The Wounded Land (67 page)

Stell and Brinn joined him. Roaring, Honninscrave slashed at the line with a double handful of wood, scattering five
skest
before the brands became fire and kindling in his grasp.

Together they opened a gap in the lurker’s noose.

The howl tightened in fury, raked the lungs of the company like claws.

Hergrom picked up Covenant and dashed through the breach. Cail followed, carrying Linden. Brinn and Ceer kept the gap open with the last of the firewood while Honninscrave and the First strode past the flames, relying on their Giantish immunity to fire. Pitchwife waded after them, with Seadreamer on his back.

Then the
Haruchai
had no more wood.
Skest
surged to close the breach, driven by the lurker’s unfaltering shriek.

Stell leaped the gap. Harn threw Hollian bodily to Stell, then did the same with Sunder.

As one, Brinn, Ceer, and Harn dove over the creatures.

Already the
skest
had turned in pursuit. The lurker gibbered with rage.

“Come!” shouted the First, almost retching to drive her voice through the howl. The Giants raced along the lakeshore, Pitchwife bearing Seadreamer with the agility of a
Haruchai
.

The company fled. Sunder and Hollian sprinted together, flanked by Harn and Stell. Covenant stumbled over the roots and vines between Brinn and Hergrom.

Linden did not move. Her face was alabaster with suffocation and horror. Covenant wrenched his gaze toward her to see the same look which had stunned her mien when she had first seen Joan, The look of paralysis.

Cail and Ceer took her arms and started to drag her forward.

She fought; her mouth opened to scream.

Urgently the First gasped, “Ware!”

A wail ripped Hollian’s throat.

Brinn and Hergrom leaped to a stop, whirled toward the lake.

Covenant staggered at the sight and would have fallen if the
Haruchai
had not upheld him.

The surface of the lake was rising. The water became an arm like a concatenation of ghost-shine—a tentacle with scores of fingers. It mounted and grew, reaching into the air like the howling of the lurker incarnate.

Uncoiling like a serpent, it struck at the company, at the people who were nearest.

At Linden.

Her mouth formed helpless mewling shapes. She struggled to escape. Cail and Ceer pulled at her. Unconsciously she fought them.

As vividly as nightmare, Covenant saw her left foot catch in the fork of a root. The
Haruchai
hauled at her. In a spasm of pain, her ankle shattered. It seemed to make no sound through the rage of the lurker.

The arm lashed phosphorescence at her. Cail met the blow, tried to block it. The arm swatted him out of the way. He tumbled headlong toward the advancing
skest
.

They came slowly, rising forward like a tide.

Linden fought to scream, and could not.

The arm swung back again, slamming Ceer aside.

Then Honninscrave passed Covenant, charging toward Linden.

Covenant strove with all his strength to follow the Giant. But Brinn and Hergrom did not release him.

Instantly he was livid with fury. A flush of venom pounded through him. Wild magic burned.

His power hurled the
Haruchai
away as if they had been kicked aside by an explosion.

The arm of the lurker struck. Honninscrave dove against it, deflected it. His weight bore it to the ground in a chiaroscuro of white sparks. But he could not master it. It coiled about him, heaved him into the air. The pain of its clutch seemed to shatter his face. Viciously the arm hammered him down. He hit the hard dirt, bounced, and lay still.

The arm was already reaching toward Linden.

Blazing like a torch, Covenant covered half the distance to her. But his mind was a chaos of visions and vertigo. He saw Brinn and Hergrom blasted, perhaps hurt, perhaps killed. He saw fangs crucifying his forearm, felt venom committing murders he could not control.

The shining arm sprang on its fingers at Linden.

For one lurching beat of his heart, horror overcame him. All his dreads became the dread of venom, of wild magic he could not master, of himself. If he struck at the arm now, he would hit Linden. The power ran out of him like a doused flame.

The lurker’s fingers knotted in her hair. They yanked her toward the lake. Her broken ankle remained caught in the root fork. The arm pulled, excruciating her bones. Then her foot twisted free.

Linden!

Covenant surged forward again. The howling had broken his lungs. He could not breathe.

As he ran, he snatched out Loric’s
krill
, cast aside the cloth, and locked his fingers around the haft. Bounding to the attack, he drove the blade like a spike of white fire into the arm.

The air became a detonation of pain. The arm released Linden, wrenched itself backward, almost tore the
krill
out of his grasp. Argent poured from the wound like moon flame, casting arcs of anguish across the dark sky.

In hurt and fury, the arm coiled about him, whipping him from the ground. For an instant, he was held aloft in a crushing grip; the lurker clenched him savagely at the heavens. Then it punched him into the water.

It drove him down as if the lake had no bottom and no end. Cold burned his skin, plugged his mouth; pressure erupted in his ears like nails pounding into his skull; darkness drowned his mind. The lurker was tearing him in half.

But the gem of the
krill
shone bright and potent before him. Loric’s
krill
, forged as a weapon against ill. A weapon.

With both hands, Covenant slammed the blade into the coil across his chest.

A convulsion loosened the grip. Lurker blood scoured his face.

He was still being dragged downward, forever deeper into the abysm of the lurker’s demesne. The need for air shredded his vitals. Water and cold threatened to burst his bones. Pressure spots marked his eyes like scars of mortality and failure, failure, the Sunbane, Lord Foul laughing in absolute triumph.

No!

Linden in her agony.

No!

He twisted around before the lurker’s grasp could tighten again, faced in the direction of the arm. Downward forever. The
krill
blazed indomitably against his sight.

With all the passion of his screaming heart—with everything he knew of the
krill
, wild magic, rage, venom—he slashed at the lurker’s arm.

His hot blade severed the flesh, passed through the appendage like water.

Instantly all the deep burned. Water flashed and flared; white coruscations flamed like screams throughout the lake. The lurker became tinder in the blaze. Suddenly its arm was gone, its presence was gone.

Though he still held the
krill
, Covenant could see nothing. The lurker’s pain had blinded him. He floated alone in depths so dark that they could never have held any light.

He was dying for air.

Miserably, stubbornly, he locked his teeth against the water and began to struggle upward. He felt power-seared and impotent, could not seem to move through the rank depths. His limbs were dead for lack of air. Nothing remained to him except the last convulsion of his chest which would rip his mouth open—nothing except death, and the memory of Linden with her ankle shattered, fighting to scream.

In mute refusal, he went on jerking his arms, his legs, like a prayer for the surface.

Then out of the darkness, a hand snagged him, turned him. Hard palms took hold of his face. A mouth clamped over his. The hands forced his jaws open; the mouth expelled breath into him. That scant taste of air kept him alive.

The hands drew him upward.

He broke the surface and exploded into gasping. The arms upheld him while he sobbed for air. Time blurred as he was pounded in and out of consciousness by his intransigent heart.

In the distance, a voice—Hollian’s?—called out fearfully, “Brinn? Brinn?”

Brinn answered behind Covenant’s head. “The ur-Lord lives.”

Another voice said, “Praise to the
Haruchai
.” It sounded like the First of the Search. “Surely that name was one of great honor among the Giants your people have known.”

Then Covenant heard Linden say as if she were speaking from the bottom of a well of pain, “That’s why the water looked so deadly.” She spoke in ragged bursts through her teeth, fighting to master her hurt with words. “The lurker was there. Now it’s gone.” In the silence behind her voice, she was screaming.

Gone. Slowly the burn of air starvation cleared from Covenant’s mind. The lurker was gone, withdrawn though certainly not dead; no, that was impossible; he could not have slain a creature as vast as the Sarangrave. The lake was lightless. The fires started by the spilling of
skest
acid had gone out for lack of fuel. Night covered the Flat. But somehow he had retained his grip on the
krill
. Its shining enabled him to see.

Beyond question, the lurker was still alive. When Brinn swam him to the shore and helped him out onto dry ground, he found that the atmosphere was too thick for comfort. Far away, he heard the creature keening over its pain; faint sobs seemed to bubble in the air like the self-pity of demons.

On either hand,
skest
gleamed dimly. They had retreated; but they had not abandoned the lurker’s prey.

He had only injured the creature. Now it would not be satisfied with mere food. Now it would want retribution.

A torch was lit. In the unexpected flame, he saw Hergrom and Ceer standing near Honninscrave with loads of wood which they had apparently foraged from the trees along the hill crest. Honninscrave held a large stone firepot, from which Ceer lit torches, one after another. As Hergrom passed brands to the other
Haruchai
, light slowly spread over the company.

Dazedly Covenant looked at the
krill
.

Its gem shone purely, as if it were inviolable. But its light brought back to him the burst of fury with which he had first awakened the blade, when Elena was High Lord. Whatever else Loric had made the
krill
to be, Covenant had made it a thing of savagery and fire. Its cleanliness hurt his eyes.

In silent consideration, Brinn reached out with the cloth Covenant had discarded. He took the
krill
and wrapped its heat into a neat bundle, as if thereby he could make the truth bearable for Covenant. But Covenant went on staring at his hands.

They were unharmed; free even of heat-damage. He had been protected by his own power; even his flesh had become so accustomed to wild magic that he guarded himself instinctively, without expense to any part of himself except his soul. And if that were true—

He groaned.

If that were true, then he was already damned.

For what did damnation mean, if it did not mean freedom from the mortal price of power? Was that not what made Lord Foul what he was? The damned purchased might with their souls; the innocent paid for it with their lives. Therein lay Sunder’s true innocence, though he had slain his own wife and son—and Covenant’s true guilt. Even in Foul’s Creche, he had avoided paying the whole price. At that time, only his restraint had saved him, his refusal to attempt Lord Foul’s total extirpation. Without restraint, he would have been another Kevin Landwaster.

But where was his restraint now? His hands were undamaged. Numb with leprosy, blunt and awkward, incapable, yes; yet they had held power without scathe.

And Brinn offered the bundle of the
krill
to him as if it were his future and his doom.

He accepted it. What else could he do? He was a leper; he could not deny who he was. Why else had he been chosen to carry the burden of the Land’s need? He took the bundle and tucked it back under his belt, as if in that way he could at least spare his friends from sharing his damnation. Then with an effort like an acknowledgment of fatality, he forced himself to look at the company.

In spite of his bruises, Honninscrave appeared essentially whole. Seadreamer was able to stand on his acid-burned foot; and Pitchwife moved as if his own fire walk were already forgotten. They reminded Covenant of the
caamora
, the ancient Giantish ritual fire of grief. He remembered Foamfollower burying his bloody hands among the coals of a bonfire to castigate and cleanse them. Foamfollower had been horrified by the lust with which he had slaughtered Cavewights and he had treated his dismay with fire. The flames had hurt him, but not damaged him; when he had withdrawn his hands, they had been hale and clean.

Clean, Covenant murmured. He ached for the purification of fire. But he compelled his eyes to focus beyond the Giants.

Gazing directly at Brinn, he almost cried out. Both Brinn and Hergrom had been scorched by the lash of wild magic; eyebrows and hair were singed, apparel darkened in patches. He had come so close to doing them real harm—

Like Honninscrave, Cail and Ceer were battered but intact. They held torches over Linden.

She lay on the ground with her head in Hollian’s lap. Sunder knelt beside her, holding her leg still. His knuckles were white with strain; and he glowered as if he feared that he would have to sacrifice her for her blood.

The First stood nearby with her arms folded over her mail like an angry monolith, glaring at the distant
skest
.

Linden had not stopped talking: the pieces of her voice formed a ragged counterpoint to the moaning of the lurker. She kept insisting
that the water was safe now, the lurker had withdrawn, it could be anywhere, it was the Sarangrave, but it was primarily a creature of water, the greatest danger came from water. She kept talking so that she would not sob.

Her left foot rested at an impossible angle. Bone splinters pierced the skin of her ankle, and blood oozed from the wounds in spite of the pressure of Sunder’s grip.

Covenant’s guts turned at the sight. Without conscious transition, he was kneeling at her side. His kneecaps hurt as if he had fallen. Her hands closed and unclosed at her sides, urgent to find something that would enable her to bear the pain.