Free The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson

stubbornness were intolerable. She had an absolute need to understand what had made her quail when she had faced Joan.
    She did not have to wait long. Scant minutes after she had settled herself, abrupt feet approached the house.
    The lurching of her heart almost daunted her. But she resisted it. Carefully she raised her head to the window just as a fist hammered at the door.
    Covenant flinched at the sound. Dread knurled his face.
    The sight of his reaction stung Linden. He was such a potent individual, seemed to have so many strengths which she lacked. How had he been brought to this?
    But an instant later he crushed his fear as if he were stamping on the neck of a viper. Defying his own weakness, he strode toward the door.
    It opened before he reached it. A lone man stepped uninvited out of the dark. Linden could see him clearly. He wore burlap wound around him like cerements. Ash had been rubbed unevenly into his hair, smeared thickly over his cheeks. It emphasized the deadness of his eyes, so that he looked like a ghoul in masque.
    â€œCovenant?” Like his mien, his voice was ashen, dead.
    Covenant faced the man. He seemed suddenly taller, as if he were elevated by his own hard grasp on life. “Yes.”
    â€œThomas Covenant?”
    The writer nodded impatiently. “What do you want?”
    â€œThe hour of judgment is at hand.” The man stared into the room as if he were blind. “The Master calls for your soul. Will you come?”
    Covenant’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “Your master knows what I can do to him.”
    The man did not react. He went on as if his speech had already been arrayed for burial. “The woman will be sacrificed at the rising of the full moon. Expiation must be made for sin. She will pay if you do not. This is the commandment of the Master of life and death. Will you come?”
    Sacrificed? Linden gaped. Expiation? A flush of indignation burned her skin. What the hell—?
    Covenant’s shoulders knotted. His eyes flamed with extreme promises, threats. “I’ll come.”
    No flicker of consciousness animated the man’s gray features. He turned like a marionette and retreated into the night.
    For a moment, Covenant stood still. His arms hugged his chest as if to stifle an outcry; his head stretched back in anguish. The bruises marked his face like a bereavement.
    But then he moved. With a violence that startled Linden, appalled her, he struck himself across the cheek with his half-hand. Abruptly, he threw himself into the darkness after his summoner.
    Linden almost lost her chance to follow. She felt stunned by dismay. The Master—? Sacrificed? Dreads and doubts crawled her skin like vermin. The man in burlap had looked so insentient—soulless more than any animal. Drugs? Or—?
    However he may assail
—
    Was Covenant right? About the old man, about possession? About the purpose—? She’s just a way for them to get at me.
    Sacrificed?
    Oh, dear God! The man in burlap appeared insane enough, lost enough, to be dangerous. And Covenant—? Covenant was capable of anything.
    Her guess at what he was doing galvanized her. Fear for him broke through her personal apprehension, sent her hurrying around the corner of the house in pursuit.
    His summoner had led him away from the highway, away from the house into the woods. Linden could hear them in the brush; without light, they were unable to move quietly. As her eyes adjusted, she glimpsed them ahead of her, flickering like shadows in and out of the variegated dark. She followed them.
    They traveled blindly through the woods, over hills and along valleys. They used no path; Linden had the impression that they were cutting as straight as a plumb line toward their destination. And as they moved, the night seemed to mount around her, growing steadily more hostile as her trepidation increased. The trees and brush became malevolent, as if she were passing into another wood