Moonrise was near; he went to his bed to avoid exposing the alteration of his ring. With his head under the blankets, he stared into the blackness, saw when the moon came up by the bloody glow which grew in his wedding band. The metal seemed more deeply stained than it had two nights ago. It held his covered gaze like a fixation; and when he finally slept, he was as exhausted as if he had been worn out under an interrogation.
The next morning, he managed to reach Dura's back without being attacked- and he groaned in unashamed relief. Then Prothall broke his usual habit and did not call for a halt at noon. The reason became clear when the riders topped a rise and came in sight of the Soulsease River. They rode down out of the harsh plains and swam their horses across the river before stopping to rest. And there again Covenant was not attacked when he set foot on the ground.
But the rest of the day contrasted grimly with this inexplicable respite. A few leagues beyond the Soulsease, the Quest came upon a Waymeet for the first time. Remembering Covenant's tale of a murdered Waynhim, Prothall sent two Bloodguard, Korik and Terrel (who warded Lord Mhoram), into the Waymeet. The investigation was only necessary for confirmation. Even Covenant in his straitened condition could see the neglect, smell the disuse; the green travellers’ haven had gone brown and sour. When Korik and Terrel returned, they could only report what the company had already perceived: the Waymeet was untended.
The Lords met this discovery with stern faces. Clearly, they had feared that the murder Covenant had described would lead the Waynhim to end their service. But several of the warriors groaned in shock and dismay, and Foamfollower ground his teeth. Covenant glanced around at the Giant, and for a moment saw Foamfollower's face suffused with fury. The expression passed quickly, but it left Covenant feeling shaken. Unexpectedly, he sensed that the unmarred loyalty of the Giants to the Land was dangerous; it was quick to judge.
So there was a gloom on the company at the end of the seventh day, a gloom which could only be aggravated by the moon, incarnadine and corrupt, as it coloured the night like a conviction of disaster. Only Covenant received any relief; once again, his private, stalking ill left him alone. But the next day brought the riders in sight of Andelain. Their path lay along the outskirts of the Hills on the southwest side, and even through the hanging grey weather, the richness of Andelain glistened like the proudest gem of the Earth. It made the company feel light-boned, affected the Quest like a living view of what the Land had been like before the Desecration.
Covenant needed that quiet consolation as much as anyone, but it was denied him. While eating breakfast, he had been bitten again by the wrong in the earth. The previous day's respite seemed only to multiply the virulence of the attack; it was compact with malevolence, as if that respite had frustrated it, intensified its spite. The sensation of wrong left him foundering.
During one of the rest halts, he was struck again.
And that evening, while he made himself a supper of
aliantha
, he was 'struck again. This time the wrong lashed him so viciously that he passed out for some time. When he regained consciousness, he was lying in Foamfollower's arms like a child. He felt vaguely that he had had convulsions.
“Take off your boots,” Foamfollower urged intently.
Numbness filled Covenant's head like mist, clouded his reactions. But he mustered the lucidity to ask, “Why?”
“Why? Stone and Sea, my friend! When you ask like that, how can I answer? Ask yourself. What do you gain by enduring such wrong?”
“Myself,” he murmured faintly. He wanted simply to recline in the Giant's arms and sleep, but he fought the desire, pushed himself away from Foamfollower until the Giant set him on his feet by Birinair's
lillianrill
fire. For a moment, he had to cling decrepitly to Foamfollower's arm to support himself, but then one of the warriors gave him his staff, and he braced himself on it. “By resisting.”
But he knew in his bones that he was not resisting. They felt weak, as if they were melting under the strain. His boots had become a hollow symbol for an intransigence he no longer felt.
Foamfollower started to object, but Mhoram stopped him. “It is his choice,” the Lord said softly.
After a while, Covenant fell into feverish sleep. He did not know that he was carried tenderly to bed, did not know that Mhoram watched over him during the night, and saw the bloody stain on his wedding band.
He reached some sort of crisis while he slept, and awoke with the feeling that he had lost, that his ability to endure had reached the final either- or of a toss which had gone against him. His throat was parched like a battleground. When he forced his eyes open, he found himself again prostrated in Foamfollower's arms. Around him, the company was ready to mount for the day's ride.
When he saw Covenant's eyes open, Foamfollower bent over him and said quietly, “I would rather bear you in my arms than see you suffer. Our journey to Lord's Keep was easier for me than watching you now.”
Part of Covenant rallied to look at the Giant. Foamfollower's face showed strain, but it was not the strain of exhaustion. Rather, it seemed like a pressure building up in his mind- a pressure that made the fortress of his forehead appear to bulge. Covenant stared at it dumbly for a long moment before he realized that it was sympathy. The sight of his own pain made Foamfollower's pulse throb in his temples.
Giants? Covenant breathed to himself. Are they all like this? Watching that concentration of emotion, he murmured, “What's a “foamfollower”?
The Giant did not appear to notice the irrelevance of the question. “A “follower” is a compass,” he answered simply. “So “Foamfollower”- “sea-compass”.
Covenant began weakly moving, trying to get out of the Giant's arms. But Foamfollower held him, forbade him in silence to set his feet on the ground.
Lord Mhoram intervened. With grim determination in his voice, he said, “Set him down.”
“Down,” Covenant echoed.
Several retorts passed under Foamfollower's heavy brows, but he only said, “Why?”
“I have decided,” Mhoram replied. “We will not move from this place until we understand what is happening to ur-Lord Covenant. I have delayed this risk too long. Death gathers around us. Set him down.” His eyes flashed dangerously.
Still Foamfollower hesitated until he saw High Lord Prothall nod support for Mhoram. Then he turned Covenant upright and lowered him gently to the ground. For an instant, his hands rested protectively on Covenant's shoulders. Then he stepped back.
“Now, ur-Lord,” said Mhoram. “Give me your hand. We will stand together until you feel the ill, and I feel it through you.”
At that, a coil of weak panic writhed in Covenant's heart. He saw himself reflected in Mhoram's eyes, saw himself standing lornly with what he had lost written in his face. That loss dismayed him. In that tiny, reflected face he perceived abruptly that if the attacks continued he would inevitably learn to enjoy the sense of horror and loathing which they gave him. He had discovered a frontier into the narcissism of revulsion, and Mhoram was asking him to risk crossing over.
“Come,” the Lord urged, extending his right hand. “We must understand this wrong if we are to resist it.”
In desperation or despair, Covenant thrust out his hand. The heels of their palms met; they gripped each other's thumbs. His two fingers felt weak, hopeless for Mhoram's purpose, but the Lord's grasp was sturdy. Hand to hand like combatants, they stood there as though they were about to wrestle with some bitter ghoul.
The attack came almost at once. Covenant cried out, shook as if his bones were gibbering, but he did not leap away. In the first instant, Mhoram's hard grip sustained him. Then the Lord threw his arm around Covenant, clasped him to his, chest: The violence of Covenant's distress buffeted Mhoram, but he held his ground, gritted his embrace.
As suddenly as it had come, the attack passed. With a groan, Covenant sagged in Mhoram's arms.
Mhoram held him up until he moved and began to carry his own weight. Then, slowly, the Lord released him. For a moment, their faces appeared oddly similar; they had the same haunted expression, the same sweat-damp hollow gaze. But shortly Covenant gave a shuddering sigh, and Mhoram straightened his shoulders- and the similarity faded.
“I was a fool,” Mhoram breathed. "I should have known- That ill is Drool Rockworm, reaching out with the power of the Staff to find you. He can sense pour presence by the touch of your boots on the earth, because they are unlike anything made in the Land. Thus he knows where you are, and so where we are.
“It is my guess that you were untouched the day we crossed the Soulsease because Drool expected us to move toward him on the River, and was searching for us on water rather than on land. But he learned his mistake, and regained contact with you yesterday.”
The Lord paused, gave what he was saying a chance to penetrate Covenant. Then he concluded, “Ur-Lord, for the sake of us all- for the sake of the Land- you must not wear your boots. Drool already knows too much of our movements. His servants are abroad.”
Covenant did not respond. Mhoram's words seemed to sap the last of his strength. The trial had been too much for him; with a sigh he fainted into the Lord's arms. So he did not see how carefully his boots and clothes were removed and packed in Dura's saddlebags- how tenderly his limbs were washed by the I Lords and dressed in a robe of white samite- how sadly his ring was taken from his finger and placed on a new patch of
clingor
over his heart- how gently he was cradled in Saltheart Foamfollower's arms throughout the long march of that day. He lay in darkness like a sacrifice; he could hear the teeth of his leprosy devouring his flesh. There was a smell of contempt around him, insisting on his impotence. But his lips were bowed in a placid smile, a look of fondness, as if he had come at last to approve his disintegration.
He continued to smile when he awoke late that night and found himself staring into the wide ghoul grin of the moon. Slowly, his smile stretched into a taut grimace, a look of happiness or hatred. But then the moon was blocked out of his vision by Foamfollower's great bulk. The Giant's huge palms, each as large as Covenant's face, stroked his head tenderly, and in time the caress had its effect on him. His eyes lost their ghastly appearance, and his face relaxed, drifted away from torment into repose. Soon he was deep in a less perilous slumber.
The next day- the tenth of the Quest- he awoke calmly, as if he were held in numb truce or stasis between irreconcilable demands. A feeling of affectlessness pervaded him, as if he no longer had the heart to care about himself. Yet he was hungry. He ate a large breakfast, and remembered to thank the Woodhelvennin woman who seemed to have assigned herself the task of providing for him. His new apparel he accepted with a rueful shrug, noticing in silent, dim sarcasm how easily after all he was able to shed himself- and how the white robe flattered his gaunt form as if he were born to it. Then, dumbly, he mounted Dura.
His companions watched him as if they feared he would fall. He was weaker than he had realized; he needed most of his concentration to keep his seat, but he was equal to the task. Gradually the Questers began to believe that he was out of danger. Among them, he rode through the sunshine and the warm spring air along the flowered marge of Andelain- rode attenuated and careless, as if he were locked between impossibilities.
Seventeen: End in Fire
THAT night, the company camped in a narrow valley between two rocky hillsides half a league from the thick grasses of Andelain. The warriors were cheery, recovering their natural spirits after the tensions of the past few days, and they told stories and sang songs to the quiet audience of the Lords and Bloodguard. Though the Lords did not participate, they seemed glad to listen, and several times Mhoram and Quaan could be heard chuckling together.
But Covenant did not share the ebullience of the Eoman. A heavy hand of blankness held shut the lid his emotions, and he felt separate, untouchable. Finally he went to his bed before the warriors were done with their last song.
He was awakened some time later by a hand on his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he found Foamfollower stooping beside him. The moon had nearly set. “Arise,” the Giant whispered. “The Ranyhyn have brought word. Wolves are hunting us. Ur-viles may not be far behind. We must go.”
Covenant blinked sleepily at the Giant's benighted face for a moment. “Why? Won't they follow?”
“Make haste, ur-Lord. Terrel, Korik, and perhaps a, third of Quaan's Eoman will remain here in ambush. They will scatter the pack. Come.”
But Covenant persisted. “So what? They'll just fall back and follow again. Let me sleep.”
“My friend, you try my patience. Arise, and I will explain.”
With a sigh, Covenant rolled from his blankets. While he tightened the sash of his robe, settled his sandals on his feet, and assured himself of his staff and knife, his Woodhelvennin helper snatched up his bedding and packed it away. Then she led Dura toward him.
Amid the silent urgency of the company, he mounted, then went with Foamfollower toward the centre of the camp, where the Lords and Bloodguard were already mounted. When the warriors were ready, Birinair extinguished the last embers of the fire, and climbed stiffly onto his horse. A moment later, the riders turned and fled the narrow valley, picking their way across the rough terrain by the last red light of the moon.
The ground under Dura's hooves looked like blood slowly clotting, and Covenant clutched his ring to preserve it from the crimson light. Around him, the company moved in a tight suspense of silence; every low, metal clatter of sword was instantly muffled, every breath covered. The Ranyhyn were as noiseless as shadows, and on their broad backs the Bloodguard sat like statues, eternally alert and insentient.
Then the moon set. Darkness was a relief, though it seemed to increase the hazard of their escape. But the whole company was surrounded, guided, by the Ranyhyn, and the mighty horses chose a path which kept the other mounts safe between them.
After two or three leagues had passed, the mood of the Quest relaxed somewhat. They heard no pursuit, sensed no danger. Finally Foamfollower gave Covenant the explanation he had promised.
“It is simple,” the Giant whispered. “After scattering the wolves, Korik and Terrel will lead a trail away from ours. They will go straight into Andelain, east toward Mount Thunder, until pursuit has been confused. Then they will turn and rejoin us.”
“Why?” Covenant asked softly.
Lord Mhoram took up the explanation. “We doubt that Drool can understand our purpose.” Covenant could not feel the Lord's presence as strongly as Foamfollower's, so Mhoram's voice sounded disembodied in the darkness, as if the night were speaking. That impression seemed to belie his words, as if without the verification of physical presence what the Lord said was vain. “Much of our Quest may seem foolhardy or foolish to him. Since he holds the Staff, we are mad to approach him. But if we mean to approach nonetheless, then our southward path is folly, for it is long, and his power grows- daily. He will expect us to turn east toward him, or south toward Doom's Retreat and escape. Korik and Terrel will give Drool's scouts reason to believe that we have turned to attack. If he becomes unsure of where we are, he will not guess our true aim. He will search for us in Andelain, and will seek to strengthen his defences in Mount Thunder. Believing that we have turned to attack him, he will also believe that we have mastered the power of your white gold.”
Covenant considered momentarily before asking, “What's Foul going to be doing during all this?”
“Ah,” Mhoram sighed, “that is a question. There hangs the fate of our Quest- and of the Land.” He was silent for a long time. “In my dreams, I see him laughing.”
Covenant winced at the memory of Foul's crushing laughter, and fell silent. So the riders crept on through the dark, trusting themselves to the instincts of the Ranyhyn. When dawn came, they had left their ambush for the wolves far behind.
It took the company four more days of hard riding, fifteen leagues a day, to reach the Mithil River, the southern boundary of Andelain. For sixty leagues, the Quest drove to the southeast without a hint of what had befallen Korik's group. In all, only eight people had left the company. But somehow without them the Quest seemed shrunken and puny. The concern of the High Lord and his companions rumbled in the hoofbeats of their mounts, and echoed in the silence that lay between them like an empty bier.
Gone now was the gladness of eye with which the warriors had beheld Andelain never more than a league to their left. From dawn to dusk every glance studied the eastern horizons; they saw nothing but a void in which Korik's riders had not appeared. Time and again, Foamfollower broke away from the company to trot up the nearest hill and peer into the distance; time and again, he returned panting and comfortless, and the company was left to conceive nightmares to explain Korik's absence.
The unspoken consensus was that no number of wolves was large enough to conquer two Bloodguard, mounted as they were on Huryn and Brabha of the Ranyhyn. No, Korik's group must have fallen into the hands of a small army of ur-viles so the company reasoned, though Prothall argued that Korik might have had to ride many leagues to find a river or other means to throw the wolves off his trail. The High Lord's words were sound, but somehow under the incarnadine moon they seemed hollow. In spite of them, Warhaft Quaan went 'about his duties with the deaths of six warriors in his face.
All the riders were shrouded in gloom when, near twilight on the fourth day, they reached the banks of the Mithil.
Immediately on their left as they neared the river stood a steep hill like a boundary of Andelain. It guarded the north bank; the company could only cross its base into Andelain by riding single file along the river edge. But Prothall chose that path in preference to swimming the stiff current of the Mithil. With only Tuvor before him, he led the way east along the scant bank. The Questers followed one by one. Soon the entire company was traversing the boundary of the hill.
Spread out as they were, they were vulnerable. As the hill rose beside them, its slope became almost sheer, and its rocky crown commanded the path along the river like a fortification. The riders moved with their heads craned upward; they were keenly conscious of the hazard of their position.
They were still in the traverse when they heard a hail from the hilltop. Among the rocks, a figure rose into view. It was Terrel.
The riders returned his hail joyfully. Hurrying, they crossed the base of the hill, and found themselves in a broad, grassy valley where horses- two Ranyhyn and five mustangs- grazed up away from the river.
The mustangs were exhausted. Their legs quivered weakly, and their necks drooped; they barely had strength enough to eat.
Five, Covenant repeated. He felt numbly sure that he had miscounted.
Korik was on his way down from the hilltop. He was accompanied by five warriors.
With an angry shout, Quaan leaped from his horse and ran toward the Bloodguard. “Irin!” he demanded. “Where is Irin? By the Seven! What has happened to her?”
Korik did not answer until he stood with his group before High Lord Prothall. They struck Covenant as a strange combination: five warriors full of conflicting excitement, courage, grief; and one Bloodguard as impassive as a patriarch. If Korik felt any satisfaction or pain, he did not show it.
He held a bulging pack in one hand, but did not refer to it immediately. Instead, he saluted Prothall, and said, High Lord. You are well. Have you been pursued?"
“We have seen no pursuit,” Prothall replied gravely.
“That is good. It appeared to us that we were successful.”
Prothall nodded, and Korik began his tale. “We met the wolves and sought to scatter them. But they were
kresh
”-he made a splitting sound" not easily turned aside. So we led them eastward. They would not enter Andelain. They howled on our track, but would not enter. We watched from a distance until they turned away to the north. Then we rode east.
“After a day and a night, we broke trail and turned south. But we came upon marauders. They were mightier than we knew. There were ur-viles and Cavewights together, and with them a
griffin
.”
Korik's audience murmured with surprise and chagrin, and the Bloodguard paused to utter what sounded like a long curse in the tonal native tongue of- the
Haruchai
. Then he continued: “Irin purchased our escape. But we were driven far from our way. We reached this place only a short time before you.”
With a revolted flaring of his nostrils, he lifted the pack. “This morning we saw a hawk over us. It flew strangely. We shot it.” Reaching into the pack, he drew out the body of the bird. Above its vicious beak, it had only one eye, a large mad orb centred in its forehead.
It struck the company with radiated malice. The hawk was ill, incondign, a thing created by wrong for purposes of wrong- bent away from its birth by a power that dared to warp nature. The sight stuck in Covenant's throat, made him want to retch. He could hardly hear Prothall say, “This is the work of the Illearth Stone. How could the Staff of Law perform such a crime, such an outrage? Ah, my friends, this is the outcome of our enemy. Look closely. It is a mercy to take such creatures out of life.” Abruptly, the High Lord turned away, burdened by his new knowledge.
Quaan and Birinair cremated the ill-formed hawk. Soon the warriors who had gone with Korik began to talk, and a fuller picture of their past four days emerged. Attention naturally centred on the fight which had killed Irin of the Eoman.
The Ranyhyn Brabha had first smelled danger, and had given the warning to Korik. At once, he had hidden his group in a thick copse to await the coming of the marauders. Listening with his ear to the ground, he had judged that they were a mixed force of unmounted ur-viles and Cavewights- Cavewights had not the ur-viles' ability to step softly totalling no more than fifteen. So Korik had asked himself which way his service lay: to preserve his companions as defenders of the Lords, or to damage the Lords' enemies. The Bloodguard were sworn to the protection of the Lords, not of the Land. He had elected to fight because he judged that his force was strong enough, considering the element of surprise, to meet both duties without loss of life.
His decision had saved them. They learned later that if they had not attacked they would have been trapped in the copse; the panic of the horses would have given away their hiding.
It was a dark night after moonset, the second night after Korik's group had left the company, and the marauders were moving without lights. Even the Bloodguard's keen eyes discerned nothing more than the shadowy outlines of the enemy. And the wind blew between the two forces, so that the Ranyhyn were prevented from smelling the extent of their peril.
When the marauders reached open ground, Korik signalled to his group; the warriors swept out of the copse behind him and Terrel. The Ranyhyn outdistanced the others at once, so Korik and Terrel had just engaged the enemy when they heard the terror screams of the horses. Wheeling around, the Bloodguard saw all six warriors struggling with their panicked steeds- and the
griffin
hovering over them. The
griffin
was a lionlike creature with sturdy wings that enabled it to fly for short distances. It terrified the horses, swooped at the riders. Korik and Terrel raced toward their comrades. And behind them came the marauders.
The Bloodguard hurled themselves at the
griffin
, but aloft, with its clawed feet downward, it had no vulnerable spots that they could reach without weapons. Then the marauders fell on the group. The warriors rallied to defend their horses. In the melee, Korik poised himself on Brabha's back to spring up at the grin at the first opportunity. But when his chance came, Irin cut in front of him. Somehow, she had captured a long Cavewightish broadsword. The
griffin
snatched her up in its claws, and as it ripped her apart she beheaded it.
The next moment, another party of marauders charged forward. The warriors' horses were too terrified to do anything but run. So Korik's group fled, dashed east and north with the enemy on their heels. By the time they lost the pursuit, they had been driven so far into Andelain that they had not been able to rejoin Prothall until the fourth day.
Early in the evening, the reunited company set up camp. While they prepared supper, a cool wind slowly mounted out of the north. At first it felt refreshing, full of Andelainian scents. But as moonrise neared, it stiffened with a palpable wrench until it was scything straight through the valley. Covenant could taste its unnaturalness; he had felt something like it before. Like a whip, it drove dark cloudbanks southward.