Then the stone behind him cracked wide, and he was thrust inside the fissure. The opening ran deep and long, through multiple tiers of blocks set by its builders centuries ago to form a support wall for towers and ramparts now mostly gone. Thrashing against his imprisonment, the Morgawr fought to escape, but the pressure of the magics that held him fast was enormous.
He could not break free. Bek could see it on his face and in his eyes. He was trapped.
Slowly, the stone began to seal again. The Morgawr shrieked, striking at it with his magic, chunks of it falling away beneath the sharp edges of his power. But not enough stone could be shredded or slowed, and the gap narrowed. Bit by bit, he was squeezed as he had sought to squeeze Grianne. Little by little, he was crushed more tightly by the dwindling space. Now he could no longer move his arms to gesture, to invoke his spells, to trigger his magic’s release. His body twisted frantically, and his shrieking rose to inhuman levels.
When the walls closed all the way, the fingers of one hand were still protruding from a tiny crack. They twitched momentarily in the fresh silence that settled over the ruins. When they finally went still, the crack had disappeared and the wall was leaking blood.
The explosions from land and sea had brought the Wing Riders out of hiding on the distant atoll. They flew their Rocs into the clear morning air and banked toward the dark smudges of smoke rising off the ruins of the ancient castle, then turned again at the sight of more smoke rolling over the waters of the Blue Divide. They caught a glimpse of the Morgawr’s freshly smoldering airships and watched in shock as Black Moclips flew into them. Then everything disappeared in a massive explosion that filled the air with fire and smoke and created a shock wave so strong it could be felt miles away.
Hunter Predd could not tell what had transpired beyond the obvious. Hiding from the Morgawr had clearly not worked, but the nature of the battle being fought now was hard to judge. Catching sight of Spanner Frew and two of the Rover crew standing at the shore’s edge, he banked Obsidian toward them, with Po Kelles and Niciannon following right behind. More explosions sounded, parse tubes giving way to the pressure of overheated diapson crystals as the destruction of the Morgawr’s fleet continued. The Wing Riders swept downward to the island, landed close to the Rovers, jumped from their birds, and rushed over.
“What’s happened?” Hunter Predd asked the shipwright. Seeing the other’s dazed look, he took hold of his arm and turned him about forcibly. “Talk to me!”
Spanner Frew shook his head in disbelief. “He flew right into them, Wing Rider. He hooded the crystals, drew down enough power to destroy a dozen airships, and he flew right into them. All by himself, he destroyed them. I can’t believe it!”
Hunter Predd knew without having to ask that the shipwright was talking about Redden Alt Mer. He looked out over the Blue Divide into the billowing clouds of smoke. Pieces of airships floated on the water, twisted and blackened. The water itself was on fire. There was no sign of an airship aloft and no sign of life in the water.
He stood with Po Kelles and the Rovers and stared in silence at the carnage. Big Red had found a way to stop them after all, he thought with a mix of admiration and sadness.
“Maybe he got out in time,” he said quietly.
None of the others replied or even looked at him. They knew the truth of it. No one could survive an explosion like that. Even if you somehow managed to jump clear, the fall would kill you; the fire and the debris would finish you if it didn’t.
They stared out into the heavy clouds of smoke, transfixed. None of them wanted to believe that Redden Alt Mer was really gone. None of them wanted to believe it could end like this.
It was quiet now, the morning gone still and peaceful. The explosions had stopped, even from the castle behind them. Whatever battles had been fought, they were over. Hunter Predd found himself wondering who had won. Or maybe if anyone had.
“We’d better see what’s happened to the others,” he said.
They were just turning away, when something appeared out of the roiling clouds of black smoke. At first, the Wing Rider thought it was a Roc or a War Shrike and wondered where it had come from. But it wasn’t the right size and it wasn’t flying in the right way. It was something else altogether.
“Black Beard,” he whispered softly.
The flying object began to take shape as it emerged from the haze, slowly becoming recognizable for what it was, floundering badly, but staying aloft.
It was a single wing.
“Shades!” Spanner Frew hissed.
The man who flew it still had the luck.
33
A little more than five months later, the man with the luck and those he had sworn to protect were safely home again. Redden Alt Mer stood at the rail of the Jerle Shannara and stared out into the misty twilight of the Dragon’s Teeth, thinking for the first time in weeks of his harrowing escape from the destruction of the Morgawr’s fleet, reminded of it suddenly by a hunting bird winging its way in slow spirals through the mist that drifted down out of the mountains. His thinking lasted only a moment. That he had found a way through the fire and smoke and explosive debris still amazed him and didn’t bear looking at too closely. Life was a gift you accepted without questioning its generosity or reason.
Still, he would not want to risk his luck like that again. When he returned to the coast and March Brume, he would still fly airships, but he would fly them in safer places.
“What do you suppose they are talking about?” Rue asked, leaning close so that her words would not carry.
Some distance off in the gloom, Bek Ohmsford stood with his sister, two solitary figures engaged in a taut, intense discussion. Their argument, pure and simple, transcended the parting that was taking place. Those who watched from the airship, those few who still remained—Ahren Elessedil, Quentin Leah, Spanner Frew, Kelson Riat, and Britt Rill—waited patiently to see how it would end.
“They’re talking about the choice she has made,” he answered quietly. “The choice Bek can’t accept.”
They had flown in from the coast yesterday, the Wing Riders Hunter Predd and Po Kelles leaving them there to return home to the Wing Hove, their mission complete, their pledge to provide scouting and foraging for the expedition fulfilled. How invaluable their help had been. It was hard to watch them make that final departure, hard to know they wouldn’t still be warding the ship. Some things he got so used to he couldn’t imagine life without them. It was like that for Alt Mer with the Wing Riders.
Still, he would see them again. Out along the coast, over the Blue Divide, on calmer days and under better circumstances.
They would have returned Ahren Elessedil and the Blue Elfstones to Arborlon and the Elves, then flown the Elven Prince home to face his brother, but for the insistence of Grianne Ohmsford that they come first to the Dragon’s Teeth, to the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. She would hear no arguments against it. She owed something to Walker, she told them. She must come to where the dead could be summoned and spoken with, to where the shade of the Druid could tell her the rest of what she must know.
When she had told them why, they were stunned into silence. Not even Bek could believe it. Not then and clearly not now.
“She might be mistaken about this,” Rue continued obstinately. “She might be taking on more than was ever intended of her.”
Alt Mer nodded. “She might. But none of us thinks so, not even Bek. She was saved for this, made whole by the Sword of Shannara and her brother’s love.” He grimaced. “I sound almost poetic.”