He lost his footing and went down, tumbling forward into the muck and the damp. Angrily he scrambled up, brushed the mud and water away as best he could, and ran on. The afternoon was waning far too rapidly; he would be fortunate just to regain the main roadway before nightfall set in. When that happened, he would have to find his way in total blackness, alone in an unfamiliar land, weaponless save for a hunting knife. Stupid! That was the kindest description he could render for what he had done, letting Cephelo fool him into thinking that he could have the Rover’s aid for nothing more than a vague promise. Clever Wil Ohmsford, he chided himself, anger burning through him. And Allanon had thought that you were the one to whom he might safely entrust Amberle!
Already his muscles were beginning to cramp with the strain of running. Despair washed through him for a moment as he thought of all that Amberle and he had endured to reach this point, only to face losing everything for want of a bit more caution. Seven Elven Hunters had given their lives so that he and Amberle might reach the Wilderun. Countless more would have already died defending the Westland against the Demons, for surely the Forbidding had given way by now. All for nothing, then? All to no end but this? Shame and then determination rushed through him, carrying away the despair. He would never give up—never! He would retrieve the stolen Elfstones. He would return to Amberle. He would see her safely to Spire’s Reach, to the Bloodfire, and back once more to Arborlon. He would do all this because he knew that he must, because to do anything less would be to fail—not just Allanon and the Elves, but himself as well. He was not about to do that.
Even as the thought passed from his mind, a shadow appeared on the trail ahead, materializing out of the gloom like some wraith, tall and silent as it awaited his approach. The Valeman drew up short, frightened so badly that he very nearly bolted from the pathway into the forest. Breathing raggedly, he stared at the shadow, realizing suddenly that what he was looking at was a horse and rider. The horse shifted on the trail and stamped. Wil walked forward cautiously, wariness turning to disbelief and finally to astonishment.
It was Eretria.
“Surprised?” Her voice was cool and measured.
“Very,” he admitted.
“I have come to save you one last time, Wil Ohmsford. This time, I think, you will hear better what I have to say.”
Wil came up to her and stopped. “Cephelo has the Stones.”
“I know that. He drugged your wine, then took them from you last night while you slept.”
“And you did nothing to warn me?”
“Warn you?” She shook her head slowly. “I would have warned you, Healer. I would have helped you. But you would not help me—remember? All that I asked of you was that you take me with you when you left. Had you done that, I would have told you of Cephelo’s plans for the Elfstones and would have seen to it that you kept them safe. But you spurned me, Healer. You left me. You thought yourself able to manage well enough without me. Very well, I decided, I will see how well the Healer does without me.”
She bent down to examine him, her eyes appraising. “It does not appear that you are doing too well.”
Wil nodded slowly, his mind racing. This was no time to say something foolish. “Amberle is hurt. She fell and twisted her leg and cannot walk alone. I had to leave her at the rim of the Hollows.”
“You seem very good at leaving women in distress,” Eretria snapped.
He held his temper. “I guess it must appear that way. But sometimes we cannot always do what we want when it comes to helping others.”
“So you have said. I guess that you must believe it. Have you left the Elven girl, then?”
“Only until I get the Stones back again.”
“Which you won’t without me.”
“Which I will, with or without you.”
The Rover girl stared down at him for a moment, and her face softened.
“I guess you believe that, too, don’t you?”
Wil put his hand on the horse’s flank. “Are you here to help me, Eretria?”
She regarded him wordlessly for a moment, then nodded. “If you, in turn, will help me. This time you must, you know.” When he did not respond, she continued speaking. “A trade, Wil Ohmsford. I will help you get back the Stones if you will agree to take me with you when you have them back again.”
“How will you get the Stones back?” he asked carefully.
She smiled for the first time, that familiar, dazzlingly beautiful smile that took his breath away. “How will I do it? Healer, I am the child of Rovers and the daughter of a thief—bought and paid for. He stole them from you; I will steal them from him. I know the trade better than he. All we need do is find him.”
“Won’t he be wondering about you by now?”
She shook her head. “When we parted company with you, I told him that I wished to ride ahead to join the caravan. He agreed that I could, for the paths of the Wilderun are well known to the Rovers, and I would be clear of the valley by nightfall. As you know, Healer, he wants to be certain that he keeps me safe. Damaged goods bring a poor price. In any case, I rode but a mile beyond Whistle Ridge, then took a second trail that cuts south and joins this one several hundred yards further back. I thought to catch up to you by nightfall, either at the Hollows or coming back this way, should you discover sooner the loss of the Stones. So you see, Cephelo will not realize what I have done until he reaches the main caravan. The wagon slows him, so he will not do that until sometime tomorrow. Tonight, he will camp on the road leading out of the valley.”
“Then we have tonight to get back the Stones,” Wil finished.
“Time enough,” she replied. “But not if we continue to stand here and talk about it. Besides, you don’t want to leave the Elven girl alone at the Hollows for very long, do you?”
The mention of Amberle jarred him. “No. Let’s be off.”
“One moment.” She backed the horse away from him. “First your word. Once I have helped you, then you will help me. You will take me with you when we have the Stones back. You will let me stay with you after that until I am a safe distance from Cephelo—and I will decide when that is the case. Promise me, Healer.”
There was very little else that he could do short of taking her horse from her, and he was not at all sure that he could do that.
“Very well. I promise.”
She nodded. “Good. To see that you keep that promise, I will keep the Stones once I have taken them back again until we are both safely out of this valley. Climb up behind me.”
Wil mounted the horse without comment. There was no way that he was about to let her keep the Elfstones, once she had retrieved them from Cephelo, but it was pointless to argue about it here. He settled himself behind the girl, and she turned to look at him.
“You do not deserve what I am doing for you—you know that. But I like you; I like your chances in life—especially with me to aid you. Put your hands about my waist.”
Wil hesitated, then did as he was told. Eretria leaned back into him.
“Much better,” she purred seductively. “I prefer you this way to the way you are when the Elven girl is about. Now hold tight.”
With a sudden yell, she put her boots into the flanks of the horse. The startled beast reared up with a scream and shot back along the pathway. Down the wilderness trail they rode, bent low across the horse’s neck, limbs whipping against them as they flew through the dark. Eretria seemed to have the eyes of a cat, guiding their mount with a sure and practiced hand past fallen logs and deadwood, over gullies and ruts formed by the sudden rain, down one muddied slope and up the next. Wil hung on desperately, wondering if the girl had lost her mind. At this pace, they were certain to take a fall.
Amazingly, they did not. Scant seconds later, Eretria wheeled their horse from the trail through a narrow gap in the trees that was all but completely grown over. With a surge, the animal sprang into the brush, then broke free along a second trail—one that Wil had missed completely in his trek sout
h to the Hollows—and galloped ahead into the misty gloom. On they rode, Rover girl and Valeman, barely slowing for the obstacles that barred their path forward, racing ahead into the growing dark. What little light there was had begun to fade as dusk approached. The sun, lost somewhere beyond the canopy of the forest, sank downward toward the rim of the mountains. Shadows deepened and the air cooled and still Eretria did not slow.
When at last they did stop, they were back once more on the main roadway. Eretria reined the horse in sharply, patted the animal’s sweating flanks and glanced back at Wil with an impish grin.
“That was just to let you know that I can hold my own with anyone. I need no looking after from you.”
The Valeman felt his stomach begin to settle. “You have made your point, Eretria. Why are we stopping here?”
“Just to check,” she replied and dismounted. Her eyes scanned the trail for a few moments, and then she frowned. “That’s odd. There are no wagon tracks.”
Wil followed her down. “Are you sure?” He studied the roadway, finding no sign of wheel marks. “Maybe the rain washed them out.”
“The wagon was heavy enough that the rain should not have washed away all traces of its passing.” She shook her head slowly. “Besides, the rain would have been nearly ended by the time it reached this point. I don’t understand it, Healer.”
The light was growing steadily dimmer. Wil glanced about apprehensively. “Would Cephelo have stopped to wait out the storm?”
“Maybe.” She looked doubtful. “We had better backtrack a bit. Climb on.”
They remounted and began riding west, glancing from time to time at the muddied earth for some sign of the Rover wagon. There was nothing. Eretria urged their mount into a slow trot. Ahead, mist curled out of the forest on either side, thin, wispy trailers that slipped like feelers through the gloom. Night sounds came from deep within the trees as the creatures of the valley awoke and began to hunt.
Then a new sound rose from somewhere ahead, faint at first, lingering like an echo in the midst of the sharper, quicker sounds, then stronger and more insistent. It grew into a howl, high-pitched and eerie, as if such pain had been inflicted upon some tortured soul that the limits of endurance had been passed and all that was left before death was that final, terrible cry of anguish.
Wil gripped Eretria’s shoulder in alarm. “What is that?”
She glanced back. “Whistle Ridge—just ahead.” She grinned nervously. “The wind makes that sound sometimes.”
It grew worse, a harsher, more biting cry, and the land began to rise through the forest in a rocky slope that took them above the mist, the trees parting to reveal small patches of blue night sky. The horse had begun to respond to the sounds, huffing nervously, dancing and shifting as Eretria sought to calm it. They moved more slowly now, edging ahead through the dusk until they were atop the ridge line. Beyond, the roadway straightened once more and disappeared into the gloom.
Wil saw something then, a shadow moving toward them, materializing out of the howl of the wind and the night. Eretria saw it as well and reined in sharply. The shadow came closer. It was a horse, a big sorrel, riderless, its reins trailing in the earth. It came slowly up to them and rubbed noses with their own mount. Both Valeman and Rover girl recognized it at once. It was Cephelo’s.
Eretria dismounted, handing the reins of her own horse to Wil. Wordlessly, she examined the sorrel, walking quickly about it, patting its flanks and neck to keep it calm. There were no marks on the animal, but it was sweating heavily. When she glanced again at Wil, Eretria’s dark face was uncertain.
“Something has happened. His horse would not stray.”
The Valeman nodded. He was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this.
Eretria climbed atop Cephelo’s horse and took up the reins. “We will go on a bit further,” she decided, but there was doubt in her voice.
Side by side, they rode along the ridge line, the wind whistling its eerie cry through the high rock and the trees of the forest. Overhead, the stars winked into view, pale white light shining down into the dark of the Wilderun.
Then something else appeared through the gloom, another shadow, this one black and squarish and motionless upon the trail. Valeman and Rover girl slowed, easing their horses ahead cautiously, uneasiness reflecting in their eyes. Gradually the shadow began to take shape. It was Cephelo’s wagon, the garish colors caught in the starlight. They rode closer, and uneasiness then turned to horror. The team of horses that had pulled the wagon were dead, twisted and broken, still locked in their leather and silver-studded traces. Several more of the animals lay close by and, with them, their riders, scattered on the trail like straw men, torn and crumpled, bright clothing stained with blood that seeped through the fabric to mix with the muddied earth.
Quickly Wil looked about, peering into the shadows of the forest, searching for some sign of the thing that had done this. Nothing moved. He glanced at Eretria. She sat rigid on her mount, the color draining from her face as she stared fixedly at the bodies on the trail. Her hands dropped slowly to her lap, and the reins slipped free. Wil dismounted, scooped up the fallen reins, and tried to hand them back to the frightened girl. When Eretria did not move to take them, he gripped her hands, placed the reins of both horses between her fingers, and forced them closed. She glanced down at him wordlessly.
“Wait here,” he ordered.
He walked toward the wagon, studying the twisted forms about him as he went. All lay dead, even the old woman who had driven the wagon, bodies broken like deadwood. The Valeman felt his skin crawl. He knew what had done this. One by one, he checked them until at last he found Cephelo. The big man was dead as well, his tall form stretched full length upon the ground, forest-green cloak shredded, angular features frozen with a look of horror. So ruined was his body that it was nearly impossible to recognize.
Wil bent down. Slowly he felt through the dead Rover’s clothing, searching for the Elfstones. He found nothing. Fear knotted his stomach. He had to find the Stones. Then he noticed Cephelo’s hands. The right hand clutched at the earth in a gesture that spoke of unbearable agony. The left was flung wide and closed into a fist. The Valeman took a deep breath and reached for the left. One by one he pried open the rigid fingers. Blue light winked from between them, and relief flooded through him. Embedded in the flesh of the palm lay the Elfstones. Cephelo had sought to use them as he had seen Wil do in the Tirfing, but the Stones had not responded to the Rover and he had died still clutching them.
The Valeman pulled them free of the dead man’s grip, wiped them on his tunic, and dropped them back into their leather pouch. Then he rose, listening to the shriek of the wind whistling through the ridge. Dizziness washed over him as the smell of death filled his nostrils. Only one thing could have done this. He remembered the Elven dead at the camp at Drey Wood and in the fortress of the Pykon. Only one thing. The Reaper. But how had it found them again? How had it trailed them all the way from the Pykon to the Wilderun?
He steadied himself and hastened back to Eretria. She still sat astride Cephelo’s horse, dark eyes bright with fear.
“Did you find him?” she asked in a whisper. “Cephelo?”
Wil nodded. “He’s dead. They’re all dead.” He paused. “I took back the Stones.”
She did not seem to hear him. “What kind of thing could do this, Healer? Some animal, maybe? Or the Witch Sisters, or …?”
“No.” He shook his head quickly. “No, Eretria, I know what did this. The thing that did this tracked Amberle and me all the way south from Arborlon. I thought that we had lost it on the other side of the Rock Spur, but somehow it has found us again.”
Her voice shook. “Is it a Devil?”
“A special kind of Devil.” He glanced back at the dead upon the trail. “They call it a Reaper.” He thought a moment. “It must have believed we were traveling with Cephelo. Perhaps the rain confused it. It followed after him and caught him here …”
“Poo
r Cephelo,” she murmured. “He played one game too many.” She paused and glanced back at him sharply. “Healer, this thing knows now that you did not come east with Cephelo. Where will it go next?”
Valeman and Rover girl stared wordlessly at each other. Both knew the answer.
At the rim of the Hollows, Amberle crouched within the shelter of the bushes where Wil had hidden her and listened to the sounds of the night. Darkness lay over the Wilderun like a shroud, deep and impenetrable, and the Elven girl sat locked within it, unable to see beyond the covering brush, hearing the creatures that prowled the gloom. Knowing that it would be dawn before Wil could return to her, she tried for a time to sleep. But sleep would not come; her ankle pained her and her mind crowded with thoughts of the Valeman and his quest, of her grandfather, of the dangers all about her. At last she gave it up. With her knees pulled up against her body, she hunched forward, determined that she would become as nearly as she could a part of the forest about her, still, motionless, and unseen.
For a time she succeeded. None of the forest creatures ventured near her, staying back within the deep woods, back from the rim of the Hollows. The Hollows themselves lay wrapped in a silence so profound that the Elven girl could hear it as clearly as she heard the sounds of the night. Once or twice something flew past her shelter, the quick flap of wings breaking the stillness briefly, then fading once more. Time slipped away, and she began to nod sleepily.
Then the chill swept through her suddenly, as if the warmth had been sapped from the air about her. She came awake and rubbed her arms briskly. The chill left and the heat of the summer night slipped back across her. Uncertain now, she glanced about her shelter. Everything was as it had been before; in the darkness nothing moved, nothing sounded. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. The chill came back. She waited this time before moving, keeping her eyes tightly shut, trying to trace the source of the chill. She discovered that it came from somewhere within herself. She did not understand. Cold, bitter cold, within her, pushing through her, numbing like the touch of … death.