And Stresa had replied, “It was her choice, wasn’t it?”
He had gone off again, deep into the forests west to keep watch for what might come that way, to bring warning to the Elves if the need arose. They were drifting apart, she sensed. Stresa was a creature of the wild, and she was not. He would go out one day and not come back, and the last of her ties with Morrowindl would be gone. Everything would be consigned to memory then, the beginning of who she was now, the end of who she had been.
She wondered that her life could evolve so thoroughly and she feel so much the same.
Yet perhaps she lied to herself on that count, pretending she was unchanged when in fact she was and simply could not admit it. She frowned into the gloom, searching the killing ground below, and she wondered how much of herself had survived Morrowindl’s horror and how much had been lost. She wished she had someone of whom she could ask that question. But most of those she might have asked were dead, and those still living would be reticent to answer. She would have to provide her own answer to her question and hope her answer was true.
Padishar Creel’s lean face glanced in her direction, searching, but she did not acknowledge him. She had not spoken with any of them since rising, not even Triss, wrapped in her solitude as if it were armor. The free-born had come finally, bringing with them Axhind and his Rock Trolls, the reinforcements she had prayed for, but she suddenly found it difficult to care. She did not want the Elves to perish, but the killing sickened her. Yesterday’s battle had ended in a draw, settling nothing, and today’s did not promise a new result. The Federation had stopped running and regrouped and were coming on again. They would keep coming, she thought. There were enough that they could do so. The addition of the free-born and Trolls strengthened the Elven chances of surviving, but did not give reason to hope that the Federation could be stopped. Reinforcements would be sent from the cities south and from Tyrsis. An unending stream, if necessary. The invasion would continue, the push into the Elven Westlands, and the only thing left undecided was how long the destruction would go on.
She bit back against the bitterness and the despair, angry at her self-perceived weakness. The Queen of the Elves could not afford to give up, she chided. The Queen of the Elves must always believe.
Ah, but in what was there left to believe?
That Par and Coll Ohmsford were alive and in possession of the Sword of Shannara, she answered determinedly. That Morgan Leah followed after them. That Walker Boh had brought back Paranor and the Druids. That Allanon’s charges had been fulfilled, that the secret of the Shadowen was known, and that there was hope for them. She had these to believe in, and she must find her strength there.
She wondered if her uncle and her cousins and Morgan Leah still found strength in their beliefs. She wondered if they had any beliefs left. She thought of the losses she had suffered and wondered if they had suffered as much. She wondered finally if they would have given heed to the charges of Allanon had they known from the start the price that pursuing them would exact. She did not think so.
Light broke east where the sun crested the lip of the world, a faint silver glow that outlined the Dragon’s Teeth and the forestland below. The light seeped down into the valley and chased the shadows from the mist, separating the two and turning the landscape stark and certain. The sound of drums and marching feet grew audible in the distance, faint still, but recognizable in its coming. Padishar Creel was arguing with Barsimmon Oridio. They did not agree on what the combined army’s strategy should be when the attack commenced. They were both strong-willed men, and they mistrusted each other. Axhind listened without saying anything, impassive, expressionless. Triss had moved away. The leader of the free-born resented Bar’s insistence that overall command should be his. She had separated them once already. She might have to do so again and resented it. She did not want any part of what was happening, not anymore. She stood watching and did not move as the argument grew more heated. Triss looked over, waiting for her to step in. South, the drums grew louder.
Then suddenly Stresa appeared, bursting unexpectedly from the brush, quills lifting to shake away the dust and leaves, hurrying to reach her. Wren turned, everything else forgotten. There was an urgency to the Splinterscat’s coming that was unmistakable.
“Elf Queen,” he hissed, his voice ragged and dry. “They’ve brought Creepers!”
She felt her heart stop and her throat constrict. “We left them all in the swamp,” she managed.
“They’ve found more! Sssttt!” The wet snout lifted, the dark eyes dilated and hard. “From Tyrsis, it seems. Phhffttt! Soldiers, too, but it is the Creepers who matter. Five at least. I came as soon as I saw them.”
She wheeled back to the others. Padishar Creel and Bar had stopped arguing. Axhind and Chandos stood shoulder to shoulder like stone figures. Triss was already next to her.
Creepers.
The light was brightening and the haze diffusing as the army of the Federation marched out of the gloom toward the Valley of Rhenn. It came with its divisions of black and scarlet spread wide across the valley mouth and up its broadening slopes, the columns of men deep and long. Cavalry rode the flanks, and there were rolling, timbered buttresses behind which their archers could hide, with slits for firing through. There were shield walls and fire catapults, and there were black-cloaked Seekers anew at every command.
But it was toward the very center of the army that all eyes turned. There were the Creepers, glinting black metal and jagged, hairy limbs, a mesh of machine and beast, lurching toward the Elves and their allies, toward the men they had been sent to destroy.
Wren Elessedil stared at them and felt nothing. Their coming marked the end of the Elves, she knew. Their coming marked the end of everything.
She reached into her tunic for the Elfstones and stepped forward to make her final stand.
“Get up. Par!”
Coll was shouting at him, pulling on his arm and dragging him to his feet. He scrambled up obediently, still in shock from what had happened to him, stunned by the revelations of the Sword. There was a whirl of movement in the stairwell as those who had come for him—Walker, Damson, Coll, Morgan, and the tall, slight, black-haired woman whose face he did not recognize—hurried to surround him. Rumor prowled the room anxiously. There was a whisper of something coming down the stairs, but the gloom hid what crept there. The doors leading from the well were all closed save one that led back across a courtyard to walls and an opening to the land beyond. That way, at least, was clear, and in the distance he could see morning’s light edging above the Runne’s horizon.
Walker was looking that way as well, he saw. Walker, all in black now, bearded and pale, but looking somehow stronger than he had ever looked, filled with a fire that burned just beneath the surface. Like Allanon, Par thought. As Allanon had once been. Walker stared momentarily toward the opening, undecided, the others crouching close to Par, but facing back toward the closed doors and the open stairwell, weapons held ready.
“Which way!” hissed the dark-haired girl.
Walker turned and moved swiftly to join them, decided now. “We came for Par and to set free what they keep imprisoned in the castle depths. We’re not finished.”
Damson’s arms came around Par and she was holding him as if she might never let go. Par hugged her back, telling her it was all right, that he was safe now, wondering if he really was, wondering still what had happened. The magic of the wishsong was his again, but he remained uncertain even so of what it might do.
But at least I am not a Shadowen! At least I know that!
Coll was standing close to Walker. “The door with the crossbars—over there—leads down a corridor to the cellar steps. Do we go?”
Walker nodded. “Quickly. Stay together!”
They went across the room in a rush, and as they did so, a black shape flung itself down the stairs and onto the dark-haired girl. She sidestepped the attack, and the thing turned on her instantly, hissing and red-eyed, flingin
g up hands with claws of fire. But Rumor caught it before it could strike, tearing it down the middle and throwing it aside.
Walker flung open the door with the crossbars, and they surged through, leaving the stairwell and their pursuers to follow. The corridor was high and dark, and they slipped down it cautiously, eyes skittering through the shadows. Rumor was back in front, cat eyes sharper than their own, leading the way. From somewhere below came the sound of grinding, then a long sigh, a breathing out. The castle of the Shadowen shuddered in response, like the skin of something living that flinched with a skip in the beating of its heart. What was down there? Par wondered. Not the crashing of waves on the rocks as Rimmer Dall had told him—another lie. Something more. Something so important that Walker would risk everything rather than leave it. Did he know what it was? Had Allanon given him the answers they had all been searching for?
There was no time to find that out now. Shadows filled the opening behind them, and Morgan whirled back and sent the fire of the Sword of Leah surging into them. They scattered and disappeared, but were back in a moment. Coll was whispering urgently to Walker, giving him directions to the corridor leading down, but Walker seemed to know where he was going, pulling Coll after him, keeping him close. The others followed in their wake, hugging the walls. Shadows spun out of the darkness ahead, but they were merely reflections of what followed. Par clutched Damson against him and ran on.
They reached a landing that opened onto stairs winding down into the fortress depths, and now the sounds of what was kept below became clear and distinct. It was the breathing of some great animal, rising and falling, wheezing as if the air passed through a throat parched and constricted from lack of water. The grinding was the sound of movement, like the weight of stones shifting in an avalanche.
Black-cloaked forms appeared on the stairs below, and Shadowen fire burned toward them in sharp red spears. Walker threw up a shield that shattered the attack and struck back. Other shadows came out of halls intersecting the one that brought them. The Shadowen were all around, black and soundless and frenzied in their attack. Morgan turned to protect the rear while Walker led the way, the others crouching in between. They moved quickly down the steps, feeling the castle shudder as if in response to what was happening. The breathing of the thing below quickened.
Suddenly there were flames everywhere. Coll went down, struck a glancing blow, and the Sword of Shannara fell from his hand. Without thinking, Par reached down for it and snatched it up. The Sword did not burn him as it had in the Pit. Had it all been in his fear of who he might be? He stared at the Sword in wonder, then turned to help Damson, who was pulling Coll back to his feet, and shoved the blade into his brother’s hands once more. Rumor had leaped down the stairs and into the closest of their attackers. His sleek coat was singed and smoking, but he ripped into the Shadowen as if the wounds meant nothing. Walker threw white Druid light from his hands in a shroud that blanketed everything, shielding them, thrusting back the Shadowen, clearing the way for their descent.
Then Par saw Rimmer Dall. The First Seeker was below them on a catwalk across a chasm that dropped away from a landing through which the stairway passed. He stood alone, his hands gripping the railing of the walk, his rawboned face a mask of rage and disbelief. The gloved hand smoldered as if in response. He looked at Par and Par at him, and something passed between them that Par might have described as an understanding, but seemed to transcend even that.
In the next instant he was gone, and Par was struggling on through the Shadowen assault. His magic had revived, and he could feel it building within him. He would use it now, he thought. He would take his chances because at least he knew that using it would not make him one of them. The Shadowen were closing from behind, and Morgan had turned back to face them, yelling at the others to go on. The dark-haired girl stood with him, pressed against his shoulder protectively, the two of them holding the stairs against the monsters that followed.
Walker reached the landing and looked over its edge. Par joined him, then jerked hurriedly away again. Something huge was down there, something that heaved and writhed and pulsed with light.
A raging black form slammed into Rumor when he passed down the stairs below the landing, and the moor cat tumbled from view. Walker and the others raced after him, Par’s magic flaring to life now, burning through him as he summoned it forth with a cry. He remembered his fear of what it would do, but the fear was only a memory now, and he banished it almost as quickly as it came. Facing across to the catwalk and the Shadowen crouched there, he tried to keep their fire from reaching Damson and Coll. Coll was hurt again, but he stumbled on, still holding the Sword of Shannara before him, still keeping Damson in his shadow.
They heard Rumor shriek, that spitting, furious cry that signaled pain and fear. Then he rose before them in a leap, the black thing clinging to him. Walker spun and sent the Druid fire lancing forth, caught the black thing’s midsection, and tore it from Rumor’s back. The moor cat spun in midair, locked again with its attacker, and fell from view.
Smoke rose from the walls and floor where the magic burned, and the air grew thick with ash. The depths of Southwatch were as black as pitch save for the light given off by the thing below. Gloom pressed in about the humans, and the Shadowen darted in and out at them, looking for a place to attack. Damson was struck and burned and knocked aside so quickly that Par could not prevent it. She rose and fell back again. Coll reached down for her without slowing, heaved her over one shoulder, and hurried on.
Then part of the stairs gave way, and Walker Boh disappeared in a tumbling slide of dust and rock and ash. For an instant Par, Coll, and a semiconscious Damson were alone on the crumbling stairs, staring down into the void where the light pulsed, pressed back against the wall in shock. They heard Rumor snarl below, heard Walker howl in fury, and saw the flare of the Druid magic.
“What are you doing? Move!”
It was Morgan Leah screaming at them as he appeared suddenly from out of the smoke and fire above, the Sword of Leah dark and fiery in his hand. He was limping badly and his left arm was clutched to his side. The dark-haired woman was still with him, as battered as he was, blood smeared down the side of her face. They surged out of the haze and herded the others toward the slide. Par went tumbling down the broken rock into the gloom. He landed on his feet, and was set upon instantly. Black forms closed about, but the magic of the wishsong saved him. It flared like armor all about him, then exploded outward into his attackers. The black things were thrown back into the haze. Rumor surged past, striking out, a shadow appearing and fading away again. He heard the sound of the others following him down, and in seconds they were together once more.
Ahead, the light pulsed and the sound of its breathing was a terrifying groan of frustration and pain.
They went forward once more, searching the dust and ash-filled gloom for Walker and the moor cat. The Shadowen came at them repeatedly, but Morgan and Par fought them off, keeping Coll and the women between them. Damson was stirring again, but Coll continued to carry her. The other woman stumbled forward on her own, teeth gritted, fire in her eyes. They passed down a high, narrow corridor that opened overhead into the stairwell, and suddenly they were in the room with the light.
The room was cavernous and craggy, carved out of the earth’s rock long ago by time and the elements, a vast chamber from which tunnels ran in all directions. At its center rested the light. The light was a bulbous, pulsing mass wrapped all about with cords of red fire. It strained and heaved against the cords, but could not break free. It seemed to be part of the cavern floor, welded to the rock and risen from its core into the gloom. It had no shape or identity, yet something in the way it moved reminded Par of an animal snared. The breathing sound came from that movement, and the whole of the chamber rising up into Southwatch seemed to be connected to it. It would shudder, and the cavern and the walls of the keep would shudder in response. It would sigh, and the cavern and the keep would sigh as well.
/> “What is it?” Par heard Coll whisper next to him.
Then they saw Walker Boh. He was across the cavern floor, locked in combat with Rimmer Dall, the two dark-cloaked forms straining against each other with desperate intent. Rimmer Dall’s gloved hand was red with Shadowen fire, and Walker’s was sheathed in Druid white. The rock beneath them steamed with heat, and the air about them pulsed. Rimmer Dall’s eyes were spots of blood, and his big, rawboned face was skinned back with fury.
To one side, Rumor fought desperately to reach Walker, Shadowen closing about to finish him.
Morgan went to their aid without pausing, howling out his battle cry, bringing up the dark blade of his talisman in a trail of fire. The dark-haired woman went with him. Coll started instead toward the chained light, thinking to strike there, then was forced to turn aside to meet an attack from Shadowen launching themselves off the catwalk. He dropped Damson, and Par racing up from behind caught her up. The Shadowen closed on Coll and forced him back. The Sword of Shannara offered no threat to them, and Coll had no other magic. Par screamed at him to get out of the way, but instead Coll bulled into the cloaked melee. Par laid Damson down hurriedly and went after him. Coll stumbled and went down, rose again momentarily, and then went down for good. The Shadowen were all over him. Par howled in fury and sent the magic of the wishsong hammering into them, thrusting them aside. Fire burned back at him from above and on all sides, but from beneath his magic’s armor he shrugged it away.
Coll was on his hands and knees when Par reached him, bloodied and torn. He lifted his face so that he could see Par and then shoved the Sword of Shannara at him.
“Go on!” he said, and collapsed.
Par snatched up the Sword and started forward, the acrid smell of ash and fire thick in his nostrils. Go on and do what? He was aware of Morgan standing alone now, the dark-haired girl fallen as well. He could no longer see Walker or Rimmer Dall. He felt his strength beginning to fail, the consequence of sustained use of his magic. He would have to be quick, whatever he did. He stumbled ahead, nearing the light, wondering anew what it was and what he was supposed to do with it. Should he free it? Wasn’t that what Walker had said they had come into Southwatch to do? If it was a prisoner of the Shadowen, then it should be freed. But what was it? He was not certain of anything. He was barely free himself, and his own confusion still dragged at him with chains of its own.