What is he talking about? she wondered. But her thinking was muddled and dull.
He turned away, watched Gloon eat for a time, then whistled the war shrike over. Gloon came reluctantly, pieces of Grayl still clutched in his hooked beak. Tib Arne patted and soothed the giant bird, talking quietly with it, laughing and joking. Gloon listened intently, eyes fixed on the boy, head dipped obediently. Wren stayed where she was, trying to think what she might do to help herself.
Then Tib came for her, picked her up easily, slung her over Gloon’s slate-gray back like a sack of grain, and strapped her in place. The boy went back for Erring Rift, and threw the Wing Rider’s body from the bluff into the dense thickets below. On command, Gloon buried his blood-streaked yellow beak in Grayl, dragged the unfortunate Roc to the edge, and dropped him after. Wren closed her eyes against what she was feeling. Tib Arne was right; she had been stupid beyond reason.
The boy came back to her then and pulled himself aboard Gloon.
“You see, the magic allows us anything, Elf Queen,” he snapped over his shoulder as he settled himself in place. “Gloon can make himself large or small as he chooses, cloaked in the shrike’s feathers, come out of the Shadowen form he took when he embraced the magic. And I can be the son you’ll never have. Have I been a good son, mother? Have I?” He laughed. “You never suspected, did you? Rimmer Dall said you wouldn’t. He said you’d want to like and trust me, that you needed someone after losing your big friend on Morrowindl.”
Wren felt bitterness rise within to mix with humiliation and despair. Tib Arne watched her for a moment and laughed.
Then Gloon spread his wings and they were flying east across the plains, speeding away from the Westland forests, the Creepers, the Federation army, and the Elves. She watched everything disappear gradually into the sunset and then into shadows, night descending in a hazy, gray light. They flew into darkness, following the line of the Mermidon into Callahorn, past Kern and Tyrsis, down through the grasslands south.
Midnight came, and they descended to a darkened flat on which a wagon and horsemen waited. How they had come to be there, Wren didn’t know. The men were black-cloaked and bore the wolf’s-head insignia of Seekers. There were eight, all dark and voiceless within their garb, wraiths in the silence of the night. They looked as if they had been expecting Tib Arne and Gloon. Tib gave the pouch with the Elfstones to one, and two others lifted her from Gloon and placed her inside the wagon. No words were spoken. Wren twisted about in an effort to see, but the canvas flaps had already been drawn and secured.
Lying in blackness and silence, she heard the sound of Gloon’s wings as he rose back into the air. Then the wagon gave a lurch and started forward. Wheels creaked, traces jangled, and horses’ hooves clumped in steady rhythm through the night.
She was on her way to Southwatch and Rimmer Dall, she knew, and felt as if a great hole had opened in the earth to swallow her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was nearing dawn when Morgan Leah saw the wagon and riders come out of the grasslands west, slowing to begin the climb into the hills that led to Southwatch. He stood on the bluff south, his watch post for three days past now, staring out across the awakening land. Stars and moon were fading in a cloudless night sky, but the hills were thick with patches of mist that clung to the hollows and draws. The earth was a repository for predawn shadows melting into the gray of the disappearing night, still and lifeless husks that would be swallowed whole when morning arrived.
Except, of course, for the wagon and the horsemen, shadows of substance whose movements stood out against the frozen dark. Morgan watched them silently, motionlessly, as if any sound or movement on his part might cause them to vanish in the haze. They were still a fair distance away, nearly lost in the gloom, shimmering like dark ghosts against the night.
They were the first sign of life he had seen since he had begun his vigil. They were, he knew instantly, what he had been waiting for.
Three days gone, and no one had gone into or come out of Southwatch. No one had even gone near. The land might have been devoid of life but for a handful of birds that sped in and out of view with single-minded concentration. There had been skiffs upon the Mermidon and the Rainbow Lake, but all had passed south, well clear of the Shadowen citadel, well away from any contact. Morgan had watched long and carefully for signs of life within the obelisk, but there had been none. He had slept in snatches, staying awake a portion of the day and night both so that he could minimize the chance that something might get by him. He had watched and waited, and nothing had appeared.
But now there was a wagon and horsemen, and he was certain already that they were bound for Southwatch.
He studied them further and knew as well that they were Seekers. He could tell from the black cloaks and hoods, from the way they held themselves, and from the dark secrecy of their approach. They came in stealth and under cover of night, and whatever they were about they did not want it known. There were six riders, four in front and two behind, and there were at least two drivers. In the odd hush of night’s leaving, they were a whisper across the empty land, creeping in and out of the haze and shadows, inching toward the coming light.
He took a deep breath. They were, he repeated, what he had been waiting for. He did not know why. He did not understand their purpose or fathom their intent. They might be carrying Par Ohmsford within the wagon. They might not. It didn’t matter. Something inside him whispered that he must not let them pass. It spoke in a voice so clear and certain that he could not ignore it.
This is what you have been waiting for. Do something.
It had been five days since Damson Rhee and Matty Roh had departed in search of Par, following the brightening Skree in hopes that it would lead them to the Valeman. The storm had swept away all trace of what had gone before, so the Skree was all they had to help them track. Morgan had remained at Southwatch to wait for their return. But they were not yet back, and there was no indication that they would be coming anytime soon. It had been left to Morgan to determine if Par was a prisoner of the Shadowen, a task that seemed virtually impossible in the absence of an opportunity to enter and have a look around.
But now...
He took a deep breath. Now, it might be different.
But he would have to decide quickly what he was going to do. He would have to act at once.
He was already tracing the wagon’s route as it wound ahead through the misted hills. He could intercept it if he chose. He could reach it before it arrived at Southwatch, cut across its path while it was still several miles away. With his eyes he followed the rutted track it must stay on to reach the citadel, a path that other wagons had worn before. He was close enough, he decided. He could stop it.
If he chose.
One man against eight—and those eight Seekers, and probably Shadowen as well. His jaw tightened, and he smiled sardonically. He had better be sure.
East, the first faint tinges of silvery light began to peek out from behind the forested horizon, sending gleaming spiderwebs across the flat, dark surface of the Rainbow Lake. The silence deepened, a hush of expectation, waiting, waiting.
Standing motionless on the bluff, staring out across the hills at the wagon and the horsemen, Morgan found himself looking beyond the here and now into the past, seeing himself again in Leah, in the Highlands in which his family had lived for centuries, picturing what his life had been like such a short time ago. He remembered how he had described it to Matty—standing in place. He had spent his time nipping at the heels of the Federation officials quartered in what had once been his family home, content with creating annoying distractions, satisfied with causing mischief and discontent. He had come a long way from that, gone north to the Hadeshorn and the shade of Allanon, gone beyond to Tyrsis and the Pit, to the Dragon’s Teeth and the Jut, to Padishar Creel and the free-born, gone farther still to Eldwist and the Stone King, to the Black Elfstone and the Maw Grint. He had fought the Shadowen and their minions and survived what no one should have. He had taken himself out of one life and emerged changed forever in another. He would never be the same again—but then he would never want to be. A lifetime had passed since his departure from the Highlands, and his experiences had strengthened him in ways that once he could only have imagined.