“Manethrall, your words are folly. By some measure, they are madness. For that reason, they are a delight to us. Are we not Giants? Fools all? And do we not desire to cast our strength against the utter ravage of the Earth? What fate, therefore, can be more condign for us, than that we must commit every passion and every life to the will of beasts that cannot reveal their purposes? Earlier we assented to this course because we saw no other. Now we do so because it gladdens our hearts.

“If it should chance that the Earth and Time endure, tales will one day be told of Giants who dared the destruction of all things at the behest—I mean no offense, Manethrall—at the behest of mere horses.”

Mahrtiir also was grinning. Unlike Coldspray’s, however, and those of the other Giants, his expression had a whetted edge, fierce and eager, like a promise of vindication.

If Roger or Kastenessen, Linden thought, or even Lord Foul had seen the Manethrall at that moment, they might have felt apprehension writhing in their guts.

“All right,” she said again. She tried to sound stronger, and may have succeeded. “Let’s see how much ground we can cover without getting into trouble.” She meant, Without running into another attack. But she also meant, Without asking too much of the Giants. “I’ll never be any readier than this.”

Nodding to Linden, Mahrtiir, and the Swordmainnir in turn, Stave raised his hand to his mouth and began the ritual summoning which his ancestors had used during the time of the Bloodguard, and of the Council of Lords.

Three whistles, each as piercing as cries; each separated by half a dozen heartbeats. Linden scarcely had time to shake her head in wonder at the inexplicable magic which enabled the horses of Ra to know hours or days or seasons in advance when and where they would be called, and to arrive when they were needed. Then she heard the muted impact of hooves cantering on packed sand.

She should not have been able to hear it at that distance. Perhaps the sound carried simply because the horses were Ranyhyn, majestic and ineffable, as vital as the Land’s pulse of Earthpower, and as numinous as the Hills of Andelain. Soon, however, she saw them. Constrained by the litter of boulders and the quirks of the slopes, they came in single-file: first proud Hynyn, roan and magisterial, then Hyn dappled grey with her star like heraldry on her forehead, then Narunal, palomino and eager—as eager as Mahrtiir, with the same air of fierceness. Just for an instant, Linden thought that there would be no more. But another Ranyhyn followed behind Narunal, another roan, as like to Hynyn as a son, but less heavily muscled, less broad in the chest, and somewhat smaller.