Терри Брукс - The Elf Queen of Shannara

She turned quickly back. “There must be an antidote that will counteract the poison, mustn’t there?” Her words were frantic. “I’ll ask Stresa! He’ll know! I’ll get him back!”

The big hands cut her short. Stresa already knows the truth You saw it in his eyes There isn’t anything he can do There never was Let it go Help me. Take the knife and use it.

No!

You have to.

No!

One hand swept up suddenly as if to strike her, and instinctively she reacted with a block to counter, the hand with the knife lifting, freezing, inches above his chest. Their eyes locked. For an instant, everything washed away within Wren but the terrible recognition of what was needed. The truth stunned her. She caught her breath and held it.

Quick, Wren... She did not move. He took her hand and gently lowered it until the knife blade was resting against his tunic, against his chest. Do it.

Her head shook slowly, steadily from side to side, a barely perceptible movement.

Wren Help me.

She looked down at him, deep into his eyes, and into the red glare that was consuming him, that rose out of the horror growing within. She remembered standing next to him as a child when she had first come to live with the Rovers, barely as tall as his knee. She remembered herself at ten, whip-thin, leather-tough, racing to catch him in the forest. She remembered their games, constant, unending, all directed toward her training.

She felt his breath on her face. She felt the closeness of him and thought of the comfort it had given her as a child.

“Garth,” she whispered in despair, and felt the great hands come up to tighten over her own.

Then she thrust the long knife home.

She fled then she ran from the clearing into the trees, numb with grief, half blind with tears, the Ruhk Staff clutched before her in both hands like a shield. She raced through the shadows and half-light of the island’s early morning, oblivious to Killeshan’s distant rumble, to Morrowindl’s shudder in response, lost to everything but the need to escape the time and place of Garth’s death, even knowing she could never escape its memory. She tore past brush and limbs with heedless disregard, through tall grasses and brambles, along ridges of earth encrusted with lava rock, and over deadwood and scattered debris. She sensed none of it. It was not her body that fled; it was her mind.

Garth!

She called out to him endlessly, chasing after her memories of him, as if by catching one she might bring him back to life. She saw him race away, spectral, phantasmagoric. Parts of him appeared and faded in the air before her, blurred and distant images from times gone by. She saw herself give chase as she had so many times when they had played at being Tracker and prey, when they had practiced the lessons of staying alive. She saw herself that last day in the Tirfing before Cogline had appeared and everything had changed forever, skirting the shores of the Myrian, searching for signs. She watched him drop from the trees, huge, silent, and quick. She felt him grapple for her, felt herself slip away, felt her long knife rise and descend. She heard herself laugh. You’re dead, Garth.

And now he really was.

Somehow—it was never entirely clear—she stumbled upon the others of the little company, the few who remained alive, Triss, the last of the Elves, the last besides herself, and Stresa and Faun. She careened into them, spun away angrily as if they were hindrances, and kept going. They came after her, of course, running to catch up, calling out urgently, asking what was wrong, what had happened, where was Garth?

Gone, she said, head shaking. Not coming.

But it was okay. It was all right.

He was safe now.

Still running, she heard Triss demand again, What is wrong And Stresa reply, Hsssstt, can’t you see? Words, whispered furtively, passed between them, but she didn’t catch their meaning, didn’t care to. Faun leapt from the pathway to her arm, clinging possessively, but she shook the Tree Squeak off roughly. She didn’t want to be touched. She could barely stand to be inside her own skin.

She broke free of the trees.

“Lady Wren!” she heard Triss cry out to her.

Then she was scrambling up a lava slide, clawing and digging at the sharp rock, feeling it cut into her hands and knees. Her breath rasped heavily from her throat, and she was coughing, choking on words that wouldn’t come. The Ruhk Staff fell from her hands, and she abandoned it. She cast everything away, the whole of who and what she was, sickened by the thought of it, wanting only to flee, to escape, to run until there was nowhere left to go.

When she collapsed finally, exhausted, stretched flat on the slide, sobbing uncontrollably, it was Triss who reached her first, who cradled her as if she were a child, who soothed her with words and small touches and gave her a measure of the comfort she needed. He helped her to her feet, turned her about, and took her back down to the forest below. Carrying the Ruhk Staff in one arm and supporting her with the other, he guided her through the morning hours like a shepherd a stray lamb, asking nothing of her but that she place one foot before the other and that she continue to walk with him. Stresa took the lead, his bulky form becoming the point of reference on which she focused, the steadily changing object toward which she moved, first one foot, then the other, over and over again. Faun returned for another try at scrambling up her leg and onto her arm, and this time she welcomed the intrusion, pressing the Tree Squeak close, nuzzling back against the little creature’s warmth and softness.

They traveled all day like this, companions on a journey that required no words. The few times they paused to rest, Wren accepted the water Triss gave her to drink and the fruit he pressed into her palm and did not bother to ask where it came from or if it was safe to eat. The daylight dimmed as clouds massed from horizon to horizon, as the vog thickened beneath. Killeshan stormed behind them, the eruptions unchecked now, fire and ash and smoke spewing skyward in long geysers, the smell of sulfur thick in the air, the island shaking and rocking. When darkness finally descended, the crest of the mountain was bathed in a blood-red corona that flared anew with each eruption and sent trailers of fire all down the distant slopes where the lava ran to the sea. Boulders grated and crunched as the molten rock carried them away, and trees burned with a sharp, crackling despair. The wind died to nothing, a haze settled over everything, and the island became a fire-rimmed cage in which the inhabitants bumped up against one another in frightened, angry confusion.

Stresa settled them that night in a cleft of rock that sheltered on three sides amid a grove of wiry ironwood stripped all but bare of foliage. They huddled in the dark with their backs to the wall and watched the holocaust beyond grow brighter. They were still a day from the beaches, a day from any rendezvous with Tiger Ty, and the destruction of the island was imminent. Wren came back to herself enough to realize the danger they were in. Sipping at the cup of water Triss gave her, listening to the sound of his voice as he continued to speak quietly, reassuringly, she remembered what it was that she was supposed to do and that it was Tiger Ty alone who could help her to do it.

“Triss,” she said finally, unexpectedly, seeing him for the first time, speaking his name in acknowledgment, making him smile in relief.

Shortly after, the demons appeared, Morrowindl’s Shadowen, the first of those that had escaped Killeshan’s fiery flow, fled down out of the hills toward the beaches, lost and confused and ready to kill anything they came upon. They stumbled out of the fiery gloom, a ragged collection of misshapen horrors, and attacked unthinkingly, responding to instinct and to their own peculiar madness. Stresa heard them coming, sharp ears picking out the sound of their approach, and warned the others seconds before the attack. Sword drawn, Triss met the rush, withstood it, and very nearly turned it aside, almost a match for the things even with only one useful arm. But the demons were crazed past fear or reason, driven from their high country by something beyond understanding. These humans were a lesser threat. They rallied and attacked anew, determined to exact some measure of revenge from the source at hand.