“What, you?” he countered to conceal his relief. We failed. “I mean, you personally?” He did not know where Linden and her friends were, but he trusted that she was many leagues behind him. How had the Feroce covered so much ground so quickly?

He could not afford to wonder how the creatures had tried to snare Linden, or what her resistance had cost her.

“We do not comprehend.” Silver and green flared in the wide eyes of the creatures. Behind them, Branl stood like a statue, unmoved and unmoving. “We are the Feroce. We obey our High God. What is ‘personally’? We are not one. We are many.

“Do you speak of the Feroce standing before you? We have no answer. At our High God’s command, we pursued you from the most seaward extent of the Sarangrave. The female of your kind we approached far to the west. There is no ‘personally.’ We are only the Feroce. We serve our High God in many places.”

“All right.” Covenant made no effort to muffle his vexation. He needed to keep his back straight; needed to appear wrathful and dangerous. “I’m going to assume you aren’t the same creatures that attacked the woman.” If they were, he wanted a better explanation; but he did not know how to obtain it. “Go on. Your High God is right. He can’t save himself by making enemies.”

The Feroce seemed to hesitate. Perhaps they had lost the thread of their instructions. But then their flames burned brighter, strict with coercion. Timorous as sycophants, they resumed in their single voice.

“You are the Pure One, redeemer of the jheherrin, ally of the sur-jheherrin. But you are also the wielder of abhorrent metal. The deliverer of agony. Such agony as our High God has never known. We dare not oppose you. We must not. We are dust.

“Havoc awaits our High God. He must have aid. In his name, we now seek alliance.”

There the creatures fell silent as if they feared an immediate refusal.

Covenant paused for a moment, thinking furiously. As far as he could tell, the Feroce were sincere. And they had invoked the name of the Pure One: he could not ignore that. But he did not know enough about them.

He wanted to thump himself on the head, jar loose the memories he needed; but he resisted the temptation. “We’ll get to that,” he repeated. “I still have questions.

“Who or what is your High God? I’ve never heard of him.”

The Feroce gaped as though they were utterly baffled; as though his question made no sense in any language known to them.

“He is the High God,” they offered tentatively. “He is our High God. Others do not worship him. We—”