She went up the ladder through the hatchway to the main deck on the fly, found the last sentry at the aft rail, and went after him. She already knew he was too far away for her to reach before he saw her coming, but she went anyway. There was no time left for stealth. She had to hope he was all that was left of the crew. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the approaching raft and the bulky forms of the Mwellrets it carried, closing fast. She could feel the ache of her injured leg and side as she ran, a fresh tearing of her wounds, but she pushed aside her pain and quickened her speed.
The crewman turned at the sound of her approach, weapons lifting. She was too slow and still too far away!
Then abruptly, he crumpled to the deck, and Hunter Predd stepped from behind the mainmast, sling in hand.
“Cut the anchor lines!” she called, changing direction for the pilot box.
She heard muffled shouting, sibilant and angry, from the raft. She gained the box and sprang to the controls, drawing down ambient light from the single sail already set in place to keep Black Moclips aloft, throwing the levers to the parse tubes, opening them up all the way. The airship lurched with the infusion of power. She heard Hunter Predd cut the aft anchor line, then run forward to cut the bow one, as well.
Faster!
The Wing Rider’s sword rose and fell twice. Slowly, ponderously, Black Moclips rose into the air, severed anchor ropes trailing from her decking, arrows and javelins thudding into the underside like hailstones. The raft with its furious, helpless Mwellrets fell away and disappeared into the darkness.
She closed down the parse tubes and eased off on drawing down ambient light for power. The ship was an old friend and responded well to her touch. But maneuvering her alone was rough and uncertain. Without help, Rue Meridian could not manage a ship of that size for very long. She would need help, as well, with the dozen Federation soldiers she had trapped in their sleeping quarters below. She recognized the situation readily enough and knew that before long Aden Kett and his men would find a way to escape.
She slowed the airship to a crawl and brought her about, pointing her inland toward Castledown. Somewhere ahead, the Ilse Witch was hunting Walker, Bek was running for his life, and whoever still lived of the company of the Jerle Shannara waited for a rescue.
A rescue that perhaps only she could manage.
She watched Hunter Predd approach, saw the questioning look in his dark eyes, and shook her head.
She wished she had a better answer to give him. She knew she had better find one soon.
24
Quentin Leah was listening so intently that he started in surprise when Tamis touched his arm in warning.
“He’s coming,” she whispered. Consumed by the fact that Ard Patrinell’s mind was still alive inside, she was still calling the wronk he rather than it—as if the human part mattered more. The rest of it might be mechanical—armor, wires, and machine parts, cold and emotionless metal—but not its mind, trapped as it was, whole and intact, thinking Ard Patrinell thoughts, using Ard Patrinell skills, hunting them with a determination that was relentless and implacable.
Heeding her warning, Quentin listened for its coming. Try as he might, he still could not hear it.
In the twilight he glanced over at her. Her roundish, pixie face was sweaty and her short brown hair tangled with bits of debris. Her clothing was torn and bloody and as dirty as the rest of her. She had the look of a hunted thing, a creature run to earth by something as inescapable as the coming of night.
A mirror of himself, he allowed. He did not need to see what he looked like to know it was so. They were a matched set, fugitives from a fate that neither could escape, that both were forced to confront.
They had been running from it all day, running since the coming of dawn had persuaded them they must find a way to kill it. All through the forests surrounding Castledown’s ruins they had played cat and mouse with the inevitable, marking time as they searched for a way to put an end to the creature. It was a chase marked by fits and starts, by schemes and subterfuges, by equal parts skill and blind luck. The wronk was a terrifying adversary, made more dangerous by the fact that Ard Patrinell’s thinking guided it. Sometimes it would come after them in direct pursuit, a hunter using strength and stamina to run them down. Sometimes it would circle around to lie in wait, a predator set to pounce. Sometimes it would stop altogether and wait for them to pause in turn, to wonder if they had lost it entirely, and then it would approach from an unexpected direction, swift and sudden, trying to catch them off guard. Many times it almost had them, but they were saved in each instance by their combined experience and skill and by the kind of luck that defies explanation.
Of the latter, Quentin reflected, there had been more than the former, which was why they were still alive.
The search for a wronk pit had taken longer than they expected. They had thought the Rindge would have set many such traps to protect themselves from the creatures of Antrax. Quentin and Tamis had set out that morning to find the nearest one, backtracking toward the village of Obat and his people to find the pits that had to be located along the approaches from Castledown. But the wronk caught up to them so quickly that they had to hurry their search and consequently failed to find what they were looking for. The wronk was unmistakable when it was close and moving, too big and heavy to conceal its coming. But even when they could not hear it, they were forced to listen and watch for it because it was subtle and clever, like Patrinell, and constantly looking for a way to catch them off guard.
For Quentin Leah, life had been reduced to the simplest of terms—survival of the fittest. He was engaged in the kind of life-and-death struggle that he had imagined happening to others, but never to himself. All of his thinking about a grand adventure and new experiences, everything that had spurred his decision to join the quest, had faded into a barely remembered past. The enthusiasm he had imparted to Bek, the limitless possibilities he had envisioned for what they would find, and the confidence that had buoyed him through so many harrowing confrontations along the way had turned to dust. He had all but forgotten Walker and the search for the books of magic. He had pushed aside any thought of rescuing the others, Bek included. All that was left was a fatalistic and dogged determination to stay alive for another day, to escape the thing that hunted him, and ultimately to regain enough space to allow something back into his life of who and what he had been.
He had no idea what Tamis was thinking, although he could guess readily enough. She was burdened by similar needs, but as well by her memories of and feelings for the man with whom she had been in love. She might pretend otherwise, might tell herself something else, but it was clear to him that she could not separate herself from her emotions, could not be truly objective about what they were seeking to accomplish. For Tamis, the struggle to destroy the wronk was more than trying to stay alive. It was giving Ard Patrinell the release he could find no other way, the peace that only death would bring. Her hatred of what had been done to him was so invasive that it simmered on her features at every turn. The battle was personal for her in a way it could never be for Quentin, and she was driven almost beyond reason.
But not beyond the limit of her skills, Quentin quickly saw, which were considerable. Trained as a Tracker by Patrinell himself, she was all business and judgment, able to play well a game in which no mistakes were allowed. She knew what to expect from the mind that hunted them, was familiar with its thinking, its nuanced reasoning. She could anticipate what it would try and blunt the effect. The wronk was physically stronger, and if they got within its reach, there was little question of the outcome. But Tamis was whole where the wronk was fragmented, cobbled together of parts that did not naturally fit. That gave her an advantage she could exploit, and she was quick to try to do so.