start the journey from frozen sea to landfall.
No more boat; we all walk from here. And it's not an easy trip.
So lace up your boots and grab a few extra blankets... it's very cold out here.
With two sleds packed with supplies, the Search departs from the Giantship.
Honninscrave and Mistweave harness themselves to the sleds so they can pull them
to follow the fast pace set by Pitchwife and the First of the Search.
Covenant and Linden are riding on the sleds as well, Cail runs between them,
and Vain bring up the rear with Findail.
The Giants that were left behind are valiant indeed;Yet at last the thought of what he was doing impelled him to
look back towards the dromond. Stark in the distance beyond Vain and Findail,
the vessel shrank as if it were being slowly swallowed by the bleak floe;
and the sight of its abandonment stuck in his throat.
But then he descried the pennon flying from the aftermast.
Sevinhand must have raised it as a salute to the departing company.
Vivid with color and jaunty in the wind,
it captured the moment of the spirit of Starefare's Gem
like a promise of valor and endurance.
sacrificing themselves so that the Search can continue.
The facing death before them, they bid farewell in a proud display of heroism
and accept their duty of what needs to be done.
To avoid fissures and cracks in the snow-buried ice,
the Search cautiously prod and poke the surface before them
as they make their way towards land.
A hidden fissure suddenly opens up and swallows the First
in a brave intent to rescue his wife, Pitchwife accidently slides in also.
Here, I thought that they were goners. (gasp!)
The journey had barely begun and already it appears that
more had just perished so that Covenant can continue his quest.
The initial shock slowly wore off as I continued to finish the next few pages.
The company rushes over and peer down into the crack and find that
the crevasse is narrow and First wedged her body between the walls -
Pitchwife is holding on around the First's waist, dangling below.
They are pulled back to the surface by the other two Giants.
Pitchwife is embarassed because of his haste to rescue the First, he ended up being
the one who was saved from plunging into the abyss that leads to the artic sea below.
Later that day, another section of the floe splits apart.
This causes a decision to turn more northward towards thicker ice,
but the choice makes the Giants a bit uneasy, saying that "this north was perilous."
Linden asks Covenant why the north make the Giants nervous, but he didn't know.
Before nightfall, they are able to find a more stable surface and make camp."I've never been north of Revelstone and Coercri."
They had covered over 20 leagues since leaving the Starfare's Gem.
During that night, Linden tells Covenant that at some point,
he is going to have to deal with who she is.
She confesses her feelings towards him.
I am not sure if this frightens the Unbeliever or not,"We've been lovers.
I've never stopped loving you.
It hurts that you lied to me-
that you let me believe something that wasn't true.
Let me believe we had a future together.
But I haven't stopped loving you."
but his isn't sure how to handle this; doesn't know what to say.
He discovers that it is Linden who is pulling him through this ordeal;
She knows her purpose while Covenant is the one who is the one relying on others.
Early the next morning before the rest of the company awaken,
Honninscrave sits on an ice ridge and tries to burn out his grief over
Cable Seadreamer's death by performing his own caamora.
But the cammora is not enough to ease the pain of his dead brother.
To watch your own brother get killed is something that you would never get over,The First's voice was uncharacteristically gentle.
"Is it well with you, Grimmand Honninscrave?"
He shook his head in simple bafflement.
"It does not suffice. Naught suffices.
It burns in my breast - and will not burn out."
Then as if the will which held him uprighthad broken
he dropped to his knees and thrust his hands into a drift of snow.
Tattered wisps of stream rose around his wrists.
no matter what is done to relieve the grief and mental anguish.
I feel sympathy for Honninscrave.
After travelling west through the bitterly freezing weather for a while,
Linden senses that the air is getting colder.
But it is not from ice nor wind, it is from something else... something dangerous.
Linden describes what she is feeling to the Giants and they recognize the threat."And this north was perilous, ..."
A wide, short legged creature of ice rises up out of the rough glacier terrain and attacks, sending a web of ice towards the First.Honninscrave's head jerked up. Pitchwife's eyes glared white in his missaped face.
At the same instant, the First barked, "Arghule!" and sprang at Covenant and Linden.
Three more arghuleh appear and prepare to attack also.
These creatures radiate a deep coldness that seem to freeze the winter air.
I kind of picture a big thick slab of ice that can walk and react.The moving shape was as wide as the height of a Giant,
as thick as the reach of Covenant's arms.
Short legs bore it forward with deceptive speed.
It is mentioned also that these creatures have
"Dark gaps around its edge looked like maws.".
Could this mean that they can bite and slash with sharp saw-like teeth?
Two arghuleh crack the floe surface, sending fissures streaking towards the company,
resulting in Vain falling into a crevice. (Findail flys away to avoid the fight, as usual.)
The ice-web now floats above the First, ready to ensnare her,
but she strikes it with her sword.
Her action shatters the web, but results in encasing her arm in ice.
Cail tries to attack one of the creatures.
He gets slapped to the ground and dragged under the bulk of an arghule.
Covenant, in the frenzy of the fight, tries to blast the arghuleh with wild magic.
But the leading edge of a second ice-web gets to his arm first and
touches the side of his head.
The white gold ring detonates with power and shatters the ice that surrounds his arm,
but Covenant is effected just the same from the deep freezing power of the web.
The ur-Lord stands paralyzed. He cannot move... brain-locked and frozen from within.
Vain and three people down after the attack.
Aren't the Arghuleh the coolest? (pun intended)
Before another attack is launched, the First charges the arghule that stands
over Cail and slams all of her body weight into it, shattering it into pieces.
Pitchwife then scatters the remains aside and is able to retrieve the Haruchai,
who is entombed from head to foot in ice.
Now the Search makes a break for it and runs, trying to out-distance any further assaults.
The arghuleh attempt to send more cracks at the fleeing company,
but can not reach them.
These arghuleh may be fearsome beasts, but apparently a bit on the slow side.
In order to help the victims of the attacks, Linden convinces the Giants to halt
so that she can attend to them.
Vain also appears beside the travelers; how he escaped is unknown.
Cail looks like an ice sculpture and the First's frozen arm is useless.
When Linden touches the ice that has entombed Cail, her fingertips freezes to
the surface and peels the skin off when she jerks her hand away.
"
But that cannot be done to Cail without breaking half his bones from the impact -Damn it!" she rasped, more frightened and angry than hurt, "that's cold."
Raising her head to the First, she shivered,
"You obviously know something about these arghuleh. Do you know how to treat this?"
In reply, the First drew her falchion.
Gripping it above her head, she brought its hilt down hard
on the crust which locked her arm.
The ice broke and fell away, leaving her limb free, the skin undamaged.
they need fire to thaw the ice before the Haruchai dies.
Now is when Linden finally notices that Covenant had also
become a victim of the arghuleh.
Frozen like a statue, he is blind in one eye and cold-numbed
down one side of his body. Almost as if his left side was nerve-dead.
Findail shows up and converses with Linden, but Covenant cannot hear them.
Bringing up rage and venom to rid himself of the deep cold that binds his mind,
Covenant is about to use the wild magic to blast away the coldness from the Earth itself.
But before he can do this, he feels a presence inside him.
It is strange and warmth with comfort... and it took away his flame.
Covenant gains his senses back and thinks that he failed again; he feels so helpless.And the intrusion - an external identity which somehow inhabited his mind
as if he let down all his defenses - gave him warmth in return:
the warmth of its own strict desire for him and
the heat of his fire combined.
For a moment, he thought he knew that other presence,
recognized it intimately.
Then the world turned into white magic and passion; and the cold fled.
He has this awsome power, but he cannot control it nor save anyone with it.
No wonder Covenant has doubts about is role and ablility in this quest.
He discovers that Linden can take the wild magic from his willThis time she had simply reached into him and taken possession.
There was no difference between that and what Lord Foul had done to Joan.
What he was doing to the Land.
No difference except the difference between Linden herself and the Despiser.
And Gibbon-Raver had promised that she would destroy the Earth.
without his interference and control it for her use.
Was Gibbon-Raver right about the Chosen?
Meanwhile, Cail is free from the ice and slowly regaining
his health from his near-death of the cold.
(Thanks to Linden, the warmth of the wild magic, and the endurance of the Haruchai.)
Mistweave also aids Cail by giving him some diamondraught to help recovery.Even the merewives had not so nearly slain him.
After considering the weariness of Cail and Pitchwife, the First announces that
they shall rest and have a meal before continuing.
During the meal, Linden inquires about the arghuleh.
The First tells that little is known about the creatures.
Some stories and encounters, but not much else.
But she does know that the arghuleh that they just encountered
do not act anything like the ones in the tales had been told.
But yet, these creatures worked in concert with each other to attack the company.They are savage creatures, as dire of hate as the winter in which they thrive.
And their hate is not solely for the beasts and beings of blood
and warmth which form their prey.
It is also for their own kind.
In the tales we have heard and the experience of our people,
it is plain that the surest defense against the assult of one arghule
is the assult of a second,
for they will prefer each other's deaths above any other.
What may had changed the behavior of the arghuleh? Lord Foul? The Sunbane?
The destruction of the Staff of Law? They did not know.
Linden senses that they are still in pursuit and coming nearer.
The supplies are quickly repacked and the Search pushes westward at a rapid pace.
Even that night after a brief rest, they continue to rush from the
relentless beasts that still chase them.
At this point, it would seem that the arghuleh are herding the company somewhere."Apparently cooperation isn't the only new trick they've learned."
The gap between the hunters and the prey hasn't closed any, but hasn't widened neither.
That morning they find that they are running out of space to flee to...
the end of the ice floes are near.
The south is breaking apart and drifting away; the west is a jagged ice-ridge.
The Giants have no choice.
Altering their course to the north a bit, Mistweave and Honninscrave pull the sleds
up into the ridge region.
Once atop the upper face of the glacier, the pathway is easier to follow.
Fighting vertgo, Covenant looks over the cliff edge that is in front of themHere the ice was as rugged as a battleground - pressure-splintered and wind-tooled
into high fantastic shapes, riddled with fissures, marked by strange channels and
hollows of erosion - ...
... But then everything changed. The First's route was neither
inspired nor fortuitous; it was impossible.
and sees nothing below except the artic cold sea.
Overcome with dispair, Covenant collapses and is caught by Pitchwife.Without forewarning, the company had reached the western edge of the glacier.
The Giant makes Covenant to look out beyond the vanishing ice and
points out that there is hope after all.
A strip of land is barely visible about 1/2 league to the west!
Land! But is it the soil of THE LAND?
Besides, how do you swim across 1/2 league of freezing cold water?
Now they are trapped between a rock and a hard place.
Before them is a 200 foot cliff face that drops into the freezing water
and behind them is the pursuit of the deadly arghuleh.
The Giants, proving before that they are not harmed by the cold, desend into the sea.
The First jumps into the sea from the glacier's edge with her husband following behind. Honninscrave and Misteweave secure the supplies to the sleds and then
they too disappear over the edge, leaving the sleds on top of the ice cliff with
the ur-Lord, the Chosen, the Demondim-spawn, the Appointed, and the Haruchai.
Cail uses Vain's legs as an anchor for a rope and slides the sleds down
one at a time to the awaiting Giants in the fridged water below.
Covenant clings on to one sled and Linden rides down on the other one.
The Giants swim along side the sleds, keeping them afloat.
Cail drops the rope to the Giants and slide down the glacier face to join the company.
For the reason that Covenant is leaving, Vain follows them and Findail in turn,
follows Vain.
Bearing the sleds above the water, with Covenant and Linden on top the sleds,
the Giants cross the gap between the ice glacier to the distant strip of land before them.
They made it. From leaving the Starfare's Gem, the battle of the arghuleh, to being chased and running out of ground to run on and becoming trapped ...That night, the company camped on the hard shingle of the shore as if it were a haven.
they made it to solid ground. Soil at last!
That last line in the chapter kind of made me breathe a sigh of relief.
They were safe at last... for now.