Terry Brooks - Witch Wraith

“I’ll be back soon, so be ready!” he shouted over his shoulder at the Home Guards, who returned his challenge with hoots and jeers.

When they were far enough away, Seersha, leading him toward the airfield, said quietly, “Where are your clothes? They weren’t in your room.”

“I threw them out. They were in tatters. I’m wearing what’s left. Now what’s going on?”

Quickly, she summarized what Sian Aresh had told her, ending by saying they had to assume both of them were already being hunted, so they needed to get clear of Arborlon.

“On an airship?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at her. “I don’t know anything about flying airships. Can’t we just ride horses?”

She shook her head. “Too slow. We have to get away quickly. I think you need to return to the Dwarves and warn them about what’s coming. They might already know, but we should make certain. The tribes need to form an army that can stand with the Elves if the demons come north from Arishaig.”

“Stand with the Elves? What chance is there of that happening with that madman as King?” Corum Crace snorted in disgust. “The Dwarves will go their own way.”

She gave him a hard look. “Let’s see how things play out. Whatever the choices given us, we’d better be ready to pick one.” She paused. “You know what we’ll be up against.”

“All too well.” He pointed ahead. “Which vessel do you intend to steal?”

She peered across the field, which had just come into view, searching for a likely candidate. At first, she didn’t see anything that looked manageable. The big warships were out of the question, and even skiffs the size of the Wend-A-Way were easier to handle when there was more than one person to fly them.

Then she caught sight of something that made her smile. A worn but serviceable two-man flit set off to one side was marked with signs that said it was available for private hire. She gave a quick glance around, but saw no signs of Elven Hunters prowling the field or its perimeters. Work crews scurried about the larger warships, but mostly the airfield was empty.

“Come on,” she said to her companion and moved quickly toward the two-man.

“That scow?” Coram demanded. “It doesn’t look like it can get off the ground!”

She grinned at his dismay. “It’s clearly done so many times before. I think it can manage a few more.” She slapped him on his arm. “Let me do the bargaining.”

A whip-thin Elf was seated nearby, studying an array of maps as the Dwarves came up to him. He looked up, clearly interested. “You want to rent her, maybe?” He gestured at the two-man. “How long?”

Seersha pretended to study the craft. “Is she capable? Does she handle well?”

The man made a face. “Well enough for you. Do you even know how to fly her?”

“I know a little.”

“Good enough. A little is all she requires. A sound craft in spite of how she looks. Reliable. She’s in her retirement years, but she knows the way.”

“A week,” Seersha said. “How much?”

“A hundred. Silver.”

“Too much. Maybe fifty.”

“Too little. How about a hundred?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “We’ve passed that point in the discussion. I can do seventy.”

Abruptly, shouts broke out from across the field as a swarm of Home Guards appeared out of the trees. Seersha hesitated, and then hit the Elf so hard he was already unconscious when he struck the ground. Crace Coram scrambled aboard the two-man, and Seersha released the anchor ropes and followed him up. She unhooded the parse tubes, engaged the thrusters, and when the familiar sound of the diapson crystals heating up reached her ears, she grabbed the lifter levers and took the ship into the air with a series of lurches and jumps that sent her companion tumbling all the way to the back of the craft.

Picking himself up gingerly, Crace Coram made his way forward to sit behind her once more. “Very nice job of bargaining back there. That cost us much less than I thought it would.”

They flew west through the Valley of Rhenn and out onto the upper Streleheim, casting anxious glances over their shoulders all the way. But no other craft appeared behind them. Possibly giving chase wasn’t an immediate concern. Perhaps no one had orders about what to do if they fled the city. Any delay would help with their escape, so she accepted the lack of a pursuit as a gift and concentrated on what lay head.

“What are we doing?” her companion asked, leaning forward to be heard.

Good question. She thought about it for a moment. “We have a choice,” she said to him, turning to catch his eye. “If we go to Paranor and I can get inside the Keep, I can read the scrye waters and might be able to determine where Aphenglow is. If we continue on, we can do what I said earlier and warn the Dwarves about the danger from the demons. Or we can do something else.”

She waited. He said nothing for a moment. Then, “Seems as if we ought to find the sisters and warn them. We can’t afford for anything to happen to them.”

She gave him a quick nod of agreement. “Paranor it is, then.”

They flew on through the remainder of the day, winging toward the sun, then beneath it as it passed overhead and finally beyond, as the light diminished and the night approached. By then they had reached the Dragon’s Teeth and were close to their destination. Seersha still felt the grips of her fever, so she had taken time to show Crace Coram how to work the two-man’s controls—not only to give him a chance to try his hand at flying the craft, but also to give herself an opportunity to rest and recover as she could. He had taken control reluctantly, cautious and a bit unsteady at first, but gradually gaining a sense of confidence. They switched places several times more during their flight, often enough so that she felt he could manage well enough at the helm if the need arose. It gave her a chance to rest her eyes and body; her fever had finally faded during their flight, chased by time and the defenses of her body, and she was feeling much better.

When they arrived at Paranor, she took the two-man directly over the top of the wall and close to the dark towers for a quick look. But the Keep seemed to be abandoned still, unchanged since Aphenglow had returned. Seersha maneuvered toward the landing platform and set their vessel down.

They climbed out of the cockpit and stood amid the clustered mix of wrecked and undamaged airships, taking a careful look around. The sun had gone behind the trees west, and its light was beginning to disappear. Shadows draped the stone and iron of the Druid’s Keep, and the cool of nightfall infused the deepening dark.

Seersha took a long moment to be certain that nothing living was hiding in those shadows before satisfying herself that they were alone.

“Stay with the two-man until I get back,” she told Crace Coram. “No one who isn’t a Druid is allowed where I am going.”

She left him behind looking irritable and went through the rubble and debris and heaps of ashes littering the ramp, past the wreckage of Arrow with its prow lodged in the collapsed doorway, and into the Keep proper. She followed the hall for a short distance to a stairway and then made her way upstairs. Two flights up, she stepped through an opening to a second hallway and followed it to the door that opened into the cold room, where she triggered a release of the protective locks.

Inside, the chill was bone-deep. Seersha shivered as she moved over to the elevated basin, stepped up onto the stone blocks that formed its base, and stood looking down at the broad, placid contents. Summoning the magic she had learned to command in the early days of her service to the order, she spread her hands and swept her open palms over the surface while not quite touching it, the motion stirring the waters to life. In the depths of the basin, the lines and shadings of the map of the Four Lands drawn on the stone brightened in a flaring of colors and sudden shimmers.