He did not seem bothered by that. He did not seem concerned at all. Ahren watched his flat, empty face look off a final time toward the underground lake. Then the sharp eyes flicked back to his.
“Boy, I have no further need of you.”
The chamber went so still that there might have been no one left alive, that even those who stood waiting to see what would happen next had been turned to stone. Ahren could feel the beating of his heart in his chest and the pulsing of his blood in his veins; he could hear the rasp of his breathing in his throat.
“Perhaps you do,” Ryer Ord Star said suddenly. They all turned to look at her, but her eyes were fixed on the Morgawr. “The Druid brought the prince on the journey because his brother the King insisted, but also because the Druid knew something of the prince’s worth beyond that. I have seen it in a vision. One day, Ahren Elessedil will be King of the Elves.”
She paused. “Perhaps, with training, he could learn to become your King.”
Ahren had never heard any such speculation, and he certainly didn’t like hearing it now, particularly given the twist that the seer was putting to it. He was so shocked he just stared at her, not trying to hide anything of what he was feeling, a mix of emotions so powerful he could barely contain them. Trust me, she had urged him. But what reason did he have for doing so now?
The Morgawr seemed to consider this, and then he nodded. “Perhaps.” He gestured vaguely toward the girl. “You seek to demonstrate your worth by sharing what you know, little seer. I approve.”
His eyes flicked back to Ahren. “You will come with me. You will do what you can to help me in my search. Together, we will track our little witch. Wherever she goes, we will find her. This will be over soon enough, and then I will decide what to do with you.”
He looked at Cree Bega. “Bring him.”
Then he motioned the caull to its feet, gave orders to its handlers, and sent them away into the tunnels once more. He took Ryer Ord Star by the arm and followed, ignoring Ahren. Seeing him rooted in place, Cree Bega clipped the boy across the back of his head and sent him stumbling after the warlock.
“Little Elvess musst do ass they are told!” he hissed balefully.
Ahren Elessedil, saying nothing, trudged ahead in a sullen rage.
Eleven
Aboard the Jerle Shannara, Redden Alt Mer paused at the aft railing of the airship and looked back at Black Moclips. She was laboring heavily as she tried to outrun the approaching storm, her armored hull tossing and slewing like a heavy branch caught in rapids. The storm was a black wall coming inland off the eastern coast, a towering mass of lightning-laced clouds riding the back of winds gusting at more than fifty knots. Little Red was doing the best she could to sail the airship alone, but it would have been a difficult task under ordinary circumstances. It was an impossible one here. Even if she reached the relative safety of the mountains ahead, there was no guarantee she would be able to find shelter until the storm passed. Landing an airship in the middle of a mountain range, with cliffs and downdrafts to contend with, was tricky business in any case. In the teeth of a storm like this one, it would be extremely dangerous.
Behind Black Moclips, at least a dozen of the enemy airships continued to give chase. He had thought he might lose them with the approach of the storm, but he had been wrong. Since yesterday morning, he had tried everything to shake them, but nothing had worked. Each time he thought he had given them the slip, they had reappeared out of nowhere. They shouldn’t have been able to do that. No one should have been able to find him so easily, especially not these ships, with their walking-dead crews and ship-shy Mwellrets.
They were tracking him somehow, tracking him in a way he hadn’t yet been able to identify. He had better do so soon. The repairs to the Jerle Shannara had not been completed before they had been forced to flee the coast, and the strain of having to rely on four of their six parse tubes and diapson crystals, the radian draws reconfigured to allow for the transference of energy, was beginning to tell. The draws were threatening to snap from the additional strain, and the airship’s maneuverability was less than he needed. Even though the Jerle Shannara was the faster airship, if something went wrong, their pursuers would be on them before they could make the necessary adjustment.
It didn’t help that no one had slept for more than a couple of hours since yesterday, and everyone was dog-tired. Tired men made mistakes, and if they made one here, it would probably cost them their lives.
He tested the aft starboard draw, adjusted the tension, and looked back again at Black Moclips. She was struggling to keep up, losing ground at an increasing pace. The Wing Riders flew on either side of her, offering their presence as reassurance, but the Elves were of no help in the sailing of the ship. Po Kelles had flown back to tell him what Little Red had done, and at first Alt Mer had been elated. They had the witch’s airship as well as their own, two chances to find a way out of this miserable country. But the convergence of their pursuers and the approach of the storm quickly made him realize that his sister might have seized too big a prize. Without a crew to assist her, she was seriously handicapped in her efforts to sail the captured ship. He would have put a couple of his own crew aboard to help her, but there was no way to do so without docking the airships; Rovers were skittish where Rocs were concerned.
A gust of wind howled through the rigging above him, producing a sharp and eerie whine, a wounded animal’s cry. The temperature was dropping, as well. If this kept up, there would be snow in the mountains and conditions for flying would become impossible.
He left the railing and hurried across the aft decking and down to the main deck and the pilot box where Spanner Frew stood like a rock at the helm, guiding the airship ahead with his steady hand.
“Lines still holding?” he bellowed as Big Red jumped up beside him in the box.
“For now—I don’t know for how much longer. We need to get down before that storm catches us!” They had to shout to be heard over the wind. He glanced over his shoulder at Black Moclips. “We have to do something to help Little Red. She’s game, but as good as she is, she can’t go it alone.”
Spanner Frew’s black-bearded face swung about momentarily, then straightened forward again. “If we could get a line to her, we could tow her.”
“Not in this weather—not with all those airships chasing us. We’d be slowed down, even using her parse tubes to help.”
The big man nodded. “Better get her off there, then! When that storm catches up, chances are pretty good she won’t be able to stay aloft. If she starts to go down then, we won’t be able to help her.”
Redden Alt Mer had already come to that conclusion. He wasn’t even sure he could manage to keep the Jerle Shannara flying. He toyed briefly with the prospect of changing over to Black Moclips and sailing her instead, since she was in better condition. But the Jerle Shannara was the faster, more maneuverable vessel, and he didn’t want to give her up when it was speed and maneuverability that were likely to make the difference in a confrontation with their pursuers. The matter was moot in any case because there wasn’t any real chance that he could get everyone off his ship and onto Little Red’s with the weather this bad.
He pursed his lips. Rue was going to be furious if he told her to give up her prize. She might not do it, even knowing how much trouble she was in.
He looked back again at Black Moclips and beyond to the enemy airships, black dots against the roiling darkness of the storm.
“How do they keep finding us?” he snapped at Spanner Frew, suddenly angry at how impossible things had gotten.
The shipwright shook his head and didn’t answer. A new level of frustration crept through Big Red. It was bad enough that they had lost Walker and all those who had gone inland to the ruins. It was bad enough that they had nothing to show for having come all this way and might well return home empty-handed—if they were able to get home at all. But it was intolerable that these phantom airships continued to harass them like hunting dog
s would a fleeing, wounded animal, finding their tracks or their scent where there should be no trace of their passing at all.
There was nothing he could do about it just now. But he could do something about Little Red. She was not yet recovered from her wounds and couldn’t have had much more sleep than they had. She must be near exhaustion from flying Black Moclips alone, trying to manage everything from the pilot box, the wind howling past her like a demon set loose to tear her from the skies. She was a good pilot, almost as good as he was—and a better navigator. But it wouldn’t be enough to save her from this.
“I’m taking her off, Black Beard!” he yelled over to the shipwright. “Drop our speed one quarter and hold steady toward that split in the peaks ahead.”
“You want to take her off in a grapple?” Spanner Frew yelled back.
Redden Alt Mer shook his head. “It would take too long. She has to come to us. I’ll send one of the Wing Riders in.”
He jumped down to the main deck, shouting orders at the crew, telling them to find their places at the working parse tubes, to monitor the draws while he ran aft. At the railing, he dug through a wooden box and found the emerald pennant that meant he needed one of them to fly to him.
Of course, the signal wouldn’t work if no one was looking. And in a bad storm like this one, they might not be.
He fastened the pennant’s clips to a line and ran the piece of cloth up into the wind, where it snapped and cracked like ice breaking free in the Squirm. Facing back, he watched Black Moclips lurch and buck. Several of her draws had broken loose, and one of her sails was in tatters. She was flying on her pilot’s skill and sheer luck.
Even as he watched, she faded farther back in the haze of clouds and mist. The Wing Riders were barely visible, still flying to either side. Their pursuers had disappeared entirely.
Redden Alt Mer pounded his fist on the railing cap. Neither Hunter Predd nor Po Kelles had seen the pennant.
“Look at me!” he screamed in frustration.
Lost in the howl of the wind, the words blew away from him.
A thousand yards back, so fatigued that she was near collapse, Rue Meridian fought to keep the Jerle Shannara in sight. Her world had narrowed down to this single purpose. Forgotten were her plans for coming inland to the ruins, for finding and rescuing Bek and the others of the company, for trying to salvage something from the disaster this voyage had become, for doing anything but keeping her vessel flying. Though her thoughts were clouded and her mind numb from concentrating on working the controls, she knew she was in trouble. The Jerle Shannara was drawing farther away and the airships pursuing her were drawing closer. Soon, any chance for escape would be lost.
Black Moclips shuddered anew as the winds preceding the storm buffeted her. The airship lurched sideways and down. The problem was simple enough to diagnose if not to solve. The ambient-light sails had been kept furled during the past few days, and no new power had been gathered for the diapson crystals. No new power was being collected now because she couldn’t put up the sails in this storm—couldn’t put them up at all, for that matter, storm or not, by herself. The limited power that remained was being exhausted. Personal attention at the various parse tubes was needed to distribute it more efficiently, but she couldn’t leave the controls long enough to attempt that. The best she would do was to try to manipulate things from the pilot box, and while that was possible, it was never intended that an airship be flown by a single person.
She had a crew, but they were locked up belowdecks, and once she set them free she might as well lock herself up in their place.
The first flurries of snow blew past her face, and she was reminded again of how far the temperature had fallen. Winter seemed to be descending into a land that hadn’t seen such weather in more than a thousand years.
She tried to coax more speed from the crystals, forcing herself to try a different combination of power allocations, feeling Black Moclips slew and skid on the wind from her efforts, fighting off her growing certainty that nothing she could do would make any difference.
She was so absorbed in her efforts that she failed to see Hunter Predd soar ahead into the misty gray toward the Jerle Shannara. Po Kelles kept pace with her off to the port side, but she didn’t even glance at him. In her struggle to fly Black Moclips, she had all but forgotten the Wing Riders. Then Hunter Predd flew Obsidian right over her bow to catch her attention. She ducked in response to the unexpected movement, then turned as the Roc swung around and settled in off her starboard railing, almost close enough to touch, rocking back and forth with the force of the wind.
“Little Red!” Hunter Predd shouted into the wind, his words barely audible.
She glanced over and waved to let him know she heard.
“I’m taking you off the ship!” He waited a moment to let the impact of the words sink in. “Your brother says you have to come with me. That’s an order!”
Angry that Big Red would even suggest such a thing, she shook her head no at once.
“You can’t stay!” Hunter Predd shouted, bringing Obsidian in closer. “Look behind you! They’re right on top of you!”
She didn’t have to look; she knew they were there, the airships chasing her. She knew they were so close that if she turned, she could make out the blank faces of the dead men who flew them. She knew they would have her in less than an hour if something didn’t happen to change her situation. She knew if they didn’t catch her by then, it was only because she had gone down.
She knew, in short, that her situation was hopeless.
She just didn’t want to admit it. She couldn’t bear it, in fact.
“Little Red!” the Wing Rider called again. “Did you hear me?”
She looked over at him. He was hunched close to Obsidian’s dark neck, arms and legs gripping the harness, safety lines tethering rider and bird. He looked like a burr stuck in the great Roc’s feathers.
“I heard!” she shouted back.
“Then get off that ship! Now!”
He said it with an insistence that brooked no argument, an insistence buttressed by the knowledge that she must realize the precariousness of her situation as surely as her brother and he did. He stared at her from astride his bird, weathered features scrunched and angry, daring her to contradict him. She understood what he was thinking: if he didn’t convince her here and now, it would be too late; already, the Jerle Shannara was nearly out of sight ahead and the storm upon her. She could still do what she chose, but not for very much longer.
She stared through the tangled, windblown strands of her hair to the airship’s controls. Dampness ran down the smooth metal and gleaming wood in twisting rivulets. She studied the way her hands fit on the levers and wheel. She owned Black Moclips now; it belonged to her. She had snatched it away from the thieves who had stolen her own ship. She had claimed it at no small risk to herself, and she was entitled to keep it. No one had a right to take it away from her.
But that didn’t mean she was wedded to it. That didn’t mean she couldn’t give it up, if she chose. If it was her idea. After all, it was just something made out of wood and metal, not out of flesh and blood. It wasn’t possessed of a heart and mind and soul. It was only a tool.
She looked back at Hunter Predd. The Wing Rider was waiting. She pointed aft and down, then at herself. He nodded and swung away from the ship.
She snatched up the steering bands and lashed the wheels and levers in place, then hurried down the steps and across the slippery surface of the decking to the main hatchway. She went down in a rush, before she had time to think better of it. She was curiously at peace. The anger she had felt moments earlier was gone. Black Moclips was a fine airship, but it was only that and nothing more.
She reached the storeroom door where Aden Kett and his Federation crew were locked away and banged on the door. “Aden, can you hear me?”
“I hear you, Little Red,” the Commander replied.
“I’m letting you out and giving you back your
ship. She’s struggling in this storm and needs a full crew to keep her flying. I can’t manage it alone. I own her, but I won’t let her die needlessly. So that’s that. You do what you can for her. All right?”
“All right.” She could tell from the sound of his voice that he was pressed up against the door on the other side.
“You’ll understand if I don’t stay around to see how this turns out.” She wiped at the moisture beading her forehead and dripping into her eyes. “You might have trouble doing the right thing by me afterwards. I’d hate to see you make a fool of yourself. So after I open this door, I’ll be leaving. Do you think you and the others can refrain from giving in to your worst impulses and coming after me?”
She heard him laugh. “Come after you? We’ve had enough of you, Little Red. We’ll all feel better knowing you’re off the ship. Just let us out of here.”
She paused then, leaning into the door, her face close to the cracks in the boards that formed it. “Listen to me, Aden. Don’t stay around afterwards. Don’t try to do the right thing. Forget about your orders and your sense of duty and your Federation training. Take Black Moclips and sail her home as quickly as you can manage it. Take your chances back there.”
She heard his boots shift on the flooring. “Who’s out there? We saw the other ships.”
“I don’t know. No one does, but it isn’t anyone you want anything to do with. More than a dozen airships, Aden, but no flags, no insignia, nothing human aboard. Just rets and men who look like they’re dead. I don’t know who sent them. I don’t care. You remember what I said. Fly out of here. Leave all this. It’s good advice. Are you listening?”
“I’m listening,” he answered quietly.
She didn’t know what else to say. “Tell Donell that I’m sorry I hit him so hard.”
“He knows.”
She pushed away from the door and stood facing it again. “See you down the road, Aden.”