Why do you want to get away from me so badly?

“Linden, stop,” Covenant urged. His quiet restraint resembled a kind of flagellation. “You’re just intimidating yourself. Everything is simpler than you make it sound. I expect you to do what you’ve always done. Something unexpected. Which you are by God good at. You’ve surprised me more times than I can count. There’s no one else like you.

“Just trust yourself. That’s all. That’s all. Everything else will take care of itself.

“If it doesn’t—” Sighing, he shrugged again. “There was nothing you could have done anyway.”

Linden found a deep breath, and another. Stave was still holding her.“It’s not that easy.” Slowly the spots faded from her eyes. “Do you even know where to look for Joan?”

Covenant did not look away. “I can guess. The Ardent brought us this far for a reason. I figure all I have to do now is go farther. If I don’t find her, she’ll find me.”

Before Linden could manage another protest, Manethrall Mahrtiir demanded without preamble, “Will you journey afoot?”

“Hell, no.” Now Covenant shifted his attention from Linden. In his mind, apparently, he had already turned away. “We don’t have time. Clyme or Branl can summon the Ranyhyn.”

In a burst of indignation, the Manethrall asked, “What then becomes of your vow that you will not ride? Must I name you an oath breaker? Did you not once aver to the great horses rearing that you would not ask them to bear you?”

“I did,” Covenant admitted. Ignoring the dismay and uncertainty of the company—ignoring Linden—he walked stiffly across the sand, heading along the floor of the ravine. “How often do I have to talk about trust? They’re Ranyhyn, for God’s sake. They’ll think of something.”

Linden watched him go as if he were forsaking her.

After a few tense strides, he shouted up at the hilltops, “It’s time! Call the Ranyhyn!”

But he did not pause for a response from Branl or Clyme. Quickening his pace, he passed between boulders and ragged slopes on either side as if he were eager to confront Joan.

Eager to be done with life.

The Humbled must have heard him. A lone whistle smote Linden’s heart. Among the barren hills, it sounded as forlorn as a wail in a lightless cavern.

Clyme or Branl whistled a second time. A third.

In the distance beyond Covenant, three horses came trotting down the shallow canyon.

Two of them were Ranyhyn, Naybahn and Mhornym. The stars on their foreheads gleamed in the thick sunlight.

The third was the Harrow’s destrier. Tossing its head in vexation or alarm, the tall brown stallion trotted between Naybahn and Mhornym with a glare of resentment in its eyes, as if the Ranyhyn had compelled it against its will.