The Highlander looked over at him. “All right, I’ll go.”
Big Red exhaled slowly, keeping his face expressionless.
“I’ll go,” Quentin Leah continued, “but Bek stays. Whatever magic he’s got is new to him, and he doesn’t have the experience with it that I do. I won’t risk his life.”
Whatever magic the Highlander possessed was pretty new to him, too, from what the Druid had told Alt Mer. Still, he wasn’t about to argue the matter. He would take whatever help he was offered if it meant getting his hands on the diapson crystals. He didn’t know what they had accomplished by coming here in the first place, but he didn’t think it was much. Mostly, they had succeeded in getting a lot of their friends killed, which was hardly a reason for going anywhere. You didn’t have to come all the way here to get killed. His frustration with matters surfaced once more. He would do anything to get out of this place.
Before he could respond to the Highlander, Rue and Bek Ohmsford walked out of the trees from one side and Panax, having gone off earlier to try to find an easier way down the cliff face, appeared from the other.
“Morning, young Bek!” the Dwarf shouted cheerfully on spying him. A grin spread across his square, bluff face, and he gave a wave of one hand. “Back among the living, I see! You look much better today!”
Bek waved back. “You look about the same, but that’s not something sleep will cure!”
They came together at the cliff edge with Spanner Frew, Quentin, and Alt Mer and clasped hands. The Highlander’s face had gone dark as he realized what was about to happen and knew he couldn’t prevent it. Alt Mer gave a mental shrug. Some things couldn’t be helped. At least his sister seemed composed again. Almost radiant. He stared at her in surprise, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“I’ve scouted the cliff edge all the way out and back,” Panax informed them, oblivious to the Highlander’s look of warning. “There’s a trail further on, not much of one, but enough to give us a way down that doesn’t involve ropes. It opens onto a flat, so we’ll be able to see what’s waiting much better than Big Red could when he dropped into the trees.”
He glanced at Bek. “I forgot. You just woke up. You don’t know what’s happened.”
“About the Graak and the crystals?” Bek asked. “I know. I heard all about it on the walk down. When do we leave?”
“No!” Rue Meridian wheeled on him furiously. “You’re not going! You’re not healed yet!”
“She’s right,” Quentin Leah said, glaring at his cousin. “What’s wrong with you? I just spent weeks worrying that you were dead! I’m not going through that again! You stay up here. Big Red and I can handle this.”
“Wait a minute,” Panax growled. “What about me?”
“You’re not going either!” Quentin snapped. “Two of us is enough to risk.”
The Dwarf cocked one eyebrow. “Have you suddenly gotten so much better at staying alive than the rest of us?”
Bek glared at Quentin. “What makes you think you have the right to decide if I go or not? I decide what’s right for me, not you! Why would I agree to stay up here? What about our promise to look out for each other?”
“Well, I’m going if you’re going!” Rue Meridian spat out the words defiantly. “I’m the one who’s done the best job of looking out for everyone so far! You’re not leaving me behind! No one’s leaving me!” She shifted her angry gaze from one to the next. “Which one of you wants to try to stop me?”
They were face-to-face now, all of them, so angry they could barely make themselves stop shouting long enough to hear what anyone else was saying. Spanner Frew was quiet, his dark face lowered to hide the grin on his lips, his head shaking slowly from side to side. Alt Mer listened in dismay, wondering when to step in and if it would make any difference if he did.
Finally, he’d heard enough. “Stop shouting!” he roared.
They quit arguing and looked at him, faces red and sweating in the midday heat.
He shook his head slowly. “The Druid is dead, so I command this expedition. Both aboard ship and off. That means I decide who goes.”
His eyes settled momentarily on Bek—Bek, who looked taller and stronger than he remembered, more mature. He wasn’t a boy anymore, the Rover Captain realized in surprise. When had that happened? He glanced quickly at his sister, suddenly seeing things in a new light. She was staring at him as if she wanted to jump down his throat.
He looked away again quickly, out over the valley, out to where his fears were centered. He wondered again why he had come all this way. Money? Yes, that was a part of the agreement. But there had been a need to escape the Prekkendorran and the Federation, as well. There had been a need to see a new country, to journey to somewhere he hadn’t been. There had been a need for renewal.
“There’s not that many of us left,” he said, more quietly now. “Just a handful, and we have to look out for each other. Arguing is a waste of time and energy. Only one thing is important, and that’s getting back into the skies and flying out of here.”
He didn’t wait for their response. “Little Red, you stay here. If anything happens to me, you’re the only one who can fly the Jerle Shannara home again. Bek might try, but he doesn’t know how to navigate. Besides, you’re all beat up. Broken ribs, broken arm—if you have to defend yourself down there, you’ll be in trouble. I don’t want to have to worry about saving you. So you stay.”
She was furious. “You’re worried about saving me? Who was it who got you out of the Federation prison? Who was it who . . .”
“Rue.”
“. . . got Black Moclips back from the rets and would have kept her, too, with just a little help? What about Black Beard? Standing there with his head down and his mouth shut, hoping no one will remember he can sail an airship just as well as I can! Don’t say a word about it, Spanner! Don’t say anything that might help me!”
“Rue.”
“No! It isn’t fair! He can navigate just as well as I can! You can’t tell me not to go just because I—”
“Rue!” His voice would have melted iron. “Four of us are risk enough. You stay.”
“Then Bek stays with me! He’s injured, too!”
Alt Mer stared at her. What was she talking about? Bek wasn’t her concern. “Not like you. Besides, we might need his magic.”
She glared at him for a moment, and he could see she was on the verge of breaking down. He had never seen her do that, never even seen her come close. For a moment, he reconsidered his decision, realizing that something about this was more important than what her words were telling him.
But before he could say anything, she wheeled away and stalked back toward the airship, rigid with anger and frustration. “Fine!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Do what you want! You’re all fools!”
He watched her disappear into the trees, thinking that was that, there was nothing he could do about it. Anyway, his next confrontation was already at hand. If Rue Meridian was angry, Quentin Leah was livid. “I told you I wouldn’t go if Bek went! Did you think I didn’t mean it?” He could barely bring himself to speak. “Tell him he can’t go, Big Red. Tell him, or I’m not going.”
Bek started to speak, but Alt Mer held up his hand to silence him. “I can’t do that, Highlander. I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you wanted, but I can’t change that, so threats are meaningless. Bek has the right to decide for himself what he wants to do. So do you. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.”
There was a long silence as the Rover and the Highlander stared each other down. There was a dangerous edge to Quentin Leah, as if nothing much mattered to him anymore. Alt Mer couldn’t know what Quentin had gone through to get clear of Castledown and find them, but it must have been horrendous and it had left him scarred.
“I’m sorry, Highlander,” he said, not knowing what he was sorry about, save for the look he saw in the other’s eyes.
“Quentin,” Bek interjected quietly, laying one hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t let’s argue like this.”
“You can’t go, Bek.”
“Of course I can. I have to. We promised to look out for each other from here on, remember? We made that promise only a day or so ago. That meant something to me. It should mean something to you. This is when we have to make it count. Please.”
Quentin stayed silent for a moment, looking so desperate that Alt Mer wouldn’t have been surprised at anything he did. Then Quentin shook his head and put his hand over Bek’s. “All right. I don’t like it, but all right. We’ll both go.”
They stood looking at each another for a moment, aware that Quentin’s words had made final their commitment to undertake a task that on balance was far too dangerous even to consider. Yet it was only the latest in a long line, and their decision to take this one, as well, no longer had the edge to it that it might have had once. Gambling with their lives had become commonplace.
“We’ll need a plan,” Panax said.
Big Red glanced over his shoulder in search of his sister. She was out of sight now, and he wished suddenly that they hadn’t left things as they had between them.
“I have one,” he said.
The Dwarf stared down into the leafy depths of the Crake. “When do we do this?”
Alt Mer considered. The sun had eased westward, but most of the afternoon light still remained, and the sky was clear. It would not get dark for hours.
“We do it now,” he said.
Twenty-two
Quentin Leah was not in the least mollified by Big Red’s and Bek’s attempts to justify Bek’s foolhardy decision to brave the Graak. It did not matter what reasoning they used, the Highlander could not help feeling that this would end badly. He knew it wasn’t his place to tell Bek not to come with them. He knew that none of them thought him any better qualified than they were to judge the nature of the danger they would face. If anyone had the right to do so, in fact, it was Redden Alt Mer, who had already done battle with the creature and lived to tell about it.
Nevertheless, Quentin saw himself as the one they should listen to. Panax and Alt Mer were both battle-tested and experienced in the Four Lands, but neither had survived the challenges in Parkasia that he had. He knew more of this world than they did. He had a better feel for it. More to the point, he had the use of magic that they did not, which in all probability was going to make the difference between whether they lived or died.
Bek had magic, too, but he had used it sparingly and only on creepers—on things metal and impersonal—and he had not done all that much of that. Mostly, he had gotten through because he’d had Truls Rohk to protect him and Walker to advise him. He had not fought against something like the Graak. It was not going to be the same experience for him, and Quentin wasn’t at all sure his cousin was ready for it.
As they made their way along the bluff toward the pathway into the valley, he trailed the others, stewing in silence and thinking about what they were going to do and how best to protect them while they were doing it. If Big Red and two of his most seasoned Rovers had been dispatched so easily, there wasn’t much hope that things would change without help from the Sword of Leah. He would use it, of course. He would employ it as he had against the Ard Patrinell wronk. Maybe it would even be enough. But he wasn’t sure. He had no idea how strong the Graak was. He knew it was bigger than anything he had ever encountered in the Highlands, and that was cause enough for concern. He could not be certain how well his talisman would protect them until he saw for himself what he was up against. As with all magic, the effectiveness of the sword depended on the strength of the user—not only physical, but emotional, as well. Once, he had thought himself equal to anything. He had felt the power of the magic race through him like fire, and he hadn’t thought there was anything he couldn’t overcome.
He knew better now. He knew there were limits to everything, even the euphoric rush of the magic’s summoning and the infusion of its power. Events and losses had drained him of his confidence. He had fought too long and too often to feel eager about this. He was bone-weary and sick at heart. He had watched those around him die too quickly, more often than not helpless to prevent it. He mourned them still—Tamis and Ard Patrinell, in particular. Their faces haunted him with a persistence that time and acceptance had failed to diminish.
Perhaps that was the problem here, he thought. He was afraid of losing someone else he cared about. Bek, certainly, but Redden Alt Mer and Panax, as well. He did not think he could bear that. Not after what he had been through these past few weeks. Bek and he had agreed only a day ago that they must look out for each other as they had promised, that they needed to do so if they were to get home again safely. But the truth of the matter was that he was the one who should be shouldering the larger share of the burden. He was the older and more experienced. He was physically and emotionally tougher than Bek. It might be true that Bek’s magic was the stronger; Tamis had made it sound as if it was. But it was the strength of the user that mattered. Although Bek had gotten the Jerle Shannara through the Squirm and had managed to get control of his sister, neither of those achievements was going to help him in a confrontation with the Graak.
Quentin did not deceive himself into thinking that his own strength would prove sufficient for what lay ahead. He thought only that of the two, he had the better chance of getting the job done.
But there was no way of convincing his three companions that this was so, especially Bek, so he would have to do what he could in spite of them. That meant putting himself at the forefront of whatever danger they encountered and giving the others a chance to escape when escape was the only reasonable option.
Given the nature of the plan that Big Red had devised, Quentin did not think it would be that difficult for him to arrange. They needed only to get close enough to the crate of diapson crystals to get three or four of them in hand. More would be better, but if recovery of just those few was all they could manage, that would be sufficient. Three would get the Jerle Shannara airborne once more. A lack of spares might prove a problem later on, but staying alive in the here and now was a much bigger and more immediate concern.
So the four would make for the clearing where the crate lay waiting, searching as they went for any sign of the Graak. With luck, it would have gone elsewhere by now, lured away by its need for food or by some other attraction. If it was gone, this would be easy. If it was lying in wait, then it was up to Quentin and Bek to slow it down long enough for Big Red and Panax to gather up the crystals and regain the trail leading up. Bek had only the magic of the wishsong to rely on, and he was honest enough to admit he was not certain of his command of it, or of its effectiveness. That meant Quentin, who was sure where the Sword of Leah was concerned, was the front line of defense for all of them.
With that in mind, and unable to press further his demand that his cousin remain behind, he had at least managed to persuade him to stay a few paces back on their advance into the rain forest to give Quentin room to intervene if they were attacked.
None of which changed the fact that he was feeling much the same way he had felt going into the ruins at Castledown. There had to be more to this business of the Graak than he was seeing. He was missing something. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was there. His hunting skills and instincts were screaming at him that he was overlooking something obvious.
They reached the trailhead and started down. The valley swept away below them, a vast carpet of leaves and vines, all tangled in a profusion of greens and browns. From high up, the jungle had the appearance of a bottomless swamp where the unwary could sink and be lost with a single misstep. Even as they descended the switchback trail, Quentin experienced the sense of being swallowed.
Halfway down, Redden Alt Mer stopped and turned back to them. “We are a pretty good distance away from where we have to go,” he advised quietly. “This trail leads us further away from the crystals than the other. When we get to the valley floor, we’ll have to backtrack. We’ll stick close to
the base of the cliff before starting into the trees.” He pointed. “Over there, that’s about where the crystals were when I was down here before. So we’ll turn in where that big tree leans against the cliff face.”
No one said anything in response. There was nothing to say.
They started ahead once more, working their way carefully down the narrow pathway, pressing back against the rock to keep their footing, grasping scrub and grasses for balance. It was difficult going for Quentin because he was wearing his sword strapped across his back and the tip kept snagging on roots and branches. Alt Mer carried a short sword, and Bek carried nothing at all. Only Panax bore a more cumbersome weight in the form of his huge mace, but his squat, stocky form allowed him to better manage the task. Quentin suddenly wished he had thought to bring a bow and arrows, something he could strike out with from a distance. But it was too late to do anything about it now.
On the valley floor, they angled back along the base of the cliff, moving swiftly and silently through the tall grasses and around trees that grew close against the rocks. The terrain was still open, not yet overgrown by the rain forest, and Quentin could see through the trees for several hundred yards. He watched closely for anything that seemed out of place. But nothing moved and everything pretty much looked like it belonged. The Crake was a wall of foliage that concealed everything in its mottled pattern. Sunlight sprayed its vines and branches in thin streamers, but failed to penetrate with any success. Shadows lay over everything, layered in dusky tones, moving and shifting with the passing of the clouds overhead. It was impossible to be certain what they were seeing. They would be on top of anything hiding out there before they realized what it was.