“From fire to fire,” he whispered. “After all this time. First Seadreamer and Brinn. Hamako. Then Honninscrave. Now you. I hope you've found a little peace.”
There was no answer. When at last he withdrew, his hands and brow were smudged with soot like an obscure and contradictory anointment. Roughly, he scrubbed his palms on his pants; but he seemed unaware of the stain on his forehead.
For a moment, he studied Linden as if he sought to measure her against the Forestal's example. Again she was reminded of the way he had once cared for Joan. But Linden was not his ex-wife; she faced him squarely. The encompassing health of the Hills made her strong. And what he saw appeared to reassure him. Gradually his features softened. Half to himself, be murmured, “Thank God you're still here.” Then he raised his voice. “We should get going. Where are the Giants?”
She gave him a long gaze, which Hollian would have understood, before she turned to look for the First and Pitchwife.
They were not in sight. Vain and Findail stood near the foot of the slope exactly as they had remained all night; but the Giants were elsewhere. However, when she ascended to the hillcrest, she saw them emerge from a copse on the far side of a low valley, where they had gone to find privacy.
They responded to her wave with a hail and a gesture eastward, indicating that they would rejoin her and Covenant in that direction. Perhaps their keen eyes were able to descry the smile she gave them, glad to see that they felt safe enough in Andelain to leave their companions unguarded.
Covenant came to her wearily, worn by strain and lack of sleep. But at the sight of the Giants-or of the Hills unfurled before him like pleasure rolling along the kind breeze-he, too, smiled. Even from this distance, the restoration of Pitchwife's spirit was visible in the way be hobbled at his wife's side with a gait like a mummer's capriole. And her swinging stride bespoke eagerness and a fondly remembered night. They were Giants in Andelain. The pure expanse of the Hills suited them.
Softly, Covenant mused, “They aren't people of the Land. Maybe Coercri was enough. Maybe they won't meet any Dead here.” As he remembered the slain Unhomed-and the caamora of release he had given them in The Grieve-the timbre of his voice conveyed pride and pain. But then his gaze darkened; and Linden saw that he was thinking of Saltheart Foamfollower, who had lost his life in Covenant's former victory over the Despiser.
She wanted to tell him not to worry. Perhaps the battle for Revelstone had made Pitchwife familiar with despair and doom. Yet she believed that eventually he would find the song he needed. And the First was a Swordmain, as true as her blade. She would not lightly submit to death.
But Covenant had his own strange.sources of surety and did not wait for Linden's answer. With his resolve stiffening, he placed his half-hand firmly in her clasp and drew her toward the east along a way among the Hills which would intersect the path of the Giants.
After a moment, Findail and Vain appeared behind them, following them as always in the direction of their fate.
For a while Covenant walked briskly, his smudged forehead raised to the sun and the savoury atmosphere. But at the first brook they encountered, he stopped. From under his belt, he drew a knife which he had brought with him from Revelstone. Stooping to the crisp water, he drank deeply, then soaked his ragged beard and set himself to shave.
Linden held her breath as she watched him. His grasp on the blade was numb; and fatigue made his muscles awkward. But she did not try to intervene. She sensed that this risk was necessary to him.
When he had finished, however, and his cheeks and neck were scraped clean, she could not conceal her relief. She knelt beside him, cupped water into her hands, and washed tile soot from his forehead, seeking to remove the innominate implications of that mark.
An oak with a tremendous trunk spread its wide leaves over that part of the brook. Satisfied with Covenant's face, she pulled him after her and leaned back into the shade and the grass. The breeze played down the length of her legs like the sport of a lover; and she was in no hurry to rejoin the Giants.
But suddenly she felt a mute cry from the tree. a burst of pain which shivered through the ground, seemed to violate the very air. She whirled from Covenant's side and surged to her feet, trembling to find the cause of the oak's hurt The cry rose. For an instant, she saw no reason for it. Harm shook the boughs; the leaves wailed; muffled rivings ran through the heartwood. Around the oak, the Hills seemed to concentrate as if they were appalled. But she saw nothing except that Vain and Findail were gone.
Then, too swift for surmise, the Appointed came flowing out of the wood's anguish.
As he transformed himself from oak to flesh, his care-cut visage wore an unwonted shame. Vexed and defensive, he faced Linden and Covenant. “Is he not Demondim-spawn?” he demanded as if they had accused him unjustly. “Are not his makers ur-viles, that have ever served the Despiser with their self-abhorrence? And will you trust him to my cost? He must be slain.”
At his back, the oak's hurt sharpened to screaming.
“You bastard!” Linden spat, half guessing what Findail had done-and afraid to believe it. “You're killing it! Don't you even care that this is Andelain? the only place left that at least ought to be safe?”
“Linden?” Covenant asked urgently. “What-?” He lacked her percipience, had no knowledge of the tree's agony.
But he did not have to wait for an answer. A sundering pain like the blow of an axe split Linden's nerves; and the trunk of the oak sprang apart in a flail of splinters.
From the core of the wood. Vain stepped free. Unscathed, he left the still quivering tree in ruins. He did not glance at Findail or anyone else. His black eyes held nothing but darkness.
Linden stumbled to her knees in the grass and wrapped her arms around the hurt.
For a stunned moment, grief held the Hills. Then Covenant rasped, “That's terrific.” He sounded as shaken as the dying boughs. “I hope you're proud of yourself.”
Findail's reply seemed to come from a great distance. “Do you value him so highly? Then I am indeed lost”
“I don't give a good goddamn!” Covenant was at Linden's side. His hands gripped her shoulders, supporting her against the empathic force of the rupture. “I don't trust either of you. Don't you ever try anything like that again!”
The Elohim hardened, “I will do what I must. From the first, I have avowed that I will not suffer his purpose. The curse of Kastenessen will not impel me to that doom.”
Swirling into the form of a hawk, he flapped away through the treetops. Linden and Covenant were left amid the wreckage.
Vain stood before them as if nothing had happened.
For a moment longer, the ache of the tree kept Linden motionless. But by degrees Andelain closed around the destruction, pouring health back into the air she breathed, spreading green vitality up from the grass, loosening the knotted echo of pain. Slowly, her head cleared. Sweet Christ, she mumbled to herself. I wasn't ready for that.
Covenant repeated her name; his concern reached her through his numb fingers. She steadied herself on the undergirding bones of the Hills and nodded to him. “I'm all right.” She sounded wan; but Andelain continued to lave her in its balm. Drawing a deep breath, she pulled herself back to her feet.
Across the greensward, the sunshine lay like sorrow among the trees and shrubs, aliantha and flowers. But the shock of violence was over. Already, the distant hillsides had begun to smile again. The brook resumed its damp chuckle as though the interruption had been forgotten. Only the riven trunk went on weeping while the tree died, too sorely hurt to keep itself alive.