When she looked again, Tib Arne’s blue eyes were staring up at her sightlessly.
She heard a shriek from overhead then, either war shrike or Roc, and looked up just in time to see Gloon descending with Spirit in pursuit. The shrike had abandoned his sky battle and was coming for her. She crouched beneath its shadow, no place to hide now, the wash too far away to reach. She brought up the Elfstones, but her movements were leaden, and she knew she didn’t have enough time to save herself.
And then Spirit gave a final surge and caught Gloon from behind, hammering into the war shrike, knocking it off balance and away. Gloon whipped about, tearing at the Roc, and in that instant Wren unleashed the magic of the Elfstones a final time. It caught Gloon full on, enfolded the shrike, and began to burn it apart, eating at it even as it tried to escape. Gloon shrieked in rage, twisted wildly, and tried to fly. But the Elven magic had set the bird afire, and the flames were everywhere. It rolled and straightened, wings beating. Wren struck it again, the blue fire turning white hot. Down went the war shrike, flames trailing from its body. It struck the earth, shuddered, and went still.
In seconds, the fire had turned it to ash.
In the hush that followed, Spirit made a silent descent to the grasslands. Tiger Ty climbed down and came over to Wren, walking in that shuffling, bowlegged gait, leathery face streaked with sweat. She reached out her hands to clasp his.
“Are you all right, girl?” he asked quietly, and she could see the deep concern in his sharp eyes.
She smiled. “Thanks to you. That’s twice in one day I’ve been saved by friends I’d thought I’d lost.” And she told him of Morgan Leah and the Shadowen at Southwatch.
“I found the free-born in the Dragon’s Teeth yesterday morning.” The gnarled hands would not release her, holding on as if afraid she might fade away. “Their leader told me he didn’t send the boy, that he’d sent someone else. I knew what had happened. I left them to follow when they could and came back for you. Too late, I thought. You were already missing. We searched for you all day. Found Rift and Grayl, but there was no sign of you. I knew the boy had taken you. But I knew as well that if there was a way, you’d escape. I took Spirit out alone after the others gave it up for the night and kept looking.” He gave her a hard look. “Good thing I did.”
“Good thing,” she agreed.
“Confound it, what did I tell you about going up with anybody but me?”
She leaned close, and for a moment the emotions were so strong she couldn’t speak. “Don’t make me say it,” she whispered.
Perhaps he saw the pain in her eye.s. Perhaps he heard it in her voice. He held her gaze a moment longer, then released her hands and stepped back. “Just so you don’t ever do it again. I’ve got a lot of time and effort invested in you.” He cleared his throat. “Let me see to Spirit, make sure there’s no real damage.”
He spent a few minutes checking the big Roc, hands moving carefully over the dark feathered body. Spirit watched him with a fierce eye. When the Wing Rider spoke to him, the Roc dipped his beak, spread his great wings, and shook himself.
Satisfied, Tiger Ty beckoned her over. He gave the bird a proud glare. “He would have won, you know,” he said gruffly.
Wren didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she smiled. “I thought he did.”
Tiger Ty helped her aboard and strapped her in. He stroked Spirit appreciatively, nodded to himself, and joined her. Wren glanced out across the night-frozen landscape, empty and still save where Gloon’s remains smoldered and steamed. She felt light-headed and worn, but she felt alive, too. The effects of the Elven magic lingered, racing through her like sparks of fire.
She had survived again, she thought, and wondered how long she could keep doing it.
“They’re not going to win,” she said suddenly. “I won’t let them.”
He did not ask her what she meant. He did not speak at all. He just looked at her and nodded once. Then he whistled Spirit into the air, and the great bird rose and flew swiftly away into the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Morgan Leah watched Wren disappear into night’s retreating darkness, his disappointment at not finding Par tempered by the satisfaction he felt in knowing that his efforts hadn’t been wasted. Imagine—finding Wren, of all people! It made him think that the world was a smaller place than it seemed, and that because it was, perhaps the children of Shannara and their allies had a chance against the Shadowen after all.
He turned back east then, looking off to the brightening skyline, to the silver-gray light spilling down through the tree-tops and mountain slopes in slowly widening pools. Daybreak was upon him. The cover of night that had protected him was already gone, and he was at risk beyond what he had planned. He glanced briefly at the shell of the toppled wagon and the black tangle of the fallen Shadowen and could not help thinking, I did it. I stood up against them all.
But where was he to go now? The Shadowen at Southwatch would be coming. They would have no trouble finding his tracks, and they would hunt him down and repay him for what he had done. He took a deep breath and looked about some more, as if in looking he might find the escape he needed. He could not go back to the bluff; that would be the first place they would look. They would find his trail and retrace his steps, hoping he was stupid enough to return to wherever he had been hiding.
He smiled faintly. He wasn’t that stupid, of course, but it wasn’t a bad idea to make them think he was.
He recrossed the narrows to where he had first come in and retraced his steps back through the trees and hills, not bothering to hide his tracks but messing them up as best he could to disguise how many of him there were, then turned and came back again, more cautious now because the Shadowen might have arrived in his absence. They had not, however,—the narrows and the flats beyond remained empty save for the dead. He moved back up the trail that had brought the wagon in, using the ruts to hide his bootprints, following the wheel marks for several miles through the hills before turning abruptly north into high grass where he edged carefully away into the rocks of a ridgeline. If he was lucky, they would not find where he had broken off and would be forced to scour the countryside blindly. That might give him the extra time he needed to get to where he had decided to go.
Of course, none of this meant anything if the Shadowen could track by smell. If they could hunt like animals, then he was in trouble whatever he did short of rolling in mud and applying stinkweed, and he was not prepared for that. What could these quasi-Elves do? He wished he knew more about them, wished he had taken time to ask Wren, but there was no help for it now. He would have to take his chances. He breathed in the morning air and thought how lucky he was to have the Sword of Leah’s magic to protect him, then realized that he had been given an answer to his question of whether the power would save or consume him. Of course, it didn’t mean that he was safe with it, that he could relax in its use, that he could even be assured things would turn out the same way next time. It only meant he had survived for now, but it was becoming increasingly clear that survival on any terms was the most he could hope for—that any of them could hope for—in their battle against the Shadowen.
One day it will be different, he told himself—but wondered if it was so.
The country before him tightened into a mass of hills, ridges, scrub-choked hollows, and dense forests backed up against the Runne. He was moving over rock, taking his time, working at stepping lightly where scuffed stones and bent twigs might give him away. He had reasoned it through like this. South lay the bluff where he had kept watch, and the Shadowen, if hunting him, would start there. West was the direction in which Wren had ridden, and they would surely hunt him there as well. North lay the cities of Callahorn—Tyrsis, Kern, and Varfleet—and that would be the next logical choice. The last place they would look was east in the country surrounding Southwatch, their fortress citadel, because it would not seem likely to them that someone who had just destroyed one of their patrols to rescue the Queen of the Elves would head for the very same place the patrol had been going.