The stone burst into slivers. The man cried out, backed away clutching his elbows.
Vain's head shifted as if he were nodding. He did not acknowledge the strike with so much as a blink of his black eyes. He was uninjured and oblivious.
Amazed uncertainty frightened the other men. A moment later, they started forward with the vehemence of fear.
Covenant had no time for astonishment. He had a purpose of his own, and did not intend to see it fail like this. Before the men had advanced two steps, he spread his arms and shouted, “Stop!” with all the ferocity of his passion.
His cry made the air ring. The men halted.
“Listen!” he rasped. “I'm not your enemy, and I don't intend to get beaten to death for my innocence!” The man with the knife waved it tentatively. Covenant jabbed a finger in his direction. “I mean it! If you want us, here we are. But you don't have to kill us.” He was trembling; but the sharp authority in his voice leashed his attackers.
The man who had recognized Linden's name hesitated, then revealed himself as the leader. “If you resist,” he said tautly, “all Stonemight Woodhelven will arise to slay you.”
Covenant let bitterness into his tone. “I wouldn't dream of resisting. You've got Linden. I want to go wherever she is.”
Angry and suspicious, the man tried to meet Covenant's glare, but could not. With his club, he pointed toward the canyon. “There.”
“There,” Covenant muttered. “Right.” Turning his back on the Woodhelvennin, he marched off in that direction.
The leader barked an order; and the man with the stunned arms hurried past Covenant. The man knew the rocks and nuns intimately; the path he chose was direct and well-worn. Sooner than he had expected, Covenant was led into a crevice which split the canyon-rim. The floor of the crevice descended steeply before it opened into its destination.
Covenant was surprised by the depth of the canyon. The place resembled a gullet; the rock of the upper edges looked like dark teeth silhouetted against the sky. Unforeseen dangers seemed to crouch, waiting, in the shadows of the walls. For a moment, he faltered. But his need to find his companions impelled him. As he was steered toward the dwellings of the Woodhelven, he studied everything he could see, searching for information, hope.
He was struck initially by the resemblance between the village and the men who had captured him. Stonemight Woodhelven was slovenly; its inhabitants were the first careless people he had met in the Land. The canyon floor around the houses was strewn with refuse; and the people wore their robes as if they had no interest in the appearance or even the wholeness of their apparel. Many of them looked dirty and ill-used, despite the fact that they were obviously well-fed. And the houses were in a similar condition. The wooden structures were fundamentally sound. Each stood on massive stilts for protection against the force of water which ran through the canyon during a sun of rain; and all had frames of logs as heavy as vigas. But the construction of the walls was sloppy, leaving gaps on all sides; and many of the door-ladders had broken rungs and twisted runners.
Covenant stared with, surprise and growing trepidation as he moved through the disorganized cluster of huts. How —? he wondered. How can people this careless survive the Sunbane?
Yet in other ways they did not appear careless. Their eyes smouldered with an odd combination of belligerence and fright as they regarded him. They reminded him strangely of Drool Rockworm, the Cavewight who had been ravaged almost to death by his lust for the Illearth Stone.
Covenant's captors took him to the largest and best-made of the houses. There, the leader called out, “Graveller!” After a few moments, a woman emerged and came down the ladder to face Covenant and Vain. She was tall, and moved with a blend of authority and desperation. Her robe was a vivid emerald colour-the first bright raiment Covenant had seen-and it was whole; but she wore it untidily. Her hah-lay in a frenzy of snarls. She had been weeping; her visage was dark and swollen, battered by tears.
He was vaguely confused to meet a Graveller in a Woodhelven. Formerly, the people of wood and stone had kept their lores separate. But he had already seen evidence that such distinctions of devotion no longer obtained. After Lord Foul's defeat, the villages must have had a long period of interaction and sharing. Therefore Crystal Stonedown had raised an eh-Brand who used wood, and Stonemight Woodhelven was led by a Graveller.
She addressed the leader of the captors. “Brannil?”
The man poked Covenant's shoulder. “Graveller,” he said in a tone of accusation, “this one spoke the name of the stranger, companion to the Stonedownors.” Grimly, he continued, “He is the Halfhand. He bears the white ring.”
She looked down at Covenant's hand. When her eyes returned to his face, they were savage. “By the Stonemight!” she snarled, “we will yet attain recompense.” Her head jerked a command. Turning away, she went toward her house.
Covenant was slow to respond. The woman's appearance-and the mention of his friends-had stunned him momentarily. But he shook himself alert, shouted after the Graveller, “Wait!”
She paused. Over her shoulder, she barked, “Brannil, has he shown power against you?”
“No, Graveller,” the man replied.
“Then he has none. If he resists you, strike him senseless.” Stiffly, she re-entered her dwelling and closed the door.
At once, hands grabbed Covenant's arms, dragged him toward another house, thrust him at the ladder. Unable to regain his balance, he fell against the rungs. Immediately, several men forced him up the ladder and through the doorway with such roughness that he had to catch himself on the far wall.
Vain followed him. No one had touched the Demondim-spawn. He climbed into the hut of his own accord, as if he were unwilling to be separated from Covenant.
The door slammed shut. It was tied with a length of vine.
Muttering, “Damnation,” Covenant sank down the wall to sit on the woven-wood floor and tried to think.
The single room was no better than a hovel. He could see through chinks in the walls and the floor. Some of the wood looked rotten with age. Anybody with strength or a knife could have broken out. But freedom was not precisely what he wanted. He wanted Linden, wanted to find Sunder and Hollian. And he had no knife. His resources of strength did not impress Mm.
For a moment, he considered invoking his one command from Vain, then rejected the idea. He was not that desperate yet. For some time, he studied the village through the gaps in the walls, watched the afternoon shadows lengthen toward evening in the canyon. But he saw nothing that answered any of his questions. The hovel oppressed him. He felt more like a prisoner-more ineffectual and doomed-than he had in Mithil Stonedown. A sense of impending panic constricted his heart. He found himself clenching his fists, glaring at Vain as if the Demondim-spawn's passivity were an offense to him.
His anger determined him. He checked through the front wall to be sure the two guards were still there. Then he carefully selected a place in the centre of the door where the wood looked weak, measured his distance from it, and kicked.
The house trembled. The wood let out a dull splitting noise.
The guards sprang around, faced the door.
Covenant kicked the spot again. Three old branches snapped, leaving a hole the size of his hand.
“Ware, prisoner!” shouted a guard. “You will be clubbed!”
Covenant answered with another kick. Splinters showed along one of the inner supports.
The guards hesitated, clearly reluctant to attempt opening the door while it was under assault.