Stephen Donaldson - The Wounded Land

“I must hear more of the Giants you have known. Thomas Covenant, we will accompany you from this place.”

A spasm of personal misery knotted Seadreamer's face. The scar under his eyes ached like a protest; but he had no voice.

In silence, Brinn took Covenant's arm and drew him away toward the end of the peninsula. The company followed. Ahead, the sur-jheherrin had consumed a passage through the skest . Bruin moved swiftly, pulling Covenant at a half-run toward the free night.

When they had passed the skest , the Haruchai turned eastward.

As the company fled, a screech of rage shivered the darkness, rang savagely across the Sarangrave. But in front of Covenant and Brinn, sur-jheherrin appeared, glowing orange and red.

Guided by clay forms, the company began to run.

FIVE days later, they reached the verge of Sarangrave Flat and broke out of jungle and wetland into the late afternoon of a cloudless sky. The sur-jheherrin were unexpectedly swift, and their knowledge of the Flat was intimate; they set a pace Covenant could not have matched. And Sunder and Hollian were in little better condition. Left to their own strength, they would have moved more slowly. Perhaps they would have died.

So for a large portion of each day, the Giants carried them. Seadreamer still bore Linden supine in his arms to protect her leg; but Sunder sat against the First's back, using her shield as a sling; Hollian straddled Pitchwife's hunched shoulders; and Covenant rode in the crook of Honninscrave's elbow. No one protested this arrangement. Covenant was too weary to feel any shame at his need for help. And peril prevented every other form of pride.

At intervals throughout those five days, the air became turgid screams, afflicting the company with an atavistic dread for which there was no anodyne except flight. Four times, they were threatened. Twice, hordes of skest appeared out of dark streams and tar-pits; twice, the lurker itself attacked. But, aided by the sur-jheherrin and by plentiful supplies of green wood, the Haruchai and the Giants were able to repulse the skest . And Covenant opposed the lurker with the light of the krill , lashing white fire from the unveiled gem until the lurker quailed and fled, yowling insanely.

When he had the chance, during times of rest or less frenetic travel, Honninscrave asked the sur-jheherrin more questions, gleaning knowledge of them. Their story was a terse one, but it delineated clearly enough the outlines of the past.

For a time which must have been measured in centuries after the fall of Foul's Creche, the jheherrin had huddled fearfully in their homes, not daring to trust their redemption, trust that they had been found worthy. But at last they had received proof strong enough for their timorous hearts. Freed from the Despiser's power and from the corruptive might of the Illearth Stone, the jheherrin had regained the capacity to bring forth children. That was redemption, indeed. Their children they named the sur-jheherrin , to mark their new freedom. In the age which followed, the soft ones began the long migration which took them from the place of their former horror.

From cave to mud pit, quagmire to swamp, underground spring to riverbed, they moved northward across the years, seeking terrain in which they could flourish. And they found what they needed in the Sarangrave. For them, it was a place of safety: their clay flesh and mobility, their ability to live in the bottoms of quicksands and streams, suited them perfectly to the Flat. And in safety they healed their old terror, became creatures who could face pain and risk, if need arose.

Thus their gratitude toward the Pure One grew rather than diminished through the generations. When they saw Giants in peril, their decision of aid was made without hesitation for all the sur-jheherrin throughout the Sarangrave.

And with that aid, the company finally reached the narrow strip of open heath which lay between the time-swollen Sarangrave and the boundary hills of Seareach. The quest was in grim flight from the most desperate assault of the skest . But suddenly the trees parted, unfurling the cerulean sky like a reprieve overhead. The smell of bracken replaced the dank stenches and fears of the Flat. Ahead, the grass-mantled hills rose like the battlements of a protected place.

The Giants ran a short distance across the heath like Ranyhyn tasting freedom, then wheeled to look behind them.

The skest had vanished. The air was still, unappalled by lust or rage, empty of any sound except bird calls and breeze. Even the solidity of the ground underfoot was a surcease from trepidation.

The sur-jheherrin , too, melted back into the Flat as if to avoid thanks. At once, Covenant shrugged himself from Honninscrave's arm and returned to the edges of the jungle, trying to find the words he wanted. But his heart had become a wilderland where few words grew. He could do nothing except stare dumbly through the trees with the sun in his face, thinking like an ache, Foamfollower would be proud.

The First joined him and gazed into the Sarangrave with an unwonted softness in her eyes. Brinn joined him; all his companions joined him, standing like a salute to the unquestionable worth of the sur-jheherrin .

Later, the Haruchai unpacked their supplies and prepared a meal. There between the Sarangrave and Seareach, the company fed and tried to measure the implications of their situation.

Linden sat, alert and awkward, with her back braced against Seadreamer's shin; she needed the support because of the rigid splint on her left leg. She had awakened a day and a half after her injury and had taken pains to assure her companions that her ankle was knitting properly. Diamondraught was a potent healer. But since then, Covenant had had no chance to talk to her. Though Seadreamer carried a constant unhappiness on his face, he tended Linden as if she were a child.

Covenant sorely wanted to speak with her. But for the present, sitting in the bracken with the afternoon sun slanting toward evening across his shoulders, he was preoccupied by other questions. The Giants had brought him this far; but they had not been persuaded to give him the help he needed. And he had promised them the tale of the Unhomed. He could not imagine ever having enough courage to tell it.

Yet he had to say something. Sunder and Hollian had moved away into the dark, seeking a private relief. Covenant understood. After all their other losses, they now had before them a world for which they were not equipped-a world without the Sunbane that made them valuable to their companions. But the Giants sat expectantly around the flames, waiting to hear him argue for their aid. Something he must say. Yet it was not in him.

At last, the First broke the silence. “Giantfriend.” She used the title she had given him gently. “You have known Giants-the people of your friend, Saltheart Foamfollower. We deeply desire to hear their story. We have seen in you that it is not a glad tale. But the Giants say that joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks. We will know how to hear you with joy, though the telling pains you.”

“Joy.” Covenant swallowed the breaking of his voice. Her words seemed to leech away what little fortitude he had left. He knew what the Giants would do when they heard his story. “No. Not yet. I'm not ready.”

From his position behind Covenant, Brinn said, “That tale is known among the old tellers of the Haruchai .” He moved closer to the fire, met the sudden dismay in Covenant's face. “I will tell it, though I have not been taught the skill of stories.” In spite of its dispassion, his gaze showed that he was offering a gift, offering to carry one of Covenant's burdens for him.