Ahead, growing closer with each twist and turn of the airship, the pillars waited. Giant’s teeth ground together and withdrew, opening and closing over the gap through which the ship must pass, hungry-sounding, ravenous, as if anxious to catch hold of what had escaped before, as if needing to feel the wood and metal of the Jerle Shannara reduced to shards of debris and its crew reduced to bones and pulp.
Battered and dazed, barely conscious, Rue Meridian dangled from a rope nearly fifty feet below the stern of the ship. She hung from the rope with the last of her fading strength, too weary to do anything else. Blood coated her left arm and ran in rivulets down her side, and she could no longer feel her right leg. The wind howled in her ears and froze her skin. Ice had formed in her hair, and her clothes were stiff. Everything leading up to this moment was a haze of fragmented memories and jumbled emotions. She remembered her struggle with the Mwellret, both of them wounded, their tumbling to the deck of the airship, then sliding inexorably toward the wooden railing, picking up speed and unable to stop. She remembered them striking the railing, already splintered and broken by a falling spar, the Mwellret first, taking the brunt of the impact. The railing had given way like kindling, and they had gone through in a tangle.
It should have been the end of her. They were a thousand feet up, maybe more, with nothing between them and the rocks and rapids below but air. She had kicked free of the Mwellret instinctively, then grasped for something to hold on to. By sheer chance, she had caught this length of trailing rope, this lifeline to safety. Slowing her rapid descent had nearly dislocated her arms and had torn the skin of her hands as she ripped down its length to a knot that brought her up short. Twisting and turning in the wind, she clung to the rope in stunned relief, watching the dark shape of her antagonist tumble away into the ether.
But then shock and cold had set in, and she found she could not move from where she hung, pinned against the skyline like an insect on paper, frozen to her lifeline as she fought to stay conscious. She kept thinking that eventually she would find the strength to move again, to make some effort at climbing back aboard, or that someone aboard would haul her to safety. Her mind drifted in and out of various scenarios and near unconsciousness, always unable to do more than tease her with possibilities.
But she was not so far gone that she didn’t realize the danger she was in and how little time was left to deal with it. The Jerle Shannara was drifting ever nearer to the ice pillars, and when she reached them she was finished. No one aboard ship was going to help her. Those who were topside were all dead, Furl Hawken among them. Those below were locked away in storerooms and could not break free or they would have done so by now. Her brother, Redden Alt Mer. The shipwright, Spanner Frew. Her friends, the Rovers from her homeland. Trapped and helpless, they were at the mercy of the elements, and their end was certain.
No one would help her.
No one would help them.
Unless she did something now.
With what seemed like superhuman effort, she unclenched one frozen hand from the rope and reached up to take a new hold. The effort sent pain through her body in ratcheting spasms and shocked her from her lethargy. Ignoring the cold and numbness, she hauled herself up a notch, freed the other hand, and took a new grip. She felt fresh blood run down the inside of her frozen clothing, where her body still maintained a small amount of warmth. She was freezing to death, she realized, hanging there from that rope, buffeted by the wind blown down off the glaciers. She forced herself to take another grip and pull to a new position, one hand over the other, each length of rope she traversed an excruciating ordeal. Her eyes peered out of ice-rimmed lids. There were glaciers all around, cresting the mountains and cliffs, spreading away into the mist and clouds. Snow blew past her in feathery gusts, and through gaps in their curtains she glimpsed the pillars ahead, slow-moving behemoths against the white, the light glinting off their azure surface. Booming coughs and grinding shrieks marked their advancement, collision, and retreat, and she could feel the pressure of their weight in her mind.
Keep going!
She climbed some more, still racked with pain and fatigue, still hopelessly far beneath the broken railing she needed to reach. Despair filled her. She would never make it in time. Had she made any progress at all? Had she even moved? She hurt so badly and felt so helpless and miserable that a part of her wanted just to give up, to let go, to fall and be done with it. That would be so easy. She wouldn’t feel anything. The pain and cold would be gone; the desperation would end. A moment’s relaxation of her tired hands would be all that was necessary.
Coward!
She howled the word into the wind. What was she thinking? She was a Rover, and above all else Rovers knew how to endure anything. Endurance demanded sacrifice, but gave back life. Endurance was always the tougher choice, but gave the truer measure of a heart. She would not give in, she told herself. She would not!
Stay alive! Keep moving!
She tucked her chin into her chest and put one hand over the other, the second over the first, hauling herself upward inch by inch, foot by foot, refusing to quit. Her body screamed in protest, and it felt as if the wind and the cold suddenly heightened their efforts to slow her. Frozen strands of her long hair whipped at her face. She dredged up every source of inspiration she could think of to force herself to keep going. Her brother and the other Rovers, trapped within the ship, dependent on her. Walker, stranded ashore with the others of the landing party, including her young friend Bek. Furl Hawken, dead trying to save her. The Ilse Witch and her Mwellrets, who would never pay for what they’d done if she did not find a way to stay alive and make them do so.
Shades!
She was crying freely, the tears freezing against the skin of her face, and she could not see through them well enough to tell how far she had climbed. Her jaw was clenched so tightly her teeth hurt, and the muscles of her back were knotting and cramping from the strain of her ascent. She could not take much more, she knew. She could not last much longer. One hand over the other, pull and clutch the rope with the second hand, pull again and clutch the rope with the first, on and on …
She screamed in pain as the wind slammed her against the hull of the airship, and she almost released her grip on the rope as she spun away from the rough wood. Then she realized what that meant, how far she had come, and opened her eyes and looked up. The gap in the broken railing was just above her. She redoubled her efforts, hauling herself up the final few yards of rope to the edge of the decking, gaining a firm grip on a still-solid balustrade, and pulling herself over the side to safety.
She lay on the rain- and ice-slicked deck for a moment, gazing skyward at the vast canopy of white mist and clouds, exhausted, but triumphant, too. Her mind raced. No time to rest. No time to spare. She rolled onto her side and peered across the bodies and debris, through the tattered shreds of sail and broken spars to the aft hatchway. She could not manage to get to her feet, so she crawled the entire way, fighting to stay conscious. The hatchway was thrown back, and she slid through the opening, lost her grip, and tumbled down the stairs. At the bottom she lay in a tangled heap, so numb she could not tell if anything was broken, still hearing the roar of the wind and the surf in her ears.