Terry Brooks - Antrax

Ordering the others to stay where they were, she crept slowly about the clearing’s perimeter, sometimes dropping to her hands and knees to read the signs. Quentin stood frozen in place, frustrated and angry. Where was Bek? This was the Tracker’s fault. She shouldn’t have left Bek alone, no matter the reason or what she thought Bek could do with his magic or anything else. But he forced his anger down, quick to realize that it was misplaced. Tamis had done what was best, and there was no point in second-guessing her.

She came back to them finally, her face grim, but her gray eyes calm. “I can’t tell what’s happened for sure,” she announced. “There are tracks all over the place, and the last set has obscured the others. Those belong to Mwellrets. There was some sort of struggle, but it doesn’t look like anyone was injured, because there are no traces of blood.”

Quentin exhaled sharply. “So where are Bek and Ryer Ord Star? What’s happened to them?”

Tamis shook her head. “I told Bek that if anyone came, they were to hide. I left it to him to make the decision, but he knew to keep watch. I think he probably did as I instructed, and when he saw the Mwellrets, he got out of here. You know him better than I do. Does that sound like what he would do?”

The Highlander nodded. “He’s hunted the Highlands for years. He knows how to hide when it’s needed. I don’t think he would have been caught off guard.”

“All right,” she said. “Here’s the rest of it then. The Mwellrets spent some time here doing something, then continued on toward the city, not back the way they had come. If they’d taken Bek and the seer prisoner, they likely would have sent them to the airship under guard. No tracks lead back that way. Someone may have gone off in the direction from which we came, inland, but I can’t be sure. The signs are very faint and difficult to read. Anyway, the Mwellret signs are very clear. They don’t continue on in the same way; there is a change of direction. From the way several sets of prints start out and come back again, then all move off together in a pack, I’d say they were tracking someone.”

“Bek,” Quentin said at once.

“Or the girl,” Panax offered quietly.

“He wouldn’t leave her,” Quentin said. “Not Bek. He’d take her with him. Which might explain why the Mwellrets could track him. Without her, I’m not sure they could. Bek is good at concealing his trail.”

Tamis nodded, her gaze steady and considering. “I say we go after them. What do you say, Highlander?”

“We go after them,” he said at once.

She looked at Panax. The Dwarf shrugged. “Doesn’t make any sense to go the other way. The Jerle Shannara’ s gone off to the coast. Whoever’s left that matters is back in those ruins. I don’t want to leave them to the rets and the witch.”

Quentin had forgotten about the Ilse Witch. If there were Mwellrets ashore, Black Moclips had found its way through the pillars of ice and into the bay. That meant the Ilse Witch was somewhere close at hand. He realized all at once how dangerous going back toward the ruins would be. They were tired and worn, and they had been fighting and running for hours. It wouldn’t take much for them to make a mistake, and it wouldn’t take much of a mistake to finish them.

But he was not going to leave Bek. He had already made up his mind about that.

Kian and Wye were speaking with Tamis. They wanted to go back into the ruins. They wanted a chance to find Ard Patrinell and the others. They knew that would be dangerous, but they agreed with her. If anyone was still alive back there, they wanted to lend what help they could.

While the Elves conferred, Panax moved over to stand next to Quentin. “I hope you’re up to saving all of us again,” he said. “Because you might have to.”

He smiled tightly as he said it, but there was no humor in his voice.

Ahren Elessedil crouched in the darkest corner of an abandoned warehouse well beyond the perimeter of the deadly trap from which he had escaped, and tried to think what he should do. The warehouse was a cavernous shelter with holes in three of its four walls. It had a roof that was mostly intact, ceiling-high doors on two sides that had slid back on rollers and rusted in place, and barely more space than debris. He had been there for a very long time, pressed so tightly against the walls that he’d begun to feel as if he were a part of them. He had been there long enough to memorize every feature, to plan for every contingency, and to rethink every painful detail of what had brought him to that spot. Outside, the sun had risen to cast its light across the ravaged city in a broad sweep that chased the night’s shadows back into the surrounding woods. The sounds of death and dying had long since vanished, the battle cries, the clash of weapons against armor, and the desperate gasps and moans of human life leaking away. He watched and listened for the faintest hint of any of them, but there was only silence.

It was time for him to get out of there, to stand up and walk away—or run if he must—while the chance was there. He had to do something besides cower in his corner and relive in his mind the horrific memories of what he had been through.

But he could not make himself move. He could not make himself do anything but try to disappear into the metal and stone.

To say that he was frightened would be a gross understatement. He was frightened in a way he had never thought possible. He was frightened into near catatonia. He was so frightened that he had shamed himself beyond recognition of whom and what he had always believed himself to be, and probably beyond all redemption.

He closed his eyes against what he was feeling and thought back once more to what had happened, searching for a clue that would help him to better understand. He saw his friends and companions spread out across the maze of walls and partitions of that seemingly empty square—his group on the right, Quentin Leah’s on the left, and Bek’s in the center. Elven Hunters warded them all, and there seemed no reason to think they could not manage against whatever might confront them. Ahead, Walker crept deeper into the maze. The lowering sun cast shadows everywhere, but there was no movement and no sound to suggest danger. There was no hint of what was about to happen.

Then the fire threads appeared, razoring after the Druid first, then after those who tried to reach him, then even after those who had remained where they were. With Ard Patrinell, Joad Rish, and the three Elven Hunters who accompanied them, Ahren ducked behind a wall to escape being burned. Smoke filled the square and mingled with the haze to obscure everything in moments. He heard the shouts from Quentin’s group, the unexpected clank and scrape of metal parts, and the screams from across the way. Huddled behind his wall, filled with dread and panic, he realized quickly how bad things had become.

When the creepers had appeared behind him, he was already on the verge of bolting. He could not explain what had happened, only that the courage and determination that had infused and sustained him earlier had drained away in an instant’s time. The creepers seemed to materialize out of nowhere, metal beasts lumbering from the haze. Razor-sharp pincers protruded from their metal bodies, giving him a clear indication of the fate that awaited him. He stood his ground anyway, perhaps as much from an inability to move as anything, his sword lifted defensively, if futilely. The creepers attacked in a staggered rush, and he pressed himself away from them, back behind a wall, into a corner. To his amazement, they passed him by, choosing other adversaries, descending on his companions. One Elven Hunter—he couldn’t tell which one—went down almost at once, limp and bloodied. Ard Patrinell surged to the forefront of the defenders, throwing back the creepers single-handedly, a warrior responding to a need, a small wall against an attacking wave. For a moment he withstood the charge, but then the creepers closed over him and he disappeared.