For a moment, they gazed at each other impassively, as if nothing had happened. Then Harn nodded. He and Cail sprang to the aid of the Giants.
Still coughing for air Covenant propped himself against a tree and watched the rest of the fight.
It did not last long. When Cail and Harn had broken Fole and Durris free of Gibbon's hold, the four of them were soon able to rescue the remaining six.
Pitchwife and Mistweave picked their battered bodies out of the brush. The First glared sharply about her, holding her sword ready. Honninscrave folded his arms over his chest to contain the startling force of his own rage. But the Haruchai ignored the Giants. They turned away to face each other, speaking mind-to-mind with the silent dispassion of their people. In spite of what had just happened, they did not appear daunted or dismayed.
When their converse was over, Cail looked at the Giants and Linden, then met Covenant squarely He did not apologize. His people were Haruchai, and the offense to their rectitude went too deep for mere contrition. In a voice entirely devoid of inflection, free of any hint of justification or regret, he said, "It is agreed that such unworth as mine has its uses. Whatever restitution you command we will undertake. But we will not again fall from ourselves in this way.”
Covenant did not know what to say. He had known the Haruchai for a long time, and the Bloodguard before them; yet he was still astonished by the extravagance of their Judgments. And he was certain that he would not be able to bear being served by such people much longer. The simple desire to be deserving of them would make him wild.
How was it possible that his white fire had become so black in so little time?
Pitchwife murmured something like a jest under his breath, then grimaced when no one responded. Honninscrave had become too bleak for mirth. In his frustrated desire to prove himself to himself, Mistweave had forgotten laughter. And the First was not mollified by Cail's speech. The Haruchai had aroused her battle-instinct; and her face was like her blade, whetted for fighting.
Because the sun was setting and Sunder was exhausted, she commanded the Master and Mistweave to prepare a camp and a meal. Yet the decision to rest did not abate her tension. Dourly, she stalked around the area, hacking back the brush to form a relatively clear space for the camp.
Covenant stood and watched her. The blow he had received made everything inside him fragile. Even his truncated senses were not blind to her sore, stem vexation.
Linden would not come near him. She stayed as far. away from him as the First's clearing permitted, avoiding him as if to lessen as much as possible his impact on her percipience.
The glances that Hollian cast toward him over Sunder's shoulder were argute with fright and uncertainty in the deepening twilight. Only Vain, Findail, and the Haruchai behaved as if they did not care.
Covenant started to cover his face, then lowered his hands again. Their numbness had become repugnant to him. His features felt stiff and breakable. His beard smelled of sweat; his whole body smelled. he was unclean and rank from head to foot. He feared that his voice would crack; but he forced himself to use it.
“All right. Say it. Somebody.”
The First delivered a fierce cut that severed a honeysuckle stem as thick as her forearm, then wheeled toward him. The tip of her blade pointed accusations at him.
Linden winced at the First's anger, but did not intervene.
“Giantfriend,” the leader of the Search rasped as if the name hurt her mouth, “We have beheld a great ill. Is it truly your intent to utter this dark fire against the Clave?”
She towered over Covenant, and the light of Mistweave's campfire made her appear dominant and necessary. He felt too brittle to reply. Once he had tried to cut the venom out of his forearm on a ragged edge of rock. Those faint scars spread like fretwork around the fundamental marks of Marid's fangs. But now he knew better. Carefully, he said, "He will not do that to me and get away with it.”
The First did not waver. “And what of the Earth?”
Her tone made his eyes burn, but not with tears. Every word of his answer was as distinct as a coal. “A long time ago,” with the blood of half-mindless Cavewights on his head, “I swore I was never going to kill again. But that hasn't stopped me.” With both hands, he had driven a knife into the chest of the man who had slain Lena; and that blow had come back to damn him. He had no idea how many Bhrathair had died in the collapse of Kemper's Pitch. “The last time I was there, I killed twenty-one of them.” Twenty-one men and women, most of whom did not know that their lives were evil. “I'm sick of guilt. If you think I'm going to do anything that will destroy the Arch of Time, you had better try to stop me now.”
At that, her eyes narrowed as if she were considering the implications of running her blade through his throat. Hollian and Linden stared; and Sunder tried to brace himself to go to Covenant's aid. But the First, too, was the Unbeliever's friend. She had given him the title he valued most. Abruptly, the challenge of her sword dropped. “No, Giantfriend,” she sighed. “We have come too far. I trust you or nothing.”
Roughly, she sheathed her longsword and turned away.
Firelight gleamed in the wet streaks of Linden's concern and relief. After a moment, she came over to Covenant. She did not meet his gaze. But she put one hand briefly on his right forearm like a recognition that he was not like her father.
While that touch lasted, he ached to take hold of her hand and raise it to his lips But he did not move. He believed that if he did he would surely shatter. And every promise he had made would be lost.
The next day, the fruits of the verdant sun were worse. They clogged the ground with the teeming, intractable frenzy of a sea in storm. And Sunder's weariness went too deep to be cured by one night of diamondraught-induced sleep, one swallow of the rare and potent roborant Pitchwife created by combining his liquor with vitrim. But the Clave made no more efforts to take control of the krill or the Haruchai. The shade of the trees held some of the underbrush to bearable proportions. No Grim or other attack came riding out of Revelstone to bar the way. And the travellers had made such good progress during the past two days that they did not need to hurry now. None of them doubted that the Keep of the na-Mhoram was within reach. At infrequent intervals, the distortion of the jungle provided a glimpse of the south-western sky; and then all the companions could see the hot, feral shaft of the Banefire burning toward the sun like an immedicable scald in the green-hued air.
Every glimpse turned Linden's taut, delicate features a shade paler. Memory and emanations of power assaulted her vulnerable senses. She had once been Gibbon-Raver's prisoner in Revelstone, and his touch had raised the darkness coiled around the roots of her soul to the stature of all night. Yet she did not falter. She had aimed the company to this place by the strength of her own will, had wrested this promise from Covenant when he had been immobile with despair. In spite of her unresolved hunger and loathing for power, she did not let herself hang back.
The Stonedownors also held themselves firm They had a score to settle with the Clave, a tally that stretched from the hold of Revelstone and the ruin of the villages down to the Sunbane-shaped foundations of their lives. Whenever Sunder's need for rest became severe, Hollian took the orcrest and krill herself, though she was unskilled at that work and the path she made was not as clear as his. The silent caterwaul and torment of the vegetation blocked the ground at every step; but the company found a way through it.