She wondered if her uncle and her cousins and Morgan Leah still found strength in their beliefs. She wondered if they had any beliefs left. She thought of the losses she had suffered and wondered if they had suffered as much. She wondered finally if they would have given heed to the charges of Allanon had they known from the start the price that pursuing them would exact. She did not think so.
Light broke east where the sun crested the lip of the world, a faint silver glow that outlined the Dragon’s Teeth and the forestland below. The light seeped down into the valley and chased the shadows from the mist, separating the two and turning the landscape stark and certain. The sound of drums and marching feet grew audible in the distance, faint still, but recognizable in its coming. Padishar Creel was arguing with Barsimmon Oridio. They did not agree on what the combined army’s strategy should be when the attack commenced. They were both strong-willed men, and they mistrusted each other. Axhind listened without saying anything, impassive, expressionless. Triss had moved away. The leader of the free-born resented Bar’s insistence that overall command should be his. She had separated them once already. She might have to do so again and resented it. She did not want any part of what was happening, not anymore. She stood watching and did not move as the argument grew more heated. Triss looked over, waiting for her to step in. South, the drums grew louder.
Then suddenly Stresa appeared, bursting unexpectedly from the brush, quills lifting to shake away the dust and leaves, hurrying to reach her. Wren turned, everything else forgotten. There was an urgency to the Splinterscat’s coming that was unmistakable.
“Elf Queen,” he hissed, his voice ragged and dry. “They’ve brought Creepers!”
She felt her heart stop and her throat constrict. “We left them all in the swamp,” she managed.
“They’ve found more! Sssttt!” The wet snout lifted, the dark eyes dilated and hard. “From Tyrsis, it seems. Phhffttt! Soldiers, too, but it is the Creepers who matter. Five at least. I came as soon as I saw them.”
She wheeled back to the others. Padishar Creel and Bar had stopped arguing. Axhind and Chandos stood shoulder to shoulder like stone figures. Triss was already next to her.
Creepers.
The light was brightening and the haze diffusing as the army of the Federation marched out of the gloom toward the Valley of Rhenn. It came with its divisions of black and scarlet spread wide across the valley mouth and up its broadening slopes, the columns of men deep and long. Cavalry rode the flanks, and there were rolling, timbered buttresses behind which their archers could hide, with slits for firing through. There were shield walls and fire catapults, and there were black-cloaked Seekers anew at every command.
But it was toward the very center of the army that all eyes turned. There were the Creepers, glinting black metal and jagged, hairy limbs, a mesh of machine and beast, lurching toward the Elves and their allies, toward the men they had been sent to destroy.
Wren Elessedil stared at them and felt nothing. Their coming marked the end of the Elves, she knew. Their coming marked the end of everything.
She reached into her tunic for the Elfstones and stepped forward to make her final stand.
“Get up, Par!”
Coll was shouting at him, pulling on his arm and dragging him to his feet. He scrambled up obediently, still in shock from what had happened to him, stunned by the revelations of the Sword. There was a whirl of movement in the stairwell as those who had come for him—Walker, Damson, Coll, Morgan, and the tall, slight, black-haired woman whose face he did not recognize—hurried to surround him. Rumor prowled the room anxiously. There was a whisper of something coming down the stairs, but the gloom hid what crept there. The doors leading from the well were all closed save one that led back across a courtyard to walls and an opening to the land beyond. That way, at least, was clear, and in the distance he could see morning’s light edging above the Runne’s horizon.
Walker was looking that way as well, he saw. Walker, all in black now, bearded and pale, but looking somehow stronger than he had ever looked, filled with a fire that burned just beneath the surface. Like Allanon, Par thought. As Allanon had once been. Walker stared momentarily toward the opening, undecided, the others crouching close to Par, but facing back toward the closed doors and the open stairwell, weapons held ready.
“Which way!” hissed the dark-haired girl.
Walker turned and moved swiftly to join them, decided now.
“We came for Par and to set free what they keep imprisoned in the castle depths. We’re not finished.”
Damson’s arms came around Par and she was holding him as if she might never let go. Par hugged her back, telling her it was all right, that he was safe now, wondering if he really was, wondering still what had happened. The magic of the wishsong was his again, but he remained uncertain even so of what it might do.
But at least I am not a Shadowen! At least I know that!
Coll was standing close to Walker. “The door with the crossbars—over there—leads down a corridor to the cellar steps. Do we go?”
Walker nodded. “Quickly. Stay together!”
They went across the room in a rush, and as they did so, a black shape flung itself down the stairs and onto the dark-haired girl. She sidestepped the attack, and the thing turned on her instantly, hissing and red-eyed, flinging up hands with claws of fire. But Rumor caught it before it could strike, tearing it down the middle and throwing it aside.
Walker flung open the door with the crossbars, and they surged through, leaving the stairwell and their pursuers to follow. The corridor was high and dark, and they slipped down it cautiously, eyes skittering through the shadows. Rumor was back in front, cat eyes sharper than their own, leading the way. From somewhere below came the sound of grinding, then a long sigh, a breathing out. The castle of the Shadowen shuddered in response, like the skin of something living that flinched with a skip in the beating of its heart. What was down there? Par wondered. Not the crashing of waves on the rocks as Rimmer Dall had told him—another lie. Something more. Something so important that Walker would risk everything rather than leave it. Did he know what it was? Had Allanon given him the answers they had all been searching for?
There was no time to find that out now. Shadows filled the opening behind them, and Morgan whirled back and sent the fire of the Sword of Leah surging into them. They scattered and disappeared, but were back in a moment. Coll was whispering urgently to Walker, giving him directions to the corridor leading down, but Walker seemed to know where he was going, pulling Coll after him, keeping him close. The others followed in their wake, hugging the walls. Shadows spun out of the darkness ahead, but they were merely reflections of what followed. Par clutched Damson against him and ran on.
They reached a landing that opened onto stairs winding down into the fortress depths, and now the sounds of what was kept below became clear and distinct. It was the breathing of some great animal, rising and falling, wheezing as if the air passed through a throat parched and constricted from lack of water. The grinding was the sound of movement, like the weight of stones shifting in an avalanche.
Black-cloaked forms appeared on the stairs below, and Shadowen fire burned toward them in sharp red spears. Walker threw up a shield that shattered the attack and struck back. Other shadows came out of halls intersecting the one that brought them. The Shadowen were all around, black and soundless and frenzied in their attack. Morgan turned to protect the rear while Walker led the way, the others crouching in between. They moved quickly down the steps, feeling the castle shudder as if in response to what was happening. The breathing of the thing below quickened.