The mare was little more than a silhouette against the blighted horizons. The faint gleam of the star on her forehead was barely visible: her eyes were only dim suggestions. Still her presence shamed Linden.

No cutter wanted to be watched. Being watched reversed the craved effects of the pain.

Linden needed those effects. Nevertheless Hyn denied them.

Groaning, Linden cast away her stone. Pulled down the leg of her jeans. Struggled to her feet. She wanted to swear at Hyn, but she had no curses left: none that were as bitter as her life.

Now she could only hope that she had hurt herself enough to stay awake as long as her last companions needed her.

As long as Joan lived and could hurl caesures—

When the sun rose at last, it came in a brief blare of crimson, as if the horizon were occluded with dust or ash; omens. Then storms came tumbling over the region, and the light was gone.

They seemed to arise from all directions at random, colliding with such force that their thunder made the ground tremble. Wind and rain slapped at Linden from one side and then the other, a turmoil of spats and downpours that changed more swiftly than she could gauge them. This was no natural battering boil of rains and gusts. Nor was it deliberate, driven by malice. Instead the conflict of squalls and deluges was the oblique consequence of too many Falls.

Its turmoil felt like a presage.

Now more than ever, she had to rely on the senses of the Ranyhyn. Wild modulations of violence confused her discernment. She would not be able to recognize a caesure until it was almost on top of her, if Hyn or the other horses did not give warning.

When the company set out again, Linden rode wrapped in the ground-cloth that had covered the last of the Ardent’s bedrolls. It gave her a measure of protection, slowed the seepage of cold into her bones. But it did not block the erratic flick and cut of rain that stung her exposed cheeks, her open eyes.

At her request, Stormpast Galesend had wrapped the blankets around Jeremiah. But the boy made no effort to hold them. He did not react to the smack of raindrops in thick gouts and thin spatters, the lash of shearing winds. Galesend was forced to walk at Khelen’s side so that she could replace Jeremiah’s coverings whenever they slipped from his shoulders.

Perhaps he did not need them. Perhaps his bestowed strength warded him from cold and wet and wind. It had done so for Anele. Still Linden was glad that Galesend did what she could to shield the boy.

Under the circumstances, Linden was not surprised to hear that Mahrtiir had lost Covenant’s trail. The Manethrall sounded angry at himself; but she wondered how even the most cunning and sighted of the Ramen could have identified hoof-marks on this sodden ground in this weather. In any case, she knew where Covenant was headed. And Clyme and Branl were with him: he would not lose his way.