Antrax

by Terry Brooks

  She felt Donell Brae tense and immediately tightened her grip on his arm. “Don’t do it,” she warned.

  Then footsteps sounded in the passageway outside, sudden and unexpected. Instantly, commander and pilot exchanged a second glance, this one filled with unmistakable meaning. “Commander?” a deep voice called out.

  Donell Brae swung around quickly to grapple with her, but she was already moving. She knocked aside his upraised arm and hit him as hard as she could in the temple with the butt end of the dagger. As he went down, she leapt over him, intercepting Aden Kett in midstride as he reached futilely for his weapons. She slammed him back against the bulkhead and knocked him to the floor. Straddling him in fury, she pressed the dagger so tightly against his throat that she drew blood.

  “Commander!” The knock at the door was rough and urgent.

  “The only reason I don’t kill you here and now is that I think you are a decent man and a good officer, Aden.” Her face was so close to his she could see the terror reflected in his dark eyes. “Now answer him!”

  Kett, pinned to the floor and gasping for air, swallowed hard. “What is it?” he called toward the door.

  “The rets are coming back, Commander! One raft, just setting out from shore! You said to let you know!”

  She put her free hand over his mouth, hesitating. She was losing control of the situation, and she had to turn that around immediately. First Aden Kett and Donell Brae try to attack her, and now the Mwellrets come back to the ship early. She hadn’t believed either likely to happen, and her miscalculations were threatening to undo her. If she didn’t act fast, all of her plans were going to fall apart. Trying to take over an entire airship and crew by herself was indeed madness, but that was what she intended. It had started out as a half-baked idea, a goal so far-fetched as to be all but impossible. But she thought now that it actually might be within reach.

  She took her hand away from Kett’s mouth. “Tell him to wait a moment,” she whispered.

  He did so. When he finished speaking, she rolled him over swiftly, pressed her knee into his spine, laid the dagger between his shoulder blades, and pulled his hands behind his back. Using a leather tie she carried in her belt, she fastened his hands securely in place. Then she rose, the dagger in hand again, and hauled him to his feet.

  “Tell him to enter,” she whispered.

  He did as he was told, and the crewman opened the door and stepped inside. He froze instantly when he saw her with the dagger at his commander’s throat and the pilot sprawled motionless on the floor.

  “Not a sound,” she hissed at the crewman, making an unmistakable gesture with the dagger. She waited for his nod of agreement, then indicated Donell Brae. “Pick him up. Quick!”

  Kneeling, the crewman pulled the unconscious pilot over one shoulder and stood up again. “Walk down the hall to the sleeping quarters,” she ordered him. “I’ll be right behind you. One sound, one wrong move, and your commander and your pilot and probably you, as well, are dead men. Tell him, Aden.”

  Aden Kett grunted, feeling the dagger point dig into him. “Do as she says.”

  They went out from the cabin and into the dimly lit corridor, the crewman carrying Donell Brae, and Rue Meridian following with Aden Kett. They wound silently through the airship’s lower levels toward the sleeping quarters forward.

  When they reached the door to the sleeping quarters, she stopped them outside. She turned Aden Kett around so he could see her clearly. “Inside, Aden,” she ordered. “Stay put until I come down to let you out again. The door will be locked behind you, and I expect it to stay that way. If I hear anything I don’t like, I’ll set fire to the ship and burn her to the waterline with you and your crew still inside her.” She held his gaze. “Don’t test me.”

  He nodded, a hint of fresh anger in his eyes. “You’re making a mistake, Little Red. The Ilse Witch is much more dangerous than you think.”

  “Inside.”

  She opened the door, let them enter, closed it again, and threw the locking bolt. She took an extra moment to secure it by wedging a dagger blade into the slide so it could not be pried open. The portholes cut into the hull to admit fresh air were not large enough for a man to crawl through. For the moment, at least, she had the commander and crew of Black Moclips trapped.

  She went up the ladder through the hatchway to the main deck on the fly, found the last sentry at the aft rail, and went after him. She already knew he was too far away for her to reach before he saw her coming, but she went anyway. There was no time left for stealth. She had to hope he was all that was left of the crew. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the approaching raft and the bulky forms of the Mwellrets it carried, closing fast. She could feel the ache of her injured leg and side as she ran, a fresh tearing of her wounds, but she pushed aside her pain and quickened her speed.

  The crewman turned at the sound of her approach, weapons lifting. She was too slow and still too far away!

  Then abruptly, he crumpled to the deck, and Hunter Predd stepped from behind the mainmast, sling in hand.

  “Cut the anchor lines!” she called, changing direction for the pilot box.

  She heard muffled shouting, sibilant and angry, from the raft. She gained the box and sprang to the controls, drawing down ambient light from the single sail already set in place to keep Black Moclips aloft, throwing the levers to the parse tubes, opening them up all the way. The airship lurched with the infusion of power. She heard Hunter Predd cut the aft anchor line, then run forward to cut the bow one, as well.

  Faster!

  The Wing Rider’s sword rose and fell twice. Slowly, ponderously, Black Moclips rose into the air, severed anchor ropes trailing from her decking, arrows and javelins thudding into the underside like hailstones. The raft with its furious, helpless Mwellrets fell away and disappeared into the darkness.

  She closed down the parse tubes and eased off on drawing down ambient light for power. The ship was an old friend and responded well to her touch. But maneuvering her alone was rough and uncertain. Without help, Rue Meridian could not manage a ship of that size for very long. She would need help, as well, with the dozen Federation soldiers she had trapped in their sleeping quarters below. She recognized the situation readily enough and knew that before long Aden Kett and his men would find a way to escape.

  She slowed the airship to a crawl and brought her about, pointing her inland toward Castledown. Somewhere ahead, the Ilse Witch was hunting Walker, Bek was running for his life, and whoever still lived of the company of the Jerle Shannara waited for a rescue.

  A rescue that perhaps only she could manage.

  She watched Hunter Predd approach, saw the questioning look in his dark eyes, and shook her head.

  She wished she had a better answer to give him. She knew she had better find one soon.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Quentin Leah was listening so intently that he started in surprise when Tamis touched his arm in warning.

  “He’s coming,” she whispered. Consumed by the fact that Ard Patrinell’s mind was still alive inside, she was still calling the wronk he rather than it—as if the human part mattered more. The rest of it might be mechanical—armor, wires, and machine parts, cold and emotionless metal—but not its mind, trapped as it was, whole and intact, thinking Ard Patrinell thoughts, using Ard Patrinell skills, hunting them with a determination that was relentless and implacable.

  Heeding her warning, Quentin listened for its coming. Try as he might, he still could not hear it.

  In the twilight he glanced over at her. Her roundish, pixie face was sweaty and her short brown hair tangled with bits of debris. Her clothing was torn and bloody and as dirty as the rest of her. She had the look of a hunted thing, a creature run to earth by something as inescapable as the coming of night.

  A mirror of himself, he allowed. He did not need to see what he looked like to know it was so. They were a matched set, fugitives from a fate that neither could escape, that both were forced to
confront.

  They had been running from it all day, running since the coming of dawn had persuaded them they must find a way to kill it. All through the forests surrounding Castledown’s ruins they had played cat and mouse with the inevitable, marking time as they searched for a way to put an end to the creature. It was a chase marked by fits and starts, by schemes and subterfuges, by equal parts skill and blind luck. The wronk was a terrifying adversary, made more dangerous by the fact that Ard Patrinell’s thinking guided it. Sometimes it would come after them in direct pursuit, a hunter using strength and stamina to run them down. Sometimes it would circle around to lie in wait, a predator set to pounce. Sometimes it would stop altogether and wait for them to pause in turn, to wonder if they had lost it entirely, and then it would approach from an unexpected direction, swift and sudden, trying to catch them off guard. Many times it almost had them, but they were saved in each instance by their combined experience and skill and by the kind of luck that defies explanation.

  Of the latter, Quentin reflected, there had been more than the former, which was why they were still alive.

  The search for a wronk pit had taken longer than they expected. They had thought the Rindge would have set many such traps to protect themselves from the creatures of Antrax. Quentin and Tamis had set out that morning to find the nearest one, backtracking toward the village of Obat and his people to find the pits that had to be located along the approaches from Castledown. But the wronk caught up to them so quickly that they had to hurry their search and consequently failed to find what they were looking for. The wronk was unmistakable when it was close and moving, too big and heavy to conceal its coming. But even when they could not hear it, they were forced to listen and watch for it because it was subtle and clever, like Patrinell, and constantly looking for a way to catch them off guard.

  For Quentin Leah, life had been reduced to the simplest of terms—survival of the fittest. He was engaged in the kind of life-and-death struggle that he had imagined happening to others, but never to himself. All of his thinking about a grand adventure and new experiences, everything that had spurred his decision to join the quest, had faded into a barely remembered past. The enthusiasm he had imparted to Bek, the limitless possibilities he had envisioned for what they would find, and the confidence that had buoyed him through so many harrowing confrontations along the way had turned to dust. He had all but forgotten Walker and the search for the books of magic. He had pushed aside any thought of rescuing the others, Bek included. All that was left was a fatalistic and dogged determination to stay alive for another day, to escape the thing that hunted him, and ultimately to regain enough space to allow something back into his life of who and what he had been.

  He had no idea what Tamis was thinking, although he could guess readily enough. She was burdened by similar needs, but as well by her memories of and feelings for the man with whom she had been in love. She might pretend otherwise, might tell herself something else, but it was clear to him that she could not separate herself from her emotions, could not be truly objective about what they were seeking to accomplish. For Tamis, the struggle to destroy the wronk was more than trying to stay alive. It was giving Ard Patrinell the release he could find no other way, the peace that only death would bring. Her hatred of what had been done to him was so invasive that it simmered on her features at every turn. The battle was personal for her in a way it could never be for Quentin, and she was driven almost beyond reason.

  But not beyond the limit of her skills, Quentin quickly saw, which were considerable. Trained as a Tracker by Patrinell himself, she was all business and judgment, able to play well a game in which no mistakes were allowed. She knew what to expect from the mind that hunted them, was familiar with its thinking, its nuanced reasoning. She could anticipate what it would try and blunt the effect. The wronk was physically stronger, and if they got within its reach, there was little question of the outcome. But Tamis was whole where the wronk was fragmented, cobbled together of parts that did not naturally fit. That gave her an advantage she could exploit, and she was quick to try to do so.

  It was odd to think of what they were attempting, fleeing on the one hand and looking to make a stand on the other. It was schizophrenic and disjointed, grounded in opposing principles and mind-wrenching in its demands. Flee the danger, but find a way to face it. Quentin had no time for a balanced consideration of the contradiction. He was consumed by the knowledge that the thing pursuing them did so to destroy him, yet to leave a part of him alive, as well. It would turn him into itself, a perfect copy, able to wield the magic of the Sword of Leah yet unable to act save as Antrax chose to order. The idea of becoming the machine that Ard Patrinell had become was so terrifying, so mind-numbing, that he could not do more than glance at the prospect of it the way he would the sun, shunning the pain of any prolonged study. But even that gave him a bitter, clear understanding of why Tamis was so determined to save Ard Patrinell.

  That day’s flight was through the disjointed landscape of a surreal netherworld. The sounds of the pursuing wronk were all around and constant, letting up only now and then, when the hunter chose a less obvious tack. The day was cloudy and sunny by turns, casting shadows that moved past them like shades and suggested things that weren’t there, yet might be coming. They were worn already on setting out, and their weariness quickly deepened. They passed places in which brush and trees were trampled and broken by fighting and frantic flight. They came upon dead men killed the day before. Most were Rindge, the reddish skin giving them identity when only pieces remained. One was an Elf, although there wasn’t enough of him to determine which one. Blood soaked the ground and smeared the trees in splotches dried black by the sun. Weapons and clothing lay scattered everywhere. Silence cloaked the carnage and desolation.

  As they had neared the Rindge village, the number of dead increased. They were too many to be only those from the hunting party. When they reached the village itself, they found its huts and shelters smashed and burned and its people gone. Some few lay dead, those who had bought with their lives a chance for the others to escape. That a single being could wreak such havoc, alone and unaided, against so many, was horrifying. That the mind of Ard Patrinell was an integral part of that being and would know what it was doing yet be unable to stop was heartbreaking. Tamis did not cry as they passed through the village, but Quentin saw tears in her eyes.

  They had paused at the far side of the village, where the carnage ended. Those who remained of Obat’s people had fled into the hills and perhaps to the mountains beyond. The wronk had lost interest in them at that point and gone elsewhere.

  Quentin stood with Tamis and stared at the destruction.

  “You were not mistaken about his eyes?” she asked him almost desperately. All of the bravado and irony gone out of her voice, she could barely bring herself to speak. “It was Ard Patrinell looking out at you from inside?”

  He nodded. He could think of nothing to say.

  “He would never do anything like this if he could help himself,” she said. “He would die first. He was a good man, Highlander, maybe the best man I have ever known. He was kind and caring. He looked after everyone. He thought of the Home Guard as his family and of himself as their father. When new members were brought in for training, he let them know he would do everything he could to keep them safe. At gatherings, he told stories and sang. You saw him as taciturn and hard, but that was only since the death of the King, for which he blamed himself, for which he could not forgive himself. Kylen Elessedil stripped him of his command for imagined failures and political convenience. Bad enough. But now this monster, this Antrax, strips him of control over his actions, as well, and leaves him a shell of powerless knowledge.”

  It was the most he had ever heard her say at one time and as close as she had ever come to admitting what she felt about the man she loved.

  She looked away, sullen and defeated. “Can you imagine what this is doing to him?”

  He could. Worse,
he could imagine it happening to himself, which was too horrifying to ponder. His hand tightened around the handle of his sword. He carried it unsheathed all the time now, determined that he would never be surprised, that if attacked, he would be ready. It was all he could think to do to tip the balance in his favor. It was strange how little comfort it gave him.

  They had walked back through the village, choosing a different path out, still searching for one of the elusive pits. The sun had moved across the sky in a long, slow arc, the day wandering off with nothing to show for its passing, the night coming on with its promise of raw fear and increasing uncertainty. Time was an insistent buzzing in his ear, a reminder of what was at stake.

  It had been quiet when they entered the village. When they left, they could hear in the distance the sounds of the wronk as it moved toward them.

  Tamis wheeled back in something close to blind fury, her short sword glinting in the light. “Perhaps we should stand and face him right here!” she hissed. “Perhaps we should forget about hunting for pits that might not even exist!”

  Quentin started to make a sharp reply, then thought better of it. He shook his head instead, and when he spoke he kept his voice gentle. “If we die making a useless gesture, we do nothing to help Patrinell.” She glared at him, but he did not look away. “We made an agreement. Let’s stick to it.”

  They went on through the afternoon, out of the village and back toward Castledown, choosing a trail that was almost overgrown from lack of use. No sign of life appeared. About halfway between the village and the ruins, at the beginnings of twilight, they were passing through an open space in the woods in which tall dips and rises rippled the ground and grasses grew in clumps. The failing light was even poorer there, screened by conifers that grew well over a hundred feet tall and spread in all directions save south, where a wildflower meadow opened off the rougher ground. They were moving toward a pathway that opened off the far side when Tamis grabbed Quentin’s arm and pointed just ahead, which he thought looked like everything else around them, scrub-grown and rough. In exasperation, she pulled him right up to the place to which she was pointing, and then he recognized it for what it was. The pit was well concealed by a screen of sapling limbs layered with some sort of clay-colored cloth, sand and dirt, clumps of dried grasses, and debris. It was so well designed that it disappeared into the landscape. Unless you were right on top of it and looking down, you wouldn’t see it.