by Terry Brooks
“Enough talk!” roared the Prince of Leah finally, losing his temper altogether. “What we need now is a plan, one that will get us out of here right away, before the Valemen are completely beyond help. Now what do we do?”
“How wide is the pass?” asked Balinor absently, still pacing.
“About two hundred yards at the point the Gnomes are gathered,” Dayel replied, avoiding a confrontation with Menion. He thought a minute longer, and then snapped his fingers in recollection. “The right side of the pass is completely open, but on the left side there are small trees and scrub brush growing along the cliff face. They would give us some cover.”
“Not enough,” interrupted Hendel. “The Pass of Jade is wide enough to march an army through, but trying to get past with the little cover offered would be suicidal. I’ve seen it from the other side, and any Gnome looking would spot you in a minute!”
“Then they’ll have to be looking somewhere else,” Balinor growled as the faint glimmer of a plan began to form in his mind. He stopped suddenly, and kneeling on the forest floor drew a crude diagram of the pass entrance, looking to Dayel and Hendel for approval. Menion had stopped complaining long enough to join them.
“From the drawing, it appears that we can stay under cover and out of the light until we reach here,” Balinor explained, indicating a point of ground near the line representing the left cliff face. “The slope is gentle enough to allow us to remain above the Gnomes and within the cover of the brush. Then there is an open space for about twenty-five or thirty yards until the forests begin against the steeper cliff face beyond. That is the point of diversion, the point where the light will show us clearly to anyone looking. The Gnomes will have to be turned another way when we cross that open space.”
He paused and looked at the four anxious faces, wishing fervently that he had a better plan, but knowing there was no time to come up with another if they were to preserve any chance of recovering the Sword of Shannara. Whatever else was at stake now, nothing was of such paramount importance as the life of the frail-looking Valeman who was heir to the Sword’s power and the one chance left to the people of the four lands to avoid a conflict that would consume them all. Their own lives could be sold comparatively cheaply to preserve that single hope.
“It will take the best bowman in the Southland,” the tall borderman announced quietly. “That man will have to be Menion Leah.” The highlander looked up in surprise at the unexpected declaration, unable to hide the sense of pride he felt. “There will be only one shot,” continued the Prince of Callahorn. “If it is not exactly on target, we will be lost.”
“What is your plan?” interrupted Durin curiously.
“When we reach the end of our cover at the open space, Menion will locate one of the Gnome chieftains to the far side of the pass. He will have one shot with the bow to kill him, and in the confusion that follows, we can slip by.”
“It won’t work, my friend,” growled Hendel. “The minute they see their leader struck by the arrow, they’ll be all over that pass entrance. You’ll be found in minutes.”
Balinor shook his head and smiled faintly, but unconvincingly.
“No, we won’t, because they will be after someone else. The minute the Gnome chieftain falls, one of us will show himself back in the pass. The Gnomes will be so incensed and so eager to get their hands on him, that they won’t take the time to search for anyone else, and we can slip by in the confusion.”
Silence greeted his appraisal of the situation, and the anxious faces looked from one person to the next, the same thought in every mind.
“It sounds just fine for everyone but the man who stays behind to show himself,” broke in Menion in disbelief. “Who gets that suicidal chore?”
“It was my plan,” declared Balinor. “It will be my duty to stay behind and lead the Gnomes into the Wolfsktaag, until I can circle back and join you later at the edge of the Anar.”
“You must be insane if you think I’m letting you stay behind and claim all the credit,” Menion declared. “If I make the shot, I stay to take the bows, and if I miss …”
He trailed off and smiled, shrugging casually, clapping Durin on the shoulder as the other looked on incredulously. Balinor was about to object further when Hendel stepped forward shaking his broad head in disagreement.
“The plan is fine as it goes, but we all know that the man who stays behind will have several thousand Gnomes attempting to track him down, or at best, waiting for him to come out of their taboo land. The man who stays must be a man who knows the Gnomes, their methods, how to fight and survive against them. In this case, that man is a Dwarf with a lifetime of battle knowledge behind him. It must be me.
“Besides,” he added grimly, “I told you how badly they want my head. They won’t pass up the chance after such an affront.”
“And I’ve already told you,” insisted Menion again, “that’s my …”
“Hendel is right,” Balinor cut in sharply. The others looked at him in amazement. Only Hendel knew that the decision the borderman had made, however distasteful, was the same one he would have made had their positions been reversed. “The choice has been made, and we will abide by it. Hendel will have the best chance to survive.”
He turned to the stocky Dwarf warrior and extended a broad hand. The other gripped it tightly for a brief moment, then turned quickly from them and disappeared up the trail at a slow trot. The others watched, but he was gone in a matter of seconds. The booming of the drums and the chanting of the Gnomes rolled deeply out of the lighted sky to the west.
“Gag the Valemen so they cannot cry out,” ordered Balinor, startling the other three with the sharpness of the sudden command. When Menion failed to move, but remained rooted to the spot, looking silently up the path Hendel had taken a moment before, Balinor turned to him and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Be certain, Prince of Leah, that your shot is worthy of his sacrifice for us.”
The still-twisting bodies of the two Valemen were quickly secured to the makeshift stretchers and their low cries effectively muffled by tightly bound cloth gags. The four remaining men picked up their gear and the stretchers and moved out of the cover of the trees toward the mouth of the Pass of Jade. The Gnome fires blazed up before them, lighting the night sky in a brilliant aura of yellow-and-orange flame. The drums crashed out in steady rhythm, the sound deafening in the ears of the four as they drew closer. The chanting grew louder until it seemed as if the entire Gnome nation must be gathered. The overall sensation was one of eerie unreality, as if they were lost in that primitive world of half-dreams traversed by mortal and spirit alike in strange rituals that have no recognizable purpose. The walls of the towering cliffs rose jaggedly into the night sky on either side, distant but ominously huge intruders on the little scene taking place at the high entrance to the Pass of Jade. Rock walls glimmered in a shower of color—red, orange, and yellow blended into an overriding deep green that danced and flickered in the man-made firelight. The color reflected off the hardness of the rock and mirrored softly in the grim-set faces of the four stretcher bearers, touching momentarily the fear they were trying to conceal.
Finally the men stood within the corridor of the pass, just out of sight of the chanting Gnomes. The slopes rose steeply on either side, the northern incline offering little or no cover whatsoever, while the southern fairly bristled with small trees and dense scrub brush that grew so thickly it was choking on itself. Balinor silently signaled the others to make their way up the side of this slope. He took the lead himself, searching out the safest approach, moving cautiously upward toward the small trees that grew higher on the mountain. It took them quite a while to reach the safety of the trees, and Balinor motioned them slowly ahead into the mouth of the pass. As they inched forward, Menion could look through breaks in the trees and brush to catch quick glimpses of the fires burning below, still ahead of them, their bright flames almost completely masked by the hundreds of small, gnarled figures who moved rh
ythmically in the light, chanting in a deep, soul-searching drone to the spirits of the Wolfsktaag. His mouth felt dry as he visualized what would happen to them if they were discovered, and he thought grimly of Hendel. He was suddenly very afraid for the Dwarf. The brush and trees began to thin out, rising higher on the slope, and the four crept upward under their cover, but slower now, more hesitantly, as Balinor kept one eye fixed on the Gnomes below. Durin and Dayel walked on cat feet, their light Elven frames moving soundlessly through dry, brittle limbs and twigs, blending into the natural terrain about them. Again Menion peered worriedly at the Gnomes, closer than before, their yellowish bodies weaving to the drums, gleaming with the sweat of hours spent calling on their gods and praying to the mountains.
Then the four reached the end of their cover. Balinor pointed ahead to the yards of open space that lay between them and the dense forests of the Anar standing darkly beyond. It was a long distance, and there was nothing between the men and the floor of the pass but the scrub brush and a few sparse blades of grass, dried from the sun. Directly below were the chanting Gnomes, swaying in the fire’s glow and in a perfect position to see anyone attempting to cross the brightly lighted open spaces of the southern slope. Dayel had been correct; it would have been suicide to attempt to sneak past under those conditions. Menion looked up and quickly saw that further efforts to reach higher ground with the two wounded Valemen were effectively prevented by a sheer cliff face that rose abruptly several hundred feet into the air, banking only slightly as it continued upward to its invisible peak. He turned back to look again at the open space. It appeared farther across than before. Balinor motioned the others into a tight circle.
“Menion can move to the edge of the cover,” he whispered cautiously. “After he picks his target and the Gnome is hit, Hendel will focus their rage by calling attention to himself inside the pass, high on the other slope. He should be in place by this time. When the Gnomes rush him, we move across the open space as quickly as possible. Don’t stop to look—keep moving.”
The other three nodded and all eyes rested on Menion, who had unstrapped the great ash bow from his back and was testing its pull. He picked out a single long, black arrow, sighting it for accuracy, and hesitated for a minute, looking downward through the veiled covering of the trees to the hundreds of Gnomes on the valley floor. Suddenly he realized what was expected of him. He was to kill a man, not in battle or in fair combat, but from ambush, with stealth, and that man would never have a chance. He knew instinctively that he could not do it, that he was not the seasoned fighter that Balinor was, that he did not have the cold determination of Hendel. He was brash and even brave at times and ready to stand against anyone in open combat, but he was not a killer. He glanced back momentarily at the others, and they saw it at once in his eyes.
“You must do it!” whispered Balinor harshly, his eyes burning with fierce determination.
Durin’s face was averted slightly in the half-light, grim and frozen with uncertainty. Dayel stared directly at Menion, his Elven eyes wide, frightened by the choice the highlander faced, the youthful countenance ashen and ghostlike.
“I cannot kill a man this way,” Menion shook involuntarily at his own words, “even to save their lives.…”
He paused and Balinor continued to stare at him, waiting for something more.
“I can do the job,” Menion announced suddenly after a moment’s reflection and a second look to the valley below. “But it shall be done a different way.”
Without further explanation he moved forward through the clump of trees and crouched silently on the fringe, almost beyond its sparse protection. His eyes scanned hurriedly the forms of the Gnomes below, finally coming to rest on a chieftain on the far side of the pass. The Gnome stood before his subjects, his wizened yellow face uplifted, his small hands extended, holding in offering a long bowl of glowing embers. He stood motionless as he led the chanting with the other Gnome chieftains, his face turned toward the entrance to the Wolfsktaag. Menion withdrew a second arrow from the quiver and laid it in front of him. Then on one knee, he inched from the safety of the small tree he had positioned himself behind, fitted the first arrow to the bow, and sighted. The other three waited grimly, breathless within the edges of the foliage, watching the bowman. For one split second everything seemed to come to a complete standstill, and then the taut bowstring was released with an audible twang and the arrow flew invisibly to its target. Almost as if a part of the same motion, Menion fitted the second arrow to the string, sighted, and fired with blinding rapidity, then dropped motionless into the cover of the closest tree.
It happened so fast that no one saw it all, but each caught glimpses of the bowman’s action and the scene that followed in the midst of the unsuspecting Gnomes. The first arrow struck the long bowl in the outstretched hands of the chanting Gnome chieftain and sent it spinning in an explosion of wood splinters. Gleaming red coals flew upward in a shower of sparks. In the next instant, while the astonished Gnome and his still-mystified followers were caught momentarily frozen with uncertainty, the second arrow embedded itself painfully in the half-turned and highly vulnerable posterior of the chieftain, who gave an agonizing howl that could be heard the length and breadth of the firelit Pass of Jade. The timing was absolutely perfect. It happened so quickly that even the unfortunate victim had no time, nor inclination for that matter, to decide where the embarrassing assault had come from or who the deceitful perpetrator might have been. The Gnome chieftain leaped about in terror and pain for several wild moments as his fellow Gnomes looked on in mixed bewilderment and apprehension, emotions that quickly changed. Their ceremony had been rudely interrupted and one of their chieftains had been treacherously struck from ambush. They were humiliated and dangerously angered.
Within seconds after the arrows struck their targets, before anyone had been given a chance to collect his senses, a torch appeared far away inside the pass on the upper reaches of the northern slope, touching off a giant bonfire that blazed into the night sky as if the earth itself had erupted in answer to the cries of the vengeful Gnomes. Before the rising blaze stood the broad, immobile figure of the Dwarf Hendel, his arms raised in challenge, one great hand clutching the stone-shattering mace in menacing defiance of all who looked up at him. His laugh echoed deafeningly off the cliff walls.
“Come face me, Gnomes—worms of the earth!” he roared mockingly.
“Stand and fight—it’s plain you won’t be caught sitting for a while. Your foolish gods cannot save you from the powers of a Dwarf, let alone the spirits of the Wolfsktaag!”
The roar of fury that went up from the Gnomes was frightening. Almost to a man, they surged forward into the Pass of Jade to reach the mocking figure on the slope above them, determined to tear his heart out for the shame and humiliation inflicted upon them. To strike a Gnome chieftain was bad enough, but to insult their religion and their courage in the same breath was unforgivable. Some of the Gnomes recognized the Dwarf immediately and shouted his name to the others, crying out for his instant death. As the Gnomes charged blindly ahead into the pass, their ceremony forgotten, the fires burning untended, the four men on the slope leaped to their feet, clutching tightly the stretchers and their precious cargo, and raced in a low crouch across the open and unprotected southern slope, fully exposed by the glare of the blaze below, their shadows appearing as huge phantoms against the cliffside above their fleeing forms. No one paused to check the progress of the angered Gnomes; they charged madly ahead, eyes glued to the sheltering blackness of the Anar forest looming in the distance.
Miraculously, they made it to the safety of the forest. There they paused, breathing heavily in the cool shadows of the great trees, listening to the sounds in the pass. Below them, the floor of the pass entrance was deserted except for a small cluster of Gnomes, one of whom was engaged in aiding the wounded chieftain by extracting the painful arrow. Menion chuckled inwardly at the sight, a slow smile spreading over his lean face. It quickly vanish
ed, however, as he looked into the pass where the bonfire on the northern slope still burned fiercely. The maddened Gnomes were climbing upward from all directions, an endless number of small yellowish bodies, the foremost of which had almost reached the blaze. There was no sign of Hendel, but from all appearances he was trapped somewhere on the slope. The four watched for only a minute, and then Balinor silently signaled for them to move out. The Pass of Jade was left behind.
It was dark in the heavy forests once the company had gone beyond the light of the Gnome fires. Balinor placed the Prince of Leah in the fore with instructions to move downward from the southern slope to find a trail that would take them west. It did not take long to reach such a trail, and the little band moved into the central Anar. The forests about them shut out most of the dim light of the distant stars, and the great trees framed the path ahead like black walls. The Valemen were thrashing violently on the stretchers again and moaning painfully, even through the heavy gags. The carriers were beginning to lose hope for their young friends. The poison was seeping slowly through their systems and when enough of it reached their hearts, the end would come abruptly. There was no way the four men could know how much time was left the brothers, and no way to estimate how far they might be from any sort of medical assistance. The one man who knew the central Anar was behind them, trapped in the Wolfsktaag and fighting for his life.
Suddenly, so quickly that the four had no time to get off the trail to avoid detection, a group of Gnomes appeared from out of the wall of trees on the path ahead. For a moment everyone stood motionless, each group squinting through the dim light. It took only an instant for each to realize who the other was. The four men quickly put down the cumbersome stretchers and moved forward to stand in a line across the trail. The Gnomes, numbering ten or twelve in all, clustered together for a moment and then one of them disappeared back into the trees.
