The Last Dark: The climax of the entire Thomas Covenant Chronicles (Last Chronicles of Thomas Cove)

Garroting Deep is vast. He may be many leagues distant, unaware of our approach. Or he may be unwilling to acknowledge beings whose like have butchered trees beyond all counting.”
    Linden frowned, shook her head. “Hyn and Narunal got his attention for us. They brought us so close—I almost let that
caesure
hurt his forest. I don’t care how far away he is. He must have felt that kind of violence. He’ll come, even if all he wants to do is to kill us.”
    The Manethrall nodded again. “Indeed, Ringthane. I cannot gainsay you. Thus my query becomes, how will you forestall his ire? Our tales assure us that the Forestals were mighty beyond comprehension. How otherwise did their puissance suffice to forbid the Ravers from the Upper Land?”
    She shrugged. “I’m not exactly helpless myself.” She had different concerns: fears that baffled her.
How may life endure in the Land—?
They were laden with doom.
Just be sure you come back
. “But I won’t fight him.” She, too, loved trees. And she had not forgotten the lessons of Gallows Howe. “I won’t have to.” Again she said, “He’ll recognize his runes.”
    For another moment, Mahrtiir scrutinized her as if he sought to gauge her resolve. Then he nodded once more. “As you say, Ringthane. As ever, the deeds of the great horses conduce to hope. I grasp now that there is a fitness to your purpose. My own desires are thereby justified. Come good or ill, boon or bane, I will regret no moment of our quest.”
    “All right,” Linden murmured. Gradually her attention shifted away from her companion. “Then all we have to do right now is wait. And try not to go crazy.”
    What choice did she have? She did not want to think about Jeremiah; about people and loves that she had left behind and might never see again. In one respect, her presence in a time where she did not belong was no different than any other crisis. In fact, it was no different than ordinary life. The only way out was forward. While Time endured, there was no going back.
    Gripping her Staff for courage, she tried to put everything else out of her mind. At her side, Mahrtiir folded his arms across his chest like a man who knew how to contain his impatience. In the service of the Ranyhyn, he had learned the discipline of setting himself aside. He knew how to accommodate his frustration.
    Her former world had taught Linden similar skills. She had acquired a professional detachment in medical school and emergency rooms and Berenford Memorial. But she had lost that resource, or had left it behind with Jeremiah and the Giants, Stave and Covenant. She did not know how to stop fretting. Instead she gnawed on her fears as if she hungered for them; as if at the marrow she would find sustenance.
    She needed her son and Covenant. She had to do what she could to keep them alive in spite of the intervening millennia.
    “Oh, hell,” she muttered abruptly. “Who am I kidding? I can’t just wait around. Let’s at least get closer.”
    Holding her Staff ready, she moved toward the nearest trees.
    Their suffering without sufficient water was palpable. The willows in particular ached with distress, and the grass crackled under her boots. As the ground sloped down behind her toward the wasteland, moisture was wicked away from the woods. Apparently Caerroil Wildwood’s music could no longer protect the outlying trees from the effects of the diminished watershed. Even if Garroting Deep faced no other perils, it was under assault by the perpetual drought in the south.
    Tensely Linden crossed through stippled shade to bypass the forest’s first fringes. Unaware that she was holding her breath, she approached the ragged edge of the Deep. At her shoulder, Mahrtiir matched her pace. A short distance away, Hyn whickered softly, and Narunal stamped his hooves; but the Ranyhyn did not follow.
    Linden passed a stunted copse, then a magisterial Gilden with leaves like scraps of clawed fabric, an oak mottled with brown stains like blights. The low rustle of breezes among their branches seemed to sound her name until she reached a stretch of open ground like a clearing. With enough water, it might have been a glade surrounded by verdure and consolation. Here it was simply earth that nourished little more than grass. Nevertheless the grass was healthier than it was beyond the trees.
    In the center of the clearing, she stopped. Surely the Forestal was close? Surely he had felt her presence? But he was needed everywhere