by Terry Brooks
It was almost dark when a scrabbling sound on the cliff face announced the arrival of Seersha and the Trolls. They hauled themselves up the cliff face and onto the ledge, where the Druid set the guards at immediate watch and ordered the Speakman and Farshaun into the shelter of the overhang. She kept Railing out in the open, positioning him about six yards in front of the other two.
She looked ragged and spent, and her face was smudged with dirt. “From here, you can see most of what happens when we’re attacked. I want you to do two things. I want you to watch our backs. If anything gets behind us, anything we don’t see but you do, your job will be to send it back over the edge. Second, I want you to protect Farshaun and the seer. And yourself. Can you do all that?”
Railing nodded. “I can do it.”
“It’s a lot to ask.”
“I know. I won’t let you down.”
Seersha gave him a flash of her crooked grin and clapped him on his shoulder with her strong hand. “I don’t expect you will.”
Afterward, when she had gone back to the edge of the precipice and was repositioning the Trolls to her left and right and putting herself in the middle, he found himself wondering if he was being overconfident. He had use of the wishsong’s magic, but was that enough? He had used it only once in a fight, when the company was attacked coming into the Fangs. The attack had happened without warning, and he had reacted instinctively. But this time he knew what was coming, and he wasn’t sure if knowing and reacting were the same and would produce an identical response. Sometimes thinking too much about something or even anticipating it for too long caused you to freeze at the crucial moment.
Hesitation in this case would likely be the end of him. So he must remain clearheaded and focused when the time came. He must not fail his companions.
He sat there in the darkening of the light and told this to himself over and over, all the while trying very hard not to panic. At one point, he stopped fretting long enough to wonder what had become of Skint. He had been gone an awfully long time now—far too long for Railing to feel comfortable about it. The boy didn’t like just sitting while someone who had done so much to help keep him alive might be trapped out there in the dark. Seersha, crouched at the lip of the ledge, had shown no apparent interest in the other’s failure to return. Railing thought to ask her what she intended to do, then realized there was no point. The Druid would not risk the safety of the others by leaving them to look for the Gnome. Either Skint would return on his own or he wouldn’t return at all.
He had just about convinced himself it would be the latter when he sensed a stirring from those who kept watch at the edge of the cliff, and suddenly the Gnome Tracker hove into view atop the ledge, scrambling up hurriedly and flattening himself against the rock. He immediately motioned for the others to crouch down, gesturing them away from the edge. Seersha bent close, speaking quickly to him, listening to his rushed reply. She turned to where Railing was sitting, motioning for him to stay put, pointing out into the darkness to indicate something was coming.
Seconds later they were attacked.
Their assailants had returned for another try, scaling the walls of the cliff face like ants. They swarmed over the edge of the precipice, clearly not in need of the footholds that Railing and the others had required, bodies hunched over and skittering across the ledge, claws and teeth flashing. They were all over the two Trolls in seconds, flinging themselves on their armored bodies, tearing at them. Seersha held firm at the center, using Druid Fire to fling their attackers away, keeping most from getting past her.
But from either end of the ledge, where there were no defenders, the crookbacked little monsters gained the precipice unchallenged and came at Railing in droves.
Skint had dropped back to stand with him, knives held in both hands, and he was even quicker than his attackers. Blades cutting and slicing, sharpened metal edges flashing, he tore into them. In seconds, bodies lay heaped all around him.
But he couldn’t be everywhere, and the rest charged the boy out of the dark, squealing and hissing like cats.
By now, Railing was on his feet, leaning on his crutch and summoning the magic of the wishsong. He reacted smoothly and calmly even though his stomach was roiling, standing his ground more because he had no choice than because he was brave. The attack came from three sides, but he stopped it cold, sweeping the magic in a broad swath that tumbled his attackers backward. He advanced a step at a time, taking the attack to them. Fire ripped across the ledge first one way and then the other, catching up the snapping, screeching creatures and flinging them away. One or two got around him by keeping to the darkness of the cliff face, but Farshaun was waiting with his heavy staff and put them down with swift, solid blows.
The members of the little company fought hard until the attack was broken up and their assailants driven off.
In the aftermath, the defenders stood panting for breath, ready for a fresh assault, waiting for it to come, and knowing it would. Skint moved over to Railing and put a hand on his shoulder, saying nothing. At the edge of the precipice, Seersha spoke quietly with the Trolls and glanced back to where Railing and Skint were standing together, giving them a satisfied nod.
Railing took deep breaths, his heart racing. He didn’t feel good about any of this.
“Above you!” the Speakman shrieked.
Down from the cliff face behind them dropped several dozen fresh attackers, springing off the rocks like cats. Railing had only seconds to realize what had happened—they had used the screen of the previous attack to come up from behind—before they were all over him. He caught a glimpse of Farshaun going down, felled by a blow to the head. Beside him, Skint whirled away, quicker than he was, knives flashing. Then Railing’s crutch was knocked out from under him, and he was swarmed over by coarse, hairy bodies and borne to the ground.
But the wishsong saved him once more, reacting to the danger faster than he could think to command it, surfacing on its own to explode out of him and throw his attackers away. It happened so swiftly that it took him a moment to realize he was free again. Ignoring the pain in his broken leg, he scrambled up, using the crutch for leverage, and lashed out at the crouched forms. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Seersha’s magic ignite her attackers in bright blue flashes, setting them afire and sending them screaming into the night. A crush of the gnarled creatures had overwhelmed one of the Trolls. It fought to get free, veering dangerously close to the edge of the drop, then lost its balance and tumbled over the side, carrying its attackers with it.
The creatures were climbing up onto the ledge again, attacking from the front as well as dropping from the cliff face behind. The defenders were surrounded. Railing saw Seersha sweeping Druid Fire all along the edges of the cliff, trying to turn back these new attackers, to purge the entire front ranks. Skint and the last of the Trolls were standing shoulder-to-hip on his right, blocking the few who slipped past the Druid.
He swung back toward the overhang and found Farshaun on his feet again, struggling to break free from a pair of the attackers that had come down off the cliff face. They had his arms and were trying to wrench the staff from his hands. The boy dispatched both with quick bursts of the wishsong, his voice a hoarse shriek by now, his throat parched and raw. Quickly, he limped through the tangled bodies to stand next to the old Rover, reaching him just as a fresh wave of attackers scrambled over the cliff edge to his right and came at them.
“Stand fast,” he heard Farshaun say.
Tightening his resolve, he did so, summoning the magic of the wishsong one more time. But he was weakened from the struggle and the effort drained him of the last of his strength. There were too many of them. Then he saw Seersha mount a counterattack, flinging herself into the heart of this fresh assault, and he responded with a wild cry and a counterattack of his own. Magic flaring, he tossed aside the crutch and began advancing toward the spidery attackers in a steady shuffle. The pain in his leg was intense, but it caused him to focus on what he
was doing, generating a raw strength of will that would not let him quit. Fire burned across the ledge from both directions as the Druid and the boy struggled against this fresh surge, hammering into it, slowing it, stopping it, and finally throwing it back.
The attackers broke and scattered the way they had come, leaving the ledge smoking and ash-clouded and littered with the dead.
Railing staggered awkwardly, barely able to stand. He scanned the precipice for signs of movement, then for signs of life, and found neither.
Seersha reached him a moment later and braced him, waiting for Farshaun to place his crutch back in his hands. “Better hold on to this,” she whispered. “We need you strong enough to stand and fight, Railing Ohmsford.” She exhaled sharply. “Without you, I think we’re lost.”
Farshaun helped steer him to where he could sit down, one arm around his shoulders. The old man was bleeding heavily from a head wound, and his clothing was ripped and bloodied. “Wicked little monsters, aren’t they?” he muttered.
“Have we beaten them?” Railing asked, leaning on his crutch as the old man helped support him.
Farshaun shook his head. “I don’t know, boy.” His eyes were vacant as he stared out at the darkness. “Have we?”
Time slipped away, and no further attacks came. The smells of death and dust cleared, and the night’s wildness faded into silence. The bodies of their attackers littered the broad surface of the ledge, but the defenders were too exhausted to clear them away. Their strength drained, they sat hunched over in small groups—Seersha and the Rock Troll at the edge of the precipice, Farshaun and the Speakman at the back of the outcropping, and Skint and Railing midway between—conversing in quiet tones and waiting for the inevitable.
“You did well,” Skint said to the boy. “You showed real courage.”
Railing shook his head. “I was too scared even to think about being brave. I was just trying to stay alive.”
“Which is the point.” The Gnome’s wrinkled face tightened in what might have been a grimace. “Maybe it’s always the point.”
They were silent for a moment. Railing was thinking, That’s right. That’s the point exactly. That’s all we’re doing now. Trying to stay alive. All that stuff about searching for the missing Elfstones is gone. No one cares about that anymore.
“Did you find any sign of the Ard Rhys or my brother?” he asked Skint impulsively, remembering he had never heard the other’s report.
The Gnome gave him a look. “I didn’t even find the opening they went through. That’s why I was gone so long. I was searching for it. Everywhere. I knew where it had been, but when I couldn’t find it there, I started searching the cliff walls, thinking I was mistaken.” He shook his head in disgust. “I never found anything. It was as if the opening just disappeared, and everyone who went in disappeared with it.”
Railing stared at him. “You couldn’t find anything? How can that be possible?”
“Couldn’t say. Seersha thinks there’s magic at work. Someone else’s magic. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Not until we’re out of this mess.” Skint looked away. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
Railing was stunned. “Well, I can tell you one thing,” he managed. “I’m not leaving Redden.”
Skint nodded. “No one said anything about leaving anyone. Calm down. Maybe you should try to sleep a bit.”
He got up and moved away, leaving Railing alone. The boy stayed awake, trying to come to terms with what he had been told, unable to believe his brother could just be gone and no one know anything. It didn’t make any sense.
The night faded into morning, and still their attackers did not return. They sat together and watched the sunrise, faint gray light filtering down through the haze and mist, the stark world of the Fangs slowly revealing itself. They ate a little food and drank some ale, and then they cleared the ledge of bodies, throwing them over into the precipice and onto the rocks below, where they lay in crumpled heaps.
No one came for the bodies.
No one came for them. Not Mirai or the Walker Boh or the Ard Rhys or any who had gone with her or the fierce little creatures that had attacked them during the night.
No one.
Finally, darkness approached with a thief’s silent cunning, the shadows lengthened in a cool hush, and the stillness that comes with day’s end deepened with night’s soundless fall.
Reluctantly, the little company prepared for a fresh onslaught.
9
Aboard the Walker Boh, Mirai Leah was engaged in a knife-throwing contest with members of the Rover crew when she heard the coin shatter inside her tunic pocket.
A day had passed since the second time Ard Rhys had taken the bulk of the members of the expedition off the ship and into the Fangs in search of the missing Elfstones, leaving Mirai once again behind with the Rover crew and a handful of Trolls from the Druid Guard. Not the kind to sit around and wait on a resolution of events that might not happen for days or even weeks, she had, on both occasions, immediately begun spending time with the Rovers—a couple of whom she already knew from her previous trips to Bakrabru on family business. She had a natural affinity for friendship, and was possessed of a sociable personality. Because she was a flier like they were, it was not strange that she should feel a connection with the airship riders who had accompanied Farshaun on this expedition, and within the first twenty-four hours it felt as if they had been friends for years.
But even as friends, they were competitive with one another and with her, as well. Of varying ages and backgrounds, they were wild and adventurous and eager—even in some instances compelled—to prove they could measure up to whatever challenges they might encounter. Everything was a competition. It was the way they lived; it was a big part of how they defined themselves. Having Mirai with them simply added fuel to the fire. Some were content to tease her, suggesting that no one who wasn’t a Rover could ever compete with them. Some carried it much farther and offered direct challenges. Mirai was a tall, strong girl, athletic and talented, and she was a match for any of them. But mostly she met their bantering with smiles and shakes of her head. Once or twice, she agreed to test her known skills against theirs, and once or twice more she agreed to be taught a skill she didn’t possess. Knife throwing was one of the former, and scaling the mainmast without using the rigging one of the latter. To her credit, she declined Austrum’s offer to wrestle, knowing full well his intentions in suggesting such a thing.
A heady mix of emotions fueled the verbal bantering and posturing of the Rover men, but in every case it was grounded to some degree in sexual attraction. Mirai was beautiful and charming, and while she kept them at bay during their time together, she did not discourage their attentions. Some of the men were partnered and some were not, some had families and some did not, but all were far from home and used to a life in which relationships were not measured in traditional ways. Many Rovers had more than one wife or partner. Others would never be able to settle even for that. Opportunity was always knocking, and Rovers were usually the first to respond.
Mirai knew all this, but she was not the sort to denigrate openly what she did not herself embrace. She was here on the Walker Boh with men she liked and admired, and there was no reason for her to spend what time they had together being rude or aloof. It wasn’t in her nature to hold herself apart even as it wasn’t in theirs to let her. She might be only a girl—not even a woman yet—but she was wise and experienced beyond her years and knew how to handle both them and herself.
Mostly.
Austrum was the only one who wouldn’t let up. No matter how many times she rebuffed him, he kept coming back. He pushed at her constantly, taunting and challenging, always with a faint undercurrent of sexual innuendo that left her irritated and unsettled.
That was how the knife-throwing contest had come about.
He had started that morning by suggesting it, making comments about how men were physically superior to women and therefore better able to comp
ete in contests of strength, but that maybe, just maybe, a woman might be able to win a knife-throwing contest—although probably not against him or any of the other Rovers. He didn’t press the matter at first, just talked it up for a time—first while the crew ate breakfast and then afterward while they washed the decks and railings and replaced sections of the rigging. Mirai was not persuaded—not even interested, actually—but Austrum slowly began to gather support from the rest of the Rover crew.
By midday, they were clamoring for a contest and insisting that Mirai participate.
In the end, she relented, even though she thought Austrum was being boorish. There was really no way of avoiding it. They already knew she was proficient with knives. She had made the mistake of mentioning that Farshaun Req himself—one of the most accurate throwers in Bakrabru—had taught her. She was trapped by her own words and by a growing sense of resentment toward Austrum. If she could best him in a contest he felt so confident he would win, it might shut him up for a while. It might even persuade him to stop challenging her to contests where he could demonstrate his supposed superiority—although she knew better than to hope for too much.
They began the contest at midafternoon, standing twenty feet back from the mainmast. A black circle six inches wide was drawn on the mast, and the main hatch was removed and lashed in place to serve as backing against errant throws. Each participant was given three throws. The best of each set would be counted, and one participant would be eliminated in each round.
There was much anticipation and excitement, and soon even the Trolls had wandered over to watch the competition. All eight of the Rover crewmen and Mirai participated. Aleskins were passed around and large quantities of their contents consumed amid laughter and teasing. Only Mirai abstained from drinking, and that was only through the first four rounds, in which Arben, Chance Boy, Drendonan, and Pursett were eliminated.
