Gripping the rope, Cail nodded Covenant toward the sled.
Oh, hell! Covenant groaned. Vertigo squirmed through him. What if his hold failed? And what made the Giants think these sleds would float? But he had no choice. The arghuleh must be drawing nearer. And he had to reach the Land somehow, had to get to Revelstone. There was no other way.
The Giants had already committed themselves. For a moment, he turned toward Linden. But she had drawn down into herself, was striving to master her own trepidation.
Woodenly, he climbed into the sled.
As Covenant settled himself, tried to seal his numb fingers to the rails, brace his legs among the bundles. Cail looped his rope around Vain's ankles. Then he knotted the heavy line in both fists and set his back to the sled, began pushing it toward the cliff.
When the sled nosed over the edge. Linden panted, “Hold tight,” as though she had just noticed what was happening. Covenant bit down on the inside of his cheek so hard that blood smeared his lips, stained the frost in his beard.
Slowly, Cail let the weight at the end of the rope pull him toward Vain again.
Vain had not moved a muscle: he seemed oblivious to the line hauling across the backs of his ankles. Reaching the Demondim-spawn, Cail stopped himself against Vain's black shins.
Without a tremor, the Haruchai lowered Covenant and the sled hand over hand down the face of the cliff.
Covenant chewed blood for a moment to control his fear; but soon the worst was over. His dizziness receded. Wedged among the supplies, he was in no danger of falling. Cail paid out the line with steady care. The rope cut small chunks out of the lip of the cliff; but Covenant hardly felt them bit. A shout of encouragement rose from Pitchwife. The dark sea looked as viscid as a malign chrism, but the four Giants swam in it as if it were only water. Pitchwife needed the First's support, but Honninscrave and Mistweave sculled themselves easily.
Honninscrave had placed himself in the path of the sled.
As its tip entered the water, he dodged below it and took the runners onto his shoulders. Rocking while he groped for a point of balance, the sled gradually became level. Then he steadied the runners, and Covenant found that the Master was carrying him.
Mistweave untied the rope so that Cail could draw it back up. Then Honninscrave started away from the wall of ice. The First said something to Covenant, but the lapping of the low waves muffled her voice.
Covenant hardly dared turn his head for fear of upsetting Honninscrave's balance; but peripherally he watched Linden's descent. The thought that Vain might move hurt his chest He felt faint with relief as the second sled came safely onto Mistweave's shoulders.
At a shout from the First, Cail dropped the rope, then slid down the ice-face to join the company.
Instinctively, Covenant fixed his attention like yearning on the low line of shore half a league away. The distance seemed too great. He did not know where Honninscrave and Mistweave would get the strength to bear the sleds so far. At any moment, the frigid hunger of the sea would surely drag them down.
Yet they struggled onward, though that crossing appeared cruel and interminable beyond endurance. The First upheld Pitchwife and did not weaken. Cail swam between the sleds, steadied them whenever Honninscrave or Mistweave wavered. If the seas had risen against them, they would have died. But the water and the current remained indifferent, too cold to notice such stark effrontery. In the name of the Search and Covenant Giantfriend and Linden Avery the Chosen, the Giants endured.
And they prevailed.
That night, the company camped on the hard shingle of the shore as if it were a haven.
Six: Winter in Combat
FOR the first time since he had left the galley of Starfare's Gem, Covenant thought his bones might thaw. On this coast, the warmer currents which kept the sea free of ice moderated the winter's severity. The shingle was hard but not glacial. Clouds muffled the heavens, obscuring the lonely chill of the stars. Mistweave's fire-tended by Cail because all the Giants were too weary to fend off sleep-spread a benison around the camp. Wrapped in his blankets Covenant slept as if he were at peace. And when he began to awaken in the stiff gloom of the northern dawn, he would have been content to simply eat a meal and then go back to sleep. The company deserved at least one day of rest The Giants had a right to it.
But as the dawn brightened, he forgot about rest The sunrise was hidden behind ranks of clouds, but it gave enough light to reveal the broad mass of the glacier the company had left behind. For a moment, me grey air made him uncertain of what he was seeing. Then he became sure.
In the water, a spit of ice was growing out from the cliff-from the same point at which the quest had left the glacier. It was wide enough to be solid. And it was aimed like a spear at me company's camp.
With an inward groan, he called me First. She joined him, stood staring out at the ice for a long moment. Uselessly, he hoped that her Giantish sight would contradict his unspoken explanation. But it did not. “It appears,” she said slowly, “that the arghuleh remain intent upon us.”
Damnation! Splinters of ice stuck in Covenant's memory. Harshly, he asked, “How much time have we got?”
“I know not when they commenced this span,” she replied. “To gauge their speed is difficult But I will be surprised to behold them gain this shore ere the morrow.”
He went on cursing for a while. But anger was as pointless as hope. None of the companions objected as they repacked the sleds for departure; the necessity was obvious. Linden looked worn by the continuing strain of the journey, uncertain of her courage. But the Giants had shed me worst of their exhaustion. The light of attention and humour in Pitchwife's eyes showed that he had begun to recover his essential spirit. In spite of his repeated failures to match Cail, Mistweave bore himself with an air of pride, as if he were looking forward to the songs his people would sing about the feats of the company. And the Master appeared to welcome the prospect of the trek ahead as an anodyne for the immedicable gall of his thoughts.
Covenant did not know how Vain and Findail had crossed the water. But Vain's black blankness and the Elohim's Appointed pain remained unaltered, dismissing the need for any explanation.
The company was still intact as it left the shore, started south-westward up the low sloping shingle to the uneven line of hills which edged the coast While the ground remained bare, Covenant and Linden walked beside Cail and the sleds. Though he was not in good shape, Covenant was glad for the chance to carry his own weight without having to fight the terrain. And he wanted to talk to Linden. He hoped she would tell him how she was doing. He had no ability to evaluate her condition for himself.
But beyond the hills lay a long, low plain; and there heavy snow began to fall. In moments, it obscured the horizons, wrapped isolation around the travellers, collected quickly at their feet. Soon it was thick enough to bear the sleds. The First urged Covenant and Linden to ride so that she would be free to amend her pace. Aided by her keen eyesight and her instinctive sense of terrain, she led her companions through the thick snowfall as if the way were familiar to her.
Toward mid-afternoon, the snow stopped, leaving the travellers alone in a featureless white expanse. Again, the First increased her pace, thrusting herself through the drifts at a speed which no other people could have matched afoot. Only the Ranyhyn-, Covenant mused. Only Ranyhyn could have borne him with comparable alacrity to meet his doom. But the thought of the great horses gave him a pang. He remembered them as beasts of beautiful fidelity, one of the treasures of the Land. But they had been forced to flee the malison of the Sunbane. Perhaps they would never return. They might never get the chance, That possibility brought him back to anger, reminded him mat he was on his way to put an end to the Clave and the Banefire which served the Sunbane. He began to think about his purpose more clearly. He could not hope to take Revelstone by surprise. Lord Foul surely knew that the Unbeliever would come back to the Land, counted on Covenant's return for the fulfilment of his designs. But it was possible that neither the Despiser nor his Ravers understood how much damage Covenant intended to do along the way.