“Chosen.” Stave put his hand on her arm as if to pull her back from a kind of insanity. “The fault is mine. I urged caution when you craved haste.”
In response, Mahrtiir made a fierce spitting sound. “Do not speak of fault here, Haruchai. Neither you nor the Ringthane is gifted with foreknowledge. There is no fault. There is only the need of these stricken Woodhelvennin.”
Fault, Linden thought, biting her lip until it bled. Oh, there was fault, and plenty of it. The Manethrall was right: she could not have known. Even Joan, abused and broken, did not deserve blame. But Lord Foul was another matter. Kastenessen and Roger, the Ravers and the skurj and the croyel: the Despiser had aimed them like a barrage at the Land.
“All right,” she said with her mouth full of blood. “I understand. Let’s go see what we can do for those poor people.”
But she did not move. Instead she struggled to suppress her outrage. She needed a moment of clarity, of containment, in which she might regain some aspect of the Linden Avery who healed. That woman had never fully emerged from the depths of Melenkurion Skyweir.
There must be something-
Rubbing the blood from her lip with the back of her hand, she tightened the grip of her heels on Hyn’s flanks; mutely asked the mare to approach the remains of First Woodhelven. But as Hyn began to walk, Galt called sharply. “Linden Avery!”
He rode a short way off to her right, guarding the company from the south. When she jerked a look at him, he announced, “The Fall’s course has been altered. It turns toward us, compelled by some power which we do not recognise. And it moves swiftly. If it does not veer aside, it will soon be upon us.”
Flinching, Linden snatched her percipience toward the south and saw that he was right. The caesure was retracing its ruin, harried by a palpable cloudless storm. And it was coming fast-
Some silent part of her snarled curses, but she paid no attention to them. The Fall’s advance evoked a different clarity than the one that she had tried to impose on herself.
“Go!” she shouted at Galt and his comrades as though she had the right to command them. “Get those people out of there,” away from their riven homes, their lost lives. “Take them west. I’ll try to snuff that thing. But I don’t know what I’m up against. If something goes wrong, they’ll be right in front of it.”
If the skurj came, they would approach from the east.
Because he was a Master, she expected him to refuse. Yet he did not. Wheeling his Ranyhyn, he headed at a gallop into the lowland.
Immediately Branl joined him. Clyme took a moment to unsling the slate from his back and pass it in its harness to Stave, transferring responsibility for Anele. Then he sped after the other Humbled.
In their minds, all three of them may have been calling to the Masters among the Woodhelvennin.
So many people-It would take time to rally them. They were too stunned to think for themselves.
“Mahrtiir!” Linden flung a gesture after the Humbled. “Help those people. What’s coming isn’t just a Fall. Somebody is pushing that thing.” Someone nearby: someone who wanted the caesure to devour the Woodhelvennin-or to assail her. “Get as many of them on horses as you can. Make them move.”
When the Manethrall hesitated, she urged him, “Go! Leave Liand and Anele with me.” She could not ask Liand to watch over Anele and aid the villagers at the same time; and the old man was close to panic, filled by the old dread which had driven him to climb Kevin’s Watch. If he left Hrama’s back and tried to fend for himself-if his feet touched barren ground- “Stave will take care of them.”
“Ringthane.” Mahrtiir nodded an acknowledgment, then turned Narunal to follow the Humbled. As the Ranyhyn gathered speed, the Manethrall shouted. “Cords!”
Bhapa was already in motion, racing to catch up with Mahrtiir. Pahni gave Liand a quick desperate look before she sent Naharahn after Whrany.
Liand had already taken out his orcrest. He gripped it tightly while he murmured to Hrama and Rhohm, imploring them to stay together.
The sight of Liand’s Sunstone made Anele cower as if he feared it-feared sanity-more than the caesure.
On all sides of Linden and her remaining companions were flint, shale, eroded sandstone, dirt. Hardly a hundred paces away lay the torn path of the Fall. If Anele dismounted, even for a moment, Kastenessen would find him. The pain-maddened Elohim would know where to send the skurj. And if he gained full possession of the old man, he might attack Linden directly while she fought the caesure and its unseen drover.
Kastenessen might already be somewhere nearby. Surely he was capable of herding a Fall wherever he wished?
“How long-?” Abruptly she found that she could not speak: her throat was too dry. She had to swallow several times before she could ask Stave, “How much time do we have?”
The Haruchai gazed into the south for a moment, then glanced behind him to consider the tree-dwellers. “If the Woodhelvennin comprehend their peril, and do not refuse to be commanded, they will be spared.”
If the Fall did not change directions to pursue them-
“In that case”- Linden took a deep breath, held it, let it out-let’s go down there.” She indicated the furrowed ground where the Fall had passed. “We’ll be able to see farther.”
On this terrain, one place would not be more dangerous than another for Anele.
Stave nodded. Beckoning for Liand and Anele to follow, he nudged Hynyn into a trot, angling across the slope to keep his distance from the blasted village while he sought an unobstructed view to the south.
Fighting her urgent anger, Linden dropped back briefly to ride beside Liand. “You know what you have to do?”
His black eyebrows accentuated the apprehension in his eyes. “Linden?”
“Remember what I told you,” she ordered brusquely. “Protect Anele. Whatever happens. Get Stave to help you if you need him. I’ll stop the caesure.” Somehow. “But you have to keep Anele away from Kastenessen. We can’t face another attack right now.”
Of any kind.
When the Stonedownor said, “I will,” biting off the words as though they caused him pain, she left him, riding faster to catch up with Stave.
“Did you hear me?” she asked as she reached Stave’s side. On his back, he bore the pane of slate. “I know how you feel about protecting me. But you can’t fight a Fall. You can’t fight that storm. Helping Liand keep Anele safe is the best thing that you can do for me.”
For a moment, Stave appeared to contemplate what she requested of him. Then he replied evenly, “Your fate is mine, Chosen. I will have no other. Yet while I may, I will do as you desire.” Without expression, he met her gaze. “Have I not shown that I am able to abandon you for the old man’s sake?”
He had left her to retrieve Anele from the horde of the Demondim-
Trying to smile, Linden bared her teeth. “You have. I should know better than to tell you what to do.”
As soon as she reached the centre of the caesure’s raked path, she turned to face the south. For a few heartbeats, Hyn’s muscles quivered as if she were afraid; as if she longed to carry Linden out of danger. Then Hynyn snorted assertively, and the mare seemed to calm herself.
The Fall was moving faster than Linden had anticipated. It was already clear to her ordinary sight: a swirling miasma of wrongness in the shape of a tornado. Its emanations burrowed along her nerves as though hornets hived in her belly. And it was growing-The storm driving it seemed to increase its virulence and size as well as its speed. It would strike like the bludgeon of a titan.