Queen of the Elves, he mused, interrupting his thinking. Wren Elessedil. Little Wren. He shook his head. He had barely known her when she was growing up with Par and Coll at Shady Vale. It was hard to believe who she had become.
He grimaced. That was true, of course, he thought ruefully, of all of them, and he shrugged the matter aside.
The sun was above the horizon now, night’s shadows gone back into hiding, the swelter of summer’s heat rising up through the grasses and trees with a thickening of fetid air and dry earth. Morgan found a stream running down out of the rocks, followed it to a rapids where the water was clean, and drank. He had neither food nor water to sustain him, and he would have to obtain both if he was to survive for very long. He thought momentarily of Damson and Matty, and he hoped they did not choose this day to return from their search south. They would expect to find him on that bluff, but would likely find the Shadowen waiting instead. Not a pleasant thought. He would have to warn them, of course—but he would have to stay alive to do so.
He left the stream and worked his way to high ground. From the shelter of a stand of pine, he looked back across the hills south, searching for signs of pursuit. He stayed there a long time, scanning the countryside. Nothing showed itself. Finally he went on, moving east now toward the mountains and the river and Southwatch. He was above the citadel, deep enough within the concealing trees to keep from being seen but close enough so as not to lose contact. He made steady progress despite his wound, the pain a dull throbbing he had relegated to the back of his mind, working his way ahead with the practice and determination of an experienced woodsman, able to sense what was happening about him, to feel a part of the land. He listened to the sounds of the birds and animals, sensing what they were about, knowing that nothing was amiss.
The day edged on toward noon, and still there was no sign of any pursuit. He began to hope that perhaps he had avoided it completely. He found fruit and wild greens to chew on and more drinking water, and when he reached the wall of the Runne, he turned south again. He shifted the Sword of Leah to take the strain off his wound and thought on its history. So many years of dormancy, a relic of another time, its magic forgotten until his encounter with the Shadowen during the journey to Culhaven. Happenstance, and nothing more. Strange how things worked out. He pondered the effect that the Sword had had upon his life, of the ways it had worked both for and against him, and of the legacy of hope and despair it had bequeathed. He thought that it no longer mattered whether he approved of it or not, whether he believed his link with the magic was a good or bad thing, because in the final analysis it didn’t matter—the magic simply was. Quickening, he thought, had recognized the inevitability of it better than he, and she had given back the Sword whole because she knew that if the magic was to be his, it should be his complete and not diminished or failed. Quickening had understood how the game was played; her legacy to him had been to teach him the rules.
He stopped to rest when the heat of the day was at its peak, a scathing, burning glare that rose off the parched earth in a white-hot shimmer. He sat in the shade of an aging maple, broad-leaved boughs canopied above him like a tent, squirrels and birds moving through the sheltering branches in apparent disregard of his presence, bound up in their own pursuits. He stared out through the trees to the hills and grasslands south and east, the Sword of Leah propped blade down between his legs, his arms folded across its hilt and grips. He wondered if Wren was safe. He wondered where everybody was, all those who had started out with him on this adventure and been lost somewhere along the way. Some, of course, were dead. But what of the others? He scuffed at the earth with his boot heel and wished he could see things that were hidden from him, then thought that maybe it was better that he couldn’t.
Late afternoon brought the temperature back down to bearable, and he resumed walking. Shadows were lengthening again, easing away from the trees and rocks and gullies and ridges behind which they had been hiding. Southwatch came into view, its dark obelisk rising up out of the poisoned flats that bridged the mouth of the Mermidon with the Rainbow Lake. The lake itself was flat and silvery, a mirror of the sky and the land, and the colors of its bow were pale and washed out in the fading light. Cranes and herons swooped and glided above its surface, vague flashes of white against the gray haze of an approaching dusk.
He stopped to watch, and it probably saved his life.
The birds went suddenly still, and there was movement ahead in the trees, barely perceptible, but there nevertheless, distant and indistinct in the failing light. Morgan eased back into the brush, as silent as shadows falling, and froze. After a moment, Shadowen appeared, one, two, then four more, a patrol working its way soundlessly through the trees. They did not seem to be tracking, merely searching, and the idea that they might be using their sense of smell to hunt turned Morgan cold. They were several hundred yards away still and moving along the slope. Their path would take them below where he hid—but across the trail he had left. He^wanted to run, to fly out of there as swiftly as the wind, but he knew he could not, and forced himself to wait. The hunters were black-robed and hooded and did not wear the emblem of Seekers. There was no pretense here, and that meant they either did not feel threatened or did not care. Neither prospect was reassuring.
Morgan watched them ease through the trees like bits of coming night and disappear from view.
Instantly he was moving again, gliding forward quickly, anxious to put as much distance as possible between himself and the black-garbed hunters. Were they searching for him or for someone else—for anyone, perhaps, after what had been done to their patrol, worried that there were others in hiding? It didn’t matter, he decided quickly. It was enough that they were out there and that sooner or later they were likely to find him.
He revised his previous plan, thinking on his feet, not slowing for an instant. He would not stay on this side of the Mermidon. He would cross the river and wait on the far bank where he could watch the shoreline and the lake for Damson and Matty to return. It was unfortunate that he could not position himself to keep an eye on Southwatch as well, but it was too dangerous to stick around. Best to wait for Damson to report what the Skree had shown on her journey south. Let her try its magic out again if necessary then. That would have to do.
He was very close to Southwatch now and saw that he could not reach the Mermidon to try a crossing without coming down out of the concealment of the trees. That meant he must wait for darkness, and darkness was still several hours away. Too long to stay in one place, he knew. He crouched in the shadows and studied the land below, looking for a reason to reconsider his assessment. The trees thinned as they broke from the Runne, melting away south so that there was no cover on the plains that stretched east to the river. He ground his teeth in frustration. It was too risky to try. He would have to backtrack into the mountains and try to find a pass leading east or circle all the way back the way he had come. The latter was impossible, the former chancy.
But as he pondered the alternatives, he caught sight of new movement in the trees ahead. Again he froze, searching the shadows. He might have been mistaken, he told himself. There seemed to be nothing there.
Then the black-cloaked figure eased into the light momentarily before fading away again.