The Wounded Land (26 page)

Wind began to rip the top of the thicket. Heavy drops slapped against the leaves, producing a steady drizzle within the brush. But Sunder appeared to have forgotten his haste. He sat down and did what he could to make himself comfortable.

After a moment, Covenant asked, “Now what?”

Sunder looked at him, at Linden. “Are you able to swim?”

They both nodded.

“Then we will await the rising of the River.”

Covenant blinked the water out of his eyes. Damnation, he muttered. A raft.

The idea was a good one. The current of the Mithil would provide a faster pace than anything they could hope to match by traveling overland. And Sunder’s raft would give them something to hold onto so that they did not exhaust themselves. The Graveler had been in such a hurry because the chore of making even this small raft would have been far more difficult under the full weight of the rain. Covenant nodded to himself. Sunder was a more resourceful guide than he deserved.

Linden seated herself near the raft and folded her arms over her knees. In a flat voice, she said, “It’s going to be cold.”

That was true; the rain was already chilly. But Covenant ignored it, moved to look down into the river bottom.

The sight made him dubious. The bed was choked with growth almost to the level of the rim. He did not know how long the water would take to rise; but when it did, the trees and brush would make it extremely hazardous.

As Sunder handed out rations of
ussusimiel
, Covenant continued studying the watercourse. The downpour was hard and flat now, beating into the brush as steadily as a waterfall, and the air darkened gradually; but he could see well enough to make out the first muddy stirrings of the River. Initially he feared that the water would rise too slowly. But the thicket had caused him to underestimate the force of the storm. The torrents fell heavily—and more heavily moment by moment. The rain sounded like a great beast thrashing in the brush.

The water began to run more rapidly. Moiling like a current of snakes, the stream slipped between the trees, rushed slapping and gurgling through the shrubs. All this region of the South Plains drained into the watercourse. Covenant had barely finished his meal when a sudden change came over the flow. Without warning, the current seemed to leap upward, forward, like a pouncing predator; and some of the bushes shifted.

They were shallow-rooted. The stream tugged them free. They caught promptly in the limbs of the trees, hung there like desperation in the coils of the current. But the water built up against them. The trees themselves started to topple.

Soon uprooted trunks and branches thronged the River, beating irresistibly downstream. The water seethed with the force of an avalanche. Rain crashed into the Mithil, and it rose and ran avidly. Foot by foot, it swept itself clean.

The current was more than halfway up the banks when Sunder got to his feet. He spent a moment ensuring that his few possessions were secure, then stooped to the raft, lashed the sack of melons tightly to the wood.

A spasm of fear twisted Covenant’s chest. “It’s too dangerous!” he shouted through the noise of the rain. “We’ll be battered to pieces!” I’m a leper!

“No!” Sunder returned. “We will ride with the current—with the trees! If the hazard surpasses you, we must wait! The River will not run clear until the morrow!”

Covenant thought about the Rider, about beings he had encountered who could sense the presence of white gold. Before he could respond, Linden barked, “I’ll go crazy if I have to spend my time sitting here!”

Sunder picked up one end of the raft. “Cling to the wood, lest we become lost to each other!”

At once, she bent to the other end of the bundle, locked her hands among the branches, lifted them.

Cursing silently, Covenant placed himself beside her and tried to grip the wet branches. The numbness of his fingers threatened to betray him; he could not be sure of his hold.

“We must move as one!” Sunder warned. “Out into the center!”

Covenant growled his understanding. He wanted to pause for a VSE. The watercourse looked like an abyss to his ready vertigo.

The next moment, Sunder yelled, “Now!” and hurled himself toward the edge.

Hellfire! The raft yanked at Covenant as Sunder and Linden heaved it forward. He lurched into motion.

Sunder sprang for the water. The raft dove over the bank. Covenant’s grip tore him headlong past the edge. With a shattering jolt, he smashed into the water.

The impact snatched his inadequate fingers from the raft. The Mithil swept him away and down. He whirled tumbling along the current, lost himself in turbulence and suffocation. An instant of panic made his brain as dark as the water. He flailed about him without knowing how to find the surface.

Then a bush still clinched to its roots struck his leg a stinging blow. It righted him. He clawed upward.

With a gasp that made no sound, he broke water.

Amid the tumult of the rain, he was deaf to everything except air and fear, the current shoving at his face, and the gelid fire of the water. The cold stunned his mind.

But a frantic voice was howling, “Covenant!”

The urgency of Linden’s cry reached him. Fighting the drag of his boots, he surged head and shoulders out of the racing boil, scanned the darkness.

Before he plunged underwater again, he caught a glimpse of the raft.

It was nearby, ten feet farther downriver. As he regained the surface, he struck out along the current.

An arm groped for him. He kicked forward, grabbed at Linden’s wrist with his half-hand. His numb fingers could not hold. Water closed over his head.

Her hand clamped onto his forearm, heaved him toward the raft. He grappled for one of the branches and managed to fasten himself to the rough bark.

His weight upset Sunder’s control of the raft. The bundle began to spin. Covenant had an impression of perilous speed. The riverbanks were only a vague looming; they seethed past him as he hurtled along the watercourse.

“Are you all right?” Linden shouted.

“Yes!”

Together they battled the cold water, helped Sunder right the raft’s plunging.

The rain deluged them, rendered them blind and mute. The current wrestled constantly for mastery of the raft. Repeatedly they had to thrash their way out of vicious backwaters and fend off trees which came beating down the River like triremes. Only the width of the Mithil prevented logjams from developing at every bend.

And the water was cold. It seemed to suck at their muscles, draining their strength and warmth. Covenant felt as if his bones were being filled with ice. Soon he could hardly keep his head above water, hardly hold onto the wood.

But as the River rose, its surface gradually grew less turbulent. The current did not slow; but the increase of water blunted the moiling effect of the uneven bottom and banks. The raft became easier to manage. Then, at Sunder’s instructions, the companions began to take turns riding prone on the raft while the other two steered, striving to delay the crisis of their exhaustion.

Later the water became drinkable. It still left a layer of grit on Covenant’s teeth; but rain and runoff slowly macerated the mud, clarifying the Mithil.

He began to hear an occasional dull booming like the sounds of battle. It was not thunder; no lightning accompanied it. Yet it broke through the loud water-sizzle of the rain.

Without warning, a sharp splintering rent the air. A monstrous shadow hove above him. At the last instant, the current rushed the raft out from under the fall of an immense tree. Too tall for its roots, overburdened by the weight of the storm, the tree had riven its moorings and toppled across the River.

Now Covenant heard the same rending everywhere, near and far. The Mithil traversed a region of megalithic trees; the clamor of their destruction broke and boomed incessantly.

He feared that one of them would strike the raft or dam the River. But that did not happen. The trees which landed in the Mithil occluded the current without blocking it. And then the noise of their ruin receded as the River left that region behind.

Rain continued to fall like the collapse of the sky. Covenant placed himself at one end of the raft and used the weight of his boots to steady its course. Half paralyzed with cold, he and his companions rode through a day that seemed to have no measure and no end. When the rain began to dwindle, that fact could not penetrate his dogged stupor. As the clouds rolled back from the east, uncovering the clear heavens of evening, he gaped at the open air as if it spoke a language which had become alien to him.

Together the companions flopped like dying fish to the riverbank, crawled out of the water. Somehow Sunder mustered the strength to secure the raft against the rising of the River. Then he joined Covenant and Linden in the wind-shelter of a copse of preternatural gorse, and slumped to the ground. The teeming black clouds slid away to the west; and the sun set, glorious with orange and red. The gloaming thickened toward night.

“Fire.” Linden’s voice quivered; she was trembling from head to foot. “We’ve got to have a fire.”

Covenant groaned his mind out of the mud on which he lay, raised his head. Long vibrations of cold ran through him; shivers knotted his muscles. The sun had not shone on the Plains all day and the night was as clear as perfect ice.

“Yes,” Sunder said through locked teeth. “We must have fire.”

Fire. Covenant winced to himself. He was too cold to feel anything except dread. But the need was absolute. And he could not bear to think
of blood. To forestall the Graveler, he struggled to his hands and knees, though his bones seemed to clatter together. “I’ll do it”

They faced each other. The silence between them was marked only by the chill breeze rubbing its way through the copse, and by the clenched shudder of breathing. Sunder’s expression showed that he did not trust Covenant’s strength, did not want to set aside his responsibility for his companions. But Covenant kept repeating inwardly, You’re not going to cut yourself for me, and did not relent. After a moment, Sunder handed him the
orcrest
.

Covenant accepted it with his trembling half-hand, placed it in contact with his ring, glared at it weakly. But then he faltered. Even in ten years, he had not been able to unlearn his instinctive fear of power.

“Hurry,” Linden whispered.

Hurry? He covered his face with his left hand, striving to hide his ague. Bloody hell. He lacked the strength. The
orcrest
lay inert in his fist; he could not even concentrate on it. You don’t know what you’re asking.

But the need was indefeasible. His anger slowly tightened. He became rigid, clenched against the chills. Ire indistinguishable from pain or exhaustion shaped itself to the circle of his ring. The Sunstone had no life; the white gold had no life. He gave them his life. There was no other answer.

Cursing silently, he hammered his fist at the mud.

White light burst in the
orcrest
: flame sprang from his ring as if the metal were a band of silver magma. In an instant, his whole hand was ablaze.

He raised his fist, brandished fire like a promise of retribution against the Sunbane. Then he dropped the Sunstone. It went out; but his ring continued to spout flame. In a choking voice, he gasped, “Sunder!”

At once, the Graveler gave him a dead gorse-branch. He grasped the wet bark in his half-hand: his arm shook as he squeezed white flame into the wood. When he set it down, it was afire.

Sunder supplied more wood, then knelt to tend the weak fire. Covenant set flame to the second branch, to a third and fourth. Sunder fed the burning with leaves and twigs, blew carefully on the flames. After a moment, he announced, “It is enough.”

With a groan, Covenant let his mind fall blank, and the blaze of his ring plunged into darkness. Night closed over the copse, huddled around the faint yellow light and smoke of the fire.

Soon he began to feel heat on his face.

Sagging within himself, he tried to estimate the consequences of what he had done, measure the emotional umbrage of power.

Shortly the Graveler recovered his sack of melons from the raft, and dealt out rations of
ussusimiel
. Covenant felt too empty to eat; but his body responded without his volition. He sat like an effigy, with wraiths of moisture curling upward from his clothes, and looked dumbly at the inanition of his soul.

When she finished her meal, Linden threw the rinds away. Staring into the flames, she said remotely, “I don’t think I can take another day of this.”

“Is there choice?” Fatigue dulled Sunder’s eyes. He sat close to the heat, as if his bones were thirsty for warmth. “The ur-Lord aims toward Revelstone. Very well. But the distance is great. Refusing the aid of the River, we must journey afoot. To gain the Keep of the na-Mhoram would require many turnings of the moon. But I fear we would not
gain it. The Sunbane is too perilous. And there is the matter of pursuit.”

The set of Linden’s shoulders showed her apprehension. After a moment, she asked tightly, “How much longer?”

The Graveler sighed. “None can foretell the Sunbane,” he said in a dim voice. “It is said that in generations past each new sun shone for five and six, even as many as seven days. But a sun of four days is now uncommon. And with my own eyes I have beheld only one sun of less than three.”

“Two more days,” Linden muttered. “Dear God.”

For a while, they were silent. Then, by tacit agreement, they both arose to gather wood for the fire. Scouring the copse, they collected a substantial pile of brush and branches. After that, Sunder stretched out on the ground. But Linden remained sitting beside the fire. Slowly Covenant noticed through his numbness that she was studying him.

In a tone that seemed deliberately inflectionless, she asked, “Why does it bother you to use your ring?”

His ague had abated, leaving only a vestigial chill along his bones. But his thoughts were echoes of anger. “It’s hard.”

“In what way?” In spite of its severity, her expression said that she wanted to understand. Perhaps she needed to understand. He read in her a long history of self-punishment. She was a physician who tormented herself in order to heal others, as if the connection between the two were essential and compulsory.