The Runes of the Earth

bruises. The wounds of the other five were more serious. Torn flesh hung in strips from the arms and legs of two of them, a man and a woman. Fangs had ripped grisly chunks out of one man’s shoulder and another’s thigh. As severe as those hurts appeared, however, they were small compared to the injuries of the fifth Raman.

The woman had been nearly eviscerated.

Three Cords laboured to keep her alive. The rest tended the other four.

“Damn it,” Linden muttered to herself. Peritonitis for sure. Even if the woman’s intestines were not too badly rent, and could be sewn intact back into her abdomen, she would develop a killing infection almost at once. Indeed, all of the wounds would turn septic: the claws and teeth of the kresh assured that.

Fire, she thought. We need a fire.

And then: hurtloam.

With an effort, she swallowed the fatigue clogging her throat. “Do you know hurtloam?” she asked the Cords.

“We do,” one of the men answered, abrupt with concentration. He appeared younger than Liand: too young for such work. Strain and pride stretched a pallor across his cheeks. All of the Cords were little more than adolescents. “It is not found here.” Not among these broken stones. “Nor do we often bear it with us. Its virtue slowly fades when it is lifted from the earth, and we lack the lore to sustain it. But we are Ramen. That which we have must suffice.”

From a pouch at his waist, he sifted into his palm a few sprigs of what appeared to be dried ferns or grass. Petals lay among them: the same flowers that Manethrall Hami wore around her neck. The Cord separated one sprig from the others, returned the rest to his pouch. Then he spat onto the herb in his palm; and at once a sharp tang pricked Linden’s nose.

“This is amanibhavam,” he told her, “the flower of health and madness. Fresh, it is too potent for human flesh, bringing ecstasy and death. Dried, however, it may be borne.”

Rubbing the damp herb between his hands, he wiped it into the gutted woman’s wound.

She gasped in pain; and Linden nearly gasped as well, shocked by the crudeness of such care. Damn it. She needed her health-sense; needed to know what amanibhavam was and did.

The suffering of the Ramen hung about her head; agony stifled by pride and fortitude. The other Cords had similar pouches. They dabbed bits of saliva and fern under strips of ripped tissue and bound the skin back into place with cloth bandages; rubbed the same mixture as though it were a sovereign poultice into bitten shoulders and thighs. She had witnessed miracles of healing in the Land. With percipience and power, she had wrought a few herself. But this

The last blood of the dead oozed from their wounds to stain the gutrock. Its lost scent tightened the back of her throat. They had died brutally, mangled almost beyond recognition. One had had her face ripped away. Another’s spine had been crushed in the massive jaws of a wolf.

These dead and injured young people had saved Linden’s life. She remembered evil; but on a purely visceral level, she had forgotten the real cost of Lord Foul’s malice.

Staggering, she heaved herself upright. “Manethrall,” she breathed urgently. “Hami. They’re going to die.”

The Manethrall came smoothly down the stone to consider the plight of her Cords. Then she met Linden’s troubled stare. “It may be so,” she admitted sadly. “Kresh are in all ways dire and filthy beasts. Yet amanibhavam has rare virtue. It may yet redeem these wounds. We can do naught else in this place. We must depart.”

“No.” Linden shook her head unsteadily. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t move them.” Especially the gut-torn woman. In a rush, she added, “Liand and I know where to find aliantha.”

Hurtloam was out of the question. Without percipience, she would not be able to identify it. And Liand had never seen it.

Manethrall Hami raised her eyebrows. “That would be a benison. Is it near?”

Linden gestured down toward the Mithil valley. “Send one of your Cords with me,” she urged. “Or with Liand, if I’m too weak. They can bring some back.” “Will they return before nightfall?”

Linden swallowed roughly. “No.”

“Then I will send no one. You have knowledge of the Land, but mayhap you do not know these mountains. With the setting of the sun, a wind as harsh as ice will blow here. Lacking shelter, they”- she meant her injured Cords- “will perish. Also you may succumb, for you are not hardy.

“We must ascend. Beyond the rims of this cleft, we will be capable of shelter and fire.”

Fire to boil water, cauterise wounds, burn away as much infection as possible. There was no wood for fuel in the rift.

Linden felt a pang of despair, and she faltered.

“Or we could go down,” she offered hesitantly. “Get out of the wind. Find aliantha.” Do what Stave wanted. “Mithil Stonedown will help us.”

Severity sharpened the Manethrall’s face. “Ringthane, we love the Land. It is the long dream of the Ramen that we will one day return there-to the Plains of Ra and Manhome, where we belong.” Her voice implied a suppressed outrage. “But we will not enter any place where these Masters hold sway.”

Turning away, she added, “My Cords will endure, if they are able. They are Ramen.

Stave regarded her impassively, as though he did not deign to take umbrage.

Linden could not imagine what grudge the Ramen held against the Haruchai. However, she herself feared to return to Mithil Stonedown. Stave had surprised her by promising the Manethrall two days. In her experience, his people neither compromised nor negotiated.

When she had absorbed the hard fact that she could do nothing for the Cords-that all her years of training were useless here-she sat down to save her strength. The shadows in the rift approached true twilight, and the tops of the walls seemed too far away to reach. She did not believe that she would be able to climb so high.

Dumbly she watched one of the Cords treat Liand’s arm. She had become certain that the Ramen meant him no harm.

The Cord applied a touch of amanibhavam and saliva to the gash, then bound it with a bandage of clean cloth. As he felt the effects of the poultice, Liand frowned at first, then gradually relaxed into a smile. “I know not what other benefits this grass may have,” he told Linden when he had thanked the Cord, “but it assuredly softens pain. For that I am grateful.”

Linden nodded vacantly. Her uselessness galled her. For the time being, at least, she had come to the end of herself.

Scant moments later, however, Manethrall Hami called her Cords into motion. Around Linden, the comparatively whole young men and women prepared themselves to carry their dead and fallen comrades, some in slings across their backs, others cradled in their arms. Liand readied Somo for an ascent they could scarcely see. And Linden realised that she was staring at a darkness deeper than shadows: the ur-viles.

Without thinking about it, she had expected them to depart. Surely they had already done what they came to do? Yet they remained, obviously waiting for something. Did they mean to accompany the Ramen? Did they anticipate another attack? Or were they wary of the moment when their interests might diverge from those of the Ramen?

Then Stave came to her side. “Chosen,” he announced, “I must bear you again.” Gloom obscured his features. If he had bared his teeth at her, she would not have known it. “If I do not, your weariness will hold you here, and you will be exposed to cold beyond your endurance.”

Too worn out to do otherwise, she surrendered herself and the immediate future to his ambiguous care.

As the Cords settled their burdens, the ur-viles also prepared to move. Apparently the disturbing creatures intended to accompany them.

Then the Ramen began to climb. Linden had assumed that they would move slowly and rest often, laden as they were. But she soon saw that she had underestimated their toughness. They managed the jagged slope more swiftly than she could have imagined.

And the ur-viles ascended with ease. The proportions of their limbs aided them here: although they looked