Morgawr

  They had gone some distance when Big Red held up one hand and pointed into the trees. This was where they would leave the shelter of the cliff wall. Ahead, the trees grew in thick clumps and the vines twisted about them like ropes. Clearings opened at sporadic intervals, large enough to admit something of size. On looking closer, Quentin could see that some of the trees had been pushed aside.

  Alt Mer led with Quentin following close behind, Bek third, and Panax trailing. They worked their way in a loose line through a morass of earthy smells and green color, the dampness in the air rising off the soggy earth with the heat, the silence deep and oppressive. No birds flew here. No animals slipped through the shadows. There were insects that buzzed and hummed, and nothing more. Shadows draped the way forward and the way back with the light touch of a snake’s tongue. Quentin’s uneasiness grew. Nothing about the Crake felt right. They were out of their element, intruders who didn’t belong and fair game for whatever lived here.

  Less than ten minutes later, they found the remains of one of the Rovers who had come down with Alt Mer six days before. His body lay sprawled among shattered trees and flattened grasses. Little remained but head, bones, and some skin; the flesh had been largely eaten away. Most of his clothing was missing. His face was twisted into a grimace of unspeakable horror and pain, a mask bereft of humanity. They went past the dead man quickly, eyes averted.

  Then Big Red brought them to a halt, hand raising quickly in warning. Ahead, a crate lay broken open, slats sticking skyward like bones. Quentin could not make out the contents, but assumed they were the diapson crystals. He looked around guardedly, testing the air and the feel of the jungle, searching out any predator that might lie in wait. He had learned to do this in the Highlands as a child, a sensory reading of the larger world that transcended what most men and women could manage. He took his time, casting about in all directions, trying to open himself to what might lie hidden.

  Nothing.

  But his instincts warned him to be careful, and he knew better than to discount them. Tamis was better at this than I am, he thought. If she were here, she would see what I am missing.

  Redden Alt Mer motioned for them to stay where they were, and he stepped from the trees into the clearing and started for the crystals. He moved steadily, but cautiously, and Quentin watched his eyes shift from place to place. The Highlander scanned the jungle wall.

  Still nothing.

  When he reached the remains of the crate, the Rover Captain signaled over his shoulder for the others to join him. Spreading out, they moved across the clearing in a crouch. Quentin and Panax had their weapons drawn, ready for use. When they reached Alt Mer, Panax knelt to help the Rover extract the crystals while Quentin and Bek stood watch. The jungle was a silent green wall, but Quentin felt hidden eyes watching. He glanced at Bek. His cousin seemed oddly calm, almost at peace. Sweat glistened on his forehead, but it was from the heat. He held himself erect, head lifted, eyes casting about the concealment of the trees in a steady sweep.

  Alt Mer had extracted two of the crystals and was working on a third when a low hiss sounded from somewhere back in the trees. All four men froze, staring in the direction of the sound. The hiss came again, closer, deeper, and with it came the sound of something moving purposefully.

  “Quick,” Alt Mer said, handing two of the crystals to Panax. The crystals were less than two feet long, but they were heavy. Panax grunted with the weight of his load as he started away. Big Red extracted the fourth crystal from the crate, making more noise than he intended, but unwilling to work more slowly. The hiss sounded again, closer still. Something was approaching.

  With two crystals cradled in his arms, Big Red backed across the clearing, eyes on the jungle wall. Quentin Leah and Bek flanked him, the Highlander motioning for his cousin to fall back, his cousin ignoring him. The tops of the trees were shaking now, as if a wind had risen to stir them. Quentin had no illusions. The Graak was coming.

  They had gained the shelter of a stand of cedar ringed by scrub brush, perhaps a dozen feet beyond the edge of the clearing, when the monster emerged. It pushed through the trees and vines with a sudden surge, a massive dragon weighing thousands of pounds and measuring more than fifty feet in length. Its body was the color of the jungle and glistened dully where the sunlight reflected off its slick hide. Horns and spikes jutted in clusters from its head and spine, and a thick wattle of skin hung from its throat. Claws the size of forearms dug into the dank earth, and rows of teeth flashed when its tongue snaked from its maw.

  Squatting on four stubby, powerful legs, the Graak swung its spiky head left and right in search of what had caught its attention. Alt Mer froze in place, and Quentin and Bek followed his lead. Perhaps the creature wouldn’t see them.

  The Graak cast about aimlessly, then began to sniff the ground, long tail thrashing against the foliage. Quentin held his breath. This thing was huge. He had felt how the ground trembled when it lumbered out of the trees. He had seen how it shouldered past those massive hardwoods as if they were deadwood. If they had to do battle with it, they were in a world of trouble.

  The Graak lumbered up to the crystals and sniffed at them, then put one massive foot atop the crate and crushed it. Hissing again, it turned away from them, searching the trees in the opposite direction.

  Alt Mer caught Quentin’s attention. Now, he mouthed silently.

  Slowly, carefully, they began to inch their way backwards. Bek, seeing what they were attempting, did the same. Turned away, sniffing the wind, the Graak remained unaware of them. Don’t trip, Quentin thought to himself. Don’t stumble. The jungle was so silent he could hear the sound of his own breathing.

  The Graak turned back again, its blunt snout swinging slowly about. As one, they froze. They were far enough back in the trees that they could barely see the creature’s head above the tall grasses. Perhaps it couldn’t see them either.

  The reptilian eyes lidded, and the long tongue flicked out. It studied the jungle a moment more, then turned and shambled back the way it had come. Within seconds, it was gone.

  When it was clear to all that it was not coming back right away, they started swiftly through the trees. Quentin was astonished. He had thought they had no chance of escaping undetected. His every instinct had warned against it. Yet somehow the creature had failed to spy them out, and now they were within minutes of reaching the cliff wall and beginning the climb back out.

  They caught up with Panax, who was not all that far ahead yet. The Dwarf nodded wordlessly.

  “That was close!” Bek whispered with a grin.

  “Don’t talk about it,” Quentin said.

  “You thought it had us,” the other persisted.

  Quentin shot him an angry glance. He didn’t like talking about luck. It had a way of turning around on you when you did.

  “Back home,” Bek said, breathing heavily from his exertion, “if it was a boar, say, we would have looked for the mate, too.”

  Quentin almost stumbled as he turned quickly to look at him. The mate? “No,” he whispered, realizing what he had missed, fear ripping through him. He pushed ahead of Bek, running now to catch up to Redden Alt Mer and Panax. “Big Red!” he hissed sharply. “Wait!”

  At the sound of his name, the Rover came about, causing the Dwarf to slow and turn, as well, which probably saved both their lives. In the next instant, a second Graak charged out of the trees ahead and bore down on them.

  There was no time to stop and think about what to do. There was only time to respond, and Quentin Leah was already in motion when the attack came. Never breaking stride, he flew past Big Red and Panax, the Sword of Leah lifted and gripped in both hands. The magic was already surging down the blade to the handle and into his hands and arms. He went right at the Graak, flinging himself past the snapping jaws as they reached for him, rolling beneath its belly and coming back to his feet to thrust the sword deep into its side. The magic flared in an explosion of light and surged into the Graak. The monster his
sed in pain and rage and twisted about to get its teeth into its attacker. But Quentin, who had learned something about fighting larger creatures in his battles with the creepers and the Patrinell wronk, sidestepped the attack, scrambled out of the Graak’s line of sight, and struck at it again, this time severing a tendon in the creature’s hind leg. Again the Graak swung about, tearing at the earth with its claws, dragging its damaged rear leg like a club, its tail lashing out wildly.

  “Run!” Bek yelled to Panax and Big Red.

  They did so at once, bearing the crystals away from the battle and back toward the cliff wall. But Bek turned to fight.

  There was no chance for Quentin to do anything about that. He was too busy trying to stay alive, and the shift of the Graak’s body as it sought to pin him to the earth blocked his view of his cousin. But he heard the call Bek emitted, something shrill and rough edged, predatory and dark, born of nightmares known only to him or to those who worked his kind of magic. The Graak jerked its head in response, clearly bothered by the sound, and twisted about in search of the caller, giving Quentin a chance to strike at it again. The Highlander rolled under it a second time and thrust the blade of his talisman deep into the chest, somewhere close to where he thought its heart must be, the magic surging out of him like a river.

  The Graak coughed gouts of dark blood and gasped in shock. A vital organ had been breached. Covered in mud and sweat and smelling of the damp, fetid earth, Quentin rolled free again. Blood laced his hands and face, and he saw that one arm was torn open and his right side lacerated. Somehow he had been injured without realizing it. Trying to stay out of the Graak’s line of sight he ran toward its tail, looking for a fresh opening. The Graak was thrashing wildly, writhing in fury as it felt the killing effects of the magic begin to work through it. Another solid blow, Quentin judged, should finish it.

  But then the creature did the unexpected. It bolted for Bek, all at once and without even looking his way first. Bek stood his ground, using the power of the wishsong to strike back, but the Graak didn’t even seem to hear it. It rumbled on without slowing, without pause, tearing up the earth with its clawed feet, dragging its damaged hind leg, hissing with rage and madness into the steamy jungle air.

  “Bek!” Quentin screamed in dismay.

  He flew after the Graak with complete disregard for his own safety, and caught up to the creature when it was only yards away from his cousin. He swung the Sword of Leah with every last ounce of strength he possessed, the magic exploding forth as he severed the tendons of the hind leg that still functioned. The Graak went down instantly, both rear legs immobilized, its useless hindquarters dragging it to an abrupt stop. But as it fought to keep going, to get at Bek, it rolled right into the Highlander, who, unlike Bek, did not have time to get out of the way. Though Quentin threw himself aside as the twisting, thrashing body collapsed, he could not get all the way clear, and the Graak’s heavy tail hammered him into the earth.

  It felt as if a mountain had fallen on top of him. Bones snapped and cracked, and he was pressed so far down into the earth that he couldn’t breathe. He would have screamed if there had been a way to do so, but his face was buried in six inches of mud. The weight of the Graak rolled off him, then back on again, then off again. He managed to get his head out of the mire, to take a quick breath of air, then to flatten himself as the monster rolled over him yet again, this time missing him as it twisted back on itself in an effort to rise.

  “Quentin, don’t move!” he heard Bek cry out.

  As if he could, he thought dully. The pain was beginning to surge through him in waves. He was a dead man, he knew. No one could survive the sort of damage he had just sustained. He was a dead man, but his body hadn’t gotten the message yet.

  Hands reached under him and rolled him over. The pain was excruciating. “Shades!” he gasped as bones grated and blood poured from his mouth.

  “Hang on!” Bek pleaded. “Please, Quentin!”

  His cousin pulled him to his feet, then led him away. Somewhere close by, the Graak was in its death throes. Somewhere not quite so close, its mate was coming. He couldn’t see any of this, but he could be sure it was happening. He stumbled on through a curtain of bright red anguish and hazy consciousness. Any moment now, he would collapse. He fought against that with frantic determination. If he went down, Bek would not be able to get him away. If he went down, he was finished.

  Oh well, he thought with a sort of fuzzy disinterest, he was finished anyway.

  “Sorry, Bek,” he said, or maybe he only tried to say it; he couldn’t be sure. “Sorry.”

  Then a wave of darkness engulfed him, and everything disappeared.

  Twenty-three

  It was dark when Bek finally emerged from belowdecks on the Jerle Shannara, walked to the bow, and looked up at the night sky. The moon was a tiny crescent directly over the mountain they were backed against, newly formed and barely a presence in the immensity of the sky’s vast sweep. Stars sprinkled the indigo firmament like grains of brilliant white sand scattered on black velvet. He had been told once that men had traveled to those stars in the Old World, that they had built and ridden in ships that could navigate the sky as he had the waters of the Blue Divide. It seemed impossible. But then most wonderful things did until someone accomplished them.

  He hadn’t been on deck for more than a few moments when Rue Meridian appeared beside him, coming up so silently that he didn’t hear her approach and realized she was there only when she placed a hand over his own.

  “Have you slept?” she asked.

  He shook his head. Sleep was out of the question.

  “How is he?”

  He thought about it a moment, staring skyward. “Holding on by his fingernails and slipping.”

  They had managed to get Quentin Leah out of the Crake alive, but only barely. With Bek’s help, he had stumbled to within a hundred yards of the trail before collapsing. By then he had lost so much blood that when they had carried him out they could barely get a grip on his clothing. Rue Meridian knew something of treating wounds from her time on the Prekkendorran, so after tying off the severed arteries with tourniquets, she had stitched and bandaged him as best she could. The patching of the surface wounds was not difficult, nor the setting of the broken bones. But there were internal injuries with which she did not have the skill to deal, so that much of the care Quentin needed could not be provided. Healing would have to come from within, and everyone knew that any chance of that happening here was small.

  Their best bet was to either get him to a healing center in the Four Lands or to find a local Healer. The former was out of the question. There simply wasn’t time. As for the latter, the Rindge offered the only possibility of help. Panax had gone to see what they could do, but had returned empty-handed. When a Rindge was in Quentin’s condition, his people could do no more for him than the company of the Jerle Shannara could for Quentin.

  “Is he alone?” Rue asked Bek.

  He shook his head. “Panax is watching him.”

  “Why don’t you try to sleep for a few hours? There isn’t anything more you can do.”

  “I can be with him. I can be there for him. I’ll go back down in just a moment.”

  “Panax will look after him.”

  “Panax isn’t the one he counts on.”

  She didn’t reply to that. She just stood there beside him, keeping him company, staring up at the stars. The Crake was a sea of impenetrable black within the cup of the mountains, silent and stripped of definition. Bek took a moment to look down at it, chilled by doing so, the memories of the afternoon still raw and terrible, endlessly repeating in his mind. He couldn’t get past them, not even now when he was safely away from their cause.

  “You’re exhausted,” she said finally.

  He nodded in agreement.

  “You have to sleep, Bek.”

  “I left his sword down there.” He pointed toward the valley.

  “What?”

  “His sword. I wa
s so busy trying to get him out that I forgot about it entirely. I just left it behind.”

  She nodded. “It won’t go anywhere. We can get it back tomorrow, when it’s light.”

  “I’ll get it back,” he insisted. “I’m the one who left it. It’s my responsibility.”

  He pictured it lying in the earth by the dead Graak, its smooth surface covered with blood and dirt. Had it been broken by the weight of the monster rolling over it, broken as Quentin was? He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even glanced at it. A talisman of such power, and he hadn’t even thought about it. He’d just thought about Quentin, and he’d done that too late for it to matter.

  “Why don’t you stop being so hard on yourself?” she asked quietly. “Why don’t you ease up a bit?”

  “Because he’s dying,” he said fiercely, angrily. “Quentin’s dying, and it’s my fault.”

  She looked at him. “Your fault?”

  “If I hadn’t insisted on going down there with him, if I hadn’t been so stubborn about this whole business, then maybe—”

  “Bek, stop it!” she snapped at him. He looked over at her, surprised by the rebuke. Her hand tightened on his. “It doesn’t help anything for you to talk like that. It happened, and no one’s to blame for it. Everyone did the best they could in a dangerous situation. That’s all anyone can ask. That’s all anyone can expect. Let it alone.”

  The words stung, but no more so than the look he saw in her eyes. She held his gaze, refusing to let him turn away. “Losing people we love, friends and even family, is a consequence of going on journeys like this one. Don’t you understand that? Didn’t you understand it when you agreed to come? Is this suddenly a surprise? Did you think that nothing could happen to Quentin? Or to you?”

  He shook his head in confusion, cowed. “I don’t know. I guess maybe not.”

  She exhaled sharply and her tone of voice softened. “It wasn’t your fault. Not any more so than it was my brother’s or Panax’s or Walker’s or whoever’s. It was just something that happened, a price exacted in consequence of a risk taken.”