had the Ranyhyn wanted from Covenant’s daughter?

“In a time before Berek Halfhand became the first High Lord,” continued the Master, “the Ranyhyn warred against the wolves of Fangthane the Render, and were slaughtered. Grieving for the decimation of the First Herd, Kelenbhrabanal sought to end the conflict by proposing a bargain. The Father of Horses would surrender his own throat to Fangthane. In exchange, the Render would cease his war upon the Ranyhyn.

“To this Fangthane agreed eagerly. But he did not honour his given word. When he had slain Kelenbhrabanal, he unleashed his wolves again upon the Plains of Ra. The slaughter of the Ranyhyn resumed. They would have perished from the Land if they had not gained the service of the Ramen to aid them in their long strife.”

“This knowledge the Ranyhyn shared with High Lord Elena to warn her,” Stave concluded flatly, “but she did not heed them.”

He seemed to believe that he had answered Linden’s question. But she was not satisfied. “What was the warning?” she insisted. “I don’t see what Kelenbhrabanal has to do with Elena. She wasn’t looking for a way to sacrifice herself.”

Not according to the little that Linden had heard of those events.

The Master appeared to sigh. “You know the tale. High Lord Elena sought the Seventh Ward, the Power of Command, so that she might compel Kevin Landwaster from his grave against Corruption. She believed that despair would anneal Kevin’s heart, rendering him from pain to iron, making of him an indomitable tool.

“In this she was wrong, to the great cost of all the Land.

“Bannor deemed then, as do the Haruchai now, that the Ranyhyn had perceived a flaw in the High Lord’s comprehension. By means of their horserite, they sought to alter the course of her thoughts. They wished her to grasp that despair is no more potent or salvific beyond death than it is in life.”

If Bannor and his descendants were right, the Ranyhyn had read Elena’s future in her young eyes. They had seen the time ahead of her: who she would become; what she would do.

And Elena had not heeded them.

Yet they had continued to serve her. To the last, they had hoped that she would learn from their rites. Or they had forgiven in advance her human folly-

Now, like them, Stave was trying to warn Linden.

It was too bad, she thought to herself, that the Masters also were not listening.

Beyond the ravine which led them from the Verge of Wandering, Hyn and Hynyn bore their riders running across mountainsides washed with sunshine, redolent with wildflowers and springtime. Always in sunlight, they rounded one towering granite buttress after another, plunging down into the gullies and sholas which creased the boundaries between peaks, then clattering with undiminished speed up the far slopes. At times the ground they trod looked rocky enough to imperil mountain-goats; yet they galloped on without hesitation. For a while, Linden was sure that they would exhaust themselves. Gradually, however, she became aware that both mounts were in fact holding themselves back: that they had tremendous strength in reserve, and had not yet called forth their true power.

Their restraint may have been meant as consideration for her.

Fortunately the indefeasible security of Hyn’s long strides inspired an almost autonomic confidence. The mare seemed as reliable as the bones of the Earth. Lulled by trust, Linden eventually found herself drifting. The sun’s warmth seeped into her bones, and the whetted atmosphere of the mountains seemed to clean the fear from her lungs. By degrees, her apprehensions faded, and she fell into a doze.

Later she was startled awake by a cessation of motion. The Ranyhyn had halted in a low gully nourished by a sparkling rill. As it danced past a small clump of aliantha, the water chuckled to itself as if high among the mountains it had heard an amusing tale. Hyn and Hynyn had paused to let their riders eat and drink.

Stave had already dismounted. Still half asleep, Linden slipped down from Hyn’s back without remembering to worry about her height from the ground. Unsteadily, she moved to the rill to quench her thirst, then joined her companion beside one of the treasure-berry bushes.

She saw at once that riding had exacerbated his wounds, his internal injuries as much as his damaged hip. His lips were pallid, his skin had taken on an ashen hue, and his pains were as sharp as compound fractures.

Nonetheless he remained undaunted. He had not yet come to the end of himself. And the sapid fruit restored him as it did her. With her health-sense, she could watch the progress of renewed vitality through his body. Soon she believed that he would be able to endure more riding.

Now she noticed that the sun had reached the afternoon sky. The passing of time caused her a pang. She must have dozed longer than she realised. “Did Bannor happen to say,” she asked Stave, “how far away this tarn is?”

The Haruchai regarded her steadily. “It is not certain that the tarn of the horserite is our destination.”

Linden nodded. “I understand. It’s just a guess. But I need something to hope for.”

“As you say.” He gazed up at the highest peaks. “High Lord Elena spoke of riding at a gallop for a day and a night from Mithil Stonedown. Doubtless a portion of the distance was behind us in the Verge of Wandering. More than that-”

With a shrug, he turned to limp toward Hynyn.

Both Ranyhyn had cropped a little grass and drunk from the rill. Now the stallion moved unbidden to stand beside a boulder jutting from the side of the gully. Apparently Hynyn understood that his rider might no longer be able to mount without aid. Once Stave had pulled himself onto the boulder, he could reach Hynyn’s back easily.

Touched by the discernment of the Ranyhyn, Linden followed his example. When she had resumed her seat, Hyn and Hynyn trotted out of the gully to continue their journey.

Thereafter the terrain became more demanding, the ground more broken and rocky, the mountainsides steeper. Bare stone loomed against the sky, grey with age and cold, mottled with lichen. Weather-stunted trees clung arduously to splits in the cliffs, and stubborn stretches of grass gave way to slopes of gravel like the detritus of glaciers. At the same time, the temperature declined as though the Ranyhyn ran toward realms of ice. Hyn and Hynyn had borne their riders far from any soil which could have sustained the rampant grass of the Verge of