The Wounded Land (57 page)

Before anyone could react, she turned Din and guided it toward the blind rushing creatures. As she moved, she brought up the fire of her
rukh
, holding it before her like a saber.

Covenant and Sunder sprang after her. But Brinn and Stell interposed themselves. Cursing, the Graveler fought to break free; but Stell mastered him without effort. Furiously Sunder shouted, “Release me! Do you not see that she means to die?”

Covenant ignored Sunder: he locked himself to Brinn’s flat eyes. Softly, dangerously, he breathed, “Don’t do this.”

Brinn shrugged. “I have sworn to preserve your life.”

“Bannor took the same Vow.” Covenant did not struggle. But he glared straight at the
Haruchai
. People have died because of me. How much more do you think I can stand? “That’s how Elena got killed. I might have been able to save her.”

The
Grim
began to boil almost directly above the quest. But the Cavewight-like creatures were unaware of it. They marched on like blind doom, shredding the dirt of the plains.

“Bannor maintained his Vow,” Brinn said, as if it cost him no effort to refute Covenant. “So the old tellers say, and their tale has descended from Bannor himself. It was First Mark Morin, sworn to the High Lord, who failed.” He nodded toward Ceer. In response, Ceer sprinted after Memla and vaulted lightly onto Din’s back. “We also,” Brinn concluded, “will maintain the promise we have made, to the limit of our strength.”

But Memla reacted in rage too thick for shouting. “By the Seven Hells!” she panted, “I will not have this. You have sworn nothing to me.” Brandishing her
rukh
, she faced Ceer. “If you do not dismount, I will burn you with my last breath, and all this company shall die for naught!”

Memla!
Covenant tried to yell. But he could not. He had nothing to offer her; his fear of wild magic choked him. Helplessly he watched as Ceer hesitated, glanced toward Brinn. The
Haruchai
consulted together in silence, weighing their commitments. Then Ceer sprang to the ground and stepped out of Din’s way.

No! Covenant protested. She’s going to get herself killed!

He had no time to think. Gloaming occluded the atmosphere. The ravening
Grim
poised itself above Memla, focused on her fire. The heavens around the cloud remained impossibly cerulean; but the cloud itself was pitch and midnight. It descended as it seethed, dropping toward its victims.

Under it, the air crackled as if it were being scorched.

The Coursers skittered. Sunder took out his
orcrest
, then seized Hollian’s hand and pulled her to the far side of the circle, away from Memla. The
Haruchai
flowed into defensive positions among the companions and the milling beasts.

Amid the swirl of movement, Vain stood, black under black, as if he were inured to darkness.

Hergrom placed himself near Vain. But Memla was planning to die; Linden was foundering in ill; and Covenant felt outraged by the unanswerable must/must not of his ring. He yelled at Hergrom, “Let him take care of himself!”

The next instant, he staggered to his knees. The air shattered with a heart-stopping concussion. The
Grim
broke into bits, became intense black flakes floating downward like a fall of snow.

With fearsome slowness, they fell—crystals of sun-darkness, tangible night, force which not even stone could withstand.

Howling defiance, Memla launched fire at the sky.

Din bunched under her and charged out into the march of the creatures. A series of tremendous heaves carried beast and Rider toward the center of the stream.

The flakes of the
Grim
drifted in her direction, following the lodestone of her
rukh
. Its dense center, the nexus of its might, passed beyond the quest.

The creatures immediately mobbed her mount. Din let out a piercing scream at the tearing of claws and mandibles. Only the plunging of its hooves, the slash of its spurs, the thickness of its coat, protected it.

Then the
Grim
fell skirling around her head. Her fire blazed: she lashed out, trying to keep herself and Din from being touched. Every flake her flame struck burst in a glare of darkness, and was gone. But for every flake she destroyed, she was assailed by a hundred more.

Covenant watched her in an agony of helplessness, knowing that if he turned to his ring now he could not strike for her without striking her. The
Grim
was thickest around her; but its edges covered the march as well as the quest. The creatures were swept into confusion as killing bits as big as fists fell among them.

Vermeil shot from Sunder’s
orcrest
toward the darkened sun. Covenant yelled in encouragement. By waving the Sunstone back and forth, the Graveler picked flakes out of the air with his shaft, consuming them before they could reach him or Hollian.

Around the company, the
Haruchai
dodged like dervishes. They used flails of pampas grass to strike down the flakes. Each flake destroyed the whip which touched it; but the
Haruchai
snatched up more blades and went on fighting.

Abruptly Covenant was thrust from his feet. A piece of blackness missed his face. Brinn pitched him past it, then jerked him up again. Heaving Covenant from side to side, Brinn danced among the falling
Grim
. Several flakes hit where they had been standing. Obsidian flares set fire to the grass.

The grass began to burn in scores of places.

Yet Vain stood motionless, with a look of concentration on his face. Flakes struck his skin, his tunic. Instead of detonating, they melted on him and ran hissing down his raiment, his legs, like water on hot metal.

Covenant gaped at the Demondim-spawn, then lost sight of him as Brinn went dodging through the smoke.

He caught a glimpse of Memla. She fought extravagantly for her life, hurled fire with all the outrage of her betrayal by the na-Mhoram. But the focus of the
Grim
formed a mad swarm around her. And the moiling creatures had already torn Din to its knees. In patches, its hide had been bared to the bone.

Without warning, a flake struck the Courser’s head. Din collapsed, tumbling the Rider headlong among the creatures.

Memla! Covenant struggled to take hold of his power. But Brinn’s thrusting and dodging reft nun of concentration. And already he was too late.

Yet Ceer leaped forward with the calm abandon of the
Haruchai
. Charging into the savagery, he fought toward Memla.

She regained her feet in a splash of fire. For an instant, she stood, gallant and tattered, hacking fury at the creatures. Ceer almost reached her.

Then Covenant lost her as Brinn tore him out from under a black flurry. Flames and
Haruchai
reeled about him; the flakes were everywhere. But he fought upright in time to see Memla fall with a scream of darkness in her chest.

As she died and dropped her
rukh
, the four remaining Coursers went berserk.

They erupted as if only her will had contained the madness of their fear. Yowling among the grassfires, two of them dashed out of the circle and fled across the savannah. Another plowed into the breach the
Grim
had made in the march. As it passed, Ceer suddenly appeared at its side. Fighting free of the creatures, he grabbed at the Courser’s hair and used the beast to pull him away.

The fourth beast attacked the company. Its vehemence caught the
Haruchai
unprepared. Its eyes burned scarlet as it plunged against Hergrom, struck him down with its chest.

Hergrom had been helping Cail to protect Linden.

Instantly the beast reared at her.

Cail tried to shove her aside. She stumbled, fell the wrong way.

Covenant saw her sprawl under the Courser’s hooves. One of them clipped her head as the beast stamped, trying to crush her.

Again the Courser reared.

Cail stood over her. Covenant could not strike without hitting the
Haruchai
. He fought to run forward.

As the Courser hammered down, Cail caught its legs. For one impossible moment, he held the huge animal off her. Then it began to bend him.

Linden!

With a prodigious effort, Cail heaved the Courser to the side. Its hooves missed Linden as they landed.

Blood appeared. From shoulder to elbow, Cail’s left arm had been ripped open by one of the beast’s spurs.

It reared again.

Covenant’s mind went instantly white with power. But before he could grasp it, use it, Brinn knocked him away from another cluster of flakes. The grass was giddy fire and death, whirling. He flipped to his feet and swung back toward Linden; but his heart had already frozen within him.

As his vision cleared, he saw Sunder hurl a blast of Sunbane-fire which struck the Courser’s chest, knocking it to its knees. Lurching upright again, it pounded its pain away from the quest.

But Linden lay under the
Grim
, surrounded by growing fires, and did not move.

Fires leaped in front of him, obscuring her from his sight. The
Grim
-fall darkened the air. The thrashing and clatter of the creatures filled his ears. He could not see if Linden were still alive. Brinn kept heaving him from side to side, kept lashing handfuls of grass around his head.

Sunder’s fire scored the atmosphere like straight red lightning. Now the corrosive flakes began to concentrate around him.

Covenant broke free of Brinn, went surging toward Linden.

Hergrom had lifted her from the ground. The
Haruchai
carried her in an elaborate dance of evasion. She hung limp in his arms. Blood seeping from the back of her head matted her hair.

An argent shout gathered in Covenant’s chest.

But as he raised his head to howl power, he saw the blackness around the sun fraying. Pestilential red glistered through the ebony. The last
Grim
-flakes were drifting toward Sunder’s head. The Graveler was able to consume them all.

At once, Covenant locked his throat, left the wild magic unspoken. In a rush, he reached Hergrom and Linden.

Cail stood nearby. He had torn a strip from his tunic; with Harn’s help, he bound the cloth as a tourniquet about his arm. His ripped flesh bled heavily.

The other
Haruchai
were marked with smoke and fire, but had not been injured. And Sunder and Hollian were unharmed, though his exertions left the Graveler tottering. Hollian supported him.

Vain stood a short distance away as if nothing had happened. Flames licked about his feet like crushed serpents.

Covenant ignored them all. Linden’s visage was lorn alabaster. Blood stained her wheaten tresses. Her lips wore an unconscious grimace of pain. He tried to take her from Hergrom’s arms; but Hergrom would not release her.

“Ur-Lord.” Brinn’s alien voice seemed incapable of urgency. “We must go. Already the gap closes.”

Covenant pulled uselessly at Hergrom’s grasp. It was intolerable that she might die! She was not meant to end like this. Or why had she been Chosen? He called out to her, but did not know how to reach her.

“Covenant!” Sunder’s ragged breathing made his tone hoarse. “It is as Brinn says. The na-Mhoram-in spent her life to provide this passage. We must go.”

Memla. That name pierced Covenant. She had given her life. Like Lena. And so many others. With a shudder, he turned from Hergrom. His hands groped for support. “Yes.” He could hardly hear himself through the flames. “Let’s go.”

At once, the
Haruchai
sprang into motion. Harn and Stell led the way; Hergrom and Brinn followed with Covenant; Cail guarded Sunder and Hollian. They paid no attention to Vain. In a body, they dodged the grassfires toward the breach in the march.

The creatures milled insanely around the scorched and pitted ground where Memla had fallen. Their leaders had already marched out of sight, incognizant of what had happened behind them. But more warped beings poured constantly from the south. They would have overrun the company immediately; but their own dead delayed them. The arriving creatures fell on the many slain and injured, tearing flesh apart with
claws and mandibles, feeding ravenously. And the fires added fear to their hunger.

Into the confusion, the
Haruchai
guided Covenant and the Stonedownors.

The quest appeared small and fragile beside those large, blind creatures, vulnerable against those ferocious jaws, those plated limbs. But Brinn’s people threaded the roil with uncanny stealth. And whenever a creature blundered toward them, Stell and Harn struck cunningly, breaking the antennae so that the creature could not locate its prey. Thus maimed, the beasts were swept into mortal combat with other creatures. Covenant, Sunder, and Hollian were impelled past gaping jaws, under rearing bellies, across moments of clear ground, as if their lives were preserved by the charm of
Haruchai
competence.

A few shreds of red cloth marked the place of Memla’s death, unambergrised by any grave or chance for mourning.

Running as well as they could, the companions broke into the thick grass beyond the march. Creatures veered to follow. With all their strength, Stell and Harn attacked the grass, forcing a way through it. Only Vain did not make haste. He had no need for haste: every creature which touched him fell dead, and was devoured by the oncoming surge.

A short distance into the grass, Ceer joined the company. He did not speak; but the object he held explained what he had done.

Memla’s
rukh
.

The sight of it halted Covenant. Possibilities reeled through his head. He grappled to take hold of them.

But he had no time. A sharp crepitation cut the grass like a scythe; thousands of creatures were chewing their way in pursuit.

Brinn thrust Covenant forward. The company ran.

Ceer, Stell, Brinn, and Harn dropped back to defend the rear. Now Cail led. In spite of his wounded arm and the abrasion of the raw, stiff grass, he forced a path with his body. Hergrom followed, carrying Linden; and Covenant crowded on Hergrom’s heels, with Hollian and Sunder behind him.