It was on the sixth night, while Bek and Quentin stood at the aft railing talking about the mist that periodically enveloped the Highlands of Leah, that the boy heard something unfamiliar break the silence. He stopped talking at once, motioning Quentin to be quiet. Together, they listened. The sound came again, a kind of creaking that reminded Bek of the ship’s rigging working against spars and cleats. But it did not come from the Jerle Shannara. It came from somewhere behind her, off in the mist. Baffled, the cousins stared at each other, then off into the gloom once more. Again they heard the noise, and now Bek turned to see if anyone else was aware of it. Spanner Frew was in the pilot box, his dark, burly form clearly visible as he stood looking over his shoulder at them. Redden Alt Mer had come on deck, as well, and was standing just below the shipwright, confusion mirrored on his strong face. A handful of others stood clustered about the railings on either side.
A long silence descended as everyone waited for some further sound to reach their ears.
Bek bent close to Quentin. “What do you think—?”
He gasped sharply and choked on the rest of what he was going to say. A huge black shape hove into view out of the mist, a massive shadow that materialized all at once and filled the whole of the horizon. It was right on top of them, so close that there was barely time to react. Bek stumbled back, dragging at Quentin’s arm as the black shape towered out of the gloom. Shouts of warning went up, and the shrill of a Roc rose above them. The cousins went backwards off the low rise of the aft deck and landed in a jarring heap below as the black shape struck the Jerle Shannara in a crash of metal and splintering of wood. The airship lurched and shuddered in response, and the air was filled with cries and curses.
Everything spiraled into instant chaos. Bek rolled to his feet to find the phantom shape locked against the Jerle Shannara’s aft battering rams and realized to his shock that he was looking at another airship. The impact of the collision had sent both ships spiraling in a slow, clockwise motion that made it difficult for Bek to keep his feet. One of the Rocs soared past him, lifting out of the gloom, a silent phantom that appeared and was gone again almost immediately.
Then something cloaked and hooded rose off the aft decking and lurched toward him. Bek stared at it in surprise, mesmerized by its unexpected appearance. He did not even have the presence of mind to reach for his weapons as it approached. He just stood there. The shape took form, and the dark opening of the hood lifted into the gray misted light to reveal a reptilian face dominated by lidless eyes and a twisted mouth. Clawed hands lifted toward him, gesturing.
“Little peopless,” the creature whispered.
Bek froze, terrified.
“Sstay sstill now,” it urged softly, hypnotically, and reached for him.
“No!” he cried out frantically.
He did so without thinking, solely in response to the danger. But he used his voice as he had that night on Mephitic when he had gone into the castle ruins with Truls Rohk, infusing it with the magic he had discovered there. He felt the force of his words strike at the creature, causing it to flinch with the impact.
Then Quentin was yanking him away and leaping into the creature’s path. The Sword of Leah cut through the darkness in a single, glittering stroke, severing the creature’s head from its body. The creature collapsed without a sound, and its blood sprayed everywhere.
Other creatures of the same look appeared at the railing of the phantom airship, crowding through the gloom and night to look down at them, the glint of their weapons visible. Shouts rose from the Rovers and Elves, and they surged out of the darkness behind the cousins, their own weapons drawn. A hail of missiles showered down off the other ship, and a few sent members of the Jerle Shannara to the deck, writhing in pain. Quentin pulled Bek behind a stack of boxes below the rise of the aft deck, yelling at him to stay down and cover himself up.
A moment later both airships lurched anew, and in a grinding of metal and a crunching of wood, unlocked and separated. Slowly, ponderously, the leviathans drifted apart, their occupants still gathered at the railings to stare silently across the void at each other, faceless shadows in the mist.
“Stations!” Redden Alt Mer roared from the pilot box.
Hands working furiously on the controls, he dropped the mainsail to gather what ambient light he could, unhooded the diapson crystals to give the airship power, and swung her about to face the gloom into which the other ship had disappeared. His Rover crew scattered across the decking to lock down the radian draws, and the Elven Hunters, weapons at the ready, dropped quickly into the fighting ports. Everyone was moving at once as Bek climbed back to his feet.
“What happened?” Bek tried to ask Quentin, but his cousin was gone as well.
With a quick glance at the fallen monster in front of him, Bek raced over to join Big Red. The Rover Captain was still shouting out instructions, windburned face grim with determination as he searched the gloom. Bek looked with him. For just an instant, the other ship reappeared, huge and spectral in the night, three masts cutting through the mist, pontoons and decking slicing across the haze. Then it was gone again.
“That’s Black Moclips!” Bek heard Redden Alt Mer gasp in disbelief.
They searched for the other airship a while longer, but it was nowhere to be found. Walker appeared and ordered Alt Mer to have his men stand down. “Just as well,” Big Red muttered, half to himself, still shaken by what he had seen. “Fighting an air battle in this mess is a fool’s errand.”
The Elven Hunters had gathered about the fallen attacker to examine him, and Bek heard the word Mwellret whispered. He didn’t know what a Mwellret was, but he knew the thing that lay dead on the deck looked an awful lot like the monster the King of the Silver River had transformed into at their meeting months earlier.
Joad Rish was on deck looking after the wounded. He advised Walker that no one was badly injured. The Druid asked Big Red for a damage report and suggested the watch be increased from two men to four. Bek was standing close to him while an accounting was made, but they didn’t speak. It wasn’t until everyone had moved away and Redden Alt Mer had given back the helm to Spanner Frew, that Walker bent down to the boy on passing and whispered that Truls Rohk was missing.
26
Aboard Black Moclips, the chaos was more pronounced, and a deadly confrontation was about to take place.
The Ilse Witch was sleeping when the collision between the airships occurred, and the force of it threw her from her berth onto the floor. She came to her feet swiftly, threw on her gray robes, and hastened from her locked cabin onto the main deck. By then Federation soldiers and Mwellrets were running everywhere, shouting and cursing in the gloom and mist. She strode to where most had gathered and saw the distinctive raked masts of the Jerle Shannara. One of the Mwellrets lay dead on the other ship’s decking, the first barrage of spears and arrows had been launched, and a full-scale battle was only moments away.
Of Cree Bega and Federation Commander Aden Kett, she saw no sign.
In a cold fury, she strode to the pilot box and swung up beside the helmsman. The man was staring down at the milling ship’s company with a look of mingled disbelief and incredulity, his hands frozen on the controls.
“Back her off at once, helmsman!” she ordered.