She watched the two riders circle in tandem, talking and gesturing from the backs of their Rocs. Holding her course, she peered back toward the coast, for some sign of the other ship. But there was nothing to be seen as yet, so she returned her attention to the Wing Riders. The discussion had become animated, and the first vague feelings of uneasiness crept through her. Something about the way they communicated, even from a distance, didn’t look right.
You’re imagining things, she thought.
Then Hunter Predd broke away from Po Kelles and flew back to where she waited, swinging about to come alongside before dropping down and below the aft railing. Taking hold of the line he had left dangling from before, the Wing Rider swung down off the bird and pulled himself up, hand over hand, until he was back on board. A hand signal to Obsidian sent the Roc wheeling away to take up a position beside them, flying to keep pace.
Rue Meridian waited as the Elf hurried over to the pilot box and climbed inside. Even in the faint new light, she could tell that he was upset.
“Listen to me, Little Red.” His weathered face was calm, but strained. “Your brother and the others are flying this way, but they are being chased. A fleet of enemy airships appeared off the coast yesterday at dawn. The Jerle Shannara barely got away from them. She’s been flying this way ever since, trying to shake them off. But fast as she is, she can’t seem to lose them. They tracked her all through the mountains, all the way inland, even after she’d changed course to go another way entirely, and now they’re almost here.”
Enemy airships? All the way out here, so far from the Four Lands? She took a moment to let the information sink in. “Who are they?”
He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “I don’t know. No one does. They fly no flag, and their crews act like dead men. They walk around, but they don’t seem to see anything. Po Kelles got a close look late yesterday when the Rovers set down to rest, thinking they’d lost them. Not an hour passed, and there they were again. The ones he could see were men, but they didn’t act like men. They acted like machines. They didn’t look as if they were alive. They were all stiff and empty-eyed, not seeing anything. One thing is certain. They know where they’re going, and they don’t seem to need a map to find us.”
She glanced around at the brightening day and the ruins below, her hopes for continuing the search fading. “How far away are they?”
“Not half an hour. We have to fly out of here. If they catch you in Black Moclips by yourself, you won’t stand a chance.”
She stared at him without speaking for a moment, anger and frustration blooming inside. She understood the need for flight, but she had never been good at being forced to do anything. Her instincts were to stand and fight, not to run. She hated abandoning yet again those she was searching for, leaving them to an uncertain fate at the hands of not only the Mwellrets and the Ilse Witch, but now this new threat, as well. How long would they last on their own? How long would it be before she could come back and give them any help?
“How many of them are there?” she asked.
The Wing Rider shook his head. “More than twenty. Too many, Little Red, for us to face.”
He was right, of course. About everything. They should break off the search and flee before the intruders caught sight of them. But she could not help feeling that Bek and the others were down there, some of them at least, waiting for help. She could not shake off the suspicion that all that was needed was just a little more time. Even a few minutes might be enough.
“Tell Po Kelles to take up watch for us,” she ordered. “We can look just a little longer before giving up.”
He stared at her. She knew she had no right to give him orders, and he was debating whether or not to point that out. She knew, as well, that he understood what she was feeling.
“The weather is turning, too, Little Red,” he said softly, pointing.
Sure enough. Dark clouds were rolling in from the east, borne by coastal winds, and they looked menacing even from a distance. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed them. The air had grown colder, too. A front was moving through, and it was bringing a storm with it.
She looked back at him. “Let’s try, Wing Rider. For as long as we can. We owe them that much.”
Hunter Predd didn’t need to ask whom she was talking about. He nodded. “All right, Rover girl. But you watch yourself.”
He jumped down out of the pilot box and sprinted back across the decking to the aft railing and disappeared over the side. Obsidian was already in place, and in seconds they were winging off to warn Po Kelles. Rue Meridian swung the airship back around toward the ruins, heading in. Already she was searching the rubble.
Then it occurred to her, a sudden and quite startling revelation, that she was flying an enemy airship, and those on the ground wouldn’t know who she was. Rather than come out of hiding to reveal themselves, they would simply burrow deeper. Why hadn’t she realized this before? Had she done so, perhaps she could have devised a way to make her intentions known. But it was too late now. Maybe the presence of the Wing Rider would reassure anyone looking up that she wasn’t the Ilse Witch. Maybe they would understand what she was trying to do.
Just a few minutes more, she kept telling herself. Just give me a few minutes more.
She got those minutes and then some, but she saw no sign of anyone below. The clouds rolled in and blocked the sun, and the air turned so cold that even though she pulled her cloak tight about her, she was left shivering. The landscape was spotted with shadows, and everything looked the same. She was still searching, still insistent on not giving up, when Hunter Predd swung right in front of her and began to gesture.
She turned and looked. Two dozen airships had materialized from out of the gloom, black specks on the horizon. One led all the others, the one being chased, and she knew from its shape that it was the Jerle Shannara. Po Kelles was flying Niciannon toward it already, and Hunter Predd was calling to her to tack east and head for the mountains. With a final glance down, she did so. Black Moclips lurched in response to her hard wrench on the steering levers and the surge of full power from the radian draws she sent down to the parse tubes and their diapson crystals. The airship shuddered, straightened, and began to pick up speed. Rue Meridian could hear the shouts and cries of the imprisoned Federation crew, but she had no time for them just now. They had made their choice in this matter, and they were stuck with things as they were, like it or not.
“Shut up!” she shrieked, not so much at the men as at the wind that whipped past her ears, taunting and rough.
At full speed, her anger a catalyst that made her as ready to fight as to flee, she flew into the mountains.
8
In the slow, cool hours before sunrise, Quentin Leah buried Ard Patrinell and Tamis. He lacked a digging tool to provide a grave, so he lowered them into the wronk pit and filled it in with rocks. It took him a long time to find the rocks in the darkness and then to carry them, sometimes long distances, to be dropped into place. The pit was large and not easily covered over, but he kept at it, even after he was so weary his body ached.
When he was finished, he knelt by the rough mound and said good-bye to them, talking to them as if they were still there, wishing them peace, hoping they were together, telling them they would be missed. An Elven Tracker and a Captain of the Home Guard, star-crossed in every sense of the word—perhaps they would be united wherever they were now. He tried to think of Patrinell as the Captain was before his changing, a warrior of unmatched fighting skills, a man of courage and honor. Quentin did not know what lay beyond death, but he thought it might be something better than life and that maybe that something allowed you to make up for missed chances and lost dreams.