Stephen Donaldson - Fatal Revenant

By her estimation, she was roughly fifteen leagues from Andelain. At this elevation, she might have been able to hope for a glimpse of the Hills which held the Land’s defining glory. But Sunder and Hollian had wrought well when they had brought forth Salva Gildenbourne. In addition, the forest had flourished for millennia on the overflow of Andelain’s fecundity. The woodland was too deep, dense, and tall to permit any faint emanation of the Hills to reach Linden’s senses.

Still she searched the southeast so avidly that moments passed before she felt the tension thick around her; the growing apprehension of her companions. Then she heard Liand say anxiously. “Linden,” and she saw him point toward the east.

The four Haruchai were gazing in that direction. Anele did the same in spite of his blindness. Mahrtiir had already ridden past the crest; but Narunal had halted when the other Ranyhyn did, and the Manethrall’s face also was turned to the east.

As soon as Linden saw the smoke seething out of the trees at the farthest limit of her sight, she wondered how she had failed to notice it immediately.

The smoke itself was black and fatal, but it was only smoke: it did not cry out to her health-sense. Natural fires were possible. Yet the season was spring. Showers had soaked the woods. Nonetheless Salva Gildenbourne was burning.

And there was more.

At that distance, she did not expect to see flames; but she discerned something worse. Rather than fire, she descried a kind of diseased Earthpower, an organic mystical energy distilled and polluted until it had become as fiery as a furnace, as hot as lava, and incandescent with hunger.

Instantly, instinctively, Linden knew the cause of the blaze. You’ll recognise them when you see them. Foul showed you what they’re like. In imposed visions during her translation to the Land, she had seen spots of wrongness bloom like chancres in the body of the Land, eruptions of ruin among the grass and beauty of the landscape. And from those vile pustulent boils, buboes, infections, had squirmed forth devouring monsters which seemed to emerge from the depths of volcanoes. Serpentlike and massive, with kraken jaws formed to rip and swallow earth and grass and trees, those beasts had feasted on the Land as if it were flesh. Ravenously they had consumed the vista of her vision.

Since then, she had learned to name the monsters. They were skurj , and they served Kastenessen because he had released them when he won free of his Durance.

They were a distortion rather than a shattering of Law, but they had one quality in common with caesures : they were discrete, localised; individually small compared to Salva Gildenbourne, or to the wider Land. However, enough of them together could wreak enormous devastation. Their combined hungers might prove to be as ruinous as the Sunbane.

Linden did not say their name aloud. None of her companions uttered it. Instead she asked softly so that she would not gasp or groan, “How far-? Stave, can you tell how far away they are?”

“A score of leagues,” the former Master replied as if he were unacquainted with dread or horror. “Perhaps somewhat more.”

“More,” stated Galt flatly.

“Are you able to determine their number?” asked Liand. “I cannot.”

Roger had told Linden that Kastenessen had not brought very many of them down from the north yet , but she had no confidence that Covenant’s son had given her the truth.

“The distance precludes certainty,” answered Stave. “but they do not appear to be as many as ten. Salva Gildenbourne has endured substantial harm. The source of this smoke is not the only region where the trees have suffered. Other portions also have been devoured, some at the verge, some in the depths, and some nigh unto Andelain itself. Yet the savaging of the forest is fresh only at the site of the smoke. Earlier flames were extinguished by rain.” He looked to the Humbled for confirmation. “Therefore we judge that this smoke reveals where Kastenessen’s beasts feed, and that the skurj are few in number.”

At the sound of that name, Anele groaned.

“It is conceivable,” Stave continued implacably. “that they feed for a time, then burrow beneath the trees to emerge in another place. But this is by no means certain. It is also conceivable that other skurj lurk within the earth. Indeed, it is conceivable that beasts in far greater numbers are masked by trees and distance, and that the razing of Andelain has already begun.

“Nor are we able to estimate the swiftness of the skurj . We can be certain only that Kastenessen is aware of your journey, and of your purpose. He will not find it difficult to gauge the point at which you will enter Salva Gildenbourne.”

Linden swallowed at the dread beating in her throat. “Then we need to move fast. And we need to go now ,” before the distant monsters could cross twenty leagues of forest.

She had to hope that Roger and a new army of Cavewights or other forces did not await her among the trees.

Mahrtiir must have heard her-or Narunal did. At once, the Manethrall’s Ranyhyn sprang into a hard gallop down the slope.

In formation, with the Humbled surrounding Stave and Linden, Liand and Anele, the company plunged after Mahrtiir.

As Hyn rushed toward the last ridge before the descent to Salva Gildenbourne, Linden confirmed that Covenant’s ring still hung under her shirt; that Jeremiah’s racecar remained in her pocket. Then she tightened her grasp on the Staff of Law and tried to ready herself. At her back, she felt Liand take the orcrest from its pouch and close it in his fist; but he did not invoke its radiance.

Clutching Hrama’s mane, Anele continued to face the smoke in the east. His fixation there gave Linden reason to hope that no skurj were concealed closer to her small company.

In moments, the Ranyhyn were pounding up the shallow sides of the final rise; and she began to worry about Pahni and Bhapa. But as she and her companions followed Mahrtiir over the crest and downward again, she spotted the two Cords at the edge of the forest.

Their apprehension as they waved told her that they had seen the smoke and drawn their own conclusions; but their manner did not suggest any immediate peril.

Now Linden could see why Stave had described Salva Gildenbourne as unruly. -formed without the benefit of lore. She would not have called it a forest: it was a jungle. With no Forestal, or any other benign power, to shepherd the trees, they had thronged so close to each other over the centuries, and were crowded by such a multitude of brush, fallen branches, and massive moss-thick deadwood trunks, that they seemed to forbid intrusion. Indeed, they almost forbade light.

They would restrict the percipience of anyone who walked among them.

Fifteen leagues of this woodland stood between her and Andelain; within Salva Gildenbourne, she and her companions might be taken by surprise; and she did not know how quickly the skurj moved.

By the time that Hyn and the other horses had slowed to join the Ramen, Mahrtiir had already spoken to Bhapa and Pahni. “There is no present peril apart from the distant skurj ,” he announced. “The Cords are certain of this.

“We are Ramen. Only theurgy may baffle our skills. But there is another matter which must be decided here.”

Linden hugged the Staff to her chest. “Go on. I don’t know how much time we have.”

“Ringthane,” said Mahrtiir as if he were glowering beneath his bandage. “we cannot ask the Ranyhyn to enter this forest. They would bear us, forcing passage among the brush and saplings. But if we were assailed, by the skurj or any other foe, they could neither defend themselves nor flee. Salva Gildenbourne is too densely obstructed. Such monsters as we have cause to fear would devour the Ranyhyn whole.”