Thomas Covenant 03: Power That Preserves (26 page)

Yet he knew, could not help knowing, that he was poorly equipped for such duty. The wintry truncation of his senses nagged at him as if it implied disaster—as if his inability to see, smell, hear peril would necessarily give rise to peril. And he was not mistaken. Though he was awake, almost alert—though the day had begun, filling the air with its gray, cold sludge—though the attack came from the east, upwind from him—he felt nothing until too late.

He had just finished a circuit of the hilltop, scanning the terrain around the hollow, and had returned to sit in the thin shelter of the juniper, when at last he became aware of danger. Something imminent ran along the wind; the atmosphere over the hollow became suddenly intense. The next instant, dark figures rose up out of the snow around Foamfollower and Lena. As he tried to shout a warning, the figures attacked.

He sprang to his feet, raced down into the hollow. Below him, Foamfollower surged to his knees, throwing dark brown people aside. With a low cry of anger, Lena struggled against the weight of the attackers who pinned her in her blankets. But before Covenant could get to her, someone hit him from behind, knocked him headlong into the snow.

He rolled, got his feet under him, but immediately arms caught him around the chest above the elbows. His own arms were trapped. He fought, threw himself from side to side, but his captor was far too strong; he could not break the grip. Then a flat, alien voice said into his ear, “Remain still or I will break your back.”

His helplessness infuriated him. “Then break it,” he panted under his breath as he struggled. “Just let her go.” Lena was resisting frantically, yelping in frustration and outrage as she failed to free herself.

“Foamfollower!” Covenant shouted hoarsely.

But he saw in shocked amazement that the Giant was not fighting. His attackers stood back from him, and he sat motionless, regarding Covenant’s captor gravely.

Covenant went limp with chagrin.

Roughly the attackers pulled Lena from her blankets. They had already lashed her wrists with cords. She still struggled, but now her only aim seemed to be to break loose so that she could run to Covenant.

Then Foamfollower spoke. Levelly, dangerously, he said, “Release him.” When the arms holding Covenant did not loosen, the Giant went on: “Stone and Sea! You will regret it if you have harmed him. Do you not know me?”

“The Giants are dead,” the voice in Covenant’s ear said dispassionately. “Only Giant-Ravers remain.”

“Let me go!” Lena hissed. “Oh, look at him, you fools!
Melenkurion abatha!
Is he a Raver?” But Covenant could not tell whether she referred to Foamfollower or himself.

His captor ignored her. “We have seen—I have seen The Grieve. I have made that journey to behold the work of Ravers.”

A shadow tightened in Foamfollower’s eyes, but his voice did not flicker. “Distrust me, then. Look at him, as Lena daughter of Atiaran suggests. He is Thomas Covenant.”

Abruptly the strong arms spun Covenant. He found himself facing a compact man with flat eyes and a magisterial mien. The man wore nothing but a thin, short, vellum robe, as if he were impervious to the cold. In some ways he had changed; his eyebrows were stark white against his brown skin; his hair had aged to a mottled gray; and deep lines ran like the erosion of time down his cheeks past the corners of his mouth. But still Covenant recognized him.

He was Bannor of the Bloodguard.

NINE: Ramen Covert

The sight of him stunned Covenant. Lithe, loam-colored forms, some wearing light robes shaded to match the gray-white snow, moved closer to him as if to verify his identify; a few of them muttered “Ringthane” in tense voices. He hardly saw them. “But Mhoram said—”

But Mhoram had said that the Bloodguard were lost.

“Ur-Lord Covenant.” Bannor inclined his head in a slight bow. “Pardon my error. You are well disguised.”

“Disguised?” Covenant had no conception of what Banner was talking about. Mhoram’s pain had carried so much conviction. Numbly he glanced downward as if he expected to find two fingers missing from Banner’s right hand.

“A Stonedownor jacket. Sandals. A Giant for a companion.” Bannor’s impassive eyes held Covenant’s face. “And you stink of infection. Only your countenance may be recognized.”

“Recognized.” Covenant could not stop himself. He repeated the word because it was the last thing Bannor had said. Fighting for self-control, he croaked, “Why aren’t you with the Lords?”

“The Vow was Corrupted. We no longer serve the Lords.”

Covenant gaped at this answer as if it were nonsense. Confusion befogged his comprehension. Had Mhoram said anything like this? He found that his knees were trembling as if the ground under him had shifted.
No longer serve the Lords
, he repeated blankly. He did not know what the words meant.

But then the sounds of Lena’s struggle penetrated him. “You have harmed him,” she gasped fiercely. “Release me!”

He made an effort to pull himself together. “Let her go,” he said to Bannor. “Don’t you understand who she is?”

“Did the Giant speak truly?”

“What? Did he what?” Covenant almost lapsed back into his stupor at the jolt of this distrust. But for Lena’s sake he took a deep breath, resisted. “She is the mother of High Lord Elena,” he grated. “Tell them to let her go.”

Bannor glanced past Covenant at Lena, then said distantly, “The Lords spoke of her. They were unable to heal her.” He shrugged slightly. “They were unable to heal many things.”

Before Covenant could respond, the Bloodguard signaled to his companions. A moment later, Lena was at Covenant’s side. From somewhere in her robes, she produced a stone knife and brandished it between Bannor and Covenant. “If you have harmed him, “she fumed, “I will take the price of it from your skin, old man.”

The Bloodguard cocked an eyebrow at her. Covenant reached for her arm to hold her back, but he was still too staggered to think of a way to calm her, reassure her. “Lena,” he murmured ineffectively, “Lena.” When Foamfollower joined them, Covenant’s eyes appealed to the Giant for help.

“Ah, my Queen,” Foamfollower said softly. “Remember your Oath of Peace.”

“Peace!” Lena snapped in a brittle voice. “Speak to them of Peace. They attacked the Unbeliever.”

“Yet they are not our enemies. They are the Ramen.”

She jerked incredulously to face the Giant. “Ramen? The tenders of the Ranyhyn?”

Covenant stared as well. Ramen? He had unconsciously assumed that Bannor’s companions were other Bloodguard. The Ramen had always secretly hated the Bloodguard because so many Ranyhyn had died while bearing the Bloodguard in battle. Ramen and Bloodguard? The ground seemed to lurch palpably under him. Nothing was as he believed it to be; everything in the Land would either astound or appall him, if only he were told the truth.

“Yes,” Foamfollower replied to Lena. And now Covenant recognized the Ramen for himself. Eight of them, men and women, stood around him. They were lean, swift people, with the keen faces of hunters, and skin so deeply tanned from their years in the open air that even this winter could not pale them. Except for their scanty robes, their camouflage, they dressed in the Ramen fashion as Covenant remembered it—short shifts and tunics which left their legs and arms free; bare feet. Seven of them had the cropped hair and roped waists characteristic of Cords; and the eighth was marked as a Manethrall by the way his fighting thong tied his long black hair into one strand, and by the small, woven circlet of yellow flowers on the crown of his head.

Yet they had changed; they were not like the Ramen he had known forty-seven years ago. The easiest alteration for him to see was in their attitude toward him. During his first visit to the Land, they had looked at him in awed respect. He was the Ringthane, the man to whom the Ranyhyn had reared a hundred strong. But now their proud, severe faces regarded him with asperity backed by ready rage, as if he had violated their honor by committing some nameless perfidy.

But that was not the only change in them. As he scrutinized the uncompromising eyes around him, he became conscious of a more significant difference, something he could not define. Perhaps they carried themselves with less confidence or pride; perhaps they had been attacked so often that they had developed a habitual flinch; perhaps this ratio of seven Cords to one Manethrall, instead of three or four to one, as it should have been, indicated a crippling loss of life among their leaders, the teachers of the Ranyhyn-lore. Whatever the reason, they had a haunted look, an aspect of erosion, as if some subliminal ghoul were gnawing at the bones of their courage. Studying them, Covenant was suddenly convinced that they endured Bannor, even followed him, because they were no longer self-sure enough to refuse a Bloodguard.

After a moment, he became aware that Lena was speaking, more in confusion than in anger now. “Why did you attack us? Can you not recognize the Unbeliever? Do you not remember the Rockbrothers of the Land? Can you not see that I have ridden Ranyhyn?”

“Ridden!” spat the Manethrall.

“My Queen,” Foamfollower said softly, “the Ramen do not ride.”

“As for Giants,” the man went on, “they betray.”

“Betray?” Covenant’s pulse pounded in his temples, as if he were too close to an abyss hidden in the snow.

“Twice now Giants have led Fangthane’s rending armies north of the Plains of Ra. These ‘Rockbrothers’ have sent fangs and claws in scores of thousands to tear the flesh of Ranyhyn. Behold!” With a swift tug, he snatched his cord from his hair and grasped it taut like a garrote. “Every Ramen cord is black with blood.” His knuckles tightened as if he were about to leap at the Giant. “Manhome is abandoned. Ramen and Ranyhyn are scattered. Giants!” He spat again as if the very taste of the word disgusted him.

“Yet you know me,” Foamfollower said to Bannor. “You know that I am not one of the three who fell to the Ravers.”

Bannor shrugged noncommittally. “Two of the three are dead. Who can say where those Ravers have gone?”

“I am a Giant, Bannor!” Foamfollower insisted in a tone of supplication, as if that fact were the only proof of his fidelity. “It was I who first brought Thomas Covenant to Revelstone.”

Bannor was unmoved. “Then how is it that you are alive?”

At this, Foamfollower’s eyes glinted painfully. In a thin tone, he said, “I was absent from
Coercri
—when my kindred brought their years in Seareach to an end.”

The Bloodguard cocked an eyebrow, but did not relent. After a moment, Covenant realized that the resolution of this impasse was in his hands. He was in no condition to deal with such problems, but he knew he had to say something. With an effort, he turned to Bannor. “You can’t claim you don’t remember me. You probably have nightmares about me, even if you don’t ever sleep.”

“I know you, ur-Lord Covenant.” As he spoke, Bannor’s nostrils flared as if they were offended by the smell of illness.

“You know me, too,” Covenant said with mounting urgency to the Manethrall. “Your people call me Ringthane. The Ranyhyn reared to me.”

The Manethrall looked away from Covenant’s demanding gaze, and for an instant the haunted look filled his face like an ongoing tragedy. “Of the Ringthane we do not speak,” he said quietly. “The Ranyhyn have chosen. It is not our place to question the choices of the Ranyhyn.”

“Then back off!” Covenant did not intend to shout, but he was too full of undefined fears to contain himself. “Leave us alone! Hellfire! We’ve got enough trouble as it is.”

His tone brought back the Manethrall’s pride. Severely the man asked, “Why have you come?”

“I haven’t ‘come.’ I don’t want to be here at all.”

“What is your purpose?”

In a voice full of mordant inflections, Covenant said, “I intend to pay a little visit to Foul’s Creche.”

His words jolted the Cords, and their breath hissed through their teeth. The Manethrall’s hands twitched on his weapon.

A flare of savage desire widened Bannor’s eyes momentarily. But his flat dispassion returned at once. He shared a clear glance with the Manethrall, then said, “Ur-Lord, you and your companions must accompany us. We will take you to a place where more Ramen may give thought to you.”

“Are we your prisoners?” Covenant glowered.

“Ur-Lord, no hand will be raised against you in my presence. But these matters must be given consideration.”

Covenant glared hard into Bannor’s expressionlessness, then turned to Foamfollower. “What do you think?”

“I do not like this treatment,” Lena interjected. “Saltheart Foamfollower is a true friend of the Land. Atiaran my mother spoke of all Giants with gladness. And you are the Unbeliever, the bearer of white gold. They show disrespect. Let us leave them and go our way.”

Foamfollower replied to them both, “The Ramen are not blind. Bannor is not blind. They will see me more clearly in time. And their help is worth seeking.”

“All right,” Covenant muttered. “I’m no good at fighting anyway.” To Bannor, he said stiffly, “We’ll go with you.” Then, for the sake of everything that had happened between himself and the Bloodguard, he added, “No matter what else is going on here, you’ve saved my life too often for me to start distrusting you now.”

Bannor gave Covenant another fractional bow. At once, the Manethrall snapped a few orders to the Cords. Two of them left at a flat run toward the northeast, and two more moved off to take scouting positions on either side of the company, while the rest gathered small knapsacks from hiding places around the hollow. Watching them, Covenant was amazed once again at how easily, swiftly, they could disappear into their surroundings. Even their footprints seemed to vanish before his eyes. By the time Foamfollower had packed his leather sack, they had effaced all signs of their presence from the hollow. It looked as untroubled as if they had never been there.

Before long, Covenant found himself trudging between Lena and Foamfollower in the same general direction taken by the two runners. The Manethrall and Bannor strode briskly ahead of them, and the three remaining Cords marched at their backs like guards. They seemed to be moving openly, as if they had no fear of enemies. But twice when he looked back Covenant saw the Cords erasing the traces of their passage from the gray drifts and the cold ground.