Sunder could not have heard him. The screaming of the lurker drowned every other sound. The Graveller jerked over onto his chest as if he had been pounded by a hoof, then jerked back again.
With the rukh in his hands, Stell snatched it from him, hurled it. Arcing over the Coursers, it splashed into the centre of the quagmire.
Instantly, the beasts wheeled. They charged after the iron as if it were the lure of their doom. In their terror, they strove to destroy the thing which prevented them from flight.
One of them smashed into Vain.
He made no effort to evade the impact. In his habitual pose, he stood as if no power on Earth could touch him. But the beast was a creature of the Sunbane, made feral and tremendous by fear. Its momentum knocked him backward.
He toppled into the pool.
The Coursers crashed after him, drove him down with their hooves. Then they, too, were caught in the quagmire.
At once, the water began to boil. Turbulence writhed across the surface, wringing screams from the Coursers; upheavals squirmed as if the quag were about to erupt. One by one, the beasts were wrenched downward, disappearing in dark froth like blood. Sucking noises came from the pool as if it were a gullet.
Moments later, the turmoil ended. The water relaxed with a sigh of satiation.
When the heaving subsided, Vain stood alone in the centre of the pool.
He was sinking steadily. But the unfocus of his eyes was as blind as ever in the light of the torches. The water reached his chest. He did not struggle or cry out.
“Brinn!” Covenant panted. But the Haruchai were already moving. Harn pulled a coil of rope from one of the rescued sacks and threw it to Brinn. Promptly, but without haste, Brinn unwound one end of the rope and tossed it toward Vain.
The rope landed across Vain's shoulder.
He did not blink, gave no sign that he had seen it. His arms remained at his sides. The diffusion of his gaze was as complete as the quagmire.
“Vain!” Linden's protest sounded like a sob. The Demondim-spawn did not acknowledge it.
Brinn snatched back the rope, swiftly made a loop with a slipknot. The water lapped at Vain's neck as the Haruchai prepared to throw again.
With a flick, Brinn sent the rope snaking outward. The loop settled around Vain's head. Carefully, Brinn tugged it taut, then braced himself to haul on the rope. Ceer and Harn joined him.
Abruptly, Vain sank out of sight.
When the Haruchai pulled, the rope came back empty. The loop was intact.
Until he heard himself swearing, Covenant did not realize that he could breathe.
The howling of the lurker was gone. The acid-creatures were gone. They had vanished into the night.
There was nothing left except the rain.
Twenty Four: The Search
COVENANT hugged his chest in an effort to steady his quivering heart. His lungs seized air as if even the rain of the Sarangrave were sweet.
Through the stillness, he heard Hollian moan Sunder's name. As Sunder groaned, she gasped, “You are hurt.”
Covenant squeezed water out of his eyes, peered through the torchlight at the Graveller.
Pain gnarled Sunder's face. Together, Hollian and Linden were removing his jerkin. As they bared his ribs, they exposed a livid bruise where one of the Coursers had kicked him.
“Hold still,” Linden ordered. Her voice shook raggedly, as if she wanted to scream. But her hands were steady. Sunder winced instinctively at her touch, then relaxed as her fingers probed his skin without hurting him. “A couple broken,” she breathed. “Three cracked.” She placed her right palm over his lung. “Inhale. Until it hurts.”
He drew breath; a spasm knotted his visage. But she gave a nod of reassurance. “You're lucky. The lung isn't punctured.” She demanded a blanket from one of the Haruchai, then addressed Sunder again. “I'm going to strap your chest-immobilize those ribs as much as possible. It's going to hurt. But you'll be able to move without damaging yourself.” Stell handed her a blanket, which she promptly tore into wide strips. Caring for Sunder seemed to calm her. Her voice lost its raw edge.
Covenant left her to her work and moved toward the fire Hergrom and Ceer were building. Then a wave of reaction flooded him, and he had to squat on the wet grass, hunch inward with his arms wrapped around his stomach to keep himself from whimpering. He could hear Sunder hissing thickly through his teeth as Linden bound his chest; but the sound was like the sound of the rain, and Covenant was already soaked. He concentrated instead on the way his heart flinched from beat to beat, and fought for control. When the attack passed, he climbed to his feet, and went in search of metheglin.
Brinn and Ceer had been able to save only half the supplies; but Covenant drank freely of the mead which remained. The future would have to fend for itself. He was balanced precariously on the outer edge of himself and did not want to fall.
He had come within instants of calling up the wild magic-of declaring to the lurker that the Coursers were not the only available prey. If Linden had not stopped him-The drizzle felt like mortification against his skin. If she had not stopped him, he and his companions might already have met Lord Shetra's doom. His friends-he was a snare for them, a walking deathwatch. How many of them were going to die before Lord Foul's plans fructified?
He drank metheglin as if he were trying to drown a fire, the fire in which he was fated to burn, the fire of himself. Leper outcast unclean. Power and doubt. He seemed to feel the venom gnawing hungrily at the verges of his mind.
Vaguely, he watched the Haruchai fashion scant shelters out of the remaining blankets, so that the people they guarded would not have to lie in rain. When Linden ordered Sunder and Hollian to rest, he joined them.
He awoke, muzzy-headed, in the dawn. The two women were still asleep-Linden lay like a battered wife with her hair sticking damply to her face-but Sunder was up before him. The rain had stopped. Sunder paced the grass slowly, carrying his damaged ribs with care. Concentration or pain accentuated his forehead.
Covenant lurched out of his sodden bed and shambled to the supplies for a drink of water. Then, because he needed companionship, he went to stand with the Graveller.
Sunder nodded in welcome. The lines above his nose seemed to complicate his vision. Covenant expected him to say something about the rukh or the Coursers; but he did not. Instead, he muttered tightly, “Covenant, I do not like this Sarangrave. Is all life thus, in the absence of the Sunbane?”
Covenant winced at the idea. It made him think of Andelain. The Land was like the Dead; it lived only in Andelain, where for a while yet the Sunbane could not stain or ravish. He remembered Caer-Caveral's song:
But while I can I heed the call
Of green and tree; and for their worth,
I hold the glaive of Law against the Earth.
The mourning of that music brought back grief and old rage. Was he not Thomas Covenant, who had beaten the Despiser and cast Foul's Creche into the Sea? “If it is,” he answered to the tone of dirges, poisons, “I'm going to tear that bastard's heart out.”
Distantly, the Graveller asked, “Is hate such a good thing? Should we not then have remained at Revelstone, and given battle to the Clave?”
Covenant's tongue groped for a reply; but it was blocked by recollections. Unexpectedly, he saw turiya Raver in the body of Triock, a Stonedownor who had loved Lena. The Raver was saying, Only those who hate are immortal. His ire hesitated. Hate? With an effort, he took hold of himself. “No. Whatever else happens, I've already got too much innocent blood on my hands.”