Free The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson Page B

in Covenant. Their silence was appalling. The man’s hands shook.
    “Stop!”
    Covenant’s shout scourged the air.
    “You’ve done enough! Let her go!”
    The baleful eyes in the fire swung at him, nailed him with denigration. The worshipper at Joan’s throat stared whitely upward. “Release her?” he croaked. “Why?”
    “Because you don’t have to do this!” Anger and supplication thickened Covenant’s tone. “I don’t know how you were driven to this. I don’t know what went wrong with your life. But you don’t have to do it.”
    The man did not blink; the eyes in the fire clenched him. Deliberately he knotted his free hand in Joan’s hair.
    “All right!” Covenant barked immediately. “All right. I accept. I’ll trade you. Me for her.”
    “No.” Linden strove to shout aloud, but her cry was barely a whisper. “
No
.”
    The worshippers were as silent as gravestones.
    Slowly the man with the knife rose to his feet. He alone seemed to have the capacity to feel triumph; he was grinning ferally as he said, “It is as the Master promised.”
    He stepped back. At the same time, a quiver ran through Joan. She raised her head, gaped around her. Her face was free of possession. Moving awkwardly, she climbed to her feet. Bewildered and afraid, she searched for an escape, for anything she could understand.
    She saw Covenant.
    “Tom!” Springing from the rock, she fled toward him and threw herself into his arms.
    He hugged her, strained his arms around her as if he could not bear to lose her. But then, roughly, he pushed her away. “Go home,” he ordered. “It’s over. You’ll be safe now.” He faced her in the right direction, urged her into motion.
    She stopped and looked at him, imploring him to go with her.
    “Don’t worry about me.” A difficult tenderness softened his tone. “You’re safe now—that’s the important thing. I’ll be all right.” Somehow he managed to smile. His eyes betrayed his pain. The light from the fire cast shadows of self-defiance across his bruised mien. And yet his smile expressed so much valor and rue that the sight of it tore Linden’s heart.
    Kneeling with her head bowed and hot tears on her cheeks, she sensed rather than saw Joan leave the hollow. She could not bear to watch as Covenant moved down the hillside.
I’m the only one who can help her
. He was committing a kind of suicide.
    Suicide. Linden’s father had killed himself. Her mother had begged for death. Her revulsion toward such things was a compelling obsession.
    But Thomas Covenant had chosen to die. And he had smiled.
    For Joan’s sake.
    Linden had never seen one person do so much for another.
    She could not endure it. She already had too much blood on her hands. Dashing the tears from her eyes, she looked up.
    Covenant moved among the people as if he were beyond hope. The man with the knife guided him into the triangle of blood. The carious eyes in the fire blazed avidly.
    It was too much. With a passionate wrench, Linden broke the hold of her dismay, jumped upright.
    “Over here!” she yelled. “Police! Hurry! They’re over here!” She flailed her arms as if she were signaling to people behind her.
    The eyes of the fire whipped at her, hit her with withering force. In that instant, she felt completely vulnerable, felt all her secrets exposed and devoured. But she ignored the eyes. She sped downward, daring the worshippers to believe she was alone.
    Covenant whirled in the triangle. Every line of his stance howled,
No!
    People cried out. Her charge seemed to shatter the trance of the fire. The worshippers were thrown into confusion. They fled in all directions, scattered as if she had unpent a vast pressure of repugnance. For an instant, she was wild with hope.
    But the man with the knife did not flee. The rage of the bonfire exalted him. He slapped his arms around Covenant, threw him to the stone, kicked him so that he lay flat.
    The knife—! Covenant was too stunned to move.
    Linden