Water broke over the promontory; inundated it; plunged from its sides; swept forward. It spouted like a tremendous geyser from the rent where Foul’s Creche had once stood. Spray stung Covenant’s eyes until he could not see. It soaked his clothes, drenched his many wounds. Yet Clyme and Branl stood where they were, rigid as defiance. Apparently they believed that they had estimated the tsunami’s reach exactly; that it would not take them.

Too weak to protest, Covenant lay in Clyme’s arms and awaited the fate that the Humbled had chosen.

In front of him, the wave’s force was split by the wedge of the promontory, deflected by the shape and bulk of the stone. Higher turmoil crashed against the cliffs on either side. Sweeping over granite toward Hotash Slay, the tsunami parted; recoiled against itself; poured away. At the end of its rush, it climbed to the knees of the Masters. It slapped against the first bluffs of the Hills. Then it began to spill backward. Its sweep would have dragged anyone weaker than the Haruchai with it.

When time resumed its inexorable beat, Covenant understood that he was going to live.

After a while, he was able to think again. Eventually he was able to look away from the receding waters. But when he regarded his companions, their flat stoicism made him flinch. It reminded him that they had left the Ranyhyn behind.

Sighing to himself, he wondered whether he would ever again draw a breath that did not taste of salt and death. If the Humbled whistled, other Ranyhyn would come. And they would know how to find their way through the maze. But their fidelity would not make the loss of Mhornym and Naybahn less grievous. It would not relieve the necessity of Joan’s end.

By degrees, Covenant regained the sensation of passing moments. Through the star-pricked darkness, he watched the seas subside, thrashing against the cliffs. On either side, sections of stone had calved like glaciers. Slabs the size of Revelstone’s prow, or of Kevin’s Watch, continued to topple, unregarded by the lashing ocean. And as the waves shrank to the scale of a more ordinary storm, he saw that the end of the promontory was gone, broken by the brunt of the tidal-wave. Every hint or relic of the Despiser’s former habitation had collapsed, leaving no sign that it had ever existed.

Still Clyme and Branl stood where they were, as unmoved as icons. For a time, Covenant wondered why they remained, expressionless and dour. Then he realized that they were waiting for the Ranyhyn.

Waiting for Mhornym and Naybahn, and refusing to mourn, until hope became impossible.

Even then, they might not permit themselves sorrow. They were Haruchai: they had done what they could. To their way of thinking, grief was a form of disrespect. Any admission of loss would dishonor the sacrifice of the Ranyhyn.