That had been Linden's idea. Stop the Clave. Put out the Banefire. Some infections have to be cut out. But he accepted it now, accepted it deep in the venom and marrow of his power. It gave him a use for his anger. And it offered him a chance to make the arduous and unfaltering service of the Giants mean something.
When he thought about such things, his right forearm itched avidly, and darkness rose in his gorge. For the first time since he had agreed to make the attempt, he was eager to reach Revelstone.
Two days later, the company still had not come to the end of the snow-cloaked plain.
Neither Linden's health-sense nor the Giants' sight had caught any glimpse of the arghuleh. Yet none of the companions doubted that they were being hunted. A nameless foreboding seemed to harry the sleds. Perhaps it arose from the sheer wide desolation of the plain, empty and barren. Or perhaps the whole company was infected by the rawness of Linden's nerves. She studied the winter-scented the air, scrutinized the clouds, tasted the snow-as though it had been given birth by strange forces, some of them unnatural; and yet she could not put words to the uneasiness of what she perceived. Somewhere in this wasteland, an obscure disaster foregathered. But she had no idea what it was.
The next day, however, mountains became visible to the east and south. And the day after that, the company rose up out of the plain, winding through low, rumpled foothills and valleys toward the ice-gnawed heights above them.
This range was not especially tall or harsh. Its peaks were old, and millennia of winter had worn them down. By sunset, the companions had gained a thousand feet of elevation, and the foothills and the plain were hidden behind them.
The following day, they were slowed to a crawl. While Covenant and Linden struggled through the snow on foot, the company worked from side to side up a rough, steep slope which disappeared into the gravid clouds and seemed to go on without end. But that ascent gave them another two thousand feet of altitude; and when it was over, they found themselves in a region that resembled rolling hills rather than true mountains. Time and cold had crumbled the crests which had once dominated this land; erosion had filled in the valleys. The First let the company camp early that night; but the next morning she was brisk with hope for good progress.
“Unless we're completely lost,” Covenant announced, “this should be the Northron Climbs,” The simple familiarity of that name lifted his heart. He hardly dared believe he was right. “If it is, then eventually we're going to hit Landsdrop.” Running generally northwestward through the Northron Climbs, the great cliff of Landsdrop formed the boundary between the Lower Land and the Upper.
But it also marked the border of the Sunbane; for the Sunbane arose and went west across the Upper Land from Lord Foul's covert in the depths of Mount Thunder, which straddled the mid-point of Landsdrop. When the company reached the cliff, they would cross back into the Despiser's power. Unless the Sunbane had not yet spread so far north.
However, Linden was not listening to Covenant. Her eyes studied the west as if she were obsessed with thoughts of disaster. Her voice conveyed an odd echo of memory as she murmured, "It's getting colder.”
He felt a pang of fear. “It's the elevation,” he argued. “We're a lot higher up than we were.”
“Maybe.” She seemed deaf to his apprehension. “I can't tell.” She ran her fingers through her hair, tried to shake her perceptions into some semblance of clarity. “We're too far south for so much winter.”
Remembering the way Lord Foul had once imposed winter on the Land in defiance of all natural Law, Covenant gritted his teeth and thought about fire.
For Linden was right: even his truncated senses could not mistake the deepening chill. Though there was no wind, the temperature seemed to plummet around him. During the course of the day, the snow became crusted and glazed. The air had a whetted edge that cut at his lungs. Whenever snow fell, it came down like thrown sand.
Once the surface had hardened enough to bear the Giants, their work became easier. They no longer needed to force a path through the thigh-deep freeze. As a consequence, their pace improved markedly. Yet the cold was bitter and penetrating Covenant felt brittle with frost and incapacity, caught between ice and fire. When the company stopped for the night, he found that his blankets had frozen about him like cerements. He had to squirm out of them as if he were emerging from a cocoon in which nothing had been transformed.
Pitchwife gave him a wry grin. “You are well protected, Giantfriend.” The words came in gouts of steam as if the very sound of his voice had begun to freeze. "Ice itself is also a ward from the cold.”
But Covenant was looking at Linden. Her visage was raw, and her lips trembled. “It's not possible,” she said faintly. “There can't be that many of them in the whole world.”
No one had to ask her what she meant. After a moment, the First breathed, “Is your perception of them certain, Chosen?”
Linden nodded. The comers of her eyes were marked with frost. “They're bringing this winter down with them.”
In spite of the fire Mistweave built Covenant felt that his heart itself was freezing.
After that, the weather became too cold for snow. For a day and a night, heavily-laden clouds glowered overhead, clogging the sky and the horizons. And then the sky turned clear. The sleds bounced and slewed over the frozen surface as if it were a new form of granite.
The First and Pitchwife no longer led the company. Instead, they ranged away to the north to watch for arghuleh. The previous night, she had suggested that they turn southward in order to flee the peril. But Covenant had refused. His imprecise knowledge of the Land's geography indicated that if the company went south they might not be able to avoid Sarangrave Flat. So the travellers continued toward Revelstone; and the First and Pitchwife kept what watch they could.
Shortly after noon, with the sun glaring hatefully off the packed white landscape and the still air as keen as a scourge, the company entered a region where ragged heads and splintered torsos of rock thrust thickly through the snow pack, raising their white-crowned caps and bitter sides like menhirs in all directions. Honninscrave and Mistweave had to pick a twisting way between the cromlechs, some of which stood within a Giant's arm-span of each other; and the First and Pitchwife were forced to draw closer to the company so that they would not lose sight of the sleds.
Among the companions. Linden sat as tense as a scream and muttered over and over again, “They're here. Jesus God. They're here.”
But when the attack came, they had no warning of it Linden's senses were foundering, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and intensity of the cold. She was unable to pick specific dangers out of the general peril. And Pitchwife and the First were watching the north. The assault came from the south.
The company had entered a region which the arghuleh already controlled.
Honninscrave and Mistweave were striding through the centre of a rude ring of tall stones, Mistweave on the Master's left, when two low hillocks across the circle rose to their feet. Maws clacking hungrily, the creatures shot forward a short distance, then stopped. One spun an instant web of ice which sprang at Mistweave's head; the other waited to give pursuit when the companions broke and ran.