Antrax

22

Aboard Black Moclips, Bek Ohmsford waited patiently for deliverance. He didn’t much care what form it took, only that it come soon. He wasn’t panicked yet, but he could feel it sneaking up on him. He was imprisoned in an aft hold, a storeroom containing replacement parts and supplies—ambient-light sails, radian draws, diapson crystals, cheese blocks, and water barrels. Shadows cloaked everything in layers of darkness. The room was not large, but even by the light from the candle atop the barrel next to him, he could only barely make out the Mwellret who kept watch from the far side of the room. Bek was tethered to the wall by three feet of chain locked about one ankle. A length of rope bound his hands in front of him and ran down through the chain so that he could not lift his arms above his waist. He was gagged, as well, although that was probably overkill since Grianne had already stolen his voice and rendered him mute.

Leaving nothing to chance, she had taken the Sword of Shannara from him, as well. When she returned, she expected to find him a prisoner still. While he had no real reason to think things would turn out any other way, he had nothing better to do with his time than to visualize the possibility. He was not encouraged. He was a prisoner aboard an airship full of Mwellrets and Federation soldiers. He had no weapons. His friends were dead or scattered. Deliverance in any form would have a hard time finding him under such circumstances.

Moonlight streamed through an open portal to one side, the only breathing hole in the room, the only source of fresh air. As clouds passed across the face of the moon, the light darkened and brightened by turns, changing the depth of the shadows, allowing him small glimpses of his silent jailer. Now and then, the Mwellret would shift position, and a small rustling of cloth and reptilian skin would reveal his otherwise nearly invisible presence. He never spoke. He was under orders not to. The boy had heard his sister give the order. No one was to speak to him. He was to be given water, but no food. He was not to be approached otherwise. He was not to be allowed out. He was not to be taken off the chain, even for a moment. He was to be left where he was until she returned.

Seated on the hard plank flooring of the ship, legs drawn up, wrists draped loosely over his knees, he leaned back against the bulkhead that supported him. He could reach the gag if he wanted, but he understood from painful experience that if he tried, he had better be sure he had a good reason for doing so. Punishment for misbehavior was assured. He had endured several kicks already for moving the wrong way. So he sat as still as possible, thinking. He had tested his voice several times, surreptitious efforts, to see if he could make even a small noise. He could not. Whatever magic his sister had used on him, it was effective. He did not think she had destroyed his voice, because she would want to speak to him again at some point, or she would have killed him and been done with it. Then again, she had not needed Kael Elessedil to speak in order to discover what he knew. It might be the same with Bek. He had to hope that she wanted something else—that the doubt he sensed in her about his identity would protect him awhile longer.

He closed his eyes momentarily. He had to get out of there. He had to do so before his courage broke. But how was he going to do that? How could he possibly escape?

Momentary despair welled up inside him. He had thought himself safe with Truls Rohk. He had not believed anyone was strong or clever enough to best the shape-shifter. But he had been wrong, and now Truls was dead. She had left the caull to finish him, and if the caull had failed and died instead, she would have known. She had created it, after all. She was linked to it. The caull was alive. That meant Truls Rohk was not.

Bek had no real hope of being rescued by anyone else. In all likelihood, his companions were dead. Even Walker. It was too long for them to still be alive and not have shown themselves. He felt numb inside thinking about it. Even if they weren’t all dead, those still alive were helpless against his sister. Grianne was too powerful for anyone. She had rendered the entire Rover crew, Redden Alt Mer and Rue Meridian included, unconscious with her magic. She had taken over the Jerle Shannara and cut off any possibility of escape. She had told Bek all of that in a matter-of-fact way, very much as if reciting what the weather would be like in the days ahead. She had done so to emphasize his helplessness, to convince him that his best hope lay through her, and he would do well to stop defying her. Only by cooperating, by revealing the truth about himself, could he hope to come out of this situation alive and well. Any other course of action would result in unpleasant consequences. He was supposed to think about that while she was gone.

He guessed he was doing so.

He guessed he was doing not much of anything else.

He tested again the bonds on his wrists. There was some give, but not enough for him to pull his hands free. The rope was dry and raw, and his sweat did not provide sufficient lubrication. Not that it mattered. Even if he could free himself from the rope, there was still the chain. He supposed his jailer had the key tucked away somewhere in his clothing, but he had no way of knowing for sure. He imagined himself loose from both rope and chain, racing through the corridors of the ship, gaining the upper deck, diving over the side, and swimming to shore. He could imagine it, but he might as well imagine he could fly.

He had only himself to rely on. Maybe he could still convince Grianne of the truth, but he was beginning to accept that it was unlikely. She just wasn’t ready to hear it. She did not want to believe that he was her brother or that the Morgawr had tricked her. She had built her entire life around her belief that Walker was the enemy, that the Druid had destroyed her home and killed her family. She had made herself over so that she could not only match his power, but also exceed his perceived ruthlessness. She had done things that she could probably never live with if she were to discover how completely she had been manipulated. She was so deeply entrenched in her persona as the Ilse Witch that she could think of herself in no other way.

He considered for a moment the possibility that it was too late to save her, that she had gone too far to be redeemed, that she had committed too many atrocities to be forgiven. It was possible. Perhaps he had reached her too late.

He found himself thinking back to that night in the Highlands when he had encountered Walker for the first time. He had been reluctant to accept the Druid’s offer to go on this journey. He had known somehow that if he did, nothing in his life would ever be the same. The reality was much grimmer than he could have imagined. It made him feel shriveled up and useless, torn apart by feelings that he had never hoped to experience. He wanted things to go back to the way they had been. He wanted to go home. He wanted Quentin and his friends to be safe and well. He wanted to be who he had always thought himself to be and not someone he knew nothing about. He wanted the nightmare to end.

The latch on the storeroom door grated loudly and the door opened. Three Mwellrets appeared, slouching into the room in cloaked and hooded anonymity, shades come out of the night. None of them said a word. The last to come inside closed the door and stood with his back placed firmly against it. The one directly ahead of him joined the guard in the shadows across the room. The leader came right up to Bek and pulled back his hood to reveal his reptilian face. It was Cree Bega, the Mwellret to whom his sister had entrusted his safety.

Cree Bega regarded the boy without speaking, his gimlet eyes hard and unpleasant. Bek tried to hold his own gaze steady, but the Mwellret’s eyes made him queasy and weak. Finally, ashamed at his failure, he looked away.

Cree Bega reached with clawed fingers and removed the gag from Bek’s mouth. He dropped the piece of cloth on the floor and stepped back. Bek took his first unobstructed breath of air in hours, but he could smell the Mwellrets in doing so, their raw, fecal odor rough and overpowering.

“Who are you, boy?” Cree Bega asked softly.

He spoke in a distant, almost distracted way, as if he didn’t really expect an answer, but was asking only to voice the question to himself. His voice made Bek shiver. Fearing that what was going to happen next was not what his sister had planned, Bek worked his hands against the ropes once more.

Catching sight of the surreptitious movement, Cree Bega stepped forward and cuffed him sideways onto the floor. Then he reached down, hauled the boy back into a sitting position, and slammed him against the wall.

“There iss no esscape for little peopless,” he whispered, “no esscape from uss!”

Bek tasted blood in his mouth and he swallowed it, his eyes locked on the Mwellret. Cree Bega knelt slowly so that his gaze was level with the boy’s when he spoke.

“Thinkss perhapss sshe will come back to ssave you? Ilsse Witch, sso powerful, sso sstrong, fearss nothing? Hssst! Foolissh little peopless are nothing to her. Sshe forgetss you already.”

He leaned forward. “Retss are your only friendss, little peopless. Only oness who can ssave you.” His cold eyes glittered. “Thinkss me wrong, foolissh like you? Sshe wantss what’ss up here.” He tapped Bek’s head slowly. “Wantss nothing elsse but what sshe can usse againsst the Druid.”

His eyes dead, his strange face empty of expression, he studied the boy’s face for a long moment. “But if little peopless do ass I assk, I will sset you free.”

Bek tried to speak and could not. He tried to move and could not. He was voiceless and paralyzed, locked in place by the other’s gaze and the effects of the Ilse Witch’s magic. Fear and despair flooded through him, and he fought to keep them from showing in his eyes. He did not succeed.

Cree Bega rose and walked away as if he were finished with Bek. He strode to the other side of the room, looked out of the open portal at the night sky, and then moved over to the two Mwellrets who stood waiting in the shadows against the wall. Bek watched him the way a ground bird would watch a hungry snake. He could do nothing to save himself. He could only listen and wait and hope.

One of the Mwellrets emerged from the darkness and knelt beside Bek. Slowly and deliberately, he unfolded a leather apron to reveal a series of glittering knives and razor-sharp probes. He never looked at Bek, never paid him any attention at all. He simply laid out the pouch with its cutting implements, rose again, and walked away.

Everything inside Bek knotted and twisted. He wanted to scream for help, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He strained anew against the bonds that secured his wrists, but they were as tight as before. His choices were narrowing and his time was running out. Just moments earlier he might have believed that he had a chance still to escape harm; he no longer believed that was so.

Cree Bega moved back over to where Bek sat, stood over him like a great, dark, crushing force. “Thinkss carefully, little peopless,” he rasped softly. “Wayss to make you sspeak the wordss you hide. Retss know wayss. Makess you sscream if you wissh to have uss tesst you. Eassier to jusst ansswer uss when we assk. Besst if you do. Then little peopless goess free.”

He waited a moment, watching. Bek stared straight ahead at nothing, fighting against his terror, willing himself to stay calm.

Cree Bega nudged him gently with his boot. “Comess back to ssee you ssoon,” he whispered.

Without a glance back, he turned and went to the storeroom door, opened it, and disappeared from view. The door closed softly behind him, and the latch snapped back into place.

Bek kept his gaze directed two feet in front of him at the edge of the candlelit darkness, trying to come to grips with what he must do. He could not get free without help. Help was not likely to come soon enough to matter. He was going to have to give the Mwellret what he wanted. But how could he do that? He could not speak, even if he wanted to do so. He tested the effects of Grianne’s magic again, thinking that perhaps he had missed something. He tried everything he could, but nothing worked. His voice was gone.

Where did that leave him? He could write his answers to the Mwellret’s questions, but that might not be enough to save him. Cree Bega looked the sort to test his speaking ability not just with words but with his deadly assortment of blades, as well. What could it hurt, after all, to make certain? Why not see just how voiceless the boy really was?

For the first time since he had departed the Jerle Shannara and gone inland in search of Castledown, Bek regretted giving up the phoenix stone. If he had kept it for himself, if he had not forced it on Ahren Elessedil, he would have a way to escape, even bound up as he was. Perhaps that was what the King of the Silver River had intended all along. Perhaps he had foreseen the situation and given Bek the stone as a means of getting free. The idea that he had willingly forsaken his chance was more than Bek could stand, and he banished the thought angrily. His gag was still off, and he took several deep, slow breaths to steady himself, but he could still feel his heart pounding. He glanced down again at the array of blades laid out beside him, then quickly away. He was so afraid. He felt tears start at the corners of his eyes and fought to keep them from running down his cheeks. The Mwellret guards would be watching. They would be hoping for this. They would report it to Cree Bega, who would think him even weaker than he already supposed. Cree Bega would use that against him.

He ran through his options, all of them, however remote or impossible they seemed; nothing new suggested itself. He would answer the questions Cree Bega asked of him. He would hope he could do so in writing and not be tortured first to find out if he was playing games. He would hope they would set him free from the ropes and chains—either of their own volition or by his suggestion—and if they did, that he could find an opportunity to escape. It was a pathetic plan, devoid of particulars or favorable odds, but it was all he could come up with. His hopes were in tiny shreds, and he clung to them as to bits of colored string, once bright with promise, now faded and worn.

It wasn’t fair, he kept thinking. None of it. It was nothing of what he had thought he would find in coming here. It was promise turned to dust. The tears came again, harder, and they ran down his cheeks in crooked lines. He lowered his head into shadow in an effort to hide them.

As he did so, he heard the storeroom door open anew, a snapping of the latch, a soft creaking of the hinges. He glanced up quickly, expecting to see Cree Bega. But no one was there. The doorway was empty, a black hole into the outer passageway, where no lights burned.

Had those lights not been lit when Cree Bega departed the room? Bek wondered, suddenly alert.

For an instant, the Mwellret guards stood frozen in place. Then the ret who stood closest to the door drew a short sword from beneath his cloak and walked over for a look. He stood in the opening, unmoving, peering out into the corridor. Nothing happened. Slowly, carefully, he closed the door once more, the hinges creaking in the new-formed silence, the latch clicking sharply into place.

In the next instant, the candle next to Bek went out and the room was plunged into blackness except for the light from the single portal across the way, but that left everything shadowy and vague. Something went by Bek in a rush, the movement of its passage a cold breath of air against his skin. It made no sound as it closed with the nearest Mwellret, who grunted at the impact and went down. There was a warning hiss from the other two, and then both were engaged in a struggle that sent them careering across the darkened room and into the far wall. Bek caught a glimpse of their antagonist, a big cloaked form that moved with the speed and agility of a moor cat, launching into first one and then the other, hammering them, sending them down in broken heaps.

Bek stared. It couldn’t be.

The first ret was back on its feet, charging to the aid of its fellows, the glitter of its blade caught momentarily in a wash of moonlight. There was a muffled collision of bodies and a grunt. Seconds later the ret staggered back again, the short sword buried in its chest, its movements limp and unfocused as it fought to stay upright. When it collapsed a moment later, the life gone out of it, the room was so still that Bek could hear himself breathe.

“What’s the matter, boy?” someone whispered in his ear. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

It was Truls Rohk. Bek started so violently at the guttural sound of the other’s voice that he nearly choked. The shape-shifter materialized beside him out of the darkness, his cloaked and hooded form blocking out the moonlight. In seconds he cut apart the ropes that bound the boy’s wrists. Then, using a slender length of metal bar, he snapped apart the link that fastened the leg iron clasp in place, and Bek was free.

Truls Rohk hauled him to his feet. “No talking,” he whispered. “Not until we’re off this ship.”

They went out into the darkened passageway, the shape-shifter leading the way. Despite stiffness and cramped muscles, still not quite believing his good fortune, Bek stayed close enough to touch him. They were barely a dozen paces beyond the storeroom when a raspy, broken cry went up from within. Bek at his heels, the shape-shifter continued down the corridor without looking back. The boy expected him to make for one of the stairways leading up and was surprised when he did exactly the opposite. Instead of ascending to the main deck, Truls Rohk turned down a dead-end corridor that led to the rear of the craft. Overhead, the sound of booted feet echoed through the decking, mingling with shouts and cries. The ship’s company was fully awake and, if not hunting for them yet, well on the way to doing so.

The corridor Truls Rohk had turned down ended after only a few steps at a heavy wooden door. The shape-shifter opened it without hesitating and pulled Bek inside. The room was dark, but moonlight poured through two sets of open windows to reveal a fully furnished chamber. A man came awake in a bed to one side, springing out of the covers hurriedly, but a single blow from Truls Rohk knocked him into a wall where he collapsed in an unconscious heap.

“Out the window,” the shape-shifter hissed at Bek, shoving him toward the open portals.

He turned back toward the door to the chamber, but it was already flying open, and half a dozen dark forms were charging through. Truls Rohk slammed into them with such fury that he sent all six careening backwards into the passageway, stumbling and cursing as they tried to keep their feet. Knives and short swords glittered in the moonlight, but the shape-shifter dodged through the slashing blades like a ghost, snatched hold of the open door, and slammed it shut, throwing the heavy latch in place.

“Get out!” he snarled over his shoulder at Bek.

Bodies hurtled against the door from without, and heavy blades pried at the metal latch and bit into the wood. Bek climbed onto the empty bed and lifted one leg over the sill. Almost at once, a darkened form dropped in front of him, suspended from a rope. Bek caught the gleam of a Federation insignia, kicked at the man’s head, and sent him spinning away.

Behind him, the door splintered and sagged. Bek hesitated anew.

“Get out!” Truls Rohk repeated.

Bek went through the window just as another form dropped on a rope over the ship’s railing, snatching for him. Bek evaded the savage lunge of his attacker and went headfirst into the water. Submerged in the concealing darkness, he swam away from the airship until his lungs were begging for air. When he resurfaced, there was no one else in sight. Aboard Black Moclips, the sounds of battle continued, sharp and desperate. Bek waited a moment for Truls Rohk to follow him into the water, but when he saw boats filled with Mwellrets being lowered over the side, he began to swim again. He was a good swimmer, and he carried no weapons or baggage to encumber him. He swam toward the darkened shoreline in smooth, easy strokes and was there before the first of his pursuers had cut loose from the ship to row after him.

Creeping as quietly as he could from the shallows, he ducked into the concealing trees, then looked back. Spread out across the waterline, their squat, bulky shapes frozen in the moonlight, the boats were coming toward him. He scanned the dark outline of Black Moclips for some sign of Truls Rohk, but found nothing. Aboard the airship, the clamor had died to a dull murmur of voices that carried easily across the open waters of the bay. Undecided about what he should do, Bek waited as the rowboats drew nearer. He was free, but he had nowhere to go. He had lost his magic and his weapons, so it was pointless to stand and fight. But if he ran, his captors would just track him down again. He needed the shape-shifter to help him. He needed Truls badly.

Finally he could wait no longer. The rowboats were almost on top of him. He melted into the trees as soundlessly as he could manage. His pursuers would not be able to pick up his tracks in the darkness, so he would have the better part of the night to put some distance between them. By morning, he could be far away.

But where was he going to go?

The hopelessness of his situation overwhelmed him, and for a moment he simply stopped where he was, staring out into the darkness. He was free, but what was he supposed to do about it? Should he go in search of the others from the ship’s company, hoping that one or two might still be alive? Should he find Walker and warn the Druid about Grianne? Was there time enough to do anything at this point besides try to stay alive?

“What are you doing?” Truls Rohk hissed, materializing out of the darkness beside him. Water ran from his sodden cloak into the dirt. “If you stand around long enough, they’ll find you for sure!”

He took an astonished Bek by the arm and propelled him forward into the trees. “Did you think I wasn’t coming? Have some faith, boy. Cats aren’t the only ones with nine lives.” His cloak was torn, and blood was smeared on it. Within the concealment of his cowl, his eyes glittered. “Enough of this. Let’s go after your sister. Family reunions are always interesting, but this one should be better than most.” His sudden laughter was rough and unpleasant. “You try to save her and I’ll try to kill her. Fair enough?”

His grip was like iron as he pulled Bek Ohmsford after him into the night.