If the Giants understood, they only grinned, and checked their weapons, and readied themselves to leave the stream.

Narunal responded with a neigh as clarion as Hynyn’s. At once, Mahrtiir’s mount turned to retrace his path along the floor of the ravine. Without any sign from Stave that Linden could discern, Hynyn followed. And Khelen went next, stepping with such care that Jeremiah was not jostled or disturbed in any way.

Snorting soft reassurances, Hyn took a position behind Khelen. And after them came the eight Swordmainnir led by Rime Coldspray, with Bluntfist in the rear.

Clearly the Ranyhyn had elected to accept at least this much responsibility for the company’s role in the Land’s fate.

While the ravine twisted westward, and its floor formed a comparatively clear path, the Ranyhyn followed it. But as the company moved beyond the region of battle, beyond the cairns, the hills on both sides began to slump. At intervals now, Linden glimpsed more distant landscapes to the north and south: barren slopes interspersed with swaths of dirt and gravel like long-desiccated swales.

When Narunal and the other Ranyhyn finally turned away from the fading trail of sand onto a broad field of grit and fine dust made hazardous by shards of flint, they surprised Linden by heading into the southeast.

Surely they should be going northwest? Toward Mount Thunder, if not toward Salva Gildenbourne? In that direction, the skurj and the Sandgorgons were laying waste to the forest as they moved to defend Kastenessen. Yet the horses chose the southeast, picking their way warily among flint splinters and knives.

Were they following Covenant? Linden’s heart squirmed at the thought. He had suggested that he intended to look for Joan along the same heading that the Ardent had taken from the Lost Deep: this heading. Did the Ranyhyn believe that Covenant would need Linden’s help when he faced his ex-wife at last?

If so, she wanted to hurry. She feared losing him to a caesure more than his rejection; his efforts to spare her.

But the company could not hasten: not yet. The horses had to be careful where they placed their hooves. And the Giants—They plodded doggedly ahead as if they were impervious to sharp stones, raising small puffs of dust with every heavy step; but weariness clogged their strides. They moved like women carrying boulders on their backs.

“Stave?” Linden tried not to raise her voice or sound apprehensive. “Did Covenant go this way? Can you tell?”

Stave said nothing. Instead Mahrtiir answered, “The Ranyhyn have diverged from their path toward us. Yet ahead of us lie the marks of three horses, one shod. I judge that we trail after Naybahn, Mhornym, and the Harrow’s mount.

“Lacking ordinary sight,” he admitted, vexed by his limitations, “I am no longer capable of true Ramen scoutcraft. Yet the Timewarden’s passage with the Humbled is plain here. For the present, his way is ours.”