Pahni tugged as firmly as she dared at Linden. “Ringthane, I beseech you.” She may have been weeping. “If you will not heed me, harken to the Timewarden. Liand must have healing.”

Mahrtiir said something to Pahni—a reprimand? an admonition?—but Linden could not hear him. He was too far away; or her senses were deafened by Covenant’s extremity and the croyel’s thwarted ferocity and Jeremiah’s helplessness.

Abruptly Esmer blared, “Wildwielder, this is madness! Is it nothing to you that I have come, or that these Demondim-spawn have pursued me to their doom in your name? Will you waste the remnants of your life thus, accepting the ruin which my betrayals prepare for you? Is this death your heart’s true desire?”

The Ironhand pressed her sword against the side of Esmer’s neck. “Be still, mere-son,” she rasped through her teeth. “Some respite Linden Giantfriend must have. Many of us who name ourselves her friends have failed her. We will grant her this brief pause.

“I do not doubt that you are proof against my blade. But if I cannot have your life, I will have your silence.”

Esmer did not grant Coldspray the courtesy of a glance. “By my hand and your own folly,” he told Linden, “the slaughter of all whom you hold dear is imminent. Soon none of this company will remain to lament the ravage of the Earth. Will you condone this outcome merely because I propagate futility? Are you now content that all love and life must perish?”

Cursing, the Ironhand lowered her sword and raised her fist. With all of her bulk and muscle, she punched Esmer in the face.

She was a warrior: she had a warrior’s instincts.

Linden heard the sodden smack of knuckles on bone. Esmer’s head jerked back; snapped forward again. Blood oozed from a deep contusion on his cheek. The muscles at the corners of his jaw bunched and released, bunched and released, as if he were withholding a thunderstorm. But he did not acknowledge Rime Coldspray with so much as a flick of his eyes.

Nevertheless he fell silent.

Linden sagged as if she had suffered a new defeat.—see any way around it. The thought of leaving Covenant’s wounds without further care rent her. She had only begun—Still she compelled herself to step away.

Now she did not look at Jeremiah and Galt, the croyel and the krill. Help Liand. We need him. She wanted to hold Jeremiah in her arms before the world ended. She had come for that when she had failed or sacrificed every other purpose. But she could not touch him: not while the croyel ruled him. In this one respect, her health-sense was a weakness. The creature’s evil was too intimate: it would sicken her. And the croyel might extend its mastery into her if she embraced her son.