“How far ahead is this place?” Kian asked at once.
“An hour, maybe two.”
The Elven Hunter shook his head. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“We do if I stay behind,” Quentin said at once.
He spoke before he could think better of it. It was a rash and dangerous offer, but he knew even without thinking it through that it was right.
They stared at him. “Highlander, what are you saying?” Panax asked angrily. “You can’t—”
“Panax, listen to me. Let’s be honest about this. It’s the magic that’s attracting them. No, don’t say it, don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about—we both know it’s true. We all know it. They want the magic, just like Antrax and its creepers did. If I stay back, I can draw them off long enough for you to get past the place on the mountain where you want to start the slide. It will buy you the time you need.”
“It will get you killed, too!” the other snapped.
Quentin smiled. Now that there were so many of the tracking beasts, he had virtually no chance of withstanding a sustained assault. If he couldn’t outrun them—and he knew he couldn’t—they would be all over him, sword or no. He was proposing to give up his life for theirs, a bargain that didn’t bear thinking on too closely if he was to keep it.
“I’ll stay with you,” Kian offered, not bothering to question the Highlander’s logic, knowing better than to try.
“No, Kian. One of us is enough. Besides, I can do this better alone. I can move more quickly if I’m by myself. You and Panax get the Rindge through. That’s more important. I’ll catch up.”
“You won’t live that long,” Panax said with barely contained fury. “This is senseless!”
Quentin laughed. “You should see your face, Panax! Go on, now. Get them moving. The faster you do, the less time I’ll need to spend back here.”
Kian turned away, dark features set. “Come on, Dwarf,” he said, pulling at Panax’s sleeve.
Panax allowed himself to be drawn away, but he kept looking back at Quentin. “You don’t have to do this,” he called back. “Come with us. We can manage.”
“Watch for me,” Quentin called after him.
Then the Rindge were moving ahead again, angling through the trees and up the trail. They wound through boulders and around a bend, and in minutes they were out of sight.
Everything went still. The Highlander stood alone in the center of the empty trail and waited until he could no longer hear them. Then he started back down the way he had come.
It didn’t take Quentin very long to find what he was looking for. He remembered the defile from earlier, a narrow split through a massive chunk of rock that wound upward at a sharp incline and barely allowed passage for one. Quentin knew that if he tried to make a stand in the open, the tracking beasts would overwhelm him in seconds. But if he blocked their way through the split, they could come at him only one at a time. Sooner or later, they would succeed in breaking through by sheer weight of numbers or they would find another way around. But he didn’t need to hold them indefinitely; he only needed to buy his companions a little extra time.
The split in the boulder ran for perhaps twenty-five feet, and there was a widening about halfway through. He chose this point to make his first stand. When he was forced to give way there, he could fall back to the upper opening and try again.
He glanced over his shoulder. Further back, another two or three hundred yards, was a deep cluster of boulders where he had stashed his bow and arrows. He would make his last stand there.
“Wish you could see this, Bek,” he said aloud. “It should be interesting.”
The minutes slipped away, but before too many had passed, he heard the approach of the tracking beasts. They did nothing to hide their coming, made no pretense of concealing their intent. Sharp snarls and grunts punctuated the sound of their heavy breathing, and their raw animal smell drifted on the wind. Further away, but coming closer, were the Mwellrets.
Quentin unsheathed the Sword of Leah and braced himself.
When the first of the beasts thrust its blunt head around the nearest bend in the split and saw him, it attacked without hesitating. Quentin crouched low and caught it midspring on the tip of his weapon, spitting it through its chest and pinning it to the earth where it thrashed and screamed and finally died as the magic ripped through it. A second and third appeared almost immediately, fighting to get past each other. He jabbed at their faces and eyes as they jammed themselves up in the narrow opening, and forced them to back away. From behind them, he heard the shouts of the rets and the snarls of other tracking beasts as they tried in vain to break through.
He fought in the defile for as long as he could, killing two of the creatures and wounding another before he made his retreat. He might have stayed there longer, but he feared that the rets would find a way around. If they trapped him in the defile, he was finished. He had bought as much time as he could at his first line of defense. It was time to fall back.
With the tracking beasts snapping at him, he backed through the split, then made his second stand at the upper end. Straddling the opening, he bottled up the frantic creatures, refusing to let them through, killing one and wedging it back inside so that the others could not pass it without climbing over. They tore at their dead companion until it was shredded and bloodied, and still they couldn’t break free. Quentin fought with a wild and reckless determination, the magic driving through him like molten iron, sweeping away his weariness and pain, his reason and doubt, everything but the feel of the moment and its dizzying sense of power. Nothing could stop him. He was invincible. The magic of the sword buzzed and crackled through his body, and he gave himself over to it.
Even when the Mwellrets got around behind him, he stood his ground, so caught up in the euphoria generated by the magic that he would have done anything to keep it flowing. He drove back this fresh assault, then returned to battling the tracking beasts trying to emerge from the split, intent on doing battle with anything that challenged him.
It took a deep slash to his thigh to sober him up enough that he finally realized the danger. He turned and ran without slowing or looking back, gaining enough ground to enable him to clamber into the rocks and find his bow and arrows just before his pursuers caught up with him. He was a good marksman, but his pursuers were so close that marksmanship counted for almost nothing. He buried four arrows in the closest burly head before it was finally knocked back, blinded in both eyes and maddened with pain. He wounded two more, slowing them enough that the others could not get past. He shot every arrow he had, killing two of the rets, as well, then threw down the bow and began running once more.
There was nowhere reasonable left to stand and fight, so he sprinted for the ledge where he hoped Panax, Kian, and the Rindge would be waiting with help. It was a long run, perhaps two miles, and he soon lost track of time and place, of everything but movement. Still infused with the magic of the sword, its power singing in his blood, he found strength he did not know he possessed. He ran so fast that he outdistanced his bulky pursuers, leaving them to scramble over boulders and rock-strewn trails he scaled with ease.
Maybe, just maybe, he would find a way out of this.
“Leah, Leah!” he cried out, euphoric and wild-eyed, with reckless disregard for who might hear him. “Leah!” he howled.
They caught up to him finally at the near end of the ledge, forcing him to turn and fight. He stood his ground just long enough to throw them back again, then rushed out onto the ledge. The sweep of the Aleuthra Ark with its massive backdrop of peaks and valleys stretched like a painting across the horizon, somehow not quite real.
The tracking beasts came at him once more, but they did not have enough room. Two tumbled away, clawing and screaming as they fell. He glanced back down the slope he had just climbed; it was crawling with tracking beasts and Mwellrets. How many more could there be? Pressed against the cliff face, he retreated as swiftly as he could, slas
hing at the closest of his pursuers when they came within reach. He had been clawed and bitten in a dozen places, and the singing of the magic had taken on a high, frantic whine. His stamina and strength were nearly exhausted; when they were depleted, the magic of the Sword of Leah would fail, as well.
“Panax!” he called frantically, fighting to keep his newfound fear at bay, feeling the euphoria desert him as the brilliance of his blade began to dim.
He was perhaps a hundred feet out from where he had started, the cliff wall to his left an almost vertical rise, the drop to his right deep and precipitous, when he heard Panax call back to him. He did not look away from his pursuers. They were crowded out onto the ledge behind him, still coming, rage and hunger reflected in their eyes, waiting for him to drop his guard.
Then he heard a rumble of rocks from above, and he turned and ran. He was too slow. The closest of the beasts was on top of him in a heartbeat, claws slashing. He whirled and knocked it backwards, slamming his closed fist into the rock wall with such force that he lost his grip on the sword. Knocked from his hand, it tumbled over the edge of the path and disappeared into the abyss.
He hesitated then, not quite believing what had just happened, and his hesitation cost him any chance of escape. Rocks and dirt showered down from above, pouring over everything in a thunderous slide that swept across the face of the cliff. Quentin tried to run through it, but he was too late. The avalanche was all around him, tearing away the mountainside, breaking off chunks of the ledge. The tracking beasts and their handlers disappeared in a roar of stone, then a massive section of the trail ahead tore free and was gone.
Quentin flattened himself against the cliff wall and covered his head. The entire mountain seemed to be coming down on top of him. For a moment, he held on, pressed against the stone. Then the avalanche plucked him from his perch like a leaf, and he was gone.
Eighteen
The Highlander regained consciousness in a sea of mind-numbing blackness and bone-crushing weight. He could smell dust and grit and the raw odor of torn leaves and earth. At first he could not remember what had happened or where he was, and panic’s sharp talons pricked at him. But he held fast, forcing himself to be patient, to wait for his mind to clear.
When it did, he remembered the avalanche. He remembered being swept over the narrow ledge and into the void, tumbling downward through a rain of rocks and debris, catching onto something momentarily before being torn free, tangling up in scrub thickets, all the while engulfed in a roar that dwarfed the fury of the worst storm he had ever endured. Then darkness had closed about in a wave and everything else disappeared.
His vision sharpened, and he realized that the avalanche had buried him in a cluster of tree limbs and roots. Through small openings in his makeshift tomb, he saw heavy gray clouds rolling across a darkening sky. He had no idea how much time had passed. He lay without moving, staring at the distant clouds and collecting his thoughts. He should, by all rights, be dead. But the roots and limbs, while trapping him in a jagged wooden cage, had saved him, as well, deflecting boulders that would otherwise have crushed him.
Even so, he was not out of trouble. His ears were ringing, and his mouth and nostrils were dry with dust. Every bone and muscle in his body ached from the pummeling he had received, and he could not tell as yet if he had broken anything in his fall.
When he tried to move, he found himself pinned to the ground.
He listened to the silence, a blanket that cloaked both his stone-encrusted prison and the world immediately outside. There wasn’t the smallest rustle of life, not the tiniest whisper, nothing but the ragged sound of his breathing. He wondered if anyone would come looking for him—if anyone even could. There might be no one left to look. Half the mountain had fallen away, and there was no telling whom it had carried with it. Hopefully, Panax and the Rindge had escaped and the Mwellrets and their tracking beasts had not. But he could not be sure.
He tried not to think too hard on it, focusing instead on the problem at hand. He forced himself to relax, to take deep breaths, to gather his resources. Carefully, gingerly, he tested his fingers and toes to make certain they were all working—and still there—then tested his arms and legs, as well. Amazingly, nothing seemed broken, even though everything hurt.
Encouraged by his sense of wholeness, Quentin set about looking for a way to get free. There was only a little room to move in his cramped prison, but he took advantage of it. He was able to extricate his left leg and both arms through the exercise of a little time, patience, and perseverance, but the right leg was securely wedged beneath a massive boulder. It wasn’t crushed, but it was firmly pinned. Try as he might, he could not work it free.
He lay back again, drenched in sweat. He was aware suddenly of how hot he was, buried in the earth like a corpse, covered over by layers of rock and debris. He was coated with dust and grime. He felt as if he knew exactly what it would be like to be dead, and he didn’t care for it.
He wormed himself into a slightly different position, but the smallness of the space and the immobility of his trapped leg prevented him from doing much. Deep breaths, he told himself. Stay calm. He felt raindrops on his face through the chinks in his prison and saw that the sky had darkened. The rainfall was slow and steady, a soft patter in the stillness. He licked at stray drops that fell on his lips, grateful for the damp.
He spent a long time after that working with an unwieldy piece of tree limb that he was able to drag within reach and position as a fulcrum. If he could shift the boulder just an inch, he might be able to wriggle free. But from his supine position, he could not get the leverage he needed, and the branch was too long to place properly in any event. Nevertheless, he kept working at it until it grew so dark he could no longer see what he was doing.
He fell asleep then, and when he woke, it was still dark, but the rain had stopped and the silence had returned. He went back to work with the branch, and it was morning before he gave the task up as impossible. Despair crept through him and he found himself wondering how desperate his situation really was. No one was coming to look for him; he would have heard them by now if they were. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to do so on his own. What would that cost him? Would he cut off his leg if there was no other way? Would he give up part of himself if it meant saving his life?
Sleep claimed him a second time, and he woke to daylight and sunshine flooding down out of a clear blue sky. He did not give himself time to dwell on the darker possibilities of his situation, but went back to trying to get free. This time, he used a sharp-ended stick to dig away at the rock and earth packed in beneath his leg. If he could tunnel under his leg, he reasoned, he might create enough space to worm loose. It was slow going, the digging often reduced to one pebble, one small chunk of hardened earth at a time. He had to start as far back as his knee and work his way down, inch by painful inch. He had to be careful not to disturb anything that supported the boulder. If it shifted, it would crush his leg and trap him for good.
He worked all day, ignoring his growing hunger and thirst, the aches in his body, and the heat of his cage. He had come too far and endured too much to die like this. He was not going to quit. He would not give up. He repeated the words over and over again. He made them into a song. He chanted them like a mantra.
It was almost dark again when he finally worked his leg free, leaving behind most of his pants leg and much of his skin. Immediately, he began digging his way out, burrowing upward through the debris toward the fading light, toward fresh air and freedom. He could not afford to stop and rest. He felt the panic taking over.
Night had fallen, a velvet soft blackness under a starlit sky, when he pulled himself from the rocks and earth and stood again in the open air. He wanted to weep with joy, but would not let himself, afraid that if he broke down, he might not recover. His emotions were raw and jangled from his ordeal, and his mind was not entirely lucid. He glanced around at the jumble of boulders and jutting trees, then upward to the d
arkened cliffs. In this light he could not determine from where he had fallen. He could tell only where he was, standing at one end of a valley that lay in the shadow of two massive mountains in the middle of the Aleuthra Ark.
It was cold, and he forced himself to move further down the slope into the trees beyond the avalanche line so that he might find shelter. He found it in a grove of conifers, and he lay down and fell asleep at once.
He dreamed that night of the missing Sword of Leah, and he woke determined to find it.
In the daylight, he could see more clearly where he had been and what had happened. The slide that had carried him over the side had torn away much of the mountain below, stripping it of trees and scrub, leveling outcroppings and ledges, and loosening huge sections of cliffside, all of which had tumbled into a massive pile of rubble. Looking up, he could just make out where he had been standing when he had fallen. No trace remained of those with whom he had fled or from whom he had been fleeing.
He hunted for food and water, finding the latter in a small stream not far from where he had slept, but nothing of the former. Even his woods lore failed to turn up anything edible so high up in the mountains. He gave it up and went back to the slide to search for the Sword of Leah. He had no idea where to look, so for the entire morning he wandered about in something of a daze. The slide was spread out for almost half a mile, and in some places it was hundreds of feet deep. He kept thinking that it was impossible that he was still alive, impossible that he had ridden it out without being crushed. He kept telling himself that his survival meant something, that he was not going to die in this strange land, that he was meant to go home again to the Highlands.
By midday, the sun was burning out of the sky and the valley was steaming. He was beginning to hallucinate, seeing movement where there wasn’t any, hearing the whisper of voices, feeling the presence of ghosts. He went back down into the trees to drink from the stream, then lay down to rest. He woke several hours later, feverish and aching, and went back to searching.