On the next mountain over from the one that Bek and Grianne were struggling to ascend, Quentin Leah looked up expectantly from his breakfast of bread and cheese as Kian appeared out of the trees below the trailhead and began to climb toward him. Further up, gathered in the copse of fir where they had spent the night, the remnant of Obat’s Rindge waited for instructions on where to go next—all but Obat himself and Panax, who had gone on ahead to scout their way through the passes of the Aleuthra Ark. They had been fleeing the Mwellrets and their tracking beasts for two days, and Quentin had hoped they would not have to flee for a third.
“They found our trail,” Kian growled. His dark, square face furrowed as he sank down next to the Highlander and mopped his brow. “They’re coming.”
He would not look at Quentin. No one would these days. No one wanted to see what was in his eyes. Not since they found him in the ruins of Castledown. Not since they heard what became of Ard Patrinell.
Quentin understood. He did not feel right about himself anymore either. Everything seemed out of joint.
He handed the Elven Hunter what was left of his bread and cheese and stared down in frustration. They were sitting on a rugged slope that had the look of a hunched-over Koden, all bristle-backed with conifers and jagged rocks. Forty-eight hours of running had brought them here—frantic hours spent trying to throw off their pursuers. Nothing had worked, and now, finally, they had been run to earth.
From the beginning, when Quentin, Panax, Kian, Obat, and a dozen Rindge had remained behind to slow down the hunt for the tribe, things had gone wrong. As a group, they possessed a lifetime of knowledge of hunting and tracking in wilderness terrain, and each knew a dozen tricks that would slow or stop anyone trying to follow them. They had employed them all. They had started with simple devices intended to create dozens of false trails that would take a hunting dog hours to unravel. But the beasts the rets were using to track them were far superior to dogs, and they separated the real trail from the false with uncanny quickness, coming after Quentin’s group almost before they could make their escape. The Rindge next used extracts from plants to create strong scents that would throw off the creatures. That didn’t work either. Kian and Panax led them into streams and even one river, using the water to hide their passage, but the tracking beasts found them again anyway.
In desperation, Obat lured them into a narrow ravine and set fire to the whole of the woods leading up, a strong wind blowing the fire right back down into the faces of the rets. The fire was intended not only to drive their pursuers back, but to obliterate their tracks and scent, as well. That bought them several hours, but in the end the rets and their beasts found them anyway.
Finally, in desperation, Quentin and his companions set an ambush, thinking to kill or disable the tracking beasts. The ambush caught the rets by surprise, and a handful were killed by bows and arrows and blowguns before the remainder had a chance to take cover. The tracking beasts were struck, too, but the projectiles seemed to have almost no effect on them. They shrugged off the barbs as if they were nothing more than bee stings and came after their attackers with astonishing fury. Loosed from their chains, they turned into a pack of savage killers. Quentin had been involved in many hunts over the years, but he had never seen anything like this. The tracking beasts, at least eight of them, had charged through the scrub and over the rocks like maddened wolves, voiceless monsters that vaguely resembled humans evolved into something bigger and more terrible than the gray wolves that hunted the Black Oaks east of Leah.
Having no other choice, Quentin and his companions stood their ground and fought back. But before anyone could prevent it, three of the Rindge were dead, the beasts covered in their blood. They might have all been killed but for the Sword of Leah, which lit up like a torch, the magic surging down its length in a streak of blue fire. That was when Quentin realized that these beasts had been created out of magic, and that it would take magic to stop them. He killed two of them in a flurry of shrieks and severed limbs before the rest fell back, not defeated or cowed, but wary now of the power of the sword and uncertain whether or not they were meant to continue.
Their hesitation allowed Quentin and his companions to escape, but use of the sword marked them, as well, it alerted their hunters that at least one among the pursued possessed magic, and that hardened their determination to continue the pursuit. Airships appeared in the skies overhead, and fresh units of Mwellrets and trackers were lowered to the ground to join those already gathered. Quentin couldn’t tell how many there were, but it was more than enough to overpower him should he choose to stand and fight again. He couldn’t be certain whom the rets thought they were tracking, but it was clear that they were serious about finding out.
The chase wore on through that first day and all through the second, with the Rindge working their way deeper into the Aleuthra Ark, higher into the rugged peaks, following a trail they knew would eventually take them over the mountains and into the broader grasslands beyond. Quentin was beginning to wonder what good that would do. If their pursuers were this determined, they would be caught sooner or later whether they fled over the mountains or not. If they were to escape, a more permanent solution had to be found, and it had to be found quickly because the women and children that comprised the bulk of the fugitives were tiring.
Quentin was tiring, as well, not so much physically as emotionally. He had lost something in his battle with the Ard Patrinell wronk—something of the fire that had driven him earlier, something of heart and purpose—so that now he felt more a shell than a whole person. With so many of the company dead and all the rest scattered and lost, his focus had become blurred. He was helping the Rindge because they needed it and because he didn’t know what else to do. It gave him direction, but not passion. He had lost too much to find that again without a dramatic shift in his fortunes.
He didn’t think Panax and Kian were much better off, although they seemed more hardened than he was, more accustomed to the idea of going on alone. Quentin was too young yet, unprepared to have experienced the kind of losses he had just endured, and the losses were affecting him more dramatically. At times, he collapsed inside completely. He saw Tamis again, covered in blood and dying. He saw Ard Patrinell’s head, encased in metal and glass, an instant before he smashed it apart. He saw Bek, the way he remembered him in the Highlands, such a long time ago.
He was haunted and worn and disillusioned, and he could feel himself slipping notch by notch. He cried because he couldn’t help himself, trying to mask his tears, to hide his weakness. Chills racked him in bright sunshine. Dark dreams haunted his sleep—dreams of what hunted him, of what awaited him, of fate and prophecy. He awoke shaking and afraid and went back to sleep cold and empty.
But he was also the best chance the others had of staying alive, and he was painfully aware of the fact. Without the magic of the Sword of Leah, they had no answer for the magic of the things that pursued them. Quentin might be slipping off the edge, but he could not afford to let go.
“How much time do we have?” he asked Kian after a moment.
The Elf shrugged. “The Rindge will try to slow them down, but won’t succeed. So, maybe an hour, a little more.”
Quentin closed his eyes. They needed help. They needed a miracle. He didn’t think he could give it to them. He didn’t know who could.
Kian finished the bread and cheese, took a drink from his water skin, and stood. He was coated with dust and debris, and his clothes were torn and streaked with blood. He was a mirror image of Quentin. They were refugees in need of a bath and some real sleep, and they were unlikely to get either anytime soon.
“We’d better get them up and moving,” Kian said.
They went back up the trail to where the Rindge waited. Using gestures and the few Rindge words they had picked up, they got the tribe back on its feet and trudging ahead once more. The Rindge were a dispirited group, not so much because of their weariness as because nothing the men had tried had worked and time was running out. Still, they kept on without complaint, the very young and old, the women and children, all helping one another where help was needed, a people dispossessed from their home of centuries, driven out by forces over which they had no control. They were demonstrating a resolve that Quentin found surprising and heartening, and he took what strength he could from them.
Still, it was not much.
They had hiked for perhaps an hour when the Rindge rearguard appeared on the run. Their gestures were unmistakable. The Mwellrets and tracking beasts were catching up to them.
At the same moment, Panax and Obat appeared from the other direction. The Dwarf was excited as he hurried to reach Kian and the Highlander.
“I think we’ve found something that will help,” he said, eyes bright and eager as they shifted from one face to the other. He rubbed vigorously at his thick beard. “The pass divides up ahead. One fork leads to a thousand-foot drop—no way around it. The other leads to a narrow ledge with room for maybe two people to pass, but no more. This second trail winds around the mountain, then further up through a high pass that crosses to the other side. Here’s what’s important. You can get above the second trail by climbing up the mountainside further on and doubling back. There’s a spot, perfect for what we need, to trigger an avalanche that will sweep away the pass and anything on it. If we can get the Rindge through before they’re caught by the rets, we might be able to start a rockslide that will knock those rets and their beasts right off the trail—or at least trap them on the other side of where we are.”
“How far ahead is this place?” Kian asked at once.
“An hour, maybe two.”
The Elven Hunter shook his head. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“We do if I stay behind,” Quentin said at once.
He spoke before he could think better of it. It was a rash and dangerous offer, but he knew even without thinking it through that it was right.
They stared at him. “Highlander, what are you saying?” Panax asked angrily. “You can’t—“
“Panax, listen to me. Let’s be honest about this. It’s the magic that’s attracting them. No, don’t say it, don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about—we both know it’s true. We all know it. They want the magic, just like Antrax and its creepers did. If I stay back, I can draw them off long enough for you to get past the place on the mountain where you want to start the slide. It will buy you the time you need.”
“It will get you killed, too!” the other snapped.
Quentin smiled. Now that there were so many of the tracking beasts, he had virtually no chance of withstanding a sustained assault. If he couldn’t outrun them—and he knew he couldn’t—they would be all over him, sword or no. He was proposing to give up his life for theirs, a bargain that didn’t bear thinking on too closely if he was to keep it.
“I’ll stay with you,” Kian offered, not bothering to question the Highlander’s logic, knowing better than to try.
“No, Kian. One of us is enough. Besides, I can do this better alone. I can move more quickly if I’m by myself. You and Panax get the Rindge through. That’s more important. I’ll catch up.”
“You won’t live that long,” Panax said with barely contained fury. “This is senseless!”
Quentin laughed. “You should see your face, Panax! Go on, now. Get them moving. The faster you do, the less time I’ll need to spend back here.”
Kian turned away, dark features set. “Come on, Dwarf,” he said, pulling at Panax’s sleeve.
Panax allowed himself to be drawn away, but he kept looking back at Quentin. “You don’t have to do this,” he called back. “Come with us. We can manage.”
“Watch for me,” Quentin called after him.
Then the Rindge were moving ahead again, angling through the trees and up the trail. They wound through boulders and around a bend, and in minutes they were out of sight.
Everything went still. The Highlander stood alone in the center of the empty trail and waited until he could no longer hear them. Then he started back down the way he had come.
It didn’t take Quentin very long to find what he was looking for. He remembered the defile from earlier, a narrow split through a massive chunk of rock that wound upward at a sharp incline and barely allowed passage for one. Quentin knew that if he tried to make a stand in the open, the tracking beasts would overwhelm him in seconds. But if he blocked their way through the split, they could come at him only one at a time. Sooner or later, they would succeed in breaking through by sheer weight of numbers or they would find another way around. But he didn’t need to hold them indefinitely, he only needed to buy his companions a little extra time.
The split in the boulder ran for perhaps twenty-five feet, and there was a widening about halfway through. He chose this point to make his first stand. When he was forced to give way there, he could fall back to the upper opening and try again.
He glanced over his shoulder. Further back, another two or three hundred yards, was a deep cluster of boulders where he had stashed his bow and arrows. He would make his last stand there.
“Wish you could see this, Bek,” he said aloud. “It should be interesting.”
The minutes slipped away, but before too many had passed, he heard the approach of the tracking beasts. They did nothing to hide their coming, made no pretense of concealing their intent. Sharp snarls and grunts punctuated the sound of their heavy breathing, and their raw animal smell drifted on the wind. Further away, but coming closer, were the Mwellrets.
Quentin unsheathed the Sword of Leah and braced himself.
When the first of the beasts thrust its blunt head around the nearest bend in the split and saw him, it attacked without hesitating. Quentin crouched low and caught it midspring on the tip of his weapon, spitting it through its chest and pinning it to the earth where it thrashed and screamed and finally died as the magic ripped through it. A second and third appeared almost immediately, fighting to get past each other. He jabbed at their faces and eyes as they jammed themselves up in the narrow opening, and forced them to back away. From behind them, he heard the shouts of the rets and the snarls of other tracking beasts as they tried in vain to break through.
He fought in the defile for as long as he could, killing two of the creatures and wounding another before he made his retreat. He might have stayed there longer, but he feared that the rets would find a way around. If they trapped him in the defile, he was finished. He had bought as much time as he could at his first line of defense. It was time to fall back.
With the tracking beasts snapping at him, he backed through the split, then made his second stand at the upper end. Straddling the opening, he bottled up the frantic creatures, refusing to let them through, killing one and wedging it back inside so that the others could not pass it without climbing over. They tore at their dead companion until it was shredded and bloodied, and still they couldn’t break free. Quentin fought with a wild and reckless determination, the magic driving through him like molten iron, sweeping away his weariness and pain, his reason and doubt, everything but the feel of the moment and its dizzying sense of power. Nothing could stop him. He was invincible. The magic of the sword buzzed and crackled through his body, and he gave himself over to it.
Even when the Mwellrets got around behind him, he stood his ground, so caught up in the euphoria generated by the magic that he would have done anything to keep it flowing. He drove back this fresh assault, then returned to battling the tracking beasts trying to emerge from the split, intent on doing battle with anything that challenged him.
It took a deep slash to his thigh to sober him up enough that he finally realized the danger. He turned and ran without slowing or looking back, gaining enough ground to enable him to clamber into the rocks and find his bow and arrows just before his pursuers caught up with him. He was a good marksman, but his pursuers were so close that marksmanship counted for almost nothing. He buried four arrows in the closest burly head before it was finally knocked back, blinded in both eyes and maddened with pain. He wounded two more, slowing them enough that the others could not get past. He shot every arrow he had, killing two of the rets, as well, then threw down the bow and began running once more.
There was nowhere reasonable left to stand and fight, so he sprinted for the ledge where he hoped Panax, Kian, and the Rindge would be waiting with help. It was a long run, perhaps two miles, and he soon lost track of time and place, of everything but movement. Still infused with the magic of the sword, its power singing in his blood, he found strength he did not know he possessed. He ran so fast that he outdistanced his bulky pursuers, leaving them to scramble over boulders and rock-strewn trails he scaled with ease.
Maybe, just maybe, he would find a way out of this.
“Leah, Leah!” he cried out, euphoric and wild-eyed, with reckless disregard for who might hear him. “Leah!” he howled.
They caught up to him finally at the near end of the ledge, forcing him to turn and fight. He stood his ground just long enough to throw them back again, then rushed out onto the ledge. The sweep of the Aleuthra Ark with its massive backdrop of peaks and valleys stretched like a painting across the horizon, somehow not quite real.
The tracking beasts came at him once more, but they did not have enough room. Two tumbled away, clawing and screaming as they fell. He glanced back down the slope he had just climbed,—it was crawling with tracking beasts and Mwellrets. How many more could there be? Pressed against the cliff face, he retreated as swiftly as he could, slashing at the closest of his pursuers when they came within reach. He had been clawed and bitten in a dozen places, and the singing of the magic had taken on a high, frantic whine. His stamina and strength were nearly exhausted,—when they were depleted, the magic of the Sword of Leah would fail, as well.
“Panax!” he called frantically, fighting to keep his newfound fear at bay, feeling the euphoria desert him as the brilliance of his blade began to dim.
He was perhaps a hundred feet out from where he had started, the cliff wall to his left an almost vertical rise, the drop to his right deep and precipitous, when he heard Panax call back to him. He did not look away from his pursuers. They were crowded out onto the ledge behind him, still coming, rage and hunger reflected in their eyes, waiting for him to drop his guard.
Then he heard a rumble of rocks from above, and he turned and ran. He was too slow. The closest of the beasts was on top of him in a heartbeat, claws slashing. He whirled and knocked it backwards, slamming his closed fist into the rock wall with such force that he lost his grip on the sword. Knocked from his hand, it tumbled over the edge of the path and disappeared into the abyss.
He hesitated then, not quite believing what had just happened, and his hesitation cost him any chance of escape. Rocks and dirt showered down from above, pouring over everything in a thunderous slide that swept across the face of the cliff. Quentin tried to run through it, but he was too late. The avalanche was all around him, tearing away the mountainside, breaking off chunks of the ledge. The tracking beasts and their handlers disappeared in a roar of stone, then a massive section of the trail ahead tore free and was gone.
Quentin flattened himself against the cliff wall and covered his head. The entire mountain seemed to be coming down on top of him. For a moment, he held on, pressed against the stone. Then the avalanche plucked him from his perch like a leaf, and he was gone.
The Highlander regained consciousness in a sea of mind-numbing blackness and bone-crushing weight. He could smell dust and grit and the raw odor of torn leaves and earth. At first he could not remember what had happened or where he was, and panic’s sharp talons pricked at him. But he held fast, forcing himself to be patient, to wait for his mind to clear.
When it did, he remembered the avalanche. He remembered being swept over the narrow ledge and into the void, tumbling downward through a rain of rocks and debris, catching onto something momentarily before being torn free, tangling up in scrub thickets, all the while engulfed in a roar that dwarfed the fury of the worst storm he had ever endured. Then darkness had closed about in a wave and everything else disappeared.
His vision sharpened, and he realized that the avalanche had buried him in a cluster of tree limbs and roots. Through small openings in his makeshift tomb, he saw heavy gray clouds rolling across a darkening sky. He had no idea how much time had passed. He lay without moving, staring at the distant clouds and collecting his thoughts. He should, by all rights, be dead. But the roots and limbs, while trapping him in a jagged wooden cage, had saved him, as well, deflecting boulders that would otherwise have crushed him.
Even so, he was not out of trouble. His ears were ringing, and his mouth and nostrils were dry with dust. Every bone and muscle in his body ached from the pummeling he had received, and he could not tell as yet if he had broken anything in his fall.
When he tried to move, he found himself pinned to the ground.
He listened to the silence, a blanket that cloaked both his stone-encrusted prison and the world immediately outside. There wasn’t the smallest rustle of life, not the tiniest whisper, nothing but the ragged sound of his breathing. He wondered if anyone would come looking for him—if anyone even could. There might be no one left to look. Half the mountain had fallen away, and there was no telling whom it had carried with it. Hopefully, Panax and the Rindge had escaped and the Mwellrets and their tracking beasts had not. But he could not be sure.
He tried not to think too hard on it, focusing instead on the problem at hand. He forced himself to relax, to take deep breaths, to gather his resources. Carefully, gingerly, he tested his fingers and toes to make certain they were all working—and still there—then tested his arms and legs, as well. Amazingly, nothing seemed broken, even though everything hurt.
Encouraged by his sense of wholeness, Quentin set about looking for a way to get free. There was only a little room to move in his cramped prison, but he took advantage of it. He was able to extricate his left leg and both arms through the exercise of a little time, patience, and perseverance, but the right leg was securely wedged beneath a massive boulder. It wasn’t crushed, but it was firmly pinned. Try as he might, he could not work it free.
He lay back again, drenched in sweat. He was aware suddenly of how hot he was, buried in the earth like a corpse, covered over by layers of rock and debris. He was coated with dust and grime. He felt as if he knew exactly what it would be like to be dead, and he didn’t care for it.
He wormed himself into a slightly different position, but the smallness of the space and the immobility of his trapped leg prevented him from doing much. Deep breaths, he told himself. Stay calm. He felt raindrops on his face through the chinks in his prison and saw that the sky had darkened. The rainfall was slow and steady, a soft patter in the stillness. He licked at stray drops that fell on his lips, grateful for the damp.
He spent a long time after that working with an unwieldy piece of tree limb that he was able to drag within reach and position as a fulcrum. If he could shift the boulder just an inch, he might be able to wriggle free. But from his supine position, he could not get the leverage he needed, and the branch was too long to place properly in any event. Nevertheless, he kept working at it until it grew so dark he could no longer see what he was doing.
He fell asleep then, and when he woke, it was still dark, but the rain had stopped and the silence had returned. He went back to work with the branch, and it was morning before he gave the task up as impossible. Despair crept through him and he found himself wondering how desperate his situation really was. No one was coming to look for him,—he would have heard them by now if they were. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to do so on his own. What would that cost him? Would he cut off his leg if there was no other way? Would he give up part of himself if it meant saving his life?
Sleep claimed him a second time, and he woke to daylight and sunshine flooding down out of a clear blue sky. He did not give himself time to dwell on the darker possibilities of his situation, but went back to trying to get free. This time, he used a sharp-ended stick to dig away at the rock and earth packed in beneath his leg. If he could tunnel under his leg, he reasoned, he might create enough space to worm loose. It was slow going, the digging often reduced to one pebble, one small chunk of hardened earth at a time. He had to start as far back as his knee and work his way down, inch by painful inch. He had to be careful not to disturb anything that supported the boulder. If it shifted, it would crush his leg and trap him for good.
He worked all day, ignoring his growing hunger and thirst, the aches in his body, and the heat of his cage. He had come too far and endured too much to die like this. He was not going to quit. He would not give up. He repeated the words over and over again. He made them into a song. He chanted them like a mantra.
It was almost dark again when he finally worked his leg free, leaving behind most of his pants leg and much of his skin. Immediately, he began digging his way out, burrowing upward through the debris toward the fading light, toward fresh air and freedom. He could not afford to stop and rest. He felt the panic taking over.
Night had fallen, a velvet soft blackness under a starlit sky, when he pulled himself from the rocks and earth and stood again in the open air. He wanted to weep with joy, but would not let himself, afraid that if he broke down, he might not recover. His emotions were raw and jangled from his ordeal, and his mind was not entirely lucid. He glanced around at the jumble of boulders and jutting trees, then upward to the darkened cliffs. In this light he could not determine from where he had fallen. He could tell only where he was, standing at one end of a valley that lay in the shadow of two massive mountains in the middle of the Aleuthra Ark.
It was cold, and he forced himself to move further down the slope into the trees beyond the avalanche line so that he might find shelter. He found it in a grove of conifers, and he lay down and fell asleep at once.
He dreamed that night of the missing Sword of Leah, and he woke determined to find it.
In the daylight, he could see more clearly where he had been and what had happened. The slide that had carried him over the side had torn away much of the mountain below, stripping it of trees and scrub, leveling outcroppings and ledges, and loosening huge sections of cliffside, all of which had tumbled into a massive pile of rubble. Looking up, he could just make out where he had been standing when he had fallen. No trace remained of those with whom he had fled or from whom he had been fleeing.
He hunted for food and water, finding the latter in a small stream not far from where he had slept, but nothing of the former. Even his woods lore failed to turn up anything edible so high up in the mountains. He gave it up and went back to the slide to search for the Sword of Leah. He had no idea where to look, so for the entire morning he wandered about in something of a daze. The slide was spread out for almost half a mile, and in some places it was hundreds of feet deep. He kept thinking that it was impossible that he was still alive, impossible that he had ridden it out without being crushed. He kept telling himself that his survival meant something, that he was not going to die in this strange land, that he was meant to go home again to the Highlands.
By midday, the sun was burning out of the sky and the valley was steaming. He was beginning to hallucinate, seeing movement where there wasn’t any, hearing the whisper of voices, feeling the presence of ghosts. He went back down into the trees to drink from the stream, then lay down to rest. He woke several hours later, feverish and aching, and went back to searching.
This time, the ghosts took on recognizable form. As he trudged through the rocks, he found them waiting for him at every turn. Tamis appeared first, rising out of the landscape, healed and new again, short-cropped hair pushed back from her no-nonsense face, eyes questioning his purpose as she stared at him. He spoke her name, but she did not respond. She regarded him for only a moment, as if measuring anew the depth of his commitment and the strength with which he intended to pursue it. Then she faded into the shimmer of the midday heat, into the tangle of the past.
Ard Patrinell appeared next, sliding out of the haze as a metal-shrouded wronk, transformed from human into something only partly so. He stared at Quentin, his trapped, doomed eyes begging for release even as he raised weapons to skewer the Highlander. Even knowing the image wasn’t real, Quentin flinched from it. Words passed the lips of the Captain of the Home Guard, but they were inaudible behind his glassy face shield, empty of sound and meaning, as insubstantial as his spectre.
The image shimmered and lost focus, and Quentin dropped into a guarded crouch, closing his eyes to clear his vision, his head, and his mind. When he looked again, Ard Patrinell was gone.
Both dead, he reminded himself, Tamis and her lover, ghosts lost in the passage of time, never to return in any other form, memories only. He felt himself drawn to them, less a part of his surroundings than before, more ethereal. He was losing himself in the heat, fading away into his imaginings, in need of rest and food and something hard and fast to hold on to. A chance. A promise.
Neither appeared, and his stumbling hunt across the avalanche-strewn landscape yielded nothing of the missing talisman. The afternoon lengthened, and his exhaustion increased. He was not going to find the sword, he knew. He was wasting his time. He should leave this place and go on. But go on to what and to where? Did he have another purpose, now that he was alone and so lost? Was there something further he was meant to do?
His mind drifted into the past, to the Highlands, where he had spent his youth so carelessly, to the times he had spent hunting and fishing and exploring with Bek. He could see his cousin’s face in the air before him, disembodied, but Bek all the same. Where was he now? What had become of him since the ambush in the ruins of Castledown? He had been alive when Tamis had seen him last, but had disappeared since. Bek was as much a ghost as the Tracker and Patrinell.
But alive, Quentin Leah swore softly. Even missing, even disappeared, Bek was alive!
Quentin found himself kneeling in the rocks, crying, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders heaving. When had he stopped to cry? How long had he been hunched down like this in the rubble?
He wiped at his eyes, angry and ashamed. Enough of this. No more.
When he put his right hand down to push himself back to his feet, his fingers closed about the handle of his sword.
For a second he was so stunned that he thought he was imagining it. But it was as real as the stone on which he knelt. He forced himself to look down, to see the blade lying next to him, coated with dirt and grime, its pommel nicked and scored, but its incomparable blade as smooth and unmarked as the day it was formed. His fingers tightened their grip, and he brought the weapon around so that he could see it more clearly, so that he could be certain. There was no mistake. It was his sword, his talisman, and his hope reborn.
It was impossible, of course, that he should have found it. It was a one-in-a-million chance that he would find it at all. He was not a strong believer in providence, in fate’s hand reaching out, but there was no other explanation for this miracle.
“Shades,” he whispered, the word a rustle of sound in the deep silence of the afternoon heat.
He took the offered gift as a sign and came back to his feet, infused with new purpose. A wayward spirit not yet ready to cross over to the land of the dead, he began to walk.
Daylight faded quickly to twilight, the sun sliding behind the western rim of the Aleuthra Ark, turning the horizon a brilliant purple and crimson, cloaking the valley in long, deep shadows. The heat faded, and the air turned crisp and raw. The unexpected shift in temperature marked the coming of another storm. Quentin hunched his shoulders and lowered his head as he pushed on through the valley and began to climb where the mountains met and formed a high pass. Clouds that had been invisible before slid into view in thick knots and gathered across the sky. The wind picked up, slow and unremarkable at first before changing to gusts that were both icy and sharp edged.
Ahead, where the pass narrowed and twisted out of view, the darkness deepened.
Quentin pressed on. There was no place to stop and no point in doing so. He was too exposed on the slopes to chance resting, what shelter he might find lay on the other side of the pass. He needed food and water, but he was unlikely to find either before morning. Darkness layered the earth,—roiling storm clouds canopied the sky. Sleet spit at him, icy particles stinging his face as he ducked his head protectively. The wind howled down out of the mountains, rolling off empty slopes, gathering force as it whipped across the valley from the passes and defiles. Trying not to think about how far he still had to go to reach safety, Quentin bent and wavered before the wind’s tremendous force.
By the time he gained the head of the high pass, the sleet had changed to snow, and a carpet twelve inches deep covered the ground he trod. He had strapped the Sword of Leah across his back using a length of cord he found in one pocket, a makeshift that allowed his hands to stay free. He was walking mostly uphill over uneven ground, the wind tearing at him from all sides and shifting rapidly. Light played tricks in the curtain of falling snow, and it was all Quentin could do to maintain his balance. He was still dizzy and feverish, hallucinating from dehydration and lack of food, but he could do nothing about that.
The ghosts of his past came and went, whispering words that made no sense, gesturing in ways he could not understand. They seemed to want something from him, but he could not tell what it was. Perhaps they simply wanted his company. Perhaps they waited for him to cross over from the world of the living. The idea seemed altogether too possible. If things did not change, they would not have long to wait.
He had lost his cloak, and so he had nothing to protect himself from the cold. He was shivering badly and afraid he would lose all his body heat before he reached shelter. He had been made strong and tough from his years in the Highlands, but his endurance was not limitless. He hugged himself as he slogged ahead through snow and sleet and cold, trying to hold together in body and spirit both, knowing he had to keep going.
At the head of the pass, he found something else waiting.
At first, he wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was even real. It was big and menacing, rising out of the rocks beyond, vague and indistinct in the whirl of the storm. It was man-shaped, but something else, as well, the limbs and body not quite right for a human, not quite in proportion. It appeared to him all at once as he crested the pass and walked into a wind howling with such fury that it threatened to tear the clothes from his body. He watched it slide through veils of white snow, then fade away entirely. He moved toward it, drawn to it instinctively, afraid and intrigued both. He had the sword, he told himself. He was not unprepared.
The shape appeared anew, further in, waited a moment for his approach, then disappeared once more.
This game of hide-and-seek continued through the pass and down the other side, where the walls of the mountain were thickly grown with conifers and the force of the storm was lessened by their windbreak. He had left the mountain off which he had fallen and was now beginning to ascend the one adjoining it. The trail was narrow and difficult to follow, but the appearance of the ghost ahead kept him focused. He was convinced by now that he was being led, but there seemed no reason for concern. The ghost had not threatened him,—it did not seem to mean him harm.
He climbed for a long time, winding his way westward around the mountainside, his path twisting and turning through sprawling stands of huge old trees, deep glades of pine needles dusted with snow, and rocky hillocks slick with dampened moss. The storm’s fury had diminished. The snow still fell, but the wind no longer blew the flakes into his face like needles, and the cold seemed less pervasive. Ahead, the shape took on clearer definition, becoming almost recognizable. Quentin had seen that shape before somewhere, moving in the same way, a wraith of the woods in another time and place. But his mind was singing with fatigue, and he could not place it.
Not much farther, he told himself. Not much longer.
Placing one foot in front of the other, eyes shifting between the ground below and the swirling white ahead, between his own movements and the ghost’s, he pushed on.
“Help me,” he called out at one point, but there was no response.
Not much farther, he told himself again and again. Just keep going.
But his strength was failing.
He went down several times, his legs simply giving way beneath him. Each time, he struggled back to his feet without pausing to rest, knowing that if he stopped, he was finished. Daylight would bring light and warmth and a better chance to survive a sleep. But he could not chance it here.
In a clearing leading into a deep stand of cedar, he slowed and stopped. He could feel himself leaving his body, rising into the night like a shade. He was finished. Done.
Then the dark shape ahead seemed to transform into something else, not one but two shapes, smaller and less threatening. They came out of the night together, walking hand in hand, angling toward him from his left—how had they gotten all the way over there? He stared at the new figures in disbelief, again uncertain that what he was seeing was real, that it wasn’t some new form of phantasm.
The figures hesitated as well, as they caught sight of him. He moved toward them, peering through the curtain of snow, through space and time and hallucinations, through fatigue and a growing sense of recognition, until he was close enough to be certain whom he was seeing.
His voice was parched and ragged as he called out to the one who stood closest and who stared back at him wide-eyed in disbelief.
“Bek!”
Bek Ohmsford’s journey over the past two days had not been as eventful as Quentin’s, but it had been just as strange.
After leaving the shape-shifters, and with Grianne in tow, he had continued into the Aleuthra Ark, the ghost of Truls Rohk an unwelcome guest borne with him. An image of the hooded cloak and scattered bones spread carelessly across the frozen ground lingered in the forefront of his thinking all that first day, a haunting that refused to be banished. He found himself remembering his protector in life, seemingly indestructible, offering his incomparable strength and unshakable reassurance. Though much of the time Truls Rohk had been an invisible presence, he had always kept close watch over Bek, fulfilling his promise to the Druid.
It seemed impossible that he was really gone. Bek could tell himself that it was so, that there was no mistake, but somehow he kept thinking that Truls would reappear, just as he always had before. He kept looking for Truls to do so. He couldn’t help himself. At every turn, in every patch of shadows, Bek thought to find him waiting.
So that first day passed, a dream in which Bek walked with his catatonic sister and the ghost of his lost friend.
By nightfall, he was exhausted, having traveled far and rested little. He had given little thought to Grianne, taking for granted her compliance with the hard pace he had set, forgetting entirely that she could not speak and therefore would not complain. Aware suddenly of his failure, he sat her down and examined her feet. They were not blistered, so he turned his attention to feeding her. He had to do it by hand, and even so she was still barely taking anything. Mostly, she drank water, but he was able to get a little mashed cheese and bread down her throat, as well. She did not look different to him, but he could not tell what was going on inside her head. He trailed the tips of his fingers across her cheeks and forehead and kissed her. Her strange eyes stared through him to places he could not see.
He fed himself then, eating hungrily and drinking some of the ale he had salvaged from Truls’ supplies. Night descended in a deep soft blackness, and the sky was awash in stars. He wrapped Grianne in her cloak and sat next to her in the silence, one arm draped about her protectively, his thoughts straying to the past they had lost and the future they might never share. He did not know what to do for her. He kept thinking there must be something that he had not tried, that her catatonia was a condition he could change if he could just figure out what was needed. He knew there was an answer to the puzzle if he could only put his finger on what it was. But the answer he sought would not come.
After a time, he sang to her, his voice barely more than a whisper, as if anything more might disturb the night. He sang songs he remembered from his childhood, songs he had sung with Goran and Liria in the Highlands as a child. It all seemed very long ago and far away. He had not been a child for years. He had not been a boy since he had come on this journey with Quentin.
On impulse, he tried using the wishsong. Perhaps the magic could affect Grianne. It was their strongest connection, the shared heritage of their bloodline. If he could not reach her in any other way, perhaps he could reach her in this. He had not used it this way, but he knew from the history of the Ohmsford family that others before him had. The trick was in finding a chink in the armor of her catatonia, in worming his way past her natural defenses to where she was hiding. If he could reach deep inside, he might be able to let her know he was there.
He began to sing to her again, nothing more than humming at first, a soft and gentle melody to soothe and comfort. He blended himself with the night, another of its sounds, a natural presence. Slowly, he worked his singing around to something more personal, using words—her name, his own, their lost family revisited. He kept to memories that he thought would make her smile or at least yearn for what she had lost. He did not use her known name—Ilse Witch. He used Grianne, and called himself Bek, and he linked them together in an unmistakable way. Brother and sister, family always.
For a very long time, slowly and patiently, he worked to draw her to him, to find a way inside her mind, knowing it would not be easy, that she would resist. He made himself repeat the same phrases over and over, the ones he thought might trigger a response, giving her a fresh look each time, another reason to reach out for him. He played with color and light, with smell and taste, infusing his music with the feel of the world, with life and its rewards. Come back to me, he sang to her, over and over. Come out from the shadows, and I will help you.
But nothing succeeded. She stared at the fire, at him, at the night, and did not blink. She looked through the world to an empty place that shielded her from real life, and she would not come away.
Frustrated, weary, he gave it up. He would try again tomorrow, he promised himself. He was convinced that he could do this.
He lay back, and in seconds he was asleep.
They climbed higher into the mountains on the following day, finding their path a snake of coiled switchbacks and rugged scrambles. Grianne followed after him compliantly, but had to be hauled over the rougher spots. It was hard going, and the sky west was darkening with the approach of a storm.
At one point, he heard the roar of a massive slide somewhere deeper in the mountains, and the eastern horizon was left cloudy with dust and debris in the aftermath.
By nightfall, it had begun to rain. They took shelter beneath the boughs of a massive spruce, lying on a bed of fallen needles that remained warm and dry. As the rain settled in, the temperature fell, spiraling downward with the change in the weather. Bek wrapped Grianne in her cloak and sang to her once more, and once more she stared through him to other places.
He lay awake much longer this night, listening to the soft patter of the rain and wondering what he was going to do. He had no idea where he had gotten to or where he was going. He was proceeding on faith, on the promise of the shape-shifters that he was moving toward something and not away from everything. He was adrift in the world toward something and not away from everything. He was adrift in the world with his stunned, helpless sister and with his friends and allies scattered or dead. He had one weapon, one talisman, one crutch on which he could lean, but no clear idea of how he might use it. He was so alone that he felt he would never find comfort or peace again.
When he slept, it was from exhaustion.
Morning dawned sullen and gray, a reflection of his mood as he rose sluggish and dispirited, and they started out once more. The storm caught up with them at midday, sliding past the high peaks north and curling down along the slopes on which he climbed. He had descended almost a thousand feet earlier, as the trail dipped and curved through a defile that opened deep into the mountain. Now, with the wind picking up and the cold penetrating his bones, he was high on the slopes anew and without suitable shelter. He picked up the pace, pulling Grianne after him with fresh urgency. He did not want to get caught out in the open if it began to snow.
It did, soon after, but the flakes were large and lazy and the way ahead remained clear. Bek pressed on, descending at a split in the trail, intent on gaining the forested stretches lower down. He did so just as the storm blew out of the high regions in a blinding sheet of sleet and rain. Everything beyond a dozen yards disappeared. The trees turned to phantoms that came and went to either side in the manner of soldiers at march. He held Grianne’s hand as tightly as he could, not wanting to chance a separation that might prove permanent.
The storm worsened, something he had not thought possible. Sleet and rain turned to deep curtains of snow. The snow began to build underfoot, and soon it was approaching twelve inches deep even in the windswept clearings. Visibility lessened further until he was groping from tree to tree. He would have taken shelter if he could have found any, but in the blinding whirl of the blowing snow, everything looked the same.
Then he stumbled and fell and lost his grip on Grianne. In an instant, she was gone. She disappeared in the whiteout, stolen away as surely as his faith in his purpose in coming on this journey. He groped for her, turning first this way and then that, everything white and empty about him, everything the same. He could not find her. Panic overwhelmed him as he grasped at snow flurries and air and empty chances, and he screamed. He screamed not just for his lost sister or his helplessness, but for all the pent-up rage and frustration he had been carrying with him for weeks. He screamed because he had reached the breaking point, and he did not care what happened to him next.
In that moment, a shape appeared before him, huge and dark, rising up like a behemoth roused from sleep to put an end to his intrusion. He stumbled backwards from it, surprised and terrified. As he did so, his hands brushed against his sister. He pushed his face close to hers to make certain he was not mistaken, calling to her. Her pale, empty features stared back at him. She was kneeling in the snow, docile and unbothered.
Tears of relief blinded him as he brought her back to her feet, holding on to her with both hands, then deciding that wasn’t enough, wrapping her with his arms. He wiped the tears away with his sleeve and looked for the phantom that had caused him to find her. It was there, just ahead of him, but smaller and moving away. Bek peered after it, sensing something familiar about it, something recognizable. It faded and then reappeared, prowling just at the limits of his vision, expectant and purposeful.
Then suddenly it turned and beckoned him.
Almost without realizing what he was doing, he obeyed. Both hands clasped tight on Grianne’s slender wrist, he started ahead once more into the haze.
“Which is how I found you,” he finished, passing the aleskin back to Quentin, the pungent liquid warming his throat and stomach as he swallowed. “I don’t know how long I was out there, but my guide stayed just ahead of me the whole way, obviously leading me toward something, keeping me on track. I didn’t know where it was taking me, but after a while it didn’t matter. I knew who it was.”
“Truls Rohk,” his cousin said.
“That’s what I thought at the time, but now I’m not so sure. Truls is gone. He’s become a part of the shape-shifter community, and no longer has a separate identity. Maybe I just want to believe it was him.” Bek shook his head. “I don’t guess it matters.”
They were huddled in a shallow cave hollowed into the side of the mountain. Bek had started a fire, and it burned with little heat, but a steady, insistent flame that illuminated their faces. Grianne sat to one side, staring off into the night, unseeing. Every so often, Quentin looked at her, not quite sure yet what to make of having someone who had tried so hard to kill them sitting so close.
Bek watched Quentin take another deep swallow from the aleskin. The color was finally returning to Quentin’s frozen body. He had been nearly gone when he had stumbled upon Bek and Grianne. Bek had wasted no time wrapping him in his cloak and finding shelter for them all. The fire and ale had brought Quentin around, and they had spent the last hour exchanging stories about what had happened since the ambush in the ruins of Castledown. They didn’t rush it, taking their time, giving themselves a chance to adjust to the idea that the impossible had happened and they had found each other again.
“I never thought you were dead,” Bek told his cousin, breaking the momentary silence. “I never believed it was so.”
Quentin grinned, a hint of that familiar, cocky smile that marked him so distinctively. “Me either, about you. I knew when Tamis told me she had left you outside the ruins, that you would be all right. But this business about you having magic, that’s another matter. I still can’t quite believe it. You’re sure you’re an Ohmsford?”
“As sure as I can be after hearing everything Walker had to say.” Bek leaned back on his elbows and sighed. “I suppose I really didn’t believe it myself in the beginning. But after that first confrontation with Grianne, feeling the magic come alive inside me and break out like it did, I didn’t have the same doubts anymore.”
“So she’s your sister.”
Bek nodded. “She is, Quentin.”
The Highlander shook his head slowly. “Well, there’s something we’d have never guessed when we started out on this journey. But what are you supposed to do with her now that you know?”
“Take her home,” Bek answered. “Keep her safe.” He looked at Grianne a moment. “She’s important, Quentin. Beyond the fact that she’s my sister. I don’t know how, but she is. Walker was insistent on it, when he was dying and afterwards when he returned as a shade. He knows something about her that he isn’t telling me.”
“Big surprise.”
Bek smiled. “I guess that Walker keeping secrets isn’t unusual, is it? Maybe there aren’t any surprises left for you and me. No real ones, I mean.”
Quentin exhaled a white plume that lofted into the chilly night. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I’d thought that earlier, and then I found you again. You never know.” He paused. “What do you think the chances are that anyone else is alive? Are they all dead, like Walker and Patrinell?”
Bek didn’t say anything for a moment. All of the Elves were gone, save Kian and perhaps Ahren Elessedil. Ryer Ord Star might still be alive. The Wing Riders might be out there somewhere. And, of course, there were the Rovers.
“We saw the Jerle Shannara fly into these mountains,” Bek ventured. “Maybe the Rovers are still searching for us.”
Quentin gave him a hard look. “Maybe. But if you were Redden Alt Mer in this situation, what would you do—come looking for us or fly straight back to where you came from?”
Bek thought about it a moment. “I don’t think Rue Meridian would leave us. I think she’d make her brother look.”
His cousin snorted. “For how long? Chased by those Mwellret vessels? Outnumbered twenty to one?” He shook his head. “We’d better be realistic about it. They don’t have any reason to think we’re still alive. They were prisoners themselves,—they won’t want to chance being made prisoners again. They would be fools not to run for it. I wouldn’t blame them. I would do the same thing.”
“They’ll look for us,” Bek insisted.
Quentin laughed. “I know better than to try to change your mind, cousin Bek. Funny, though. I’m supposed to be the optimist.”
“Things change.”
“Hard to argue with that.” The Highlander looked off into the falling snow and gestured vaguely. “I was supposed to look out for you, remember? I didn’t do much of a job of it. I let us get separated, and then I ran the other way. I didn’t even think of looking for you until it was too late. I want you to know how sorry I am that I didn’t do a better job of keeping my word.”
“What are you talking about?” Bek snapped, an edge to his voice. “What more were you supposed to do than what you did? You stayed alive, and that was difficult enough. Besides, I was supposed to look out for you, as well. Wasn’t that the bargain?”
They stared at each other in challenge for a moment. Then the tension drained away, and in the way of friends who have shared a lifetime of experiences and come to know each other better than anyone else ever could, they began to grin.
Bek laughed. “Coward.”
“Weakling,” Quentin shot back.
Bek extended his hand. “We’ll do better next time.”
Quentin took it. “Much better.”
The wind shifted momentarily, blowing snow flurries into their faces. They ducked their heads as it whipped about them, and the fire guttered beneath its rush. Then everything went still again, and they looked out into the darkness, feeling their efforts at getting through the day catching up to them, seeping away their wakefulness, nudging them toward sleep.
“I want to go home,” Quentin said softly. He looked over at Bek with a pale, worn sadness in his eyes. “I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that, did you?”
Bek shrugged.
“I’m worn out. I’ve seen too much. I’ve watched Tamis and Patrinell die right in front of me. Some of the other Elves, as well. I’ve fought so hard to stay alive that I can’t remember when anything else mattered. I’m sick of it. I don’t even want to feel the magic of the sword anymore. I was so hungry for it. The feel of it, like a fire rushing through me, burning everything away, feeding me.”
“I know,” Bek said.
Quentin looked at him. “I guess you do. It’s too much after a time. And not enough.” He looked around. “I thought this would be our great adventure, our rite of passage into manhood, a story we would remember all our lives, that we would tell to our friends and family. Now I don’t ever want to talk about it again. I want to forget it. I want to go back to the way things were. I want to go home and stay there.”
“Me, too,” Bek agreed.
Quentin nodded, looking off again, not saying anything. “I don’t know how to make that happen,” he continued after a moment. “I’m afraid now that maybe it can’t.”
“It can,” Bek said. “I don’t know how, but it can. I’ve been thinking about getting back home, about how to take Grianne there, like Walker said I should. It seems impossible, crazy. Walker’s gone, so he can’t help. Truls Rohk won’t be going any farther. Half of everyone I came here with is dead and the other half is scattered. Until I found you, I was all alone. What chance do I have? But you know what? I just tell myself I’ll find a way. I don’t know what that way is, but I’ll find it. I’ll walk all the way home if I have to. Right over the Blue Divide. Or fly. Or swim. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way.
He looked at Quentin and smiled. “We got this far. We’ll get the rest of the way, too.”
They were brave words, but they sounded right, necessary, talismans against fear and doubt. Bek and Quentin were still fighting for small assurances, for bits of hope, for tiny threads of courage. The words gave them some of each. Neither wanted to challenge them just now. Look too closely at the battlements, and the cracks showed. That wasn’t what they needed. They left the words where they were, undisturbed, an echo in their thoughts, a promise of what they believed might still be.
Taking comfort in the shelter of each other, because in the end it was the best sort of comfort they could hope to find, they went off to sleep.
The dawn was cloudy and gray,—a promise of new snow reflected in the colorless canvas of the slowly brightening sky. The temperature had dropped to freezing, and the air was brittle with cold. They ate breakfast with few words exchanged, mustering their resolve. The confidence that had bolstered them the night before had dissipated like fog in sunlight. All about them, the mountains stretched away in an endless alternation of peaks and valleys. Save for the intensity of the light from the sunrise east, the horizons all looked the same.
“Might as well get going,” Quentin muttered, standing up and slinging his sword over his shoulder.
Bek rose, as well, and did the same with the Sword of Shannara. He barely gave thought to the talisman anymore, it seemed to have served its purpose on this journey and had become something of a burden. He glanced self-consciously at Grianne, realizing he could say the same about her and most certainly had thought as much more than once.
Thinking to cover as much ground as possible before the next storm and not wanting to be caught out in the open again, they set a brisk pace. The frozen ground crunched like old bones beneath their boots, grasses and earth cratering with indentations of their prints. If their pursuers were still tracking them, they would have no trouble doing so. Bek considered the possibility and brushed it aside. The shape-shifters had promised him that his pursuers would not be allowed to follow. There was no reason to think that their protection extended this far, but he was weary and heartsick and needed to believe this one thing if he was to have any peace of mind. So he let himself.
They trudged on toward midday, following trails that wound through the valleys ahead. The horizons never changed. In the vast mountain coldness, the land seemed empty of life. Once, they saw a bird flying far away. Once, further down in the shadowed woods, they heard some creature cry. Otherwise, there was only silence, deep and pervasive and unbroken.
Time dragged, a dying candle, and Bek’s spirits lagged. He found himself wondering if there was any sense to what they were doing, if there was a purpose for going on. He understood that it gave them a goal and that movement kept them alive. But the vastness of the range and the terrible solitude it visited on them gave rise to a growing certainty that they were simply prolonging the inevitable. They were never going to walk out of the mountains. They were never going to be able to find anyone else from the doomed company of the Jerle Shannara. They were trapped in a nightmare world that would deceive them, break them down, and in the end destroy them.
He was marking out the time that remained to him when a dark speck appeared in the sky to the north, faint and distant. It grew quickly larger, moving swiftly toward them, taking on a familiar look. Recognition flooded through Bek, and the sense of hopelessness that had possessed him only moments earlier fell away like old ashes in a new fire.
By the time Hunter Predd swung Obsidian down to a flat just ahead of them, one whipcord thin arm raised in greeting, Bek was ready to believe that in spite of what he had told Quentin earlier, there might still be a few surprises left.
For nearly a week after taking control of Black Moclips, cruising the skies like birds of prey, the Morgawr and his Mwellrets scoured the coastal and mountain regions of Parkasia in search of the Jerle Shannara and the remnants of her company. Their efforts were hampered by the weather, which proved exceedingly arbitrary, changing without warning from sun to rain, either of which was as likely to see high winds and downdrafts as calm air. During the worst of the storms, they were forced to land and anchor for almost twenty-four hours, sheltered in a cove off the coast where bluffs and woods offered protection from an onslaught of sleet and hail that otherwise would have leveled them.
During most of this time, Ahren Elessedil languished below-decks in a storeroom that had been converted to a cell. It was the same room that had housed Bek Ohmsford when he was a prisoner of the Ilse Witch, although Ahren did not know this. The Elven Prince was kept alone and apart from everyone save the rets who brought him food or took him on deck for brief periods of exercise. The Morgawr had moved his personal contingent of Mwellrets onto Black Moclips, preferring its sleeker design and greater maneuverability to that of the larger, more cumbersome warship he had occupied previously. Reduced to mindless shells, sad remnants of better times, the doomed Aden Kett and his men were left to crew her. Cree Bega was given command. The Morgawr occupied the Commander’s quarters, and while they sailed in search of the Jerle Shannara, the Elven Prince barely saw him.
He saw even less of Ryer Ord Star. Her absence fueled his already deep mistrust of her, and he found himself reexamining his feelings. He could not decide whether she had forsaken her promise to him and truly allied herself with the Morgawr or if she was playing a game he did not understand. He wanted to believe it was the latter, but try as he might he could not come to terms with her seeming betrayal of him when he was captured or her clear distancing from him since. She had told him in the catacombs of Castledown that she was no longer in thrall to the Ilse Witch, yet she seemed to have become very much the creature of the Morgawr. She had led the warlock on his search for the Jerle Shannara. She had directed him to Black Moclips. She had stood by while that Federation crew had been systematically reduced to members of the walking dead. She had watched it all as if in a trance, showing nothing of her feelings, as removed from the horror and degradation as if she were absent altogether.
Not once had she tried to make contact with Ahren after they had been brought aboard Black Moclips. Nothing had come of the words she’d whispered days earlier. Trust me. But why should he? What had she done, even once, to earn that trust? On reflection, the words now seemed to have been whispered to gain his confidence, to assure his compliance at a time when he still might have escaped. Now there was no chance. Aboard an airship, hundreds of feet off the ground, there was nowhere for him to go.
Not that he had any chance of getting beyond the door of his cell in the first place, he reminded himself bitterly, even if they were on the ground. Without the missing Elfstones or weapons of any sort to aid him, he had no hope of overpowering his captors.
Locked away as he was, he had not been witness to most of what had happened during the past few days. But he could tell from the slow and steady pace of the airship that they were still searching. Mostly, he could tell from the unchanging routine of his captors that they had found nothing.
He thought ceaselessly about escape. He imagined it over and over, thinking through the ways in which it could happen, the events that would precipitate it, the ways in which he would react, and the results that would follow. He pictured himself going through the motions—slipping through the door and down the passageway beyond, climbing the stairs to the decks above, crouching low against the mast, and waiting for a chance to gain the railing and go over the side. But in the end the mechanics always failed him and his chances never materialized.
One day, shortly after a storm had grounded them for almost twenty-four hours, he was on deck with Cree Bega when he caught sight of Ryer Ord Star standing at the bow. He was surprised to see her again, and for a moment he forgot himself and stared at her with undisguised longing and hope.
Cree Bega saw that look and recognized it. Touching Ahren lightly on his shoulder, he said, “Sspeakss to her, little Elvess. Tellss her of your feelingss.”
The words were an open invitation for him to do something foolish. The Mwellret was suspicious of the seer, as much so as Ahren was. Cree Bega had never been persuaded that her alliance with the Morgawr was genuine. He showed it in his attitude toward her, ignoring her for the most part, making no effort to consult her, even while the Morgawr did so. He was waiting, Ahren judged, for her to reveal her treachery.
“Nothing to ssay, Prince of Elvess?” Cree Bega mocked, his face bent close, the rank smell of him strong in Ahren’s nostrils. “Wassn’t sshe your friend? Issn’t sshe sstill?”
Ahren understood the nature of the questions. He hated himself for his uncertainty, but he stayed silent, bearing the weight of the Mwellret’s taunts and his own doubts. Anything he did would reveal truths that would hurt either Ryer or himself. If she responded to him, it would suggest a hidden alliance. If she did not, he would be made even more painfully aware of how things between them had changed. He was too vulnerable for anything so raw just now. It would be smarter to wait.
He turned away. “You talk to her,” he muttered.
Another opportunity arose a day later, when he was summoned to the Morgawr’s quarters and, on entering, found the seer standing beside him. She had that distant look again, her face empty of expression, as if she was somewhere else entirely in spirit and only her body was present. The Morgawr asked him again about the members of the company of the Jerle Shannara—how many had set out, whom they were, where he had last seen them, what their relationship had been to the Druid. He asked again for a head count—how many were still alive. He had asked the questions before, and Ahren gave him the same answers. It was not hard to do so. Dissembling was not necessary. For the most part, he knew less than the Morgawr. Even about Bek, the Morgawr seemed to know as much as Ahren did. He had read the traces of magic left floating on the air in the catacombs of Castledown and knew that Bek had come and gone. He knew that Ahren’s friend was still out there, running from the warlock, hiding his sister.
What little the Morgawr hadn’t divined, Ryer Ord Star had told him. She had told him everything.
At times while the Morgawr interrogated Ahren, she seemed to come back from wherever she had gone. Her eyes would shift focus, and her hands twitched at her sides. She would become aware of her surroundings, but only momentarily and then she was gone again. The Morgawr did not seem bothered by this, although it caused Ahren no small amount of discomfort. Why wasn’t the warlock irritated by her inattention to what he was saying? Why didn’t he suspect that she was deliberately isolating herself?
It took Ahren a long time to realize what was really happening. She wasn’t distancing herself at all. She was very much a part of the conversation, but in a way the Elven Prince hadn’t recognized. She was hearing his words and using them to feed her talent. She was turning those words into images of his friends, trying to project visions of them. She was using him in an attempt to track them down.
He was so stunned by the revelation that for a moment he just stopped talking in mid-sentence and stared at her. The silence distracted her where his words had not. For a moment, she came back from where her visions had taken her, and she stared back at him.
“Don’t do this,” he told her softly, unable to conceal his disappointment.
She did not reply, but he could read the anguish in her eyes. The Morgawr immediately ordered him taken back to his cell, an angry and impatient dismissal. He saw his real use then—not as a hostage for negotiation or as a puppet King. Those were uses that could wait. The warlock’s needs were more immediate. Ahren would serve him better as a catalyst for Ryer Ord Star’s visions, as a trigger that would allow her to help find the Ilse Witch and the others who eluded him. Unsuspecting, naive, the boy would help without even realizing he was doing so.
Except he had realized.
Ahren was locked away once more, closed off in the storeroom and left to celebrate in fierce solitude his small victory. He had foiled the Morgawr’s attempt to use him. He sat with his back against the wall of the airship and smiled into his prison.
Yet his elation faded quickly. His victory was a hollow one. Reality surfaced and crowded out wishful thinking. He was still a prisoner with no hope. His friends were still scattered or dead. He was still stranded in a dangerous, faraway land.
Worst of all, Ryer Ord Star had revealed herself to be his enemy.
In the Commander’s quarters, the Morgawr paced with the restless intensity of a caged animal. Ryer Ord Star felt the tension radiating from him in dark waves of displeasure. It was unusual for him to display such emotion openly, but his patience with the situation was growing dangerously thin.
“He knows what we are trying to do. Clever boy.”
She did not respond. Her thoughts were of Ahren’s words and the way he had looked at her. She still heard the anguish in his voice and saw the disappointment in his eyes. Understandably confused and misguided, he had judged her wrongly, and she could do nothing to explain herself. If the situation had been bad before, it was spiraling out of control now.
The Morgawr stopped in front of the door, his back to her. “He has become useless to me.”
She stiffened, her mind racing. “I don’t need his cooperation.”
“He will lie. He will dissemble. He will throw in enough waste that it will color anything good. I can’t trust him anymore.” He turned around slowly. “Nor am I sure about you, little seer.”
She met his gaze and held it, letting him look into her eyes. If he believed she hid something, the game was over and he would kill her now.
“I’ve given you nothing but the truth,” she said.
His dark, reptilian face showed nothing of what he was thinking, but his eyes were dangerous. “Then tell me what you have learned just now.”
She knew he was testing her, offering her a chance to demonstrate that she was still useful. Ahren had been right about the game they were playing. She was feeding off his words and emotions in response to the Morgawr’s questions in an effort to trigger a vision that would reveal something about the missing members of the company of the Jerle Shannara. He had been wrong about her intentions, but there was no way she could tell him that. The Morgawr must believe she could help him find the Ilse Witch. He must not begin to doubt that she was his willing ally in his search, or all of her plans to help Walker would fall apart.
She took a small step toward the warlock, a conscious act of defiance, a gesture that nearly took her breath away with the effort it cost her. “I saw the Ilse Witch and her brother surrounded by mountains. They were not alone. There were others with them, but their faces were hidden in shadow. They were walking. I did not see it, but I sensed an airship somewhere close. There were cliffs filled with Shrike nests. One of those cliffs looked like a spear with its tip broken off, sharp edged and thrust skyward. There was the smell of the ocean and the sound of waves breaking on the shore.”
She stopped talking and waited, her eyes locked on his. She was telling him of a vision Ahren’s words had triggered, but twisting the details just enough to keep him from finding what he sought.
She held her breath. If he could read the deception in her eyes and find in its shadings the truth of things, she was dead.
He studied her for a long time without moving or speaking, a stone face wrapped in cloak and shadow.
“They are on the coast?” he asked finally, his voice empty of expression.
She nodded. “The vision suggests so. But the vision is not always what I think it is.”
His smile chilled her. “Things seldom are, little seer.”
“What matters is that Ahren Elessedil’s words generated these images,” she insisted. “Without them, I would have nothing.”
“In which case, I would have no further need of either of you, would I?” he asked. One hand lifted and gestured toward her almost languidly. “Or need of either of you if he can no longer be trusted to speak the truth, isn’t that so?”
The echo of his words hung in the air, an indictment she knew she must refute. “I do not need him to speak the truth in order to interpret my visions,” she said.
It was a lie, but it was all she had. She spoke it with conviction and held the warlock’s dark gaze even when she could feel the harm he intended her penetrating through to her soul.
After a long moment, the Morgawr shrugged. “Then we must let him live a little longer. We must give him another chance.”
He said it convincingly, but she could tell he was lying. He had made up his mind about Ahren as surely as Ahren had made up his mind about her. The Morgawr no longer believed in either of them, she suspected, but particularly in the Elven Prince. He might try using Ahren once more, but then he would surely get rid of him. He had neither time nor patience for recalcitrant prisoners. What he demanded of this land, of its secrets and magic, lay elsewhere. His disenchantment with Ahren would grow, and eventually it would devour them both.
Dismissed from his presence without the need for words, she left him and went back on deck. She climbed the stairs at the end of the companionway and walked forward to the bow. With her hands grasping the railing to steady herself, she stared at the horizon, at the vast sweep of mountains and forests, at banks of broken clouds and bands of sunlight. The day was sliding toward nightfall, the light beginning to fade west, the dark to rise east.
She closed her eyes when her picture of the world was clear in her mind, and she let her thoughts drift. She must do something to save the Elven Prince. She had not believed it would be necessary to act so soon, but it now seemed unavoidable. That she was committed to Walker’s plan for the Morgawr did not require committing Ahren, as well. His destiny lay elsewhere, beyond this country and its treacheries, home in the Four Lands, where his blood heritage would serve a different purpose. She had caught a glimmer of it in the visions she had shared with Walker. She knew it from what the Druid had said as he lay dying. She could feel it in her heart.
Just as she could feel with unmistakable certainty the fate that awaited her.
She breathed slowly and deeply to calm herself, to muster acceptance of what she knew she must do. Walker needed her to mislead the Morgawr, to slow him in his hunt, to buy time for Grianne Ohmsford. It was not something the Druid had asked lightly,—it was something he had asked out of desperate need and a faith in her abilities. She felt small and frail in the face of such expectations, a child in a girl’s body, her womanhood yet so far away that she could not imagine it. Her seer’s mind did not allow for growing up in the ways of other women,—it was her mind that was old. Yet she was capable and determined. She was the Druid’s right hand, and he was always with her, lending his strength.
She held that knowledge to her like a talisman as she made her plans.
When nightfall descended, she acted on them.
She waited until all of the Mwellrets were sleeping, save the watch and the helmsman. Black Moclips sailed through the night skies at a slow, languorous pace, tracking the edge of the coastline north and east as Ryer Ord Star slipped from her makeshift bed in the lee of the aft decking and made her way forward. Aden Kett and his crew stood at their stations, dead eyes staring. She glanced at them as she passed, but her gaze did not linger. It was dangerous to look too closely at your own fate.
The airship rocked gently in the cradle of night winds blowing out of the west. The chill brought by the storms had not dissipated, and her breath clouded faintly. Below where they flew, where the tips of the mountain peaks brushed the clouds, snow blanketed the barren slopes. The warmth that had greeted them on their arrival into this land was gone, chased inland by some aberration linked to the demise of Antrax. That science had found a way to control the weather seemed incredible to her, but she knew that in the age before the Great Wars there had been many marvelous achievements that had since disappeared from the world. Yet magic had replaced science in the Four Lands. It made her wonder sometimes if the demise of science was for the better or worse. It made her wonder if the place of seers in the world had any real value.
She reached the open hatchway leading down into the storerooms and descended in shadowy silence, listening for the sounds of the guard who would be on watch below. Walker would not approve of what she was doing. He would have tried to stop her if he had been able. He would have counseled her to remain safe and concentrate on the task he had given her. But Walker saw things through the eyes of a man seeking to achieve in death what he had failed to achieve in life. He was a shade, and his reach beyond the veil was limited. He might know of the Ilse Witch and her role in the destiny of the Four Lands, of the reasons she must escape the Morgawr, and of the path she must take to come back from the place to which her troubled mind had sent her. But Ryer Ord Star only knew that time was slipping away.
The passageway belowdecks was shadowed, but she made her way easily through its gloom. She heard snores ahead, and she knew the Mwellret watch was sleeping. The potion she had slipped into his evening ale ration earlier had drugged him as thoroughly as anything this side of death. It had not been all that hard to accomplish. The danger lay in another of the rets discovering the guard to be asleep before she could reach Ahren.
At the door to his storeroom jail, she took possession of the keys from the sleeping ret and released the lock, all the while listening for the sounds of those who would put an end to her undertaking. She said nothing as she opened the door and slipped inside, a wraithlike presence. Ahren rose to face her, hesitating as he realized who it was, not certain what to make of her appearance. He kept silent, though—harking to the finger she put to her lips and her furtive movements as she came over to release him from his chains. Even in the dim cabin light, she could see the uncertainty and suspicion in his eyes, but there could be no mistaking her actions. Without attempting to intervene, he let her free him and followed her without argument when she was ready to leave, stepping over the sleeping guard where he was sprawled across the passageway, creeping behind her as she moved back toward the stairs leading up. Black Moclips rocked slowly, a cradle for sleeping men and a drowsy watch. The only sounds were those of the ship, the small, familiar stretchings and tightenings of seams and caulk.
They went up the stairs and emerged behind the helmsman, flattening themselves against the decking, scooting along the shadow of the aft rise and across to the rail. Wordlessly, she slipped over the side and crossed down the narrow gangway to the starboard pontoon, sliding swiftly to the furthest aft fighting port, a six-foot-deep compartment stacked with pieces of sail and sections of cross beam.
Cloaked in deep shadows, she moved to where the pontoon curved upward to form the aft starboard battering ram. She felt along the inside of the structure and released a wooden latch hidden in the surface of the hull. Instantly, a panel dropped down on concealed hinges. She reached inside and drew out a framework of flexible poles to which sections of lightweight canvas had been attached.
She passed the framework and canvas forward to Ahren, where he crouched at the front of the fighting port, then moved up beside him.
“This is called a single wing,” she whispered, her head bent close to his, her long silvery hair brushing the side of his face. “It is a sort of kite, built to fly one man off a failing airship. Redden Alt Mer had it hidden in the hull for emergencies.” She reached up impulsively and touched his cheek.
“You never intended to help him, did you?” the Elven Prince whispered back, relief and happiness reflected in his voice.
“I had to save your life and mine, as well. That meant giving your identity away. He would have killed you otherwise.” She took a deep breath. “He intends to kill you now. He thinks you’re of no further use. I can’t protect you anymore. You have to get off the ship tonight.”
He shook his head at once, gripping her arm. “Not without you. I won’t go without you.”
He said it with such vehemence, with such desperate insistence, that it made her want to cry. He had doubted her and was trying to make up for it in the only way he knew. If it was called for, he would give up his life for hers.
“It isn’t time for me to go yet,” she said. “I made a promise to Walker to lead the Morgawr astray in his hunt. He thinks I intend to help, but I give him only just enough to keep him believing so. I’ll come later.”
She saw the uncertainty in his eyes and gestured sharply toward the single wing. “Quit arguing with me! Take this and go. Now! Unfold it, tie the harness in place, and lean out from the side with the wings extended. Use the bar and straps at the ends to steer. It isn’t hard. Here, I’ll help.”
He shook his head, his eyes wondering. “How did you know about this?”
“Walker told me.” She began undoing the straps that secured the framework, shaking it loose. “He learned about it from Big Red. The rets don’t know of it. There, it’s ready. Climb up on the edge of the pontoon and strap yourself in!”
He did as she instructed, still clearly dazed by what was happening, not yet able to think it through completely enough to see its flaws. She just had to get him off the ship and into the air, and then it would be too late. Things would be decided, insofar as she was able to make it so. That was as much as she could manage.
“You should come now,” he argued, still trying to find a way to take her with him.
She shook her head. “No. Later. Fly inland from the coast when you get further north. Look for a rain forest in the heart of the mountains. That’s where the others are, on a cliff overlooking it. My visions showed them to me.”
He shrugged into the shoulder harness, and she cinched it tight across his back. She opened the wing frame so that it would catch the wind and showed him the steering bar and control straps. She glanced over her shoulder every few seconds toward the deck above, but the Mwellrets were not yet looking her way.
“Ryer,” he began, turning toward her once more.
“Here,” she said, reaching into her thin robes and extracting a pouch. She shoved it into his tunic, deep down inside so that it was snugged away. “The Elfstones,” she whispered.
He stared at her in disbelief. “But how could you have—“
“Go!” she hissed, shoving him off the side of the pontoon and into space.
She watched the wind catch the canvas and draw the framework taut. She watched the single wing soar out into the darkness. She caught a quick glimpse of the Elven Prince’s wondering face, saw the man he had become eclipse the boy she had begun her journey with, and then he was gone.
“Good-bye, Ahren Elessedil,” she whispered into the night.
The words floated on the air feather-light and fading even as she turned away, alone now for good.
A hand shook his shoulder gently, and Bek Ohmsford stirred awake. “If you sleep any longer, people will think you’re dead,” a familiar voice said.
He opened his eyes and blinked against the sunlight pouring out of the midday sky. Rue Meridian moved into the light, blocking it away, and stared down at him, a hint of irony in the faint twist of her pursed lips. Just seeing her warmed him in a way the sun never could and made him smile in turn.
“I feel like I’m dead,” he said. He lay stretched out on the deck of the Jerle Shannara, cocooned in blankets. He took in the railings of the airship and the mast jutting skyward overhead as he gathered his thoughts. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Since this time yesterday. How do you feel?”
His memories of the past week flooded back as he considered the question. His flight out of Castledown with Grianne and Truls Rohk. Their struggle to escape the pursuit of the Morgawr and his creatures. The battle with the caull. Truls, dying. Their encounter with the shape-shifters and the lifesaving transformation of his friend. Climbing with Grianne into the mountains, trusting that they would somehow find their way. Finding Quentin after so long, a miracle made possible because of a promise made to a dead man.
And then, when it seemed the mountains would swallow them whole, another miracle, as Hunter Predd, searching for the Jerle Shannara’s lost children, plucked them off the precipice and carried them away.
“I feel better than I did when I was brought here,” Bek said. He took a deep, satisfying breath. “I feel better than I have in a long time.” He took a good look at her, noting the raw marks on her face and the splint on her left arm. “What happened to you? Been wrestling with moor cats again?”
She cocked her head. “Maybe.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Cuts and bruises. A broken arm and a few broken ribs. Nothing that won’t heal.” She punched him lightly. “I could have used your help.”
“I could have used yours.”
“Missed me, did you?”
She tossed the question out casually, as if his answer didn’t mean anything. But he knew it did. For just an instant he was convinced it meant everything, that she wanted him to tell her she was important to him in a way that went beyond friendship. It was an improbable and foolish notion, but he couldn’t shake it. Anyway, he liked the idea and didn’t question it.
“Okay, I missed you,” he said.
“Good.” She bent down suddenly and kissed his lips. It was just a quick brush followed by a touching of his cheek with, her fingers, and then she lifted away again. “I missed you, too. Know why?”
He stared at her. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. I only just figured it out for myself. Maybe with enough time, you will, too. You’re pretty good at figuring things out, even for a boy.” She gave him an ironic, mocking smile, but it wasn’t meant to hurt and it didn’t. “I hear you can do magic. I hear you’re not who you thought you were. Life is full of surprises.”
“Do you want me to explain?”
“If you want to.”
“I do. But first I want you to tell me how you got all beat up. I want to hear what happened.”
“This,” she said sardonically, and she gestured at the airship. “This and a lot of other catastrophes.”
He lifted himself on one elbow and looked around. The Jerle Shannara’s decks stretched away in a jumble of makeshift patches and unfinished repairs. A new mast had been cut and shaped and set in place, he could tell from the new wood and fresh metal banding. Railings had been spliced in and damaged planks in the hull and decks replaced. Radian draws hung limply from cross beams and sails lay half mended. No one was in sight.
“They’ve deserted us,” she advised, as if reading his thoughts.
He could hear voices nearby, faint and indistinguishable. “How long have you been here?”
“Almost a week.”
He blinked in disbelief. “You can’t fly?”
“Can’t get off the ground at all.”
“So we’re trapped. How many of us are left?”
She shrugged. “A handful. Big Red, Black Beard, the Highlander, you, and me. Three of the crew. The two Wing Riders. Panax and an Elven Hunter. The Wing Riders found them yesterday, not too far from here, with a tribe of natives called Rindge. They’re camped at the top of the bluff.”
“Ahren?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nor the seer. Nor anyone else who went ashore. They’re all dead or lost.” She looked away. “The Wing Riders are still searching, but so are those airships with their rets and walking dead. It’s dangerous to fly anywhere in these mountains now. Not that we could, even if we wanted to.”
He looked at the airship, then back at her. “Where’s Grianne? Is she all right?”
The smile faded from Rue Meridian’s face. “Grianne? Oh, yes, your missing sister. She’s down below, in Big Red’s cabin, staring at nothing. She’s good at that.”
He held her gaze. “I know that—“
“You don’t know anything,” she interrupted, her voice oddly breezy. “Not one thing.” She pushed back loose strands of her long red hair, and he could see the dangerous look in her green eyes. “I never thought I would find myself in a position where I would have to keep that creature alive, let alone look after her. I would have put a knife to her throat and been done with it, but you were raving so loudly about keeping her safe that I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“I appreciate what you’ve done.”
Her lips tightened. “Just tell me you have a good reason for all this. Just tell me that.”
“I have a reason,” he said. “I don’t know yet how good it is.”
Bek told her everything then, all that had happened since he had left the Jerle Shannara weeks earlier and gone inland with Walker and the shore party. Some she already knew, because Quentin had told her. Some she had suspected. She had guessed at his imprisonment aboard Black Moclips and subsequent escape, but she had not realized the true reason for either. She was skeptical and angry with him, refusing at first to listen to his reasons for saving his sister, shouting at him that it didn’t matter, that saving her was wrong, that she was responsible for all the deaths suffered by the company, especially Hawk’s.
Rue told Bek her story then, relating the details of her imprisonment along with the other Rovers by the witch and her followers, and of her escape and battle aboard the Jerle Shannara, where Hawk had given his life to save hers. She told him of her struggle to regain control of the ship and the freeing of her brother. She told him of her search for Walker and the missing company, which led in turn to her regaining possession of Black Moclips and fleeing inland toward the safety of the mountains as the fleet of enemy airships pursued her. She told her story in straightforward fashion, making no effort to embellish her part in things, diminishing it, if anything.
He listened patiently, trying with small gestures to encourage and support, but she was having none of it. She hated Grianne to such an extent that she could find no forgiveness in her heart. That she had kept his sister alive at all spoke volumes about her affection for him. Losing Furl Hawken had been a terrible blow, and she held Grianne directly responsible. Rue Meridian refused to let Bek sit by passively, turning her anger and disappointment back on him, insisting that he respond to it. He did so as best he could, even though he was not comfortable doing so. So much had happened to both of them in such a short time that there was no coming to grips with all of it, no making sense of it in a way that would afford either of them any measure of peace. Both had suffered too many losses and were seeking comfort that required different responses from what each was willing to provide. Where the Ilse Witch was concerned, there could be no agreement.
Finally, Bek put up his hands. “I can’t argue this anymore, not right now. It hurts too much to argue with you.”
She snorted derisively. “It hurts you, maybe. Not me. I don’t bruise so easily. Anyway, you owe me a little consideration. You owe me a chance to tell you what I think about your sister! You owe it to me to share some of what I feel!”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
She reached down suddenly and hauled him all the way out of the blankets and shook him hard. “No, you’re not! I don’t want you to just sit there! I don’t want you to just listen! I want you to do something! Don’t you know that?”
Her red hair had shaken loose of its headband and strands of it were wrapped about her face like tiny threads of blood. “Don’t you know anything?”
Her eyes had gone wild and reckless, and she seemed on the verge of doing something desperate. She stopped shaking him, instead gripping his shoulders so tightly he could feel her nails through his clothing. She was trying to speak, to say something more, but couldn’t seem to make herself do so.
“I’m sorry about Hawk,” he whispered. “I’m sorry it was Grianne. But she didn’t know. She doesn’t know anything. She’s like a child, locked away in her mind, frightened of coming out again. Don’t you see, Rue? She had to face up to what she is all at once. That’s what the magic of the Sword of Shannara does to you. She had to accept that she was this terrible creature, this monster, and she didn’t even know it. Her whole life has been filled with lies and deceits and treacheries. I don’t know—she may never be made whole.”
Rue Meridian stared at him as if he were someone she had never seen. There were tears in her eyes and a look of such anguish on her face that he was stunned.
“I’m tired, Bek,” she whispered back. “I haven’t even thought about it until now. I haven’t had time for that. I haven’t taken time.” She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Look at me.”
He did so, having never looked away, in truth, but giving her what she needed, trying to find a way to help her recover. He said, “I just want you to try to . . .”
“Put your arms around me, Bek,” she said.
He did so without hesitation, holding her against him, feeling her body press close. She began to cry, soundlessly, her shoulders shaking and her wet face pushing into the crook of his shoulder and neck. She cried for a long time, and he held her while she did, running his hand over her strong back in small circular motions, trying to give some measure of comfort and reassurance. It was so out of character for her to behave like this, so different from anything he had seen from her before, that it took him until she was finished to accept that it was really happening.
She brushed what remained of the tears from her face and composed herself with a small shrug. “I didn’t know I had that in me.” She looked at him. “Don’t tell anyone.”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t do that. You know I wouldn’t.”
“I know. But I had to say it.” She stared at him a moment, again with that sense of not knowing exactly who he was, of perhaps meeting him for the first time. “My brother and the others are down at the edge of the bluff, talking. We can join them when you’re ready.”
He climbed to his feet, reaching for his boots. “Talking about what?”
“About what it’s going to take to get us out of here.”
“What is it going to take?”
“A miracle,” she said.
Redden Alt Mer stood at the edge of the cliff face and stared down at the canopy of the Crake Rain Forest, very much the same way he had stared down at it for the previous five days. Nothing at all had changed during that time, save for the level of his frustration, which was rapidly becoming unmanageable. He had considered and reconsidered every option he could think of that would let him bypass the Graak and retrieve the diapson crystals they needed to get airborne again. But each option involved unacceptable risks and little chance of success, so he would toss it aside in despair, only to pick it up and reexamine it when he decided that every other alternative was even worse.
All the while, time was slipping away. They hadn’t been discovered by the airships of the Morgawr yet, but sooner or later they would be. One had passed close enough yesterday for them to identify its dark silhouette from the ground, and even though they hadn’t been spotted on that pass they likely would be on the next. If Hunter Predd and Po Kelles were right, there were only one or two this deep into the Aleuthra Ark; the bulk of the fleet was still searching for them out on the coast. When that effort failed to turn them up, the fleet would sail inland. If that happened and they were still grounded, they were finished.
Still, for the first time since the Jerle Shannara had crashed, he had reason to hope.
He glanced over at Quentin Leah. The Highlander was staring down into the Crake with a puzzled look on his lean, battle-damaged face. The look was a reflection of his inability to imagine what waited down there, having not as yet seen the Graak. No one had, except for himself. That was part of the problem, of course. He knew what they were up against, and although the others—Rovers and newcomers alike—might be willing to go down into the rain forest and face it, he was not. What had happened to Tian Cross and Rucker Bont was still fresh in his mind. He did not care to risk losing more lives. He did not want any more deaths on his conscience.
It was more than that, though. He could admit it to himself, if to no one else. He was afraid. It had been a long time—so long he could not remember the last occasion—since he had been frightened of anything. But he was frightened of the Graak. He felt it in his blood. He smelled it on his skin. It visited him in his dreams and brought him awake wide-eyed and shaking. He could not rid himself of it. Watching his men die, seeing them go down under the teeth and claws of that monster, feeling his own death so close to him that he could imagine his bones and blood spattered all over the valley floor, had unnerved him. Though he tried to tell himself his fear was only temporary and would give way to his experience and determination, he could not be sure.
He knew the only way to rid himself of this feeling was to go down into the Crake and face the Graak.
He was about to do that.
“I won’t ask you to go with me,” he said to Quentin Leah without looking at him.
“He won’t ask, but he’ll make it plain enough that he expects it,” Spanner Frew snorted. “And then he’ll find a way to make you end up thinking it was your idea!”
Alt Mer gave the shipwright a dark look, then smirked in spite of himself. Something about the other amused him even now—the perpetually dour look, the furrowed brow, the cantankerous attitude, something. Spanner Frew always saw the glass as half-empty, and he was ready and more than willing to share his worldview with anyone close enough to listen.
“Keep your opinions to yourself, Black Beard,” he said, brushing a fly from his face. “Others don’t find them so amusing. The Highlander is free to do as he chooses, as are all of us in this business.”
Quentin Leah was looking better this morning, less ghostly and wooden than the day before when he was brought in with Bek and the witch. Alt Mer was still getting used to the idea of having her around, but he wasn’t having as much trouble with it as his sister. Little Red hated the witch, and she was not likely to forgive her anytime soon for Hawk’s death. Maybe having Bek back would help, though. She’d been upset at the thought of losing him, more so than by anything for a long time. He didn’t understand the affection she felt for Bek, but was quick enough to recognize it for what it was.
He sighed. At any rate, there were more of them now than there had been three days ago, after Rucker and Tian had died. Down to only six, the Rovers had seen their numbers strengthened since. The Wing Riders had reappeared first, flying out of the clouds on a blustery day in which rain had soaked everything for nearly twelve hours. After that, Po Kelles had found Panax, the Elven Hunter Kian, and those odd-looking reddish people they called Rindge. It had taken the Rindge another two days of travel to reach them, but now they were camped several miles east in a forested flat high in the mountains, concealed from searchers while they waited to see what would happen down here.
Their leader, the man Panax called Obat, was the one who told them that the valley was called the Crake. He knew about the thing that lived there, as well. Obat hadn’t seen it, but when Panax brought him down to talk, and Alt Mer described it, he recognized it right away. He had gotten so excited that it looked as if he might bolt. Hand gestures and a flurry of words that even Panax had trouble translating testified to the extent of Obat’s fear. It was clear that whatever anyone else did, neither Obat nor any other Rindge was going near whatever was down there—“A Graak,” Obat told Panax over and over again. The rest of what he said had something to do with the nature of the beast, of its invincibility and domination of mountain valleys like the Crake, where it preyed on creatures who were foolish or unwary enough to venture too close.
Knowing what it was didn’t help solve the problem, because Obat had no idea what they could do about the thing. Graaks were to be avoided, never confronted. His information did not aid Alt Mer in any measurable way. If anything, it further convinced him of his helplessness. What was needed was magic of the sort possessed by Walker.
Or by Quentin Leah perhaps, in the form of his sword, a weapon that had been effective against the creepers of Antrax.
But he could not say anything more to persuade the Highlander to help. If anything, he should advise against it. But then he would have to go into the Crake alone, and he did not think he could do that. Though he was a brave man, his courage had eroded so completely that he felt sick to his stomach even getting close enough to look down into the rain forest. He had concealed his fear from everyone, but it was there nevertheless—pervasive, inescapable, and debilitating. He couldn’t confess it, especially to Little Red. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t understand or try to help. It was the look he knew he would see in her eyes. He was the brother on whom she had always relied and in whom she took such pride. He could not bear it if she found out that he had run away while his men were dying.
The Highlander looked over at him. “All right, I’ll go.”
Big Red exhaled slowly, keeping his face expressionless.
“I’ll go,” Quentin Leah continued, “but Bek stays. Whatever magic he’s got is new to him, and he doesn’t have the experience with it that I do. I won’t risk his life.”
Whatever magic the Highlander possessed was pretty new to him, too, from what the Druid had told Alt Mer. Still, he wasn’t about to argue the matter. He would take whatever help he was offered if it meant getting his hands on the diapson crystals. He didn’t know what they had accomplished by coming here in the first place, but he didn’t think it was much. Mostly, they had succeeded in getting a lot of their friends killed, which was hardly a reason for going anywhere. You didn’t have to come all the way here to get killed. His frustration with matters surfaced once more. He would do anything to get out of this place.
Before he could respond to the Highlander, Rue and Bek Ohmsford walked out of the trees from one side and Panax, having gone off earlier to try to find an easier way down the cliff face, appeared from the other.
“Morning, young Bek!” the Dwarf shouted cheerfully on spying him. A grin spread across his square, bluff face, and he gave a wave of one hand. “Back among the living, I see! You look much better today!”
Bek waved back. “You look about the same, but that’s not something sleep will cure!”
They came together at the cliff edge with Spanner Frew, Quentin, and Alt Mer and clasped hands. The Highlander’s face had gone dark as he realized what was about to happen and knew he couldn’t prevent it. Alt Mer gave a mental shrug. Some things couldn’t be helped. At least his sister seemed composed again. Almost radiant. He stared at her in surprise, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“I’ve scouted the cliff edge all the way out and back,” Panax informed them, oblivious to the Highlander’s look of warning. “There’s a trail further on, not much of one, but enough to give us a way down that doesn’t involve ropes. It opens onto a flat, so we’ll be able to see what’s waiting much better than Big Red could when he dropped into the trees.”
He glanced at Bek. “I forgot. You just woke up. You don’t know what’s happened.”
“About the Graak and the crystals?” Bek asked. “I know. I heard all about it on the walk down. When do we leave?”
“No!” Rue Meridian wheeled on him furiously. “You’re not going! You’re not healed yet!”
“She’s right,” Quentin Leah said, glaring at his cousin. “What’s wrong with you? I just spent weeks worrying that you were dead! I’m not going through that again! You stay up here. Big Red and I can handle this.”
“Wait a minute,” Panax growled. “What about me?”
“You’re not going either!” Quentin snapped. “Two of us is enough to risk.”
The Dwarf cocked one eyebrow. “Have you suddenly gotten so much better at staying alive than the rest of us?”
Bek glared at Quentin. “What makes you think you have the right to decide if I go or not? I decide what’s right for me, not you! Why would I agree to stay up here? What about our promise to look out for each other?”
“Well, I’m going if you’re going!” Rue Meridian spat out the words defiantly. “I’m the one who’s done the best job of looking out for everyone so far! You’re not leaving me behind! No one’s leaving me!” She shifted her angry gaze from one to the next. “Which one of you wants to try to stop me?”
They were face-to-face now, all of them, so angry they could barely make themselves stop shouting long enough to hear what anyone else was saying. Spanner Frew was quiet, his dark face lowered to hide the grin on his lips, his head shaking slowly from side to side. Alt Mer listened in dismay, wondering when to step in and if it would make any difference if he did.
Finally, he’d heard enough. “Stop shouting!” he roared.
They quit arguing and looked at him, faces red and sweating in the midday heat.
He shook his head slowly. “The Druid is dead, so I command this expedition. Both aboard ship and off. That means I decide who goes.”
His eyes settled momentarily on Bek—Bek, who looked taller and stronger than he remembered, more mature. He wasn’t a boy anymore, the Rover Captain realized in surprise. When had that happened? He glanced quickly at his sister, suddenly seeing things in a new light. She was staring at him as if she wanted to jump down his throat.
He looked away again quickly, out over the valley, out to where his fears were centered. He wondered again why he had come all this way. Money? Yes, that was a part of the agreement. But there had been a need to escape the Prekkendorran and the Federation, as well. There had been a need to see a new country, to journey to somewhere he hadn’t been. There had been a need for renewal.
“There’s not that many of us left,” he said, more quietly now. “Just a handful, and we have to look out for each other. Arguing is a waste of time and energy. Only one thing is important, and that’s getting back into the skies and flying out of here.”
He didn’t wait for their response. “Little Red, you stay here. If anything happens to me, you’re the only one who can fly the Jerle Shannara home again. Bek might try, but he doesn’t know how to navigate. Besides, you’re all beat up. Broken ribs, broken arm—if you have to defend yourself down there, you’ll be in trouble. I don’t want to have to worry about saving you. So you stay.”
She was furious. “You’re worried about saving me? Who was it who got you out of the Federation prison? Who was it who . . .”
“Rue.”
“. . . got Black Moclips back from the rets and would have kept her, too, with just a little help? What about Black Beard? Standing there with his head down and his mouth shut, hoping no one will remember he can sail an airship just as well as I can! Don’t say a word about it, Spanner! Don’t say anything that might help me!”
“Rue.”
“No! It isn’t fair! He can navigate just as well as I can! You can’t tell me not to go just because I—“
“Rue!” His voice would have melted iron. “Four of us are risk enough. You stay.”
“Then Bek stays with me! He’s injured, too!”
Alt Mer stared at her. What was she talking about? Bek wasn’t her concern. “Not like you. Besides, we might need his magic.”
She glared at him for a moment, and he could see she was on the verge of breaking down. He had never seen her do that, never even seen her come close. For a moment, he reconsidered his decision, realizing that something about this was more important than what her words were telling him.
But before he could say anything, she wheeled away and stalked back toward the airship, rigid with anger and frustration. “Fine!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Do what you want! You’re all fools!”
He watched her disappear into the trees, thinking that was that, there was nothing he could do about it. Anyway, his next confrontation was already at hand. If Rue Meridian was angry, Quentin Leah was livid. “I told you I wouldn’t go if Bek went! Did you think I didn’t mean it?” He could barely bring himself to speak. “Tell him he can’t go, Big Red. Tell him, or I’m not going.”
Bek started to speak, but Alt Mer held up his hand to silence him. “I can’t do that, Highlander. I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you wanted, but I can’t change that, so threats are meaningless. Bek has the right to decide for himself what he wants to do. So do you. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”
There was a long silence as the Rover and the Highlander stared each other down. There was a dangerous edge to Quentin Leah, as if nothing much mattered to him anymore. Alt Mer couldn’t know what Quentin had gone through to get clear of Castledown and find them, but it must have been horrendous and it had left him scarred.
“I’m sorry, Highlander,” he said, not knowing what he was sorry about, save for the look he saw in the other’s eyes.
“Quentin,” Bek interjected quietly, laying one hand on his shoulder. “Don’t let’s argue like this.”
“You can’t go, Bek.”
“Of course I can. I have to. We promised to look out for each other from here on, remember? We made that promise only a day or so ago. That meant something to me. It should mean something to you. This is when we have to make it count. Please.”
Quentin stayed silent for a moment, looking so desperate that Alt Mer wouldn’t have been surprised at anything he did. Then Quentin shook his head and put his hand over Bek’s. “All right. I don’t like it, but all right. We’ll both go.”
They stood looking at each another for a moment, aware that Quentin’s words had made final their commitment to undertake a task that on balance was far too dangerous even to consider. Yet it was only the latest in a long line, and their decision to take this one, as well, no longer had the edge to it that it might have had once. Gambling with their lives had become commonplace.
“We’ll need a plan,” Panax said.
Big Red glanced over his shoulder in search of his sister. She was out of sight now, and he wished suddenly that they hadn’t left things as they had between them.
“I have one,” he said.
The Dwarf stared down into the leafy depths of the Crake. “When do we do this?”
Alt Mer considered. The sun had eased westward, but most of the afternoon light still remained, and the sky was clear. It would not get dark for hours.
“We do it now,” he said.
Quentin Leah was not in the least mollified by Big Red’s and Bek’s attempts to justify Bek’s foolhardy decision to brave the Graak. It did not matter what reasoning they used, the Highlander could not help feeling that this would end badly. He knew it wasn’t his place to tell Bek not to come with them. He knew that none of them thought him any better qualified than they were to judge the nature of the danger they would face. If anyone had the right to do so, in fact, it was Redden Alt Mer, who had already done battle with the creature and lived to tell about it.
Nevertheless, Quentin saw himself as the one they should listen to. Panax and Alt Mer were both battle-tested and experienced in the Four Lands, but neither had survived the challenges in Parkasia that he had. He knew more of this world than they did. He had a better feel for it. More to the point, he had the use of magic that they did not, which in all probability was going to make the difference between whether they lived or died.
Bek had magic, too, but he had used it sparingly and only on creepers—on things metal and impersonal—and he had not done all that much of that. Mostly, he had gotten through because he’d had Truls Rohk to protect him and Walker to advise him. He had not fought against something like the Graak. It was not going to be the same experience for him, and Quentin wasn’t at all sure his cousin was ready for it.
As they made their way along the bluff toward the pathway into the valley, he trailed the others, stewing in silence and thinking about what they were going to do and how best to protect them while they were doing it. If Big Red and two of his most seasoned Rovers had been dispatched so easily, there wasn’t much hope that things would change without help from the Sword of Leah. He would use it, of course. He would employ it as he had against the Ard Patrinell wronk. Maybe it would even be enough. But he wasn’t sure. He had no idea how strong the Graak was. He knew it was bigger than anything he had ever encountered in the Highlands, and that was cause enough for concern. He could not be certain how well his talisman would protect them until he saw for himself what he was up against. As with all magic, the effectiveness of the sword depended on the strength of the user—not only physical, but emotional, as well. Once, he had thought himself equal to anything. He had felt the power of the magic race through him like fire, and he hadn’t thought there was anything he couldn’t overcome.
He knew better now. He knew there were limits to everything, even the euphoric rush of the magic’s summoning and the infusion of its power. Events and losses had drained him of his confidence. He had fought too long and too often to feel eager about this. He was bone-weary and sick at heart. He had watched those around him die too quickly, more often than not helpless to prevent it. He mourned them still—Tamis and Ard Patrinell, in particular. Their faces haunted him with a persistence that time and acceptance had failed to diminish.
Perhaps that was the problem here, he thought. He was afraid of losing someone else he cared about. Bek, certainly, but Redden Alt Mer and Panax, as well. He did not think he could bear that. Not after what he had been through these past few weeks. Bek and he had agreed only a day ago that they must look out for each other as they had promised, that they needed to do so if they were to get home again safely. But the truth of the matter was that he was the one who should be shouldering the larger share of the burden. He was the older and more experienced. He was physically and emotionally tougher than Bek. It might be true that Bek’s magic was the stronger,—Tamis had made it sound as if it was. But it was the strength of the user that mattered. Although Bek had gotten the Jerle Shannara through the Squirm and had managed to get control of his sister, neither of those achievements was going to help him in a confrontation with the Graak.
Quentin did not deceive himself into thinking that his own strength would prove sufficient for what lay ahead. He thought only that of the two, he had the better chance of getting the job done.
But there was no way of convincing his three companions that this was so, especially Bek, so he would have to do what he could in spite of them. That meant putting himself at the forefront of whatever danger they encountered and giving the others a chance to escape when escape was the only reasonable option.
Given the nature of the plan that Big Red had devised, Quentin did not think it would be that difficult for him to arrange. They needed only to get close enough to the crate of diapson crystals to get three or four of them in hand. More would be better, but if recovery of just those few was all they could manage, that would be sufficient. Three would get the Jerle Shannara airborne once more. A lack of spares might prove a problem later on, but staying alive in the here and now was a much bigger and more immediate concern.
So the four would make for the clearing where the crate lay waiting, searching as they went for any sign of the Graak. With luck, it would have gone elsewhere by now, lured away by its need for food or by some other attraction. If it was gone, this would be easy. If it was lying in wait, then it was up to Quentin and Bek to slow it down long enough for Big Red and Panax to gather up the crystals and regain the trail leading up. Bek had only the magic of the wishsong to rely on, and he was honest enough to admit he was not certain of his command of it, or of its effectiveness. That meant Quentin, who was sure where the Sword of Leah was concerned, was the front line of defense for all of them.
With that in mind, and unable to press further his demand that his cousin remain behind, he had at least managed to persuade him to stay a few paces back on their advance into the rain forest to give Quentin room to intervene if they were attacked.
None of which changed the fact that he was feeling much the same way he had felt going into the ruins at Castledown. There had to be more to this business of the Graak than he was seeing. He was missing something. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was there. His hunting skills and instincts were screaming at him that he was overlooking something obvious.
They reached the trailhead and started down. The valley swept away below them, a vast carpet of leaves and vines, all tangled in a profusion of greens and browns. From high up, the jungle had the appearance of a bottomless swamp where the unwary could sink and be lost with a single misstep. Even as they descended the switchback trail, Quentin experienced the sense of being swallowed.
Halfway down, Redden Alt Mer stopped and turned back to them. “We are a pretty good distance away from where we have to go,” he advised quietly. “This trail leads us further away from the crystals than the other. When we get to the valley floor, we’ll have to backtrack. We’ll stick close to the base of the cliff before starting into the trees.” He pointed. “Over there, that’s about where the crystals were when I was down here before. So we’ll turn in where that big tree leans against the cliff face.”
No one said anything in response. There was nothing to say.
They started ahead once more, working their way carefully down the narrow pathway, pressing back against the rock to keep their footing, grasping scrub and grasses for balance. It was difficult going for Quentin because he was wearing his sword strapped across his back and the tip kept snagging on roots and branches. Alt Mer carried a short sword, and Bek carried nothing at all. Only Panax bore a more cumbersome weight in the form of his huge mace, but his squat, stocky form allowed him to better manage the task. Quentin suddenly wished he had thought to bring a bow and arrows, something he could strike out with from a distance. But it was too late to do anything about it now.
On the valley floor, they angled back along the base of the cliff, moving swiftly and silently through the tall grasses and around trees that grew close against the rocks. The terrain was still open, not yet overgrown by the rain forest, and Quentin could see through the trees for several hundred yards. He watched closely for anything that seemed out of place. But nothing moved and everything pretty much looked like it belonged. The Crake was a wall of foliage that concealed everything in its mottled pattern. Sunlight sprayed its vines and branches in thin streamers, but failed to penetrate with any success. Shadows lay over everything, layered in dusky tones, moving and shifting with the passing of the clouds overhead. It was impossible to be certain what they were seeing. They would be on top of anything hiding out there before they realized what it was.
They had gone some distance when Big Red held up one hand and pointed into the trees. This was where they would leave the shelter of the cliff wall. Ahead, the trees grew in thick clumps and the vines twisted about them like ropes. Clearings opened at sporadic intervals, large enough to admit something of size. On looking closer, Quentin could see that some of the trees had been pushed aside.
Alt Mer led with Quentin following close behind, Bek third, and Panax trailing. They worked their way in a loose line through a morass of earthy smells and green color, the dampness in the air rising off the soggy earth with the heat, the silence deep and oppressive. No birds flew here. No animals slipped through the shadows. There were insects that buzzed and hummed, and nothing more. Shadows draped the way forward and the way back with the light touch of a snake’s tongue. Quentin’s uneasiness grew. Nothing about the Crake felt right. They were out of their element, intruders who didn’t belong and fair game for whatever lived here.
Less than ten minutes later, they found the remains of one of the Rovers who had come down with Alt Mer six days before. His body lay sprawled among shattered trees and flattened grasses. Little remained but head, bones, and some skin,—the flesh had been largely eaten away. Most of his clothing was missing. His face was twisted into a grimace of unspeakable horror and pain, a mask bereft of humanity. They went past the dead man quickly, eyes averted.
Then Big Red brought them to a halt, hand raising quickly in warning. Ahead, a crate lay broken open, slats sticking skyward like bones. Quentin could not make out the contents, but assumed they were the diapson crystals. He looked around guardedly, testing the air and the feel of the jungle, searching out any predator that might lie in wait. He had learned to do this in the Highlands as a child, a sensory reading of the larger world that transcended what most men and women could manage. He took his time, casting about in all directions, trying to open himself to what might lie hidden.
Nothing.
But his instincts warned him to be careful, and he knew better than to discount them. Tamis was better at this than I am, he thought. If she were here, she would see what I am missing.
Redden Alt Mer motioned for them to stay where they were, and he stepped from the trees into the clearing and started for the crystals. He moved steadily, but cautiously, and Quentin watched his eyes shift from place to place. The Highlander scanned the jungle wall.
Still nothing.
When he reached the remains of the crate, the Rover Captain signaled over his shoulder for the others to join him. Spreading out, they moved across the clearing in a crouch. Quentin and Panax had their weapons drawn, ready for use. When they reached Alt Mer, Panax knelt to help the Rover extract the crystals while Quentin and Bek stood watch. The jungle was a silent green wall, but Quentin felt hidden eyes watching. He glanced at Bek. His cousin seemed oddly calm, almost at peace. Sweat glistened on his forehead, but it was from the heat. He held himself erect, head lifted, eyes casting about the concealment of the trees in a steady sweep.
Alt Mer had extracted two of the crystals and was working on a third when a low hiss sounded from somewhere back in the trees. All four men froze, staring in the direction of the sound. The hiss came again, closer, deeper, and with it came the sound of something moving purposefully.
“Quick,” Alt Mer said, handing two of the crystals to Panax. The crystals were less than two feet long, but they were heavy. Panax grunted with the weight of his load as he started away. Big Red extracted the fourth crystal from the crate, making more noise than he intended, but unwilling to work more slowly. The hiss sounded again, closer still. Something was approaching.
With two crystals cradled in his arms, Big Red backed across the clearing, eyes on the jungle wall. Quentin Leah and Bek flanked him, the Highlander motioning for his cousin to fall back, his cousin ignoring him. The tops of the trees were shaking now, as if a wind had risen to stir them. Quentin had no illusions. The Graak was coming.
They had gained the shelter of a stand of cedar ringed by scrub brush, perhaps a dozen feet beyond the edge of the clearing, when the monster emerged. It pushed through the trees and vines with a sudden surge, a massive dragon weighing thousands of pounds and measuring more than fifty feet in length. Its body was the color of the jungle and glistened dully where the sunlight reflected off its slick hide. Horns and spikes jutted in clusters from its head and spine, and a thick wattle of skin hung from its throat. Claws the size of forearms dug into the dank earth, and rows of teeth flashed when its tongue snaked from its maw.
Squatting on four stubby, powerful legs, the Graak swung its spiky head left and right in search of what had caught its attention. Alt Mer froze in place, and Quentin and Bek followed his lead. Perhaps the creature wouldn’t see them.
The Graak cast about aimlessly, then began to sniff the ground, long tail thrashing against the foliage. Quentin held his breath. This thing was huge. He had felt how the ground trembled when it lumbered out of the trees. He had seen how it shouldered past those massive hardwoods as if they were deadwood. If they had to do battle with it, they were in a world of trouble.
The Graak lumbered up to the crystals and sniffed at them, then put one massive foot atop the crate and crushed it. Hissing again, it turned away from them, searching the trees in the opposite direction.
Alt Mer caught Quentin’s attention. Now, he mouthed silently.
Slowly, carefully, they began to inch their way backwards. Bek, seeing what they were attempting, did the same. Turned away, sniffing the wind, the Graak remained unaware of them. Don’t trip, Quentin thought to himself. Don’t stumble. The jungle was so silent he could hear the sound of his own breathing.
The Graak turned back again, its blunt snout swinging slowly about. As one, they froze. They were far enough back in the trees that they could barely see the creature’s head above the tall grasses. Perhaps it couldn’t see them either.
The reptilian eyes lidded, and the long tongue flicked out. It studied the jungle a moment more, then turned and shambled back the way it had come. Within seconds, it was gone.
When it was clear to all that it was not coming back right away, they started swiftly through the trees. Quentin was astonished. He had thought they had no chance of escaping undetected. His every instinct had warned against it. Yet somehow the creature had failed to spy them out, and now they were within minutes of reaching the cliff wall and beginning the climb back out.
They caught up with Panax, who was not all that far ahead yet. The Dwarf nodded wordlessly.
“That was close!” Bek whispered with a grin.
“Don’t talk about it,” Quentin said.
“You thought it had us,” the other persisted.
Quentin shot him an angry glance. He didn’t like talking about luck. It had a way of turning around on you when you did.
“Back home,” Bek said, breathing heavily from his exertion, “if it was a boar, say, we would have looked for the mate, too.”
Quentin almost stumbled as he turned quickly to look at him. The mate? “No,” he whispered, realizing what he had missed, fear ripping through him. He pushed ahead of Bek, running now to catch up to Redden Alt Mer and Panax. “Big Red!” he hissed sharply. “Wait!”
At the sound of his name, the Rover came about, causing the Dwarf to slow and turn, as well, which probably saved both their lives. In the next instant, a second Graak charged out of the trees ahead and bore down on them.
There was no time to stop and think about what to do. There was only time to respond, and Quentin Leah was already in motion when the attack came. Never breaking stride, he flew past Big Red and Panax, the Sword of Leah lifted and gripped in both hands. The magic was already surging down the blade to the handle and into his hands and arms. He went right at the Graak, flinging himself past the snapping jaws as they reached for him, rolling beneath its belly and coming back to his feet to thrust the sword deep into its side. The magic flared in an explosion of light and surged into the Graak. The monster hissed in pain and rage and twisted about to get its teeth into its attacker. But Quentin, who had learned something about fighting larger creatures in his battles with the creepers and the Patrinell wronk, sidestepped the attack, scrambled out of the Graak’s line of sight, and struck at it again, this time severing a tendon in the creature’s hind leg. Again the Graak swung about, tearing at the earth with its claws, dragging its damaged rear leg like a club, its tail lashing out wildly.
“Run!” Bek yelled to Panax and Big Red.
They did so at once, bearing the crystals away from the battle and back toward the cliff wall. But Bek turned to fight.
There was no chance for Quentin to do anything about that. He was too busy trying to stay alive, and the shift of the Graak’s body as it sought to pin him to the earth blocked his view of his cousin. But he heard the call Bek emitted, something shrill and rough edged, predatory and dark, born of nightmares known only to him or to those who worked his kind of magic. The Graak jerked its head in response, clearly bothered by the sound, and twisted about in search of the caller, giving Quentin a chance to strike at it again. The Highlander rolled under it a second time and thrust the blade of his talisman deep into the chest, somewhere close to where he thought its heart must be, the magic surging out of him like a river.
The Graak coughed gouts of dark blood and gasped in shock. A vital organ had been breached. Covered in mud and sweat and smelling of the damp, fetid earth, Quentin rolled free again. Blood laced his hands and face, and he saw that one arm was torn open and his right side lacerated. Somehow he had been injured without realizing it. Trying to stay out of the Graak’s line of sight he ran toward its tail, looking for a fresh opening. The Graak was thrashing wildly, writhing in fury as it felt the killing effects of the magic begin to work through it. Another solid blow, Quentin judged, should finish it.
But then the creature did the unexpected. It bolted for Bek, all at once and without even looking his way first. Bek stood his ground, using the power of the wishsong to strike back, but the Graak didn’t even seem to hear it. It rumbled on without slowing, without pause, tearing up the earth with its clawed feet, dragging its damaged hind leg, hissing with rage and madness into the steamy jungle air.
“Bek!” Quentin screamed in dismay.
He flew after the Graak with complete disregard for his own safety, and caught up to the creature when it was only yards away from his cousin. He swung the Sword of Leah with every last ounce of strength he possessed, the magic exploding forth as he severed the tendons of the hind leg that still functioned. The Graak went down instantly, both rear legs immobilized, its useless hindquarters dragging it to an abrupt stop. But as it fought to keep going, to get at Bek, it rolled right into the Highlander, who, unlike Bek, did not have time to get out of the way. Though Quentin threw himself aside as the twisting, thrashing body collapsed, he could not get all the way clear, and the Graak’s heavy tail hammered him into the earth.
It felt as if a mountain had fallen on top of him. Bones snapped and cracked, and he was pressed so far down into the earth that he couldn’t breathe. He would have screamed if there had been a way to do so, but his face was buried in six inches of mud. The weight of the Graak rolled off him, then back on again, then off again. He managed to get his head out of the mire, to take a quick breath of air, then to flatten himself as the monster rolled over him yet again, this time missing him as it twisted back on itself in an effort to rise.
“Quentin, don’t move!” he heard Bek cry out.
As if he could, he thought dully. The pain was beginning to surge through him in waves. He was a dead man, he knew. No one could survive the sort of damage he had just sustained. He was a dead man, but his body hadn’t gotten the message yet.
Hands reached under him and rolled him over. The pain was excruciating. “Shades!” he gasped as bones grated and blood poured from his mouth.
“Hang on!” Bek pleaded. “Please, Quentin!”
His cousin pulled him to his feet, then led him away. Somewhere close by, the Graak was in its death throes. Somewhere not quite so close, its mate was coming. He couldn’t see any of this, but he could be sure it was happening. He stumbled on through a curtain of bright red anguish and hazy consciousness. Any moment now, he would collapse. He fought against that with frantic determination. If he went down, Bek would not be able to get him away. If he went down, he was finished.
Oh well, he thought with a sort of fuzzy disinterest, he was finished anyway.
“Sorry, Bek,” he said, or maybe he only tried to say it,—he couldn’t be sure. “Sorry.”
Then a wave of darkness engulfed him, and everything disappeared.
It was dark when Bek finally emerged from belowdecks on the Jerle Shannara, walked to the bow, and looked up at the night sky. The moon was a tiny crescent directly over the mountain they were backed against, newly formed and barely a presence in the immensity of the sky’s vast sweep. Stars sprinkled the indigo firmament like grains of brilliant white sand scattered on black velvet. He had been told once that men had traveled to those stars in the Old World, that they had built and ridden in ships that could navigate the sky as he had the waters of the Blue Divide. It seemed impossible. But then most wonderful things did until someone accomplished them.
He hadn’t been on deck for more than a few moments when Rue Meridian appeared beside him, coming up so silently that he didn’t hear her approach and realized she was there only when she placed a hand over his own.
“Have you slept?” she asked.
He shook his head. Sleep was out of the question.
“How is he?”
He thought about it a moment, staring skyward. “Holding on by his fingernails and slipping.”
They had managed to get Quentin Leah out of the Crake alive, but only barely. With Bek’s help, he had stumbled to within a hundred yards of the trail before collapsing. By then he had lost so much blood that when they had carried him out they could barely get a grip on his clothing. Rue Meridian knew something of treating wounds from her time on the Prekkendorran, so after tying off the severed arteries with tourniquets, she had stitched and bandaged him as best she could. The patching of the surface wounds was not difficult, nor the setting of the broken bones. But there were internal injuries with which she did not have the skill to deal, so that much of the care Quentin needed could not be provided. Healing would have to come from within, and everyone knew that any chance of that happening here was small.
Their best bet was to either get him to a healing center in the Four Lands or to find a local Healer. The former was out of the question. There simply wasn’t time. As for the latter, the Rindge offered the only possibility of help. Panax had gone to see what they could do, but had returned empty-handed. When a Rindge was in Quentin’s condition, his people could do no more for him than the company of the Jerle Shannara could for Quentin.
“Is he alone?” Rue asked Bek.
He shook his head. “Panax is watching him.”
“Why don’t you try to sleep for a few hours? There isn’t anything more you can do.”
“I can be with him. I can be there for him. I’ll go back down in just a moment.”
“Panax will look after him.”
“Panax isn’t the one he counts on.”
She didn’t reply to that. She just stood there beside him, keeping him company, staring up at the stars. The Crake was a sea of impenetrable black within the cup of the mountains, silent and stripped of definition. Bek took a moment to look down at it, chilled by doing so, the memories of the afternoon still raw and terrible, endlessly repeating in his mind. He couldn’t get past them, not even now when he was safely away from their cause.
“You’re exhausted,” she said finally.
He nodded in agreement.
“You have to sleep, Bek.”
“I left his sword down there.” He pointed toward the valley.
“What?”
“His sword. I was so busy trying to get him out that I forgot about it entirely. I just left it behind.”
She nodded. “It won’t go anywhere. We can get it back tomorrow, when it’s light.”
“I’ll get it back,” he insisted. “I’m the one who left it. It’s my responsibility.”
He pictured it lying in the earth by the dead Graak, its smooth surface covered with blood and dirt. Had it been broken by the weight of the monster rolling over it, broken as Quentin was? He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even glanced at it. A talisman of such power, and he hadn’t even thought about it. He’d just thought about Quentin, and he’d done that too late for it to matter.
“Why don’t you stop being so hard on yourself?” she asked quietly. “Why don’t you ease up a bit?”
“Because he’s dying,” he said fiercely, angrily. “Quentin’s dying, and it’s my fault.”
She looked at him. “Your fault?”
“If I hadn’t insisted on going down there with him, if I hadn’t been so stubborn about this whole business, then maybe—
“Bek, stop it!” she snapped at him. He looked over at her, surprised by the rebuke. Her hand tightened on his. “It doesn’t help anything for you to talk like that. It happened, and no one’s to blame for it. Everyone did the best they could in a dangerous situation. That’s all anyone can ask. That’s all anyone can expect. Let it alone.”
The words stung, but no more so than the look he saw in her eyes. She held his gaze, refusing to let him turn away. “Losing people we love, friends and even family, is a consequence of going on journeys like this one. Don’t you understand that? Didn’t you understand it when you agreed to come? Is this suddenly a surprise? Did you think that nothing could happen to Quentin? Or to you?”
He shook his head in confusion, cowed. “I don’t know. I guess maybe not.”
She exhaled sharply and her tone of voice softened. “It wasn’t your fault. Not any more so than it was my brother’s or Panax’s or Walker’s or whoever’s. It was just something that happened, a price exacted in consequence of a risk taken.”
The consequence of a risk. As simple as that. You took a risk, and the person you were closest to paid the price. He began to cry, all the pent-up frustration and guilt and sadness releasing at once. He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to break down in front of her—didn’t want her to see that—but it happened before he could find a way to stop it.
She pulled him against her, enfolding him like an injured child. Her arms came about him and she rocked him gently, cooing soft words, stroking his back with her hand. The hard wooden rods of the splint on her left forearm were digging into his back.
“Oh, Bek. It’s all right. You can cry with me. No one will see. Let me hold you until.” She pressed him into the softness of her body. “Poor Bek. So much responsibility all at once. So much hurt. It isn’t fair, is it?”
He heard some of what she said, but comfort came not from the words themselves but from the sound of her voice and the feel of her arms wrapped about him. Everything released, and she was there to absorb it, to take it into herself and away from him.
“Just hold on to me, Bek. Just let me take care of you. Everything will be all right.”
She had said he owed it to her to share the losses she had suffered. Losses as great as his own. Furl Hawken. Her Rover companions. He was reminded of it suddenly and wanted to give back something of the comfort she was giving to him.
He recovered his composure, and his arms went around her. “Rue, I’m sorry . . .”
“No,” she said, putting her fingers over his mouth, stopping him from saying anything more. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want you to talk.”
She replaced her fingers with her mouth and kissed him. She didn’t kiss him softly or gently, but with urgency and passion. He couldn’t mistake what was happening or what it meant, and he didn’t want to. It took him only a moment, and then he was returning her kiss. When he did, he forgot everything but the heat she aroused in him. Kissing her was wild and impossible. It made him worry that something was wrong, but he couldn’t decide what it was because everything felt right. She ran her hands all over him, pushing him up against the ship’s railing until he was pinned there, fastening her mouth on his with such hunger that he could scarcely breathe.
When she broke away finally, he wasn’t sure who was the most surprised. From the look on her face she was, but he knew what he was feeling inside. They stared at each other in a kind of awed silence, and then she laughed—a low, sudden growl that brought such radiance to her face that he was surprised all over again.
“That was unexpected,” she said.
He couldn’t speak.
“I want to do it some more. I want to do it a lot.”
He grinned in spite of himself, in spite of everything. “Me, too.”
“Soon, Bek.”
“All right.”
“I think I love you,” she said. She laughed again. “There, I said it. What do you think of that?”
She reached out with her good arm and touched his lips with her fingers, then turned and walked away.
When he went inside the ship to the Captain’s quarters to see about Quentin, he was still in shock from his encounter with Rue.
Panax must have seen something in his face when Bek entered the room, because he immediately asked, “Are you all right?”
Bek nodded. He was not all right, but he had no intention of talking about it just yet. It was too new to share, still so strange in his own mind that he needed time to get used to it. He needed time just to accept that it was true. Rue Meridian was in love with him. That’s what she had said. I think I love you. He tried the words out in his mind, and they sounded so ridiculous that he almost laughed aloud.
On the other hand, the way she had kissed him was real enough, and he wasn’t going to forget how that felt anytime soon.
Did he love her in turn? He hadn’t stopped to ask himself that. He hadn’t even considered it before now because the idea of her reciprocating had seemed impossible. It was enough that they were friends. But he did love her. He had always loved her in some sense, from the first moment he had seen her. Now, kissed and held and told of her feelings, he loved her so desperately he could hardly stand it.
He forced himself to shift his thinking away from her.
“How is he doing?” he asked, nodding toward Quentin.
Panax shrugged. “The same. He just sleeps. I don’t like the way he looks, though.”
Neither did Bek. Quentin’s skin was an unhealthy pasty color. His pulse was faint and his breathing labored and shallow. He was dying by inches, and there was nothing any of them could do about it but wait for the inevitable. Already emotionally overwrought, Bek found himself beginning to cry anew and he turned away self-consciously.
Panax rose and came over to him. He put one rough hand on Bek’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “First Truls Rohk and now the Highlander. This hasn’t been easy,” he said. “Has it.”
“No.”
His hand dropped away, and he walked over to where Grianne knelt on a pallet in the corner, eyes open as she stared straight ahead. The Dwarf shook his head in puzzlement. “What do you suppose she’s thinking?”
Bek wiped away the last of his tears. “Nothing we want to know about, I’d guess.”
“Probably not. What a mess. This whole journey, from start to finish. A mess.” He didn’t seem to know where else to go with his thoughts, so he went silent for a moment. “I wish I’d never come. I wouldn’t have, if I’d known what it was going to be like.”
“I don’t suppose any of us would.” Bek walked over to his sister and knelt in front of her. He touched her cheek with his fingers as he always did to let her know he was there. “Can you hear me, Grianne?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here anymore,” Panax continued. “I don’t know that there’s a reason for any of us being here. We haven’t done anything but get ourselves killed and injured. Even the Druid. I didn’t think anything would ever happen to him. But then I didn’t think anything could happen to Truls, either. Now they’re both gone.” He shook his head.
“When I get home,” Bek said, still looking at Grianne’s pale, empty face, “I’ll stay there. I won’t leave again. Not like this.”
He thought again about Rue Meridian. What would happen to her when they got back in the Four Lands? She was a Rover, born to the Rover life, a traveler and an adventurer. She was nothing like him. She wouldn’t want to come back to the Highlands and stay home for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t want anything to do with him then.
“I’ve been thinking about home,” Panax said quietly. He knelt down beside Bek, his bearded face troubled. “I never cared all that much for my own. Depo Bent was just the village where I ended up. I have no family, just a few friends, none of them close. I’ve traveled all my life, but I don’t know if there’s anything left in the Four Lands that I want to see. Without Truls and Walker to keep me busy, I don’t know that there’s anything back there for me.” He paused. “I think maybe I’ll stay here.”
Bek looked at him. “Stay here in Parkasia?”
The Dwarf shrugged. “I like the Rindge. They’re a good people and they’re not so different from me. Their language is similar to mine. I kind of like this country, too, except for things like the Graak and Antrax. But the rest of it looks interesting. I want to explore it. There’s a lot of it none of us have seen, all of the interior beyond the mountains, where Obat and his people are going.”
“You would be trapped here, if you changed your mind. You wouldn’t have a way to get back.” Bek tried the words out on the Dwarf, then grimaced at the way they sounded.
Panax chuckled softly. “I don’t see it that way, Bek. When you make a choice, you accept the consequences going in. Like coming on this journey. Only maybe this time things will turn out a little better for me. I’m not that young. I don’t have all that much life left in me. I don’t think I would mind finishing it out in Parkasia, rather than in the Four Lands.”
How different the Dwarf was from himself, Bek thought in astonishment. Not to want to go home again, but to stay in a strange land on the chance that it might prove interesting. He couldn’t do that. But he understood the Dwarf’s reasoning. If you had spent most of your life as an explorer and a guide, living outside cities and towns, living on your own, staying here wouldn’t seem so strange. How much different were the mountains of the Aleuthra Ark, after all, from those of the Wolfsktaag?
“Do you think you can manage without me?” Panax asked, his face strangely serious.
Bek knew what Panax wanted to hear. “I think you’d just get in the way,” he answered. “Anyway, I think you’ve earned the right to do what you want. If you want to stay, you should.”
They were nothing without their freedom, nothing without their right to choose. They had given themselves to a common cause in coming with Walker in search of the Old World books of magic, but that was finished. What they needed to do now was to help each other find a way home again, whether home was to be found in the Four Lands or elsewhere.
“Why don’t you get some sleep,” he said to the Dwarf. “I’ll sit with Quentin now. I want to, really. I need to be with him.”
Panax rose and put his hand on Bek’s shoulder a second time, an act that was meant to convey both his support and his gratitude. Then he walked through the shadows and from the room. Bek stared after him a moment, wondering how Panax would find his new life, if it would bring him the peace and contentment that the old apparently had not. He wondered what it would feel like to be so disassociated from everyone and everything that the thought of leaving it all behind wasn’t disturbing. He couldn’t know that, and in truth he hoped he would never find out.
He turned back to Quentin, looking at him as he lay white-faced and dying. Shades, shades, he felt so helpless. He took a deep, steadying breath and exhaled slowly. He couldn’t stand this anymore. He couldn’t stand watching him slip away. He had to do something, even if it was the wrong thing, so that he could know that at least he had tried. All of the usual possibilities for healing were out of the question. He had to try something else.
He remembered from the stories of the Druids that the wishsong had the ability to heal. It hadn’t been used that way often because it required great skill. He didn’t have that skill or the experience that might lend it to him, but he couldn’t worry about that here. Brin Ohmsford had used the magic once upon a time to heal Rone Leah. If an Ohmsford had used the magic to save the life of a Leah once, there was no reason an Ohmsford couldn’t do so again.
It was a risky undertaking. Foolish, maybe. But Quentin was not going to live if something wasn’t done to help him, and there wasn’t anything else left to try.
Bek walked over to the bed and sat next to his cousin. He watched him for a moment, then took his hand in his own and held it. He wished he had something more to work with than experimentation. He wished he had directions of some kind, a place to begin, an idea of how the magic worked, anything. But there was nothing of the sort at hand, and no help for it.
“I’ll do my best, Quentin,” he said softly. “I’ll do everything I can. Please come back to me.”
Then he called up the magic in a slow unfurling of words and music and began to sing.
Because he had never done this before and had no real idea of how to do it now, Bek Ohmsford did not rush himself. He proceeded carefully, taking one small step at a time, watching Quentin closely to make certain that the magic of the wishsong was not having an adverse affect. He called up the magic in a slow humming that rose in his chest where it warmed and throbbed softly. He kept hold of Quentin’s hands, wanting to maintain physical contact in order to give himself a chance to further judge if things were going as intended.
When the level of magic was sufficient, he sent a small probe into Quentin’s ravaged body to measure the damage. Red shards of pain ricocheted back through him, and he withdrew the probe quickly. Fair enough. Investigating a damaged body without adequate self-protection was not a good idea. Shielding himself, he tried again and ran into a wall of resistance. Still humming, he tried coming in through Quentin’s mind, taking a reading on what his cousin was thinking. He ran into another blank wall. Quentin’s mind seemed to have shut down, or at least it was not giving off anything Bek could decipher.
For a moment, he was stumped. Both attempts at getting to where he could do some good had failed, and he wasn’t sure what he should try next. What he wanted to do was to get close enough to one specific injury to see what the magic could do to heal it. But if he couldn’t break down the barriers that Quentin had thrown up to protect himself, he wasn’t going to be able to do anything.
He tried a more general approach then, a wrapping of Quentin in the magic’s veil, a covering over of his mind and body both. It had the desired effect,—Quentin immediately calmed and his breathing became steadier and smoother. Bek worked his way over his cousin’s still form in search of entry, thinking that as his body relaxed, Quentin might lower his protective barriers. Slowly, slowly he touched and stroked with the magic, his singing smoothing away wrinkles of pain and discomfort, working toward the deeper, more serious injuries.
It didn’t work. He could not get past the surface of Quentin’s body, even when he brushed up against the open wounds beneath the bandages, which should have offered him easy access.
He was so frustrated that he broke off his attempts completely. Sitting silently, motionlessly beside Quentin, he continued to hold his cousin’s hand, not willing to break that contact, as well. He tried to think of what else he could do. Something about the way in which he was approaching the problem was throwing up barriers. He knew he could force his way into Quentin’s body, could break down the protective walls that barred his way. But he thought, as well, that the consequence of such a harsh intrusion might be fatal to a system already close to collapse. What was needed was tact and care, a gentle offering to heal that would be embraced and not resisted.
What would it take to make that happen?
He tried again, this time returning to what was familiar to him about the magic. He sang to Quentin as he had sung to Grianne— of their lives together as boys, of the Highlands of Leah, of family and friends, and of adventures shared. He sang stories to his cousin, thinking to use them as a means of lessening resistance to his ministrations. Now and then, he would attempt a foray into his cousin’s body and mind, taking a story in a direction that might lend itself to a welcoming, the two of them friends still and always.
Nothing.
He changed the nature of his song to one of revelation and warning. This is the situation, Quentin, he sang. You are very sick and in need of healing. But you are fighting me. I need you to help me instead. I need you to open to me and let me use the wishsong to mend you. Please, Quentin, listen to me. Listen.
If his cousin heard, he didn’t do anything to indicate it and did nothing to give Bek any further access. He simply lay on his bed beneath a light covering and fought to stay alive on his own terms. He remained unconscious and unresponsive and, like Grianne, locked away where Bek could not reach him.
Bek kept at it. He fought to use the magic for the better part of the next hour, maintaining contact through the touching of their hands while trying to heal with his song. He came at the problem from every direction he could imagine, even when he suspected that what he was trying was futile. He attacked with such determination that he completely lost track of everything but what he was doing.
All to no avail.
Finally, exhausted and frustrated, he gave up. He rocked back, put his face in his hands, and began to sob. All this crying felt foolish and weak, but he was so weary from his efforts that it was an impulsive, unavoidable response. It happened in spite of his efforts to stop it, boiling over in a rush that left him convulsed and shaking. He had failed. There was nothing left for him to try, nowhere else for him to go.
“Poor little baby boy,” a voice soothed in his ear, and slender arms came around his neck and pulled him close.
At first he thought it was Rue Meridian, come down to the cabin when he wasn’t looking. But he realized almost before he had completed the thought that it wasn’t her voice. Gray robes fell across his face as he twisted his head for a quick look.
It was Grianne.
He was so shocked that for a moment he just sat there and let her hold him. “Little boy, little boy, don’t be sad.” She was speaking not in her adult voice, but with the voice of a child. “It’s all right, baby Bek. Your big sister is here. I won’t leave you again, I promise. I won’t go away again. I’m so sorry, so sorry.”
Her hands stroked his face, gentle and soothing. She kissed his forehead as she cooed to him, touching him as if he were a baby.
He glanced up again, looking into her eyes. She was looking back at him, seeing him for the first time since he had found her in Castledown. Gone were the vacant stare and the empty expression. She had come back from wherever she had been hiding. She was awake.
“Grianne!” he gasped in relief.
“No, no, baby, don’t cry,” she replied at once, touching his lips with her fingers. “There, there, your Grianne can make it all better. Tell me what’s wrong, little one.”
Bek caught his breath. She was seeing him, but not as he really was, only as she remembered him.
Her gaze shifted suddenly. “Oh, what’s this? Is your puppy sick, Bek? Did he eat something bad? Did he hurt himself? Poor little puppy.”
She was looking right at Quentin. Bek was so taken aback by this that he just stared at her. He vaguely remembered a puppy from when he was very little, a black mixed breed that trotted around the house and slept in the sun. He remembered nothing else about it, not even its name.
“No wonder you’re crying.” She smoothed Bek’s hair back gently. “Your puppy is sick, and you can’t make him better. It’s all right, Bek. Grianne can help. We’ll use my special medicine to take away the pain.”
She released him and moved to the head of the bed to stand looking down at Quentin. “So much pain,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can make you well again. Sometimes even the special medicine can’t help. Sometimes nothing can.”
A chill settled through Bek as he realized that he might be mistaken about her. Maybe she wasn’t his sister at all, but the Ilse Witch. If she was thinking like the witch and not Grianne, if she had not come all the way back to being his sister, she might cure Quentin the way she had cured so many of her problems. She might kill him.
“No, Grianne!” he cried out, reaching for her.
“Uh-uh-uh, baby,” she cautioned, taking hold of his wrists. She was much stronger than he would have thought, and he could not shake free. “Let Grianne do what she has to do to help.”
Already she was using the magic. Bek felt it wash over him, felt it bind him in velvet chains and hold him fast. In seconds, he was paralyzed. She eased him back in place, humming softly as she moved once more to the head of the bed and Quentin Leah.
“Poor puppy,” she repeated, reaching down to stroke the Highlander’s face. “You are so sick, in such pain. What happened to you? You are all broken up inside. Did something hurt you?”
Bek was beside himself. He could neither move nor speak. He watched helplessly, unable to intervene and terrified of what was going to happen if he didn’t.
She was speaking to him again, her voice suddenly older, more mature. “Oh, Bek, I’ve let you down so badly. I left you, and I didn’t come back. I should have, and I didn’t. It was so wrong of me, Bek.”
She was crying. His sister was crying. It was astonishing, and Bek would have felt a sense of joy if he hadn’t been so frightened that it wasn’t his sister speaking. He fought to say something, to stop her, but no words would come out.
“Little puppy,” she whispered sadly, and her hands reached down to cup Quentin’s face. “Let me make you all better.”
Then she leaned down and kissed him gently on the lips, drawing his breath into her body.
Rue Meridian was sleeping in a makeshift canvas hammock she had strung between the foremast and the bow railing, lost in a dream about cormorants and puffins, when she felt Bek’s hand on her shoulder and awoke. She saw the look on his face and immediately asked, “What’s wrong?”
It was a difficult look to decipher. His face was troubled and amazed, both at once,—it reflected uncertainty mixed with wonder. He appeared oddly adrift, as if he was there almost by accident. Her first thought was that his coming was a delayed reaction to what she had told him hours earlier. She sat up quickly, swung her legs over the side of the hammock, and stood. “Bek, what’s happened?”
“Grianne woke up. I don’t know why. The magic, maybe. I was using it to try to help Quentin, to heal him the way Brin Ohmsford did Rone Leah once. Or maybe it was when I cried. I was so frustrated and tired, I just broke down.”
He exhaled sharply. “She spoke to me. She called me by name. But she wasn’t herself, not grown up, but a child, speaking in a child’s voice, calling me ‘poor baby boy, little Bek,’ and telling me not to cry.”
“Wait a minute, slow down,” she said, taking hold of him by his shoulders. “Come over here.”
She led him to the bow and sat him down in the shadow of the starboard ram where the curve of the horn formed a shelter at its joining with the deck. She sat facing him, pulled her knees up to her breast, and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Okay, tell me the rest. She came awake and she spoke to you. What happened next?”
“You won’t believe this,” he whispered, clearly not believing it himself. “She healed him. She used her magic, and she healed him. I thought she was going to kill him. She called him a puppy—I guess that’s what she thought he was. I tried to stop her, but she did something to me with the magic so that I couldn’t move or speak. Then she started on him, and I was sure she meant to help him by killing him, to take away his pain and suffering by taking his life. That’s what the Ilse Witch would have done, and I was afraid she was still the witch.”
Rue leaned forward, hugging herself. “How could she heal him, Bek? He was all broken up inside. Half his blood was gone.”
“The magic can do that. It can generate healing. I watched it happen to Quentin. He’s not completely well yet. He isn’t even awake. But I saw his color change right in front of me. I heard his breathing steady and, afterwards, when I could move again, felt that his pulse was stronger, too. Some of his wounds, the ones you bandaged, have closed completely.”
“Shades,” she whispered, trying to picture it.
He leaned back into the curve of the horn and looked at the night sky. “When she was done, she came back over to me and stroked my cheek and held me. I could move again, but I didn’t want to interrupt what she was doing because I thought it might be helping her. I spoke her name, but she didn’t answer. She just rocked me and began to cry.”
His eyes shifted to find hers. “She kept saying how sorry she was, over and over. She said it would never happen again. Leaving me, she said. She wouldn’t leave me like before, not ever. All this in her little girl’s voice, her child’s voice.”
His eyes closed. “I just wanted to help her, to let her know I understood. I tried to hold her. When I did, she went right back into herself. She quit talking or moving. She quit seeing me. She was just like before. I couldn’t do anything to bring her back. I tried, but she wouldn’t respond.” He shook his head. “So I left her and came to find you. I had to tell someone. I’m sorry I woke you.”
She reached out for him, pulled him close, and kissed him on the lips. “I’m glad you did.” She stood and drew him up with her. “Come lie down with me, Bek.”
She took him back to the canvas hammock and bundled him into it beside her. She pressed herself against him and wrapped him in her arms. She was still getting used to the idea that he meant so much to her. Her admission of this to him had surprised her, but she’d had no regrets about it afterwards. Bek Ohmsford made her feel complete, it was as if by finding him, she had found a missing part of herself. He made her feel good, and it had been a while since anyone had made her feel like that.
They lay without moving for a while, without talking, just holding each other and listening to the silence. But she wanted more, wanted to give him more, and she began kissing him. She kissed him for a long time, working her way over his mouth and eyes and nose, down his neck and chest. He tried to kiss her, as well, but she wouldn’t let him, wanting everything to come from her. When he seemed at peace, she lay back again, placing his head in the crook of her shoulder. He fell asleep for a time, and she held him while he dreamed.
I love you, Bek Ohmsford. She mouthed the words silently. She thought it incredibly odd she should fall in love with someone under such strange circumstances. It seemed inconvenient and vaguely ridiculous. Hawk would have been shocked. He never thought she would fall in love with anyone. Too independent, too tough-minded. She never needed anyone, never wanted anyone. She was complete by herself. She understood his thinking. It was what she had believed, as well, until now.
She put her hands inside of Bek’s clothing and touched his skin. She placed her fingers over his heart. Counting the beats in her head, she closed her eyes and dozed.
When she woke again, he was still sleeping. Overhead, the sky was lightening with the approach of dawn.
“It’s almost daylight,” she whispered in his ear, waking him.
He nodded into her shoulder. He was silent for a moment, shaking off the last of his sleep. She could feel his breath on her neck and the strength in his arms.
“When we get back to the Four Lands,” he began, and stopped. “When this is all over, and we have to decide where we—“
“Bek, no,” she said gently, but firmly. “Don’t talk about what’s going to happen later. Don’t worry about it. We’re too far away for it to matter yet. Leave it alone.”
He went silent again, pressed against her. She brushed back her hair where it had fallen into her face. His eyes followed the movement with interest, and he reached out to help. “I have to go down into the Crake,” he said. “I have to get Quentin’s sword back. I want it to be there for him when he wakes up.”
She nodded. “All right.”
“Will you look after Grianne for me while I’m gone?”
She smiled and kissed him on the lips. “I can’t, Bek.” She touched the tip of his nose. “I’m going with you.”
When she said it, Bek panicked. He kept the panic in check on the surface, but inside, where his emotions could pretty much do whatever they wanted to, he was a mess. All he could think about was how afraid he was for her, how frightened that something bad would happen. It had already happened to Quentin, and his cousin had at least had the protection of the Sword of Leah. Rue wore a splint on one arm and had no magic at all. If he agreed to let her come, he would be taking on the responsibility for both of them. He was not sure he wanted to do that right after failing Quentin so miserably.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” he told her, not sure what else to say that wouldn’t make her furious and even more determined.
She seemed to consider the merits of his objection, then smiled. “Do you know what I like most about you, Bek? Not how you look or think, not your laugh or the way you see the world, although I like those things, too. What I really like about you is that you don’t ever act as if I’m not just as good as everyone else. You take it for granted that I am, and you treat me with respect. I don’t have to fight you for that. I can expect it as a matter of course. I am your equal, I might even be a little better in some ways.” She paused. “I wouldn’t want to lose that.”
There was not much he could say to her after that. So he simply nodded and smiled back, and she kissed him hard to show that she appreciated his understanding. He liked having her kiss him, but it didn’t make him feel any better about taking her along.
But the issue was decided, so they slipped over the side of the ship and walked to the edge of the bluff, followed the precipice to the trailhead, and started down. It was light enough now that they could make out the shapes of the trees and the soft movement of leaves and branches in the slow morning wind. Bek cast about with his magic as they descended, taking no chances on being caught off guard, even if what he was doing somehow alerted the dead Graak’s mate. If the mate was anywhere close, he had already decided they would turn right around. Even Little Red couldn’t argue with that.
But fortune smiled on them, and they slipped into the Crake as invisible as wraiths. Bek used the magic of the wishsong to cloak them in the look and feel of the rain forest, choosing images and smells that would not attract a carnivore. Draped in trailers of mist and cooled by the morning wind, they slid through the trees with the ease and freedom of shadows, untroubled by the dangers that on this occasion were elsewhere. They found Quentin’s sword muddied but still in one piece beside the body of the dead Graak, retrieved it, and made their way back again. The sun was cresting the jagged line of mountains east when they began their climb back up the trail.
That was so easy, Bek thought in surprise as they regained the bluff. Why couldn’t it have been like that for Quentin? But then, of course, there would have been no reason for Grianne to come awake, and he would not have seen for himself that her responses to pain and suffering were no longer those of the Ilse Witch, but of his sister. He would not have discovered that maybe she could return to him after all when she was ready.
Rue Meridian turned to him, a mix of mischievousness and satisfaction mirrored in her green eyes. “Admit it. That wasn’t so bad.”
He shook his head and sighed. “No, it wasn’t.”
“Remember that the next time you think about doing something dangerous without me.” She reached out and took hold of the back of his neck with both hands and pulled him close to her. “If you love me, if I love you, there shouldn’t be any question of that ever happening. Otherwise, what we feel for each other isn’t real. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He shook his head. “Yes, it does. It means everything.”
She grinned, brushing loose strands of her long hair from her face. “I know. So don’t forget it.”
She picked up the pace and moved ahead of him. He stared after her, barely able to contain himself. In her words and smile, in everything she said and did, he saw a future that would transcend all his expectations of what he had ever imagined possible. It was only a dream, but wasn’t reality conceived in dreams?
His euphoria peaked and faded in a wash of doubt. It was foolish, he thought, to let himself think like this, to allow his emotions to cloud his reason. Look at where he was. Look at what had befallen him. Where, in all of this, did dreams like his belong? He watched Rue Meridian’s stride lengthen and as he did so, felt those dreams slip away, too frail to hold, too insubstantial to grasp. He was drawing pictures in the sand, and the tide was coming in.
When they reached the trailhead and walked back toward the Jerle Shannara, they found Redden Alt Mer and his Rovers gathered at the edge of the bluff, looking east. The Wing Riders were flying in from the coast, and they had someone with them.
When the Morgawr found that Ahren Elessedil was gone, he had Ryer Ord Star brought before him. She denied knowing anything about it, but she knew he could read the lie in her eyes and smell it on her breath. Already suspicious of their failure to find any trace of the Jerle Shannara and her crew or of the Ilse Witch and her brother, he wasted no time in deciding that the seer had helped the Elven Prince escape. Whatever usefulness she might have had, she had outlived it.
He gave her to Cree Bega and his Mwellrets, who stripped her naked and beat her savagely. They broke all her fingers and slashed the soles of her feet. They defiled her until she fainted. When she woke again, they hung her by her wrists from one of the yardarms, lashed her with a rawhide whip, and left her to bake in the midday sun. They gave her no water or clothing and did not treat her wounds. She hung ignored in a haze of pain and thirst that left her ravaged and delirious.
Only once did the Morgawr speak to her again. “Use your gift, little seer,” he advised, standing just below her, touching the wounds on her body with interest. “Find those I have asked you to find, and I will let you die quickly. Otherwise, I will make sure your agony endures until I find them myself. There are other things I can have done to you, things that will hurt much more than those you have already experienced.”
She was barely conscious when he spoke the words, but her reason was not yet gone. She knew that if she gave him what he wanted, if she told him where to find her friends, he would not kill her quickly as he had said, but would do to her what he had done to Aden Kett. He would want that experience, to feed on her mind, a seer’s mind, to see what that would feel like. The only reason he had not done so yet was because he was still hoping she would lead him to those he hunted. Damaging her so significantly would prevent her from giving him any further help. His hunger for her could wait a few days. He was patient that way.
The day drifted toward nightfall. The ropes that held her suspended had cut her wrists almost to the bone. Blood streaked her arms and shoulders. She could no longer feel her hands. Her unprotected body was burned and raw from exposure to wind and sun and throbbed with unrelenting pain.
Her suffering triggered visions, some recognizable, some not. She saw her companions, both living and dead, but could not seem to differentiate between them. They floated in and out of her consciousness, there long enough for her to identify and then gone. Sometimes they spoke, but she rarely understood the words. She felt her mind going as her life drained out of her body, sliding steadily into an abyss of dark, merciful forgetfulness.
Walker, she called out in her mind, begging him to come to her.
Night descended, and the Mwellrets went to sleep, all save the watch and helmsman. No one came to her. No one spoke to her. She hung from the yardarm as she had all day, broken and dying. She no longer felt the pain. It was there, but it was so much a part of her that she no longer recognized it as being out of the ordinary. She licked her cracked lips to keep her mouth from sealing over and breathed the cool night air with relief. Tomorrow would bring a return of the burning sun and harsh wind, but she thought that perhaps by then she would be gone.
She hoped that Ahren was far away. The Morgawr and his airships had been searching for him all day without success, so there was reason to think that the Elven Prince had escaped. He would be wondering when she would join him, if she would come soon. But she had never intended to leave Black Moclips. Her visions had told her of her fate, of her death aboard this vessel, and she was not foolish enough to believe she could avoid it. Just as Walker had seen his fate in her visions long ago, so she had seen hers. A seer’s visions came unbidden and showed what they chose. Like those she advised, Ryer Ord Star could only accept what was revealed and never change it.
But what she had told the Elven Prince about himself and his own future was the truth, as well, a more promising fate than her own. His future awaited him in the Four Lands, long after she was gone, long after this voyage was a distant memory.
He would wonder what had become of her, of course. Or perhaps he would know when enough time had passed and she hadn’t appeared. He would never know how she had hidden the Elfstones from the Morgawr and the Mwellrets. That secret would remain hers. And Walker’s. She had been quick to take them from Ahren when he was felled in the attack, feigning concern for his injury, bending down to shield her movements. She had known she would be searched, and she had slipped the Stones into a crevice in the wall while the Mwellrets were still concentrating on Ahren. A simple ruse, but an effective one. Search her once, and the matter was settled. After that, she had needed only to get aboard Black Moclips before finding a new place of concealment. She had left the Stones hidden until it was time for Ahren to leave.
She would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she had thought of giving him the Stones earlier so that he could use them on his captors. But Ahren was new to the magic, and the Morgawr was old, too powerful to be overcome by any save an experienced hand. Only Walker would have stood a chance, and while she wanted to live as much as the next person, she was not prepared to risk Ahren’s life and fate on a gamble that would almost surely fail. She had sworn an oath to protect him, to do what she could to redeem herself for the harm she had caused while in the service of the Ilse Witch. No halfway measures were allowed in fulfilling that oath. She had much to atone for, and her death was small payment for her sins.
She lifted her head out of the tangle of her hair and tasted the night air on her lips. She wanted to die, but could not seem to. She wanted release from her pain, from her helplessness, but could not find it alone. She needed Walker to help her. She needed him to come.
She drifted in and out of half sleep, always aware that no true sleep would come, that only death would give her rest. She cried for herself and her failures, and she wished she could have grown to be a woman of some worth. In another time and place, in another life, perhaps that would happen.
It was during the deep sleep hours of early morning, the sky clear indigo and the stars a wash of brightness across the firmament, that he appeared at last, lifting out of the ether in a soft radiant light that bathed her in hope.
Walker, she whispered.
I am here—
Ahren Elessedil flew north through the night after escaping Black Moclips, his only plan to get as far from the Morgawr as he could manage. He had no clear idea of where he was or where he should be trying to go. He knew he should be looking for a rain forest somewhere in the mountains, but there was no hope of doing that until it got light. He had the stars to guide him, although the stars were aligned differently in this part of the world and partially blocked by the spread of the single wing, so it was difficult to use his navigational knowledge.
Not that he was deterred by this. He was so grateful to be free that his euphoria made every potential problem save being captured again seem solvable. The single wing sped on without difficulty on the back of steady breezes off the Blue Divide. He had worried at first that he might have trouble keeping his carrier aloft, but it proved to be relatively easy to fly. The wing straps allowed him to bank to either side and change direction, and the bar that ran the length of the framework opened and closed vents in the canvas so that he could gain altitude or descend. So long as the winds blew and he stayed away from downdrafts and bad storms, he thought he would be all right.
He had time to think on his journey, and his thoughts were mostly of Ryer Ord Star. The more he mulled over her situation, the less happy he was. She was playing a dangerous game, and she had no way to protect herself if she was found out. Once the Mwellrets discovered he was missing, she would be the first person they would suspect. Nor was he convinced that she had a way to get off the ship if that happened. Was there a second single wing hidden somewhere aboard the airship? She had told him that she would follow later, but he wasn’t sure it was the truth.
He wished now that he hadn’t been so quick to accommodate her. He wished he had forced her to come with him, no matter what she thought Walker wanted from her. He had been so eager to get away that he hadn’t pressed the matter. He didn’t like what he remembered about the way she had looked at him at the end. It felt final—as if she already knew she wasn’t going to see him again.
She was a seer, after all, and it was possible that in one of her visions she had seen her own fate. But if she knew what was going to happen, couldn’t she act to prevent it? He didn’t know, and after a while he quit thinking about it. It was impossible for him to do anything to help until he found the others, and then maybe they could go back for her.
But in his heart, where such truths have a way of surfacing, he knew it was already too late.
The sun rose, and he flew on. New light etched the details of the land below, and he began to look for something he recognized. It quickly became apparent to him that his task was impossible. Everything looked the same from up there, and he didn’t remember enough about the geography from flying along the coast aboard the Jerle Shannara to know what to look for. He knew he should turn inland toward the mountains, but how far north should he fly before he did that? Ryer Ord Star had told him she was misdirecting the Morgawr at Walker’s request, so the coast was the wrong place for him to be. He should be searching for a rain forest. But where? He could see neither the beginning nor the end of the mountains that ran down the spine of the peninsula. Clouds blanketed the peaks and screened away the horizon, giving the impression that the world dropped away five miles in. He couldn’t tell how far anything went. He couldn’t even be sure of his direction without a compass.
He could try using the Elfstones. They were seeking stones, and they could find anything that was hidden from the naked eye. But using them would alert the Morgawr, and he had seen enough of the warlock’s abilities to know that he could follow magic as a hunter did tracks. Using the Elfstones might bring the warlock down on his friends, as well, should he manage to find them. He didn’t think he wanted to bear the responsibility for that, no matter how desperate his own situation.
The sun brightened, and the last of night’s shadows began to fade from the landscape. The air warmed, but was still cold enough that he wished he was wearing something warmer. He hunched his shoulders and turned the single wing farther inland, away from the chilly coastal breezes. Maybe he would spy the rain forest and his friends if he just gave himself a little more time.
He gave himself the entire day, spiraling inland in ever widening sweeps, searching the sky and ground until his head ached. He found nothing—no sign of the Jerle Shannara or his friends or a rain forest. He saw barely anything moving, and then only a few hawks and gulls, and once a herd of deer. As the day lengthened and the sun began to slip west, his confidence started to fail. He swept further into the mountains, but the deeper in he went the more confusing things became. He had been flying for eighteen hours with nothing to eat or drink, and he was beginning to feel light-headed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. If he didn’t find something soon, he would have to land. Once he did that, he wasn’t sure he could get airborne again.
He stayed in the air, flying into the approaching darkness, stubbornly refusing to give up. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to see at all. If he didn’t land, he would have to fly all night because it was too cloudy for the moon and stars to provide enough light for him to try to set down. Soon, he would have to use the Elfstones. He would have no choice.
He rolled his shoulders and arched his back to relieve the strain of holding the same position for so long. Dusk settled over the land in deepening layers, and still he flew on.
He had almost decided to give it up when the Shrikes found him. He was far enough inland that he wasn’t expecting them, thinking himself safely away from the danger of coastal birds. But there was no mistaking what they were or that they were coming for him. Hunting him, he thought with a chill. Sent by the Morgawr to track him down and destroy him. He knew it instinctively. They sailed toward him in the silvery glow of the failing sunset, seven of them, long wings and necks extended, hooked beaks lifted like blades.
He swung away immediately and started downward in a slow glide, unable to make the single wing respond with any greater agility or speed. It was like canoeing in rapids,—you had to ride the current. Opening the vents all the way would drop him from the skies like a stone. The single wing wasn’t designed for quick maneuvers. It wasn’t built to flee Shrikes.
He spiraled toward the land below, toward peaks and cliffs, defiles and ravines, already able to tell that there was nowhere safe to land. But there was no time to worry about it and nothing he could do to change things. The best he could hope for was to get down before the Shrikes reached him. His flight was over. All that remained to be seen was how it would end.
He was still almost a thousand feet up when the first Shrike swept past him, claws raking the canvas and wood frame, sending him skidding sideways with a sickening lurch. He straightened out and angled sharply away, casting about for the others. If he had been frightened before, he was terrified now. He was helpless up here, strapped into his flimsy flying device, suspended in midair, unable to outrun or hide from his pursuers.
A second Shrike attacked, slamming into the single wing with such force that it jarred Ahren to his bones. He dropped dozens of feet before leveling out, and when he did, the single wing’s flight had turned shaky and uneven, and he could hear the flapping of torn canvas.
All about him, the Shrikes circled, beaks lifted, claws extended, eyes reflecting like pools of hard light in the darkness of their predatory faces.
Use the Elfstones!
But he couldn’t reach them without releasing his grip on the control bar, and if he did that, he might go straight down. He also risked dropping the Stones, fumbling them away as he tried to bring them to bear. Nevertheless, he took the gamble, certain that he was doomed otherwise. He let go of the bar and plunged his right hand into his tunic, tearing open the drawstrings of the pouch to fish out the stones.
Instantly, the single wing went into a steep dive. The Shrikes attacked from everywhere, but the wing was skewing sideways so badly that they were unable to get a grip on it. Shrieking, they dived past Ahren in a flurry of movement, wings whipping the air, talons extended, huge black shadows descending and then lifting away. He closed his eyes to sharpen his concentration, forcing his fingers to find and tighten about the Elfstones, drawing them clear.
He thrust his hand out in front of him, called up the power of the magic, and sent it sweeping out into the dark in a wall of blue fire.
The result was unexpected. The magic flooded the air with its sudden brightness, frightening the Shrikes but not harming them. Ahren, however, was sent spinning off into the void, the backlash from the magic nearly collapsing the single wing about his body. Belatedly, he remembered that the magic of the Elfstones was useless against creatures that did not rely on magic themselves. The Shrikes were immune to the power of the only weapon he possessed.
Still clutching the Elfstones, he tried to maneuver downward, diving between cliff faces so sheer that if he struck one, he would slide all the way to its base unimpeded. The Shrikes followed, screaming in frustration and rage, whipping past him in one series of near misses after another, the wake of their passing spinning him around until he could no longer determine where he was.
He was finished, he knew. He was a dead man. The whirl of land and sky formed a kaleidoscope of indigo and quicksilver, stars and darkness melding as he fought to slow his descent. A strut snapped with the sharpness of broken deadwood. His left wing shuddered and dipped.
Then something bigger than the Shrikes appeared at the corner of his eye, there for only a moment before the single wing spun him a different way. The Shrikes screamed anew, but the sound was different, and the Elven Prince detected fear in it. An instant later they were winging away, their dark shadows fading as quickly as their cries.
Something huge loomed over him, its shadow blacking out the sky. He tried to look upward to see what it was, but it collided with his single wing, knocking it askew once more, then latched on to the frame. He fought wildly to free it, to regain some control, but the control straps refused to respond or the grapples release.
The Morgawr! he thought in terror. Tine Morgawr has found me once more!
Then a second shadow appeared, lifting out of the well of cliffs and valleys in a spread of massive wings and a shining of great, gimlet eyes.
“Let go, Elven Prince!” Hunter Predd called out through the haze of shadows, reaching up from Obsidian’s back to catch hold of his dangling legs.
Ahren quit struggling and did as he was told, releasing first the control straps and then the buckles and ties that secured him to the harness. In a rush of wind and blackness, he slid down into the Wing Rider’s arms, scarcely able to believe the other was really there. In a daze, he watched the single wing and its harness tumble away, a tangle of crumpled wreckage.
“Hold tight,” Hunter Predd whispered in his ear, rough-bearded face pressing close to his own, strong arms fastening a safety line in place. “We have a ways to go, but you’re safe now.”
Safe, Ahren repeated silently, gratefully, and began to shake all over.
Hunter Predd’s strong arms tightened about him reassuringly, and with Po Kelles and Niciannon leading the way, they flew into the night.
Miles away in the same darkness that cloaked the fleeing Wing Riders and the Elven Prince, Ryer Ord Star hung from the yardarm of Black Moclips, swaying gently at the ends of the ropes tied about her wrists. Blood coated her arms from the deep gouges the ropes had made in her flesh, and sweat ran down her face and body in spite of the cool night air, Her pain was all encompassing, racking her slender body from head to toe, rising and falling in steady waves as she waited to die.
“Walker,” she begged softly, “please help me.” She had called to him all night, but this time he responded. He appeared out of nowhere, suspended in air before her, his dark countenance pale and haunted, but so comforting to her that she would have welcomed it even if it was nothing more than a mirage. Wrapped in his Druid robes, he was a shade come from death’s gate, a presence less of this world than the one beyond, yet in his eyes she found what she was seeking.
“Let me go,” she whispered, the words thick and clotted in her throat. “Set me free.”
He reached for her with his one good arm, his strong hand brushing against her ravaged cheeks, and his voice was filled with healing.
Come with me—
She shook her head helplessly. “I cannot. The ropes hold me.”
Only because you cling to them. Release your grip—
She did so, not knowing how exactly, only knowing that because he said so, she could. She slipped from her bonds as if they were loose cords and stepped out into the air as if she weighed nothing. Her pain and her fear fell away like old clothes she had tossed aside. Her heartache subsided. She stood next to him, and when he reached out a second time, she took his hand in her own. He smiled then and drew her close.
Come away—
She did so, at rest and at peace, redeemed and forgiven, made whole by her sacrifice, and she did not look back.