White Gold Wielder Page 14

  “I know not when they commenced this span,” she replied. “To gauge their speed is difficult. But I will be surprised to behold them gain this shore ere the morrow.”

  He went on cursing for a while. But anger was as pointless as hope. None of the companions objected as they repacked the sleds for departure; the necessity was obvious. Linden looked worn by the continuing strain of the journey, uncertain of her courage. But the Giants had shed the worst of their exhaustion. The light of attention and humor in Pitchwife’s eyes showed that he had begun to recover his essential spirit. In spite of his repeated failures to match Cail, Mistweave bore himself with an air of pride, as if he were looking forward to the songs his people would sing about the feats of the company. And the Master appeared to welcome the prospect of the trek ahead as an anodyne for the immedicable gall of his thoughts.

  Covenant did not know how Vain and Findail had crossed the water. But Vain’s black blankness and the Elohim’s Appointed pain remained unaltered, dismissing the need for any explanation.

  The company was still intact as it left the shore, started southwestward up the low sloping shingle to the uneven line of hills which edged the coast.

  While the ground remained bare, Covenant and Linden walked beside Cail and the sleds. Though he was not in good shape, Covenant was glad for the chance to carry his own weight without having to fight the terrain. And he wanted to talk to Linden. He hoped she would tell him how she was doing. He had no ability to evaluate her condition for himself.

  But beyond the hills lay a long, low plain; and there heavy snow began to fall. In moments, it obscured the horizons, wrapped isolation around the travelers, collected quickly at their feet. Soon it was thick enough to bear the sleds. The First urged Covenant and Linden to ride so that she would be free to amend her pace. Aided by her keen eyesight and her instinctive sense of terrain, she led her companions through the thick snowfall as if the way were familiar to her.

  Toward midafternoon, the snow stopped, leaving the travelers alone in a featureless white expanse. Again the First increased her pace, thrusting herself through the drifts at a speed which no other people could have matched afoot. Only the Ranyhyn, Covenant mused. Only Ranyhyn could have borne him with comparable alacrity to meet his doom. But the thought of the great horses gave him a pang. He remembered them as beasts of beautiful fidelity, one of the treasures of the Land. But they had been forced to flee the malison of the Sunbane. Perhaps they would never return. They might never get the chance.

  That possibility brought him back to anger, reminded him that he was on his way to put an end to the Clave and the Banefire which served the Sunbane. He began to think about his purpose more clearly. He could not hope to take Revelstone by surprise. Lord Foul surely knew that the Unbeliever would come back to the Land, counted on Covenant’s return for the fulfillment of his designs. But it was possible that neither the Despiser nor his Ravers understood how much damage Covenant intended to do along the way.

  That had been Linden’s idea. Stop the Clave. Put out the Banefire. Some infections have to be cut out. But he accepted it now, accepted it deep in the venom and marrow of his power. It gave him a use for his anger. And it offered him a chance to make the arduous and unfaltering service of the Giants mean something.

  When he thought about such things, his right forearm itched avidly, and darkness rose in his gorge. For the first time since he had agreed to make the attempt, he was eager to reach Revelstone.

  Two days later, the company still had not come to the end of the snow-cloaked plain.

  Neither Linden’s health-sense nor the Giants’ sight had caught any glimpse of the arghuleh. Yet none of the companions doubted that they were being hunted. A nameless foreboding seemed to harry the sleds. Perhaps it arose from the sheer wide desolation of the plain, empty and barren. Or perhaps the whole company was infected by the rawness of Linden’s nerves. She studied the winter—scented the air, scrutinized the clouds, tasted the snow—as though it had been given birth by strange forces, some of them unnatural; and yet she could not put words to the uneasiness of what she perceived. Somewhere in this wasteland, an obscure disaster foregathered. But she had no idea what it was.

  The next day, however, mountains became visible to the east and south. And the day after that, the company rose up out of the plain, winding through low, rumpled foothills and valleys toward the ice-gnawed heights above them.

  This range was not especially tall or harsh. Its peaks were old, and millennia of winter had worn them down. By sunset, the companions had gained a thousand feet of elevation, and the foothills and the plain were bidden behind them.

  The following day, they were slowed to a crawl. While Covenant and Linden struggled through the snow on foot, the company worked from side to side up a rough, steep slope which disappeared into the gravid clouds and seemed to go on without end. But that ascent gave them another two thousand feet of altitude; and when it was over, they found themselves in a region that resembled rolling hills rather than true mountains. Time and cold had crumbled the crests which had once dominated this land; erosion had filled in the valleys. The First let the company camp early that night; but the next morning she was brisk with hope for good progress.

  “Unless we’re completely lost,” Covenant announced, “this should be the Northron Climbs,” The simple familiarity of that name lifted his heart. He hardly dared believe he was right. “If it is, then eventually we’re going to hit Landsdrop.” Running generally northwestward through the Northron Climbs, the great cliff of Landsdrop formed the boundary between the Lower Land and the Upper.

  But it also marked the border of the Sunbane; for the Sunbane arose and went west across the Upper Land from Lord Foul’s covert in the depths of Mount Thunder, which straddled the midpoint of Landsdrop. When the company reached the cliff, they would cross back into the Despiser’s power. Unless the Sunbane had not yet spread so far north.

  However, Linden was not listening to Covenant. Her eyes studied the west as if she were obsessed with thoughts of disaster. Her voice conveyed an odd echo of memory as she murmured, “It’s getting colder.”

  He felt a pang of fear. “It’s the elevation,” he argued. “We’re a lot higher up than we were.”

  “Maybe.” She seemed deaf to his apprehension. “I can’t tell.” She ran her fingers through her hair, tried to shake her perceptions into some semblance of clarity. “We’re too far south for so much winter.”

  Remembering the way Lord Foul had once imposed winter on the Land in defiance of all natural Law, Covenant gritted his teeth and thought about fire.

  For Linden was right: even his truncated senses could not mistake the deepening chill. Though there was no wind, the temperature seemed to plummet around him. During the course of the day, the snow became crusted and glazed. The air had a whetted edge that cut at his lungs. Whenever snow fell, it came down like thrown sand.

  Once the surface had hardened enough to bear the Giants, their work became easier. They no longer needed to force a path through the thigh-deep freeze. As a consequence, their pace improved markedly. Yet the cold was bitter and penetrating. Covenant felt brittle with frost and incapacity, caught between ice and fire. When the company stopped for the night, he found that his blankets had frozen about him like cerements. He had to squirm out of them as if he were emerging from a cocoon in which nothing had been transformed.

  Pitchwife gave him a wry grin. “You are well protected, Giantfriend.” The words came in gouts of steam as if the very sound of his voice had begun to freeze. “Ice itself is also a ward from the cold.”

  But Covenant was looking at Linden. Her visage was raw, and her lips trembled. “It’s not possible,” she said faintly. “There can’t be that many of them in the whole world.”

  No one had to ask her what she meant. After a moment, the First breathed, “Is your perception of them certain, Chosen?”

  Linden nodded. The corners of her eyes were marked with frost. “They’re brin
ging this winter down with them.”

  In spite of the fire Mistweave built. Covenant felt that his heart itself was freezing.

  After that, the weather became too cold for snow. For a day and a night, heavily laden clouds glowered overhead, clogging the sky and the horizons. And then the sky turned clear. The sleds bounced and slewed over the frozen surface as if it were a new form of granite.

  The First and Pitchwife no longer led the company. Instead they ranged away to the north to watch for arghuleh. The previous night, she had suggested that they turn southward in order to flee the peril. But Covenant had refused. His imprecise knowledge of the Land’s geography indicated that if the company went south they might not be able to avoid Sarangrave Flat. So the travelers continued toward Revelstone; and the First and Pitchwife kept what watch they could.

  Shortly after noon, with the sun glaring hatefully off the packed white landscape and the still air as keen as a scourge, the company entered a region where ragged heads and splintered torsos of rock thrust thickly through the snow-pack, raising their white-crowned caps and bitter sides like menhirs in all directions. Honninscrave and Mistweave had to pick a twisting way between the cromlechs, some of which stood within a Giant’s arm-span of each other; and the First and Pitchwife were forced to draw closer to the company so that they would not lose sight of the sleds.

  Among the companions. Linden sat as tense as a scream and muttered over and over again, “They’re here. Jesus God They’re here.”

  But when the attack came, they had no warning of it. Linden’s senses were foundering, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and intensity of the cold. She was unable to pick specific dangers out of the general peril. And Pitchwife and the First were watching the north. The assault came from the south.

  The company had entered a region which the arghuleh already controlled.

  Honninscrave and Mistweave were striding through the center of a rude ring of tall stones, Mistweave on the Master’s left, when two low hillocks across the circle rose to their feet. Maws clacking hungrily, the creatures shot forward a short distance, then stopped. One spun an instant web of ice which sprang at Mistweave’s head; the other waited to give pursuit when the companions broke and ran.

  Covenant’s shout and Honninscrave’s call rang out together. Impossibly surefooted on the iced snow, Mistweave and the Master leaped into a sprint. The jerk threw Covenant back in the sled. He grappled for the left railing, fought to pull himself upright. The First’s answer echoed back; but she and Pitchwife were out of reach beyond the menhirs.

  Then Linden’s sled crashed against Covenant’s. The impact almost pitched him out onto the snow.

  Mistweave’s burst of speed had taken him out from under the ice-web. But Linden was directly in its path. Heaving on the ropes, he tried to swing her aside. But Covenant’s sled was in the way.

  The next instant, the net came down on the lines and front of Linden’s sled. Immediately it froze. The lines became ice. When Mistweave hauled on them again, they snapped like icicles. Linden’s head cracked forward, and she crumpled.

  Cail had been between the sleds in his accustomed position. As the Giants had started into a run, he had run also, keeping himself between Covenant and the arghuleh. So even his Haruchai reflexes had not been enough to protect him as Mistweave had slewed Linden’s sled to the side. Leaping to avoid the collision, he had come down squarely under the web.

  His speed saved him from the full grasp of that ice. But the net caught his left arm, binding him by the elbow to the sled.

  Honninscrave had already pulled Covenant past Linden. Covenant had no time to shout for the Master to stop: the arghule was poised to launch another web. Venom seemed to slam through his forearm. With wild magic clenched in his half-fist, he swung to hurl power in Linden’s defense.

  In that instant, another arghule leaped from atop the nearest boulder and landed on Honninscrave. It bore him to the ground, buried him under sudden ice. Covenant’s sled over-turned. He sprawled to the crust practically within reach of the beast.

  But his fear was fixed on Linden; he hardly comprehended his own peril. His head reeled. Shedding frost and snow in a flurry like a small explosion, a precursor of the blast within him, he surged to his feet.

  Stark and lorn against the bare white, she still sat in her trapped sled. She was not moving. The rapacious cold of the arghuleh overloaded her nerves, cast her back into her atavistic, immobilizing panic. For an instant, she bore no resemblance to the woman he had learned to love. Rather, she looked like Joan. At once, the inextricable venom/passion of his power thronged through him, and he became ready to tear down the very cromlechs and rive the whole region if necessary to protect her.

  But Mistweave was in his way.

  The Giant had not moved from the spot where he had stumbled to a halt. His head jerked from side to side as his attention snapped frantically between Linden’s plight andHonninscrave’s. Linden had once saved his life. He had left Starfare’s Gem to take Cail’s place at her side. Yet Honninscrave was the Master. Caught between irreconcilable exigencies, Mistweave could not choose. Helplessly he blocked Covenant from the arghuleh behind him.

  “Move!” Fury and cold ripped the cry from Covenant’s throat.

  But Mistweave was aware of nothing except the choice he was unable to make. He did not move.

  Over his right shoulder arced a second web. Gaining size and thickness as it sailed, it spread toward Linden. Its chill left a trail of frost across Covenant’s sight

  Cail had not been able to free his left arm. But he saw the net coming like all the failures of the Haruchai—Hergrom’s slaughter and Ceer’s death and the siren song of the merewives encapsulated in one peril—and he drew himself up as if he were the last of his people left alive, the last roan sworn to succeed or die. His thews bunched, strained, stood out like bone—and his arm broke loose, still encased in a hunk of ice as big as a Giant’s head.

  Swinging that chunk like a mace, he leaped above Linden and shattered the web before it reached her.

  She gaped through the spray of splinters as if she had gone blind.

  Before Covenant could react, the second arghule behind Mistweave reared up and ripped the Giant down under its frigid bulk.

  Then the First landed like the plunge of a hawk on the beast holding Honninscrave. Pitchwife dashed around one of the boulders toward Linden and Cail. And Covenant let out a tearing howl of power that blasted the first arghule to pieces in one sharp bolt like a rave of lightning.

  From somewhere nearby, Findail gave a thin cry:

  “Fool!”

  Over her shoulder, the Swordmain panted, “We are hunted!” Hammering and heaving at the ice, she fought to pull Honninscrave free. “The arghuleh are many! A great many!” Honninscrave lay among the ruins of the beast as if it had succeeded at smothering him. But as the First manhandled him upright, a harsh shudder ran through him. All at once, he took his own weight, staggered to his feet.

  “We must flee!” she cried.

  Covenant was too far gone to heed her. Linden was safe, at least momentarily. Pitchwife had already snapped the ice from Cail’s arm; and the two of them could ward her for a little while. Tall and bright with fire, he stalked toward the beast still struggling to subdue Mistweave. Whatever force or change had overcome the native hate of the arghuleh had also left them blind to fear or self-preservation. The creature did not cease its attack on Mistweave until Covenant burned its life to water.

  In his passion, he wanted to turn and shout until the menhirs trembled, Come on! Come and get me! The scars on his forearm shone like fangs. I’ll kill you all! They had dared to assail Linden!

  But she had come back to herself now, had found her way out of her old paralysis. She was running toward him; and she was saying, crying, “No! That’s enough! You’ve done enough. Don’t let go!”

  He tried to hear her. Her face was sharp with urgency; and she came toward him as if she meant to throw herself into his arms
. He had to hear her. There was too much at stake.

  But he could not. Behind her were more arghuleh.

  Pitchwife had rushed to help Mistweave. Cail was at Linden’s side. Fighting to draw the sleds after them, the First and a dazed Honninscrave scrambled to form a cordon around Covenant and Linden. Findail had disappeared. Only Vain stood motionless.

  And from every side at once charged the vicious ice-beasts, crowding between the monoliths, a score of them, twoscore, as if each of them wanted to be the first to feast on warm flesh. As if they had come in answer to Covenant’s call. Enough of them to devour even Giants. Without wild magic, none of the company except Vain had any chance to survive.

  Something like an avid chuckle spattered across the background of Covenant’s mind. In his own way, he was hungry for violence, fervid for a chance to stuff his helplessness back down the Despiser’s throat. Thrusting Linden behind him, he went out to meet his attackers.

  His companions did not protest. They had no other hope.

  Bastards! he panted at the arghuleh. They were all around him, but he could barely see them. His brain had gone black with venom. Come and get me!

  Abruptly the First shouted something—a call of warning or surprise. Covenant did not hear the words; but the iron in her voice made him turn to see what she had seen.

  Then plain shock stopped him.

  From the south side of the ring, gray shapes smaller than he was appeared among the arghuleh. They were roughly human in form, although their arms and legs were oddly proportioned. But their unclad bodies were hairless; their pointed ears sat high on the sides of their bald skulls. And they had no eyes. Wide flat nostrils marked their faces above their slitted mouths.

  Barking in a strange tongue, they danced swiftly around the arghuleh. Each of them carried a short, slim piece of black metal like a wand which splashed a vitriolic fluid at the ice-beasts.

  That liquid threw the arghuleh into confusion. It burned them, broke sections off their backs, chewed down into their bodies. Clattering in pain, they forgot their prey, thrashed and writhed blindly in all directions. Some of them collided with the cromlechs, lost larger sections of themselves, died. But others, reacting with desperate instinct, covered themselves with their own ice and were able to stanch their wounds.