Terry Brooks - Antrax

Cree Bega moved back over to where Bek sat, stood over him like a great, dark, crushing force. “Thinkss carefully, little peopless,” he rasped softly. “Wayss to make you sspeak the wordss you hide. Retss know wayss. Makess you sscream if you wissh to have uss tesst you. Eassier to jusst ansswer uss when we assk. Besst if you do. Then little peopless goess free.”

He waited a moment, watching. Bek stared straight ahead at nothing, fighting against his terror, willing himself to stay calm.

Cree Bega nudged him gently with his boot. “Comess back to ssee you ssoon,” he whispered.

Without a glance back, he turned and went to the storeroom door, opened it, and disappeared from view. The door closed softly behind him, and the latch snapped back into place.

Bek kept his gaze directed two feet in front of him at the edge of the candlelit darkness, trying to come to grips with what he must do. He could not get free without help. Help was not likely to come soon enough to matter. He was going to have to give the Mwellret what he wanted. But how could he do that? He could not speak, even if he wanted to do so. He tested the effects of Grianne’s magic again, thinking that perhaps he had missed something. He tried everything he could, but nothing worked. His voice was gone.

Where did that leave him? He could write his answers to the Mwellret’s questions, but that might not be enough to save him. Cree Bega looked the sort to test his speaking ability not just with words but with his deadly assortment of blades, as well. What could it hurt, after all, to make certain? Why not see just how voiceless the boy really was?

For the first time since he had departed the Jerle Shannara and gone inland in search of Castledown, Bek regretted giving up the phoenix stone. If he had kept it for himself, if he had not forced it on Ahren Elessedil, he would have a way to escape, even bound up as he was. Perhaps that was what the King of the Silver River had intended all along. Perhaps he had foreseen the situation and given Bek the stone as a means of getting free. The idea that he had willingly forsaken his chance was more than Bek could stand, and he banished the thought angrily. His gag was still off, and he took several deep, slow breaths to steady himself, but he could still feel his heart pounding. He glanced down again at the array of blades laid out beside him, then quickly away. He was so afraid. He felt tears start at the corners of his eyes and fought to keep them from running down his cheeks. The Mwellret guards would be watching. They would be hoping for this. They would report it to Cree Bega, who would think him even weaker than he already supposed. Cree Bega would use that against him.

He ran through his options, all of them, however remote or impossible they seemed; nothing new suggested itself. He would answer the questions Cree Bega asked of him. He would hope he could do so in writing and not be tortured first to find out if he was playing games. He would hope they would set him free from the ropes and chains—either of their own volition or by his suggestion—and if they did, that he could find an opportunity to escape. It was a pathetic plan, devoid of particulars or favorable odds, but it was all he could come up with. His hopes were in tiny shreds, and he clung to them as to bits of colored string, once bright with promise, now faded and worn.

It wasn’t fair, he kept thinking. None of it. It was nothing of what he had thought he would find in coming here. It was promise turned to dust. The tears came again, harder, and they ran down his cheeks in crooked lines. He lowered his head into shadow in an effort to hide them.

As he did so, he heard the storeroom door open anew, a snapping of the latch, a soft creaking of the hinges. He glanced up quickly, expecting to see Cree Bega. But no one was there. The doorway was empty, a black hole into the outer passageway, where no lights burned.

Had those lights not been lit when Cree Bega departed the room? Bek wondered, suddenly alert.

For an instant, the Mwellret guards stood frozen in place. Then the ret who stood closest to the door drew a short sword from beneath his cloak and walked over for a look. He stood in the opening, unmoving, peering out into the corridor. Nothing happened. Slowly, carefully, he closed the door once more, the hinges creaking in the new-formed silence, the latch clicking sharply into place.

In the next instant, the candle next to Bek went out and the room was plunged into blackness except for the light from the single portal across the way, but that left everything shadowy and vague. Something went by Bek in a rush, the movement of its passage a cold breath of air against his skin. It made no sound as it closed with the nearest Mwellret, who grunted at the impact and went down. There was a warning hiss from the other two, and then both were engaged in a struggle that sent them careering across the darkened room and into the far wall. Bek caught a glimpse of their antagonist, a big cloaked form that moved with the speed and agility of a moor cat, launching into first one and then the other, hammering them, sending them down in broken heaps.

Bek stared. It couldn’t be.

The first ret was back on its feet, charging to the aid of its fellows, the glitter of its blade caught momentarily in a wash of moonlight. There was a muffled collision of bodies and a grunt. Seconds later the ret staggered back again, the short sword buried in its chest, its movements limp and unfocused as it fought to stay upright. When it collapsed a moment later, the life gone out of it, the room was so still that Bek could hear himself breathe.

“What’s the matter, boy?” someone whispered in his ear. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

It was Truls Rohk. Bek started so violently at the guttural sound of the other’s voice that he nearly choked. The shape-shifter materialized beside him out of the darkness, his cloaked and hooded form blocking out the moonlight. In seconds he cut apart the ropes that bound the boy’s wrists. Then, using a slender length of metal bar, he snapped apart the link that fastened the leg iron clasp in place, and Bek was free.

Truls Rohk hauled him to his feet. “No talking,” he whispered. “Not until we’re off this ship.”

They went out into the darkened passageway, the shape-shifter leading the way. Despite stiffness and cramped muscles, still not quite believing his good fortune, Bek stayed close enough to touch him. They were barely a dozen paces beyond the storeroom when a raspy, broken cry went up from within. Bek at his heels, the shape-shifter continued down the corridor without looking back. The boy expected him to make for one of the stairways leading up and was surprised when he did exactly the opposite. Instead of ascending to the main deck, Truls Rohk turned down a dead-end corridor that led to the rear of the craft. Overhead, the sound of booted feet echoed through the decking, mingling with shouts and cries. The ship’s company was fully awake and, if not hunting for them yet, well on the way to doing so.

The corridor Truls Rohk had turned down ended after only a few steps at a heavy wooden door. The shape-shifter opened it without hesitating and pulled Bek inside. The room was dark, but moonlight poured through two sets of open windows to reveal a fully furnished chamber. A man came awake in a bed to one side, springing out of the covers hurriedly, but a single blow from Truls Rohk knocked him into a wall where he collapsed in an unconscious heap.

“Out the window,” the shape-shifter hissed at Bek, shoving him toward the open portals.

He turned back toward the door to the chamber, but it was already flying open, and half a dozen dark forms were charging through. Truls Rohk slammed into them with such fury that he sent all six careening backwards into the passageway, stumbling and cursing as they tried to keep their feet. Knives and short swords glittered in the moonlight, but the shape-shifter dodged through the slashing blades like a ghost, snatched hold of the open door, and slammed it shut, throwing the heavy latch in place.