“If the Feroce want to talk, tell them to come here. Just three of them. The rest have to keep a safe distance. Clyme can decide what that means. And tell them I have High Lord Loric’s krill. A long time ago, I hurt the lurker with it. I won’t hesitate to use it again if I think I’m being threatened.”

If the creatures had not come in good faith.

Studying Covenant, Branl hesitated. “Ur-Lord, is this wise? Our covert has no other egress. If the Feroce do not endeavor to slay us, they may nonetheless impose an effective imprisonment. Snared here, you will be prevented from seeking your former mate.”

“I know that,” Covenant sighed. “Of course you’re right. But I can’t forget the sur-jheherrin .” Or the jheherrin. “Life in the Sarangrave isn’t as simple as it looks. If the Feroce want to talk to the Pure One, I can’t ignore them.” Without the jheherrin, he would have died among the Shattered Hills. “Just tell Clyme what I said. If they try to send more than three—if they do anything he doesn’t like—he can warn you.”

Frowning slightly, Branl nodded. Then he moved to stand guard against the far wall beside the entrance to the chamber.

The destrier went on sleeping. It seemed too profoundly weary to hear anything; or to care.

A dozen heartbeats later, the Humbled reported, “The Feroce comply. Three of them approach. Their manner is fearful. The others withdraw according to Clyme’s instructions.” Then he added, “The Ranyhyn stand ready in the night above our covert. Doubtless they will come to our aid at need.”

“Good,” Covenant breathed. If creatures wielding fires that resembled the bale of the Illearth Stone meant to assail him, he doubted that Mhornym and Naybahn would be able to provide an effective defense. Still their alert proximity reassured him.

He tried to compose himself while remembrances clamored for his attention. The jheherrin had called themselves the soft ones. Maker-work, the occasional failures of the Despiser’s efforts to breed armies; suffered to live only because Lord Foul enjoyed their abjection. Their flesh had resembled mud: they seemed to have been molded from clay. But they had shapes—Child-forms. Serpents. Grotesque mimicries of Cavewights. Others. And they had legends, tales of the Un-Maker-made: the stock from which Lord Foul had created monsters and jheherrin.

According to the tales, those ancestors were also Makers. Unlike the Despiser, however, they were not seedless. From their bodies came forth young who grew and in turn made young. And some of them survived or escaped or avoided Lord Foul’s violation. They endured beyond his influence, still free of the Maker. Still capable of children.