The Power That Preserves

Ten: Pariah

AFTER the first bend, even the trailing light of the campfires was cut off, and he could see nothing. Lena moved like a puppet in his grasp-empty and unadept. He wanted her to hold onto him, so that he would have both hands free; but when he wrapped her fingers around his arm, they slipped limply off again. He was forced to grope ahead with his left hand, and retain her with his maimed right. His numbness made him feel at every moment that he was about to lose her.

The shouting pursued him along the crevice, increased his sense of urgency yell by yell. He cursed furiously, trying to keep himself from becoming frantic.

When the rift divided, he followed the left wall. In a few steps, this crevice became so narrow that he had to move along it sideways, pulling Lena after him. Then it began to descend. Soon it was so steep that the mouldering leaves and loam of the floor occasionally shifted under their feet. There the rift became a tunnel. The stone sealed over their heads, while the floor levelled until the ceiling was so close that it made Covenant duck for fear he might crack open his skull. The utter lightlessness of the passage dismayed him. He felt that he was groping his way blindly into the bowels of the earth, felt at every step that the tunnel might pitch him into a chasm. He no longer heard any sound from the canyon; his own loud scrabbling filled his ears. Yet he did not stop. The pressure of his urgency, the pressure of the blind stone impending over the back of his neck, compelled him onward.

Still Lena gave no sign of life. She stumbled, moved at his pull, bumped dumbly against the walls of the tunnel; but her arm in his grasp was inert. He could not even hear her breathing. He tugged her after him as if she were a mindless child.

At last the tunnel ended. Without warning, the stone vanished, and Covenant blundered into a thicket. The stems and branches lashed at him as if he were an enemy. Protecting his eyes with his forearm, he thrust ahead until he found himself on open ground, sweating in the teeth of the wind.

The night was as dank and bitter as ever, but after the pitch blackness of the tunnel he found that he could see vaguely. He and Lena stood below a high, looming bluff. Thickets and brush covered most of its base, but beyond them the ground sloped down barrenly toward the Plains of Ra.

He paused in the scything wind and tried to take stock of the situation. The tunnel from this side was well disguised by the thickets and underbrush, but still the Ramen should have posted sentries here. Where were they? He saw no one, heard nothing but the wind.

He was tempted to call out, but the frigid emptiness of the night restrained him. If the Ramen were defeated, the marauders would have no difficulty following him through the tunnel; Cavewights and ur-viles could take such passages in the dark gleefully. Ur-viles might already be watching him from the thicket.

North, then east, Bannor had said. He knew he had to start moving. But he had no supplies-no food, no bedding, no fire. Even if he were not pursued, he could hardly hope to survive in this cold. If Bannor and the Giant did not come soon, he and Lena were finished.

But Bannor had said that they would overtake him. It’s too late, he muttered to steady his resolve, it’s too late to start worrying about the impossible. It’s all been impossible from the beginning. Just get going. At least get her out of this wind.

He put Lena on his left, wrapped his arm around her, and started north across the preternatural current of the winter.

He hurried as much as possible, supporting Lena, glancing fearfully back over his shoulder to see if they were being followed. When he reached a break in the hills on his left, he faced a difficult decision: Bannor and Foamfollower would locate him more easily if he stayed on the edge of the Plains, but if he moved up among the hills he would have a better chance of finding shelter and aliantha. After a painful moment, he chose the hills. He would have to trust the hunting skills of his friends; Lena was his first concern.

He laboured strenuously up through the break, half carrying his companion. Once he had passed beyond the first crests, he found a shallow valley running roughly northward which provided some cover from the wind. But he did not stop; he was not far enough from the tunnel. Instead, he took Lena along the valley and into the hills beyond it.

On the way, he stumbled by chance into a battered aliantha. It had few berries, but its presence there reassured him somewhat. He ate two berries himself, then tried to get Lena to take the others. But she neither saw the aliantha nor heard his demands; all her outer senses were blank.

He ate the rest of the treasure-berries so that they would not be wasted, then left the bush behind and took Lena along and out of the valley. For a long time after that, he could not find an easy way through the hills. He struggled generally northward, searching for usable valleys or paths, but the terrain turned him insistently east, downhill toward the plains. Now the sweat was freezing in his beard again, and his muscles slowly stiffened against the icy cut of the wind. Whenever the wind hit Lena directly, she trembled. At last her need for shelter became imperative in his mind. When he saw a darker shadow which looked like a gully in the wasteland below him, he gave up on the hills and went down to it.

It had not deceived him. It was a dry arroyo with sheer sides. In places its walls were more than ten feet high. He took Lena down an uneven slope into the gully, then guided her under the lee of the opposite wall and seated her with her back against the packed dirt.

As he peered at her through the darkness, her condition scared him. She shivered constantly now, and her skin was cold and clammy. Her face held no recognition, no awareness of where she was or what was happening to her. He chafed her wrists roughly, but her arms remained limp, as if the cold had unmarrowed her bones. “Lena,” he called to her hesitantly, then with more force. “Lena!” She did not answer. She sat slack against the wall as if she had decided to freeze to death rather than acknowledge the fact that the man she loved was a murderer.

“Lena!” he begged gruffly. “Don’t make me do this. I don’t want to do it again.”

She did not respond. The irregular moan and catch of her breathing gave no indication that she had heard him. She looked as brittle as frostbitten porcelain.

With a fierce grimace clenched on his face, he drew back his halfhand and struck her hard across the side of her head for the second time in his life.

Her head snapped soddenly to the side, swung back toward him. For an instant, her breath shuddered in her lungs, and her lips trembled as if the air hurt her mouth. Then suddenly her hands leaped out like claws. Her nails dug into the flesh of his face around his eyes. She gripped him there, gouging him, poised ready to tear his eyes out.

A sharp nausea of fear wrenched his guts, made him flinch. But he did not back away.

After a moment, she said starkly, “You slew Elena my daughter.”

“Yes.”

Her fingers tightened. “I could blind you.”

“Yes.”

“Are you not afraid?”

“I’m afraid.”

Her fingers tightened again. “Then why do you not resist?” Her nails drew blood from his left cheek.

“Because I’ve got to talk to you-about what happened to Elena. I’ve got to tell you what she did-and what I did-and why I did it. You won’t listen unless you decide- “

“I will not listen at all!” Her voice shook with weeping. Savagely, she snatched back her hands and returned his blow, struck his cheek with all her strength. The sting brought water to his eyes. When he blinked them clear, he saw that she had clamped her hands to her face to keep herself from sobbing aloud.

Awkwardly, he put his arms around her. She did not resist. He held her firmly while she wept, and after a time she moved her head, pressed her face into his jacket. But soon she stiffened and withdrew. She wiped her eyes, averting her face as if she were ashamed of a momentary weakness. “I do not want your comfort, Unbeliever. You have not been her father. It is a father’s place to love his daughter, and you did not love her. Do not mistake my frail grief-I will not forget what you have done.”

Covenant hugged himself in an effort to contain his hurt. “I don’t want you to forget.” For that moment, he would have been willing to lose his eyes if the pain of blindness could have enabled him to weep. “I don’t want anyone to forget.”

But he was too barren for tears; the water which blurred his sight did not come from his heart. Roughly, he forced himself to his feet. “Come on. We’ll freeze to death if we don’t get moving.”

Before she could respond, he heard feet hit the ground behind him. He whirled, waving his hands to ward off an attack. A dark figure stood opposite him in the gully. It was wrapped in a cloak; he could not discern its outlines. But it carried a spear like a staff in its right hand.

“Pah!” the figure spat. “You would be dead five times if I had not chosen to watch over you.”

“Pietten?” Covenant asked in surprise. “What’re you doing here?” Lena was at his side, but she did not touch him.

” You are stupid as well as unskilled,” rasped Pietten. ” I saw at once that the Ramen would not defend you. I took the task upon myself. What folly made you deliver yourself into their hands?”

“What happened in the fight?” Questions rushed up in Covenant. “What happened to Banner and Foamfollower? Where are they?”

“Come!” the Woodhelvennin snapped. “Those wormspawn are not far behind. We must move swiftly if you wish to live.”

Covenant stared. Pietten’s attitude unnerved him. For an instant, his jaw worked uselessly. Then he repeated with a note of desperation in his voice, “What happened to Bannor and Foamfollower?”

“You will not see them again.” Pietten sounded scornful. “You will see nothing again unless you follow me now. You have no food and no skill. Remain here, and you will be dead before I have gone a league.” Without waiting for answer, he turned and trotted away along the gully.

Covenant hesitated indecisively while contradictory fears clamoured in him. He did not want to trust Pietten. His instincts shouted loudly: He drinks blood; Foul did something to him and he likes the taste of blood! But he and Lena were too helpless. They could not fend for themselves. Abruptly, he took Lena’s arm and started after Pietten.

The Ramen-trained Woodhelvennin allowed Covenant and Lena to catch up with him, but then he set a pace for them which kept Covenant from asking any questions. Travelling swiftly, he guided them northward out of the arroyo into the open Plains, hastened them along like a man with a goal clearly visible before him. When they showed signs of tiring, he irritably found aliantha for them. But he revealed no weariness himself; he moved strongly, surely, revelling in the flow of his strides. And from time to time he grinned jeeringly at Covenant and Lena, mocking them for their inability to match him.

They followed him as if they were entranced, spellbound to him by the harsh winter and their extreme need. Covenant maintained the pace doggedly, and Lena laboured at his side, spurning his every effort to help her. Her new, grim independence seemed to sustain her; she covered nearly two leagues before she began to weaken. Then, however, her strength rapidly deserted her.

Covenant was deeply tired himself, but he ached to aid her. When she stumbled for the third time, and could hardly regain her feet, he demanded breathlessly across the wind, “Pietten, we’ve got to rest. We need fire and shelter.”

“You are not hardy, Ringthane,” Pietten gibed. “Why do so many people fear you?”

“We can’t go on like this.”

“You will freeze to death if you stop here.”

Painfully, Covenant mustered the strength to shout, ” I know that! Are you going to help us or not?”

Pietten’s voice sounded oddly cunning as he replied, “We will be safer-beyond the river. It is not far.” He hurried on before Covenant could question him.

Covenant and Lena made the effort to follow him and found that he had spoken the truth. Soon they reached the banks of a dark river flowing eastward out of the hills. It lay forbiddingly across their way like a stream of black ice, but Pietten jumped into it at once and waded straight to the opposite bank. The current was stiff, but did not reach above his knees.

Cursing, Covenant watched him go. His weariness multiplied his distrust; his instinctive leper’s caution was yowling inside him like a wounded animal. He did not know this river, but he guessed it was the Roamsedge, Ra’s northern boundary. He feared that Bannor and Foamfollower would not expect him to leave the Plains-if they were still alive.

But he still had no choice. The Woodhelvennin was their only chance.

“Will you halt there?” Pietten scoffed at them from the far bank. “Halt and die.”

Hellfire! Covenant snarled to himself. He took Lena’s arm despite her angry efforts to pull away, and went down the bank into the river.

His feet felt nothing of the cold, but it burned like numb fire into his lower legs. Before he had waded a dozen yards, his knees hurt as if his calves were being shredded by the river. He tried to hurry, but the speed of the current and the unevenness of the river bottom only made him trip and stagger brokenly. He clung to Lena’s arm and ploughed onward with his gaze fixed on the bank ahead.

When he stumbled up out of the river, his legs ached as if they had been maimed. “Damn you, Pietten,” he muttered. “Now we have got to have a fire.”

Pietten bowed sardonically. “Whatever you command, Ringthane.” Turning on his heel, he ran lightly away into the low hills north of the river like a sprite enticing them to perdition.

Covenant lumbered in pursuit, and when he crested the hill, he saw that Pietten had already started a fire in the hollow beyond it. Flames crackled in a dry patch of brambles and bushes. As Covenant and Lena descended toward it, the fire spread, jumping fiendishly higher and higher as it ran through the dead wood.

They hastened fervidly to the blaze. Lena’s legs gave way at the last moment, and she fell to her knees as if that were the only way she could prevent herself from leaping into the flames. And Covenant spread his arms to the heat, stood on the very verge of the fire and threw open his jacket like an acolyte embracing vision. For long moments they neither spoke nor moved.

But when the warmth melted the ice to make itself felt against Covenant’s forehead, started to draw the moisture in steam from his clothes, he stepped back a pace and looked about him.

Pietten was leering at him mercilessly.

He felt suddenly trapped, cornered; for reasons that he could not name, he knew he was in danger. He looked quickly toward Lena. But she was absorbed in the fire, oblivious. Unwillingly he met Pietten’s gaze again. That stare held him like the eyes of a snake, trying to paralyze him. He had to resist it. Without thinking, he growled, “That was a damn stupid thing to do.” He indicated the fire with a jerk of one hand. ” A fire this big will throw light over the hill. We’ll be seen.”

“I know.” Pietten licked his lips.

“You know,” Covenant muttered mordantly. “Did it occur to you that this could bring a pack of marauders down on us?” He snarled the words thoughtlessly, but as soon as he had spoken them, they sent a stammer of fear through him.

“Are you not grateful?” Pietten grinned maliciously. “You command fire-fire I provide. Is that not how men show their devotion to the Ringthane?”

“What are we going to do if we’re attacked? She and I are in no condition to fight.”

“I know.”

“You know,” Covenant repeated. The upsurge of his trepidation almost made him stutter.

“But no marauders will come,” the Woodhelvennin went on immediately. “I hate them. Pah! They slay Ranyhyn.”

“What do you mean, they won’t come? You said”-he searched his memory-“you said they weren’t far behind. How in hell do you expect them to miss us in all this light?”

“I do not want them to miss us.”

“What?” The fear taking shape within him made him shout. “Hellfire! Make sense!”

“Ringthane,” Pietten shot back with sudden vehemence, “this night I will complete the whole sense of my life!”

The next instant he had returned to scorn. “I desire them to find us, yes! I desire them to see this blaze and come. Land friends-horse servants-pah! They torment the Ranyhyn in the name of faith. I will teach them faith.” Covenant felt Lena jump to her feet behind him; he could sense the way she focused herself on Pietten. In the warmth of the fire, he finally noticed what had caught her attention. It was the smell of blood. “I desire the Giant my benefactor and Banner the Bloodguard to stand upon this hillside and witness my faith.”

“You said that they are dead! “Lena hissed. “You said that we would not see them again.”

At the same time, Covenant croaked, “It was you!” His apprehensions burst into clarity. “You did it.” In the lurid light of the fire, he caught his first sure glimpse of his plight. “You’re the one who betrayed all those coverts!”

Lena’s movement triggered him into movement. He was one step ahead of her as she threw herself at Pietten.

But Pietten was too swift for them. He aimed his spear and braced himself to impale the first attack.

Covenant leaped to a stop. Grappling frantically, he caught Lena, held her from hurling herself onto Pietten’s weapon. She struggled for one mute, furious moment, then became still in his grasp. Her bedraggled white hair hung across her face like a fringe of madness. Grimly, he set her behind him.

He was trembling, but he forced himself to face Pietten. “You want them to watch while you kill us.”

Pietten laughed sourly. “Do they not deserve it?” His eyes flashed as if a lightning of murder played in back of them. “If I could have my wish, I would place the entire Ramen nation around this hollow so that they might behold my contempt for them. Ranyhyn servants! Pah! They are vermin.”

“Render!” Lena spat hoarsely.

With his left hand, Covenant held her behind him. “You betrayed those coverts-you betrayed them all. You’re the only one who could have done it. You killed the sentries and showed those marauders how to get in. No wonder you stink of blood.”

“It pleases me.”

“You betrayed the Ranyhyn!” Covenant raged. “Injured Ranyhyn got slaughtered!”

At this, Pietten jerked forward, brandished his spear viciously. “Hold your tongue, Ringthane!” he snapped. “Do not question my faith. I have fought — I would slay any living creature that raised its hands against the Ranyhyn.”

“Do you call that faith? There were injured Ranyhyn in that covert, and they were butchered!”

“They were murdered by Ramen!” Pietten retorted redly. “Vermin! They pretend service to the Ranyhyn, but they do not take the Ranyhyn to the safety of the south. I hold no fealty for them.” Lena tried to leap at Pietten again, but Covenant restrained her. “They are like you-and that Giant-and the Bloodguard! Pah! You feast on Ranyhyn-flesh like jackals.”

With an effort, Covenant made Lena look at him. “Go!” he whispered rapidly. “Run. Get out of here. Get back across the river-try to find Bannor or Foamfollower. He doesn’t care about you. He won’t chase you. He wants me.”

Pietten cocked his spear. “If you take one step to flee,” he grated, “I will kill the Ringthane where he stands and hunt you down like a wolf.”

The threat carried conviction. “All right,” Covenant groaned to Lena. “All right.” Glowering thunderously, he swung back toward Pietten. “Do you remember ur-viles, Pietten? Soaring Woodhelven? Fire and ur-viles? They captured you. Do you remember?”

Pietten stared back like lightning.

“They captured you. They did things to you. Just as they did to Llaura. Do you remember her? They hurt her inside so that she had to help trap the Lords. The harder she tried to break free, the worse the trap got. Do you remember? It’s just like that with you. They hurt you so that you would-destroy the Ranyhyn. Listen to me! Foul knew when he started this war that he wouldn’t be able to crush the Ranyhyn unless he found some way to betray the Ramen. So he hurt you. He made you do what he wants. He’s using you to butcher the Ranyhyn! And he’s probably given you special orders about me. What did he tell you to do with my ring?” He hurled the words at Pietten with all his strength. “How many bloody times have you been to Foul’s Creche since this winter started?”

For a moment, Pietten’s eyes lost their focus. Dimly, he murmured, “I must take it to him. He will use it to save the Ranyhyn.” But the next instant, white fury flared in him again. ” You lie! I love the Ranyhyn! You are the butchers, you and those vermin!”

“That isn’t true. You know it isn’t true.”

“Is it not?” Pietten laughed desperately. “Do you think I am blind, Ringthane? I have learned much in-in my journeys. Do you think the Ramen hold the Ranyhyn here out of love?”

“They can’t help it,” Covenant replied. “The Ranyhyn refuse to go.”

Pietten did not hear him. “Do you think the Bloodguard are here out of love? You are a fool! Banner is here because he has caused the deaths of so many Ranyhyn that he has become a betrayer. He needs to betray, as he did the Lords. Oh, he fights-he has always fought. He hungers to see every Ranyhyn slain in spite of his fighting so that his need will be fed.

Pah!”

Covenant tried to interrupt, protest, but Pietten rushed on: “Do you think the Giant is here out of love? You are anile-sick with trust. Foamfollower is here because he has betrayed his people. Every last Giant, every man, woman, and child of his kindred, lies dead and mouldered in Seareach because he abandoned them! He fled rather than defend them. His very bones are made of treachery, and he is here because he can find no one else to betray. All his other companions are dead.”

Foamfollower! Covenant cried in stricken silence. All dead? Foamfollower!

“And you, Ringthane-you are the worst of all. You surpass my contempt. You ask what I remember.” His spear point waved patterns of outrage at Covenant’s chest. “I remember that the Ranyhyn reared to you. I remember that I strove to stop you. But you had already chosen to betray them. You bound them with promises-promises which you knew they could not break. Therefore the Ranyhyn cannot seek the safety of the mountains. They are shackled by commitments which you forced from them, you! You are the true butcher, Ringthane. I have lived my life for the chance to slay you.”

“No,” Covenant gasped. “I didn’t know.” But he heard the truth in Pietten’s accusation. Waves of crime seemed to spread from him in all directions. “I didn’t know.”

Bannor? he moaned. Foamfollower? A livid orange mist filled his sight like the radiance of brimstone. How could he have done so much harm? He had only wanted to survive-had only wanted to extract survival from the raw stuff of suicide and madness. The Giants! — lost like Elena. And now the Ranyhyn were being driven down the same bloody road. Foamfollower? Did I do this to you? He knew that he was defenceless, that he could have done nothing to ward off a spear thrust. But he was staring into the abyss of his own actions and could not look away.

“We’re the same,” he breathed without knowing what he was saying. “Foul and I are the same.”

Then he became aware that hands were pulling at him. Lena had gripped his jacket and was shaking him as hard as she could. “Is it true?” she shouted at him. “Are they dying because you made them promise to visit me each year?”

He met her eyes. They were full of firelight; they compelled him to recognize still another of his crimes. In spite of his peril, he could not refuse her the truth.

“No.” His throat was clogged with grief and horror. “That’s only part-Even if they went to the mountains, they could still reach you. I–I”- his voice ached thickly-“I made them promise to save me-if I ever called them. I did it for myself.”

Pietten laughed.

A cry of fury and despair tore between her lips. With the strength of revulsion, she thrust Covenant from her, then started to run out of the hollow.

“Stop!” Pietten barked after her.” You cannot escape!” He turned as she ran, following her with the tip of his spear.

In the instant that Pietten cocked his arm to throw, Covenant charged. He got his hands on the spear, heaved his weight against Pietten, tried to tear the spear away. Pietten recoiled a few steps under the onslaught. They wrestled furiously. But the grip of Covenant’s half hand was too weak. With a violent wrench, Pietten twisted the spear free.

Covenant grappled for Pietten’s arms. Pietten knocked him back with the butt of the spear and stabbed its point at him. Covenant threw himself to the side, managed to avoid the thrust. But he landed heavily on one foot, with the ankle bent under his weight.

Bones snapped. He heard them retorting through his flesh as he crashed to the ground, heard himself scream. Agony erupted in his leg. But he made himself roll, trying to evade the jabs of the spear.

As he flopped onto his back, he saw Pietten standing over him with the spear clenched like a spike in both hands.

Then Lena slammed into the Woodhelvennin. She launched her slight form at him with such ferocity that he fell under her, lost his grip on the spear. It landed across Covenant.

He grabbed it, tried to lever himself to his feet with it. But the pain in his ankle held him down as if his foot had been nailed to the ground. “Lena!” he shouted wildly. “No!”

Pietten threw her off him with one powerful sweep of his arm. She sprang up again and pulled a knife out of her robe. Rage contorted her fragile face as she hacked at Pietten.

He evaded her strokes, backed away quickly for an instant to gather his balance. Then, fiercely, he grinned.

“No!” Covenant shrieked.

When Lena charged again, Pietten caught her knife wrist neatly and turned the blade away from him. Slowly, he twisted her arm, forcing her down. She hammered at him with her free hand, but he held her. She could not resist his strength. She fell to her knees.

“The Ranyhyn!” she gasped to Covenant. “Call the Ranyhyn!”

“Lena!” Using the spear, he lunged to his feet, fell, tried to crawl forward.

Slowly, inexorably, Pietten bent her backward until she lay writhing on the ground. Then he pulled his sharp wooden stave from his belt. With one savage blow he stabbed her in the stomach, spiked her to the frozen earth.

Horror roared in Covenant’s head. He seemed to feel himself shattering; stricken with pain, he lost consciousness momentarily.

When he opened his eyes, he found Pietten standing in front of him.

Pietten was licking the blood off his hand.

Covenant tried to raise the spear, but Pietten snatched it from him. “Now, Ringthane!” he cried ecstatically. “Now I will slay you. Kneel there-grovel before me. Bring my dreams to life. I will be fair-I will allow you a chance. From ten paces I will hurl my spear. You may dodge-if your ankle permits. Do so. I relish it.”

With a grin like a snarl on his face, he strode away, turned and balanced the spear on his palm. “Do you not choose to live?” he jeered. “Kneel, then. Grovelling becomes you.”

Numbly, as if he did not know what he was doing, Covenant raised the two fingers of his right hand to his mouth and let out a weak whistle.

A Ranyhyn appeared instantly over the hillcrest, and came galloping down into the hollow. It was miserably gaunt, reduced by the long winter to such inanition that only its chestnut coat seemed to hold its skeleton together. But it ran like indomitable pride straight toward Covenant.

Pietten did not appear to see it coming. He was in a personal trance, exalted by blood. Obliviously, he drew back his arm, bent his body until his muscles strained with passion-obliviously he launched the spear like a bolt of retribution at Covenant’s heart.

The Ranyhyn veered, flashed between the two men, then fell tumbling like a sack of dismembered bones. When it came to rest on its side, both men saw Pietten’s spear jutting from its bloodstained coat.

The sight struck Pietten like a blast of chaos. He gaped at what he had done in disbelief, as if it were inconceivable, unendurable. His shoulders sagged, eyes stared widely. He seemed to lack language for what he saw. His lips fumbled over meaningless whimpers, and the muscles of his throat jerked as if he could not swallow. If he saw Covenant crawling terribly toward him, he gave no sign. His arms dangled at his sides until Covenant reared up in front of him on one leg and drove a sharp Stonedownor knife into his chest with both hands.

Covenant delivered the blow like a double fistful of hate. Its momentum carried him forward, and he toppled across Pietten’s corpse. Blood pumping from around the blade scored his jacket, slicked his hands, stained his shirt. But he paid no attention to it. That one blow seemed to have spent all his rage. He pushed himself off the body, and crawled away toward Lena, dragging his broken ankle like a millstone of pain behind him.

When he reached her, he found that she was still alive. The whole front of her robe was soaked, and blood coughed thinly between her lips; but she was still alive. He gripped the spike to draw it out. But the movement drew a gasp of pain from her. With an effort, she opened her eyes. They were clear, as if she were finally free of the confusion which had shaped her life. After a moment, she recognized Covenant, and tried to smile.

“Lena,” he panted. “Lena.”

“I love you,” she replied in a voice wet with blood. “I have not changed.”

“Lena.” He struggled to return her smile, but the attempt convulsed his face as if he were about to shriek.

Her hand reached toward him, touched his forehead as if to smooth away his scowl. “Free the Ranyhyn,” she whispered.

The plea took her last strength. She died with blood streaming between her lips.

Covenant stared at it as if it were vituperation. His eyes had a feverish cast, a look of having been blistered from within. No words came to his mind, but he knew what had happened. Rape, treachery, now murder-he had done them all, he had committed every crime. He had broken the promise he had made after the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, when he swore that he would not kill again. For a long moment, he regarded his numb fingers as if they were things of no importance. Only the blood on them mattered. Then he pushed himself away from Lena. Crawling like an abject passion, he moved toward the Ranyhyn.

Its muzzle was frothed with pain, and its sides heaved horridly. But it watched Covenant’s approach steadily, as if for the first time in its life it was not afraid of the bearer of white gold. When he reached it, he went directly to its wound. The spear was deeply embedded; at first he did not believe he could draw it out. But he worked at it with his hands, digging his elbows into the Ranyhyn’s panting ribs. At last the shaft tore free. Blood pulsed from the wound, yet the horse lurched to its feet, stood wavering weakly on splayed legs, and nuzzled him as if to tell him that it would live.

“All right,” he muttered, speaking half to himself. “Go back. Go-tell all the others. Our bargain is over. No more bargains. No more- ” The fire was falling into embers, and his voice faded as if he were losing strength along with it. Dark fog blew into him along the wind. But a moment later, he rallied. “No more bargains. Tell them.”

The Ranyhyn stood as if it were unwilling to leave him.

“Go on,” he insisted thickly. “You’re free. You’ve got to tell them. In the-in the name of Kelenbhrabanal, Father of Horses. Go.”

At the sound of that name, the Ranyhyn turned painfully and started to limp out of the hollow. When it reached the crest of the hill, it stopped and faced him once more. For an instant, he thought he could see it silhouetted against the night, rearing. Then it was gone.

He did not wait, did not rest. He was past taking any account of the cost of his actions. He caught up Pietten’s spear and used it as a staff to hold himself erect. His ankle screamed at him as it dragged the ground, but he set his teeth and struggled away from the fire. As soon as he left the range of its warmth, his wet clothing began to freeze.

He had no idea where he was headed, but he knew he had to go. On each breath that panted through his locked teeth, he whispered hate as if it were a question.