Against All Things Ending (73 page)

The Humbled or the Manethrall may have offered an objection too soft to reach the crest. In a harsh growl, Covenant responded, “It won’t be as hard as you think. I’ll just tell the Ranyhyn not to let you ride. You can’t possibly believe they won’t do it. They
reared
to me, for God’s sake!”

Linden drew strength from his misplaced wrath. In another time and place, she had learned to love his anger. She knew what it meant. It was recognition and compassion disguised as accusation. And he had come back, for the Land if not for her and Jeremiah. If he fell again, he would find a way to return.

She owed her life to the
Haruchai
. Because Covenant insisted upon it, Clyme and Branl would swallow enough of their pride to let her repay a portion of her long debt.

When she had staunched Kindwind’s bleeding, and had extinguished the last taint of infection, she did not take the time to seek sustenance from the Demondim-spawn. Turning to Cabledarm’s injuries, and Latebirth’s, she found that she could answer Esmer.

“All right.” She spoke without interrupting her ministrations. “I accept that. Bringing the ur-viles here wasn’t just a way to balance the scales. They were a gift. You saved Jeremiah, even if you didn’t do it yourself. You made it possible.”

On her own, she had failed terribly. And she had seen the price that Esmer paid for his one true choice.

Remembering that she had denied Elena, she added, “As far as I’m concerned, what you’ve accomplished is practically a miracle. Maybe it’s enough to compensate for everything else.”

Esmer’s face twisted: he may have been smiling. “Then grant me an end, Wildwielder.”

In spite of her determination to continue healing, Linden nearly froze. “How?” With one sentence, Esmer restored her despair. “You can’t—” Liand and Anele were dead. Stave’s son was dead. She had killed—“You can’t expect—”

“The
krill
of the High Lord lies there.” Esmer tilted his head toward Jeremiah. “It will suffice to slay me. You need only pierce my heart, and I will find peace.”

Joan’s intensity no longer pulsed in the gem. Nevertheless the jewel still shone, responding to the distant theurgy of her ring.

“
Damn
it, Esmer!” Linden cursed so that she would not wail. Earthpower slipped from her grasp. She almost dropped her Staff. “You can’t ask me to just
murder
you!”

Not after she had committed such slaughter—

Among themselves, the ur-viles and Waynhim chittered incomprehensibly.

Esmer’s eyes oozed like his sores. “Then I must remain as I am, a husk of life, until the Worm devours me.”

That, Linden wanted to protest, is not my problem! Too many other injuries ached for her care. All of her companions—She should have simply turned her back on Cail’s son.

But she could not. She had butchered thousands of living creatures. He was the only one who actually needed death.

“Linden Giantfriend—” the Ironhand began like a groan. Then she stopped, unable to find words.

Suddenly Stave lifted Galt’s body aside. When he had settled his son gently on the stained ground, he rose to his feet and picked up Loric’s
krill
. Then he strode toward Esmer.

Without a flicker of hesitation or doubt, he drove the dagger into Esmer’s back.

Stave!

For an instant, joy broke across Esmer’s tormented features. He had time to lift his eyes to the heavens in gratitude. A heartbeat later, he vanished like dispelled smoke, leaving no sign that he had ever existed except manacles: the symbol and resolution of his compelled nature. If any hint of his spirit lingered in the air, Linden could not sense it.

As one, the ur-viles and Waynhim raised a tumult of barking. As one, they fell silent again.

With an air of scorn or disgust, Stave dropped the knife. His gaze met Linden’s consternation squarely.

“It is not murder,” he pronounced, as rigid as any of his kindred. “It is mercy.”

When he had shown her that he was prepared to accept her reaction, whatever it might be, he turned away.

For a moment, the manacles lay where they had fallen in the mire of drying blood and gypsum. Then they began to corrode. The purpose for which they had been forged was done. Now the effects of millennia seemed to dissolve the black iron. While Linden watched, the last makings of the ur-viles slumped into rust and crumbled. Soon they were just one more blot on the ruined whiteness of the ridge.

She wished that she, too, could sag into flakes of rust. She yearned to be done—But she was supposed to be a healer, and she had already permitted Liand’s death. She had failed her son. In Andelain, she had refused simple kindness to Covenant’s woe-ridden daughter. On this ridge, she had torn apart more Cavewights than she knew how to count. The legacies of her parents were wrapped like cerements around her soul.

She could not pretend that she was done.

And Stave had spared her a burden. His mercy was for her as much as for Esmer.

She understood his disgust.

Scornful of herself, and grieving, Linden Avery recalled black flames from her Staff and resumed her tasks.

Stave would need her soon. So would Mahrtiir, if to a lesser extent. But the Swordmainnir came first for the sufficient reason that they were closer.

S
he had treated all but the most superficial of Frostheart Grueburn’s wounds, and was working deep within Halewhole Bluntfist’s hacked frame, when Covenant arrived on the ridgecrest, trailing the Humbled and the Ramen behind him like a cortege.

The force of his appearance jolted her to a halt. Her mouth was suddenly dry: the air felt too thick with carnage to breathe. Struggling to remember that she had once been a physician, she had forgotten how much he meant to her—and how much she feared his repudiation.

Apart from the Cords, she was the only member of the company who did not wear the stains of her actions. Even Jeremiah had been splashed by Galt’s blood, and by Liand’s. How could Covenant look at her without feeling sickened?

Yet her relief that he was unharmed pushed that concern aside. And when he met her gaze, she saw that his wrath was gone. He had expended it on the Humbled. Now he looked ashamed, as though he had failed her and everyone with her. His eyes held a kind of moral nausea, but it was not directed at her. Emphasized by the pure silver of his hair, the scar on his forehead suggested an instinct for self-blame that had grown pale with time, but had never entirely healed.

In that, he resembled her. The difference between them was Gallows Howe. It was She Who Must Not Be Named and limitless killing. With the Earth at stake, Thomas Covenant would not have done what she had done. He would have found some other answer.

“I’m sorry,” he said thickly, as if he rather than Linden had cause to expect recrimination. “I spent too long in the Arch. I don’t have any defenses against wild magic.” With one hand, he gestured at the
krill.
“It’s like Joan has me on a string. This time, she brought me back. She wants me where I can be hurt. But before that—” He winced. “Maybe she was holding me down. Or maybe I just don’t know how to climb out of what I remember.”

The Swordmainnir studied him gravely. Mahrtiir regarded Covenant through a drying crust of blood. Bhapa considered the killing ground with chagrin. Pahni looked around as if she had become a wasteland; as if the life in her eyes had been slain. For a moment, no one spoke. The Demondim-spawn stood motionless, as attentive as a salute.

Then Rime Coldspray found her voice. “Yet you live, Timewarden.” She sounded precise in spite of her hurts, like a woman stroking a whetstone along the edges of her glaive. “Nothing more was needed. Linden Giantfriend sufficed.”

Covenant scanned the company. Gruffly he replied, “I can see that. I would have thought all this”—with a jerk of his head, he indicated the battleground—“was impossible. Kastenessen and Roger and poor Joan and even Lord Foul must be tearing their hair right now.”

With that simple statement, he seemed to honor a victory that appalled Linden.

Then he shook himself, ran the stubs of his fingers through his hair, frowned ruefully. “Unfortunately we can’t afford to wait here for another attack.” To the loremaster, he said, “I hope you’ll stick around, at least for a while. You’ve already saved”—he spread his hands—“practically everything. As much as it could be saved. But Linden needs more
vitrim
. We all do. And we have questions you might at least try to answer.”

The loremaster merely nodded. After a moment, Waynhim began to move through the company again, offering their iron cups.

Hoping that she would someday be able to draw at least one clean breath, Linden accepted a cup. Instead of drinking, however, she continued to watch Covenant’s every movement, clutch at every word. He was right: she required sustenance. She felt so weak that she could barely stand. But she needed something more from him as well. Something more personal than his willingness to accept the crime of carnage.

After a moment, he told her directly, “You have to keep working, Linden. You’re still the only one who can do this. When you’re done with the Giants, Stave needs you. Mahrtiir needs you. And the Humbled are going to let you treat them.” His tone sharpened. “They won’t like what happens if they don’t.”

Sighing, he added, “We’re the last. We can’t afford to lose anybody else.”

Now he avoided Linden’s gaze. Scowling, he moved to stand over the
krill
. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

He bent to retrieve the dagger, then stopped. The gem no longer pulsed. Instead it shone with a steady radiance made pale by sunshine. Joan’s concentration had broken: she was too frail to sustain any intent. Clearly, however, she—or
turiya
Herem—could sense his touch on Loric’s weapon. She might strike again.

He had already been severely damaged.

Hesitating, he searched for some form of protection. But he seemed reluctant to take any scrap of cloth or leather from the corpses of the Cavewights. At last, he forced himself to approach Anele’s body.

Awkward with self-coercion and inadequate fingers, he rent strips from Anele’s aged tunic. The fabric was tattered and filthy, soiled by unrelieved decades of privation and neglect; but it was cleaner than anything worn by the Cavewights. As if he were violating the old man’s sacrifice, Covenant tore enough cloth to cover the
krill
; shield his hands: Anele’s last gift, taken without his volition. Then Covenant went to reclaim Loric Vilesilencer’s supreme achievement.

Shaken, Linden abruptly lifted
vitrim
to her lips and drank. She needed—Oh, she had too many needs. Covenant’s actions shocked her. They seemed uncharacteristically callous. And yet she had no idea what else he could have done.

He had shown that he could be callous when he had told her not to touch him.

As soon as her depleted body began to absorb vitality from the dust-scented liquid, she returned the cup to the Waynhim and called fresh fire from her Staff.

While Linden finished caring for Bluntfist, Rime Coldspray spoke to her comrades. The Ironhand was profoundly weary; but her voice was clear, founded on granite.

“Recover our supplies,” she told those Swordmainnir who were able to comply. “Return to the stream. Covenant Timewarden descries a need for haste. Yet some food and cleansing we must have. By the stream we will gather to drink and bathe, and to reconsider our course. And if these valiant ur-viles and Waynhim accompany us, mayhap they will consent to answer or advise us.”

“Aye,” assented Frostheart Grueburn and Onyx Stonemage together. Stiff with exhaustion and newly mended tissues, they limped down the ridge to collect the company’s bundles.

Weakened more by bleeding than by any single wound, Manethrall Mahrtiir could barely stand. Nevertheless he retained his authority. Leaning on Bhapa, he instructed Pahni to take Jeremiah and follow the Giants. “Ready viands for them,” he added, “and for us, while they drink and wash and rest.”

The girl obeyed without hesitation; without any sign of emotion whatsoever. Clasping Jeremiah’s hand in hers, she drew him away, passive and unaware. At once, Covenant joined her, tucking the wrapped
krill
into the waist of his jeans as he went.

Branl and Clyme started after him; but he snapped, “I
warned
you,” and they halted.

Linden approved the Manethrall’s instructions and Pahni’s compliance. She wished that her son had never been forced to witness such slaughter. She would breathe more easily herself when he was no longer forced to inhale the stink of what she had done. But she also felt a pang at Covenant’s manner. He was still keeping his distance from her—

Striving for thoroughness, she continued to work.

Fortunately the Cavewights had not damaged any of Rime Coldspray’s vital organs or arteries, or of Stormpast Galesend’s. They had not caught the force of Roger’s wild blasts. Their worst dangers came from infection and the sheer multiplicity of their hurts. Linden could afford to spend less time with them than she had with the other Giants.