Morgawr

15

Bek returned to the camp to find Grianne still sleeping and Truls Rohk not yet returned. The position of the stars told him it was after midnight, so he went back to sleep and did not wake again until he felt the shape-shifter’s hand resting on his shoulder.

“Time to go,” the other said quietly, eyes on the woods behind them.

“How close are they?” Bek asked at once. It was first light, the sunrise just a silvery glow east.

“Still a distance off, but getting closer. They haven’t found our trail yet, but they will soon.”

“The caulls?”

“The caulls. Mutations of humans captured and altered by magic.” He shifted his gaze back to Bek. “Your sister’s work, I would have said, if she wasn’t here with us. So it must be the Morgawr. Wonder where he found his victims.”

Bek sat up quickly. “Not Quentin or the others? Not the Rovers?”

Truls Rohk took his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Don’t think about it. Think about staying one step ahead of them. That’s worry enough for now.”

He walked over to the supplies pack he carried and pulled out some of the bread. Breaking off a piece, he handed it to Bek. “If you were like me, you wouldn’t need this.” He laughed softly. “Of course, if you were like me, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Bek took the bread and ate it. “Thanks for staying with us,” he said, nodding toward the still-sleeping Grianne.

The shape-shifter grunted noncommittally. “Packs of caulls and Mwellrets are everywhere in these woods, dozens of them. They’re not chasing only us, either. I heard the sounds of someone else fighting them off when I went back to scout—a larger group, somewhere off to our right, heading into the mountains. I didn’t have time to see who it was. It probably doesn’t bear thinking on, except that maybe it will draw some of the rets away.”

He gestured impatiently, a faceless darkness within his hood. “Enough. Let’s be off.”

He scooped up Grianne, and they started out once more. They went swiftly and silently through the trees, then Truls moved them into a shallow stream, which they followed for several miles. It was as if they were repeating the events of less than a week ago. They were taking a different path, but traversing the same woods. Again, they were fleeing a hunter possessed of magic and a creature created to track them. Again, they were fleeing the ruins of Castledown, heading inland. Again, they were running away from something and toward nothing.

Ironic and darkly comic, but pathetic, as well, Bek thought.

As the morning slipped away, in spite of his companion’s warning not to do so, he found himself speculating on the fate of his missing friends. He could not bear to think of them made over into caulls, not after what they had already endured. An image of Quentin become a snarling animal flashed through his mind. Wouldn’t he know if that had happened? Wouldn’t he feel it? But he wasn’t Ryer Ord Star, so he couldn’t be sure. At this point, he couldn’t even be certain his cousin was still alive. The wishsong was a powerful magic, but it didn’t make him prescient. There was nothing he could know of what happened to anyone but Walker.

He reflected anew on last night’s visit from Walker’s shade. He had said nothing of it to Truls. He was not sure why, only that there didn’t seem to be any reason for it. If Walker had wanted Truls to hear what he had to say, wouldn’t he have appeared to both of them? It was difficult enough dealing with Truls without having to argue over Walker’s enigmatic pronouncements. The Druid had been quick enough to let Bek know that his destiny was not tied to that of the shape-shifter. Though they traveled together and for the moment, at least, shared a common cause, that did not mean things wouldn’t change. They had changed so often on this journey that Bek knew he could ill afford to take anything for granted. There was nothing in Walker’s message that was meant for Truls, nothing that would help or inform him, nothing that would change what they were doing now.

Bek didn’t like dissembling, and although he could argue that he wasn’t doing that here, it was close enough to feel like it.

His thoughts shifted to his present situation. He wondered if there was any chance at all that one of the Wing Riders would catch sight of them from the skies. He knew how unlikely that was, given the size and depth of this forest. They were like ants down here, all but invisible from above. Only a ground creature like a caull could track them, and that was exactly what they didn’t need.

He pushed away the idea of rescue. He was dreaming, he knew. He was grasping at anything that offered even a semblance of hope. He could not afford such desperation. Determination and perseverance were all that he was allowed.

They walked all that day and into the next, climbing steadily into the foothills that fronted the mountains. The Mwellrets and their caulls still tracked them, but seemed to draw no closer. Now and again, the Morgawr’s airships cruised the skies overhead. They came across no animals or people, no indication that anything lived in these woods but birds and insects. It was an illusion, of course, but it gave Bek a feeling of such loneliness that at times he wondered if there was any hope for them at all. The air had turned steadily colder, and snow clouds ringed the peaks of the mountains. Summer had faded with the destruction of Antrax, and the climate was in flux.

On the second night, after trying and again failing to persuade Grianne to eat something, Bek confronted Truls Rohk.

“I don’t get the feeling that running away is going to accomplish anything,” he said. “Other than to keep us alive for another day.”

The other’s head was bowed, the black opening to the cowl lowered. “Isn’t that enough, boy?”

“Don’t call me ‘boy’ anymore, Truls. I don’t like the way it sounds.”

The cowl lifted now. “What did you say?”

Bek stood his ground. “I’m not a boy; I’m grown. You make me sound young and foolish. I’m not.”

The shape-shifter went perfectly still, and Bek half expected one of those powerful hands to shoot out, snatch him by his tunic front, and shake him until his bones rattled.

“Sooner or later, we have to stop running,” Bek said, forcing himself to continue. “We tried running last time, and it didn’t work. I think we need a better plan. We need somewhere to go.”

There was no response. The empty opening of the cowl faced him like a hole in the earth that would swallow him if he stepped too close.

“I think we ought to go back into the mountains and find the shape-shifters who live there.”

The other exhaled sharply. “Why?”

“Because they might be able to tell us where we should go. They might help us in some way. They seemed interested in me when they appeared there last time, as if they saw something about me that I didn’t. They were the ones who insisted I had to stand up to Grianne. I think they might help us now.”

“Didn’t they tell you not to come back?”

“They saved your life. Maybe it would be different if we went back together.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t.”

Bek stiffened. “Do you have a better idea? Are we going to go up into those mountains and try to cross them without knowing what’s on the other side? Or are we just going to stay down here in these woods until we run out of trees to hide in? What are we going to do, Truls?”

“Lower your voice when you speak to me or you won’t have a chance to ask those kinds of questions again!” The shape-shifter rose and stalked away. “I’ll think about it,” he mumbled over his shoulder. “Later.”

Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. He was gone all night, out scouting, Bek presumed. But, gone deep inside himself, unreachable, Truls Rohk refused to talk to Bek on returning the next morning. They set out again at daybreak, the skies clear, the air sharp and cool, the sunlight pale and thin. Bek had told Truls not to call him a boy anymore, but in truth he still felt like a boy. He had endured tremendous hardships and confronted terrible revelations about himself, and while the experiences had changed him in many ways, they hadn’t made him feel any more capable of dealing with life. He was still hesitant and unsure about himself. He might have the power of the wishsong and the heritage of the Sword of Shannara to fall back on, but none of it gave him a sense of being any more mature. He was still a boy running from the things that frightened him, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he knew his sister needed him, he might have fallen apart already.

Truls Rohk’s refusal to speak to him, even to acknowledge him, left him feeling more insecure than before. He half believed—had always half believed—that the shape-shifter’s commitment to look after him was written on the wind. Nothing the other did or said suggested he felt particularly bound to honor that commitment, especially with Walker dead and gone. With one chase leading into another, with the effort of running wearing on the shape-shifter’s nerves and nothing good coming from it, Bek felt the distance between himself and Truls growing wider.

Once, the shape-shifter had told him how much alike they were. It had been a long time since he had spoken in such terms, and Bek was no longer certain that Truls had really meant what he said. He had used Bek to poke needles into Walker, to play at the games they had engaged in for so many years. Nothing suggested to Bek there was anything more to his relationship with the shape-shifter than that.

It was mean-spirited thinking, but Bek was sullen and depressed enough by now that such thinking came easily. He resented it, regretted it the minute he was finished, but could not seem to help himself. He wanted more from Truls than what he was getting. He wanted the kind of reassurance that came from companionship, the kind he always used to get from Quentin. But Truls Rohk couldn’t give him that. There wasn’t enough of him that was human to allow for it.

They walked through the morning without speaking or stopping. It was nearing midday, when the shape-shifter brought them to an unexpected halt. He stood frozen in place, Grianne cradled in his arms as he lifted his head to smell the air.

“Something’s coming,” he said.

He pointed ahead, through the trees. They stood in a clearing ringed by old-growth cedars and firs, now high enough up in the foothills that the outlines of the peaks ahead were clearly visible. They were not far from the shape-shifter habitat that Bek had suggested they go to, and the boy thought at first that perhaps the mountain creatures were coming to meet them.

But Truls did not seem to think so. “It’s tracking us,” he said quietly, as if trying to make sense of the idea.

Indeed, it made no sense. Whatever it was, it was ahead of them, not behind. It was upwind, as well. It couldn’t be following their footprints or their scent.

“How can that be?” Bek asked.

But the shape-shifter was already moving, taking them through the trees, perpendicular to the route they had been following and away from whatever was ahead. They worked through the deep woods, then across a narrow stream, backing down for almost a quarter of a mile before coming ashore again. All the while, Truls Rohk stayed silent, concentrating on what his senses could tell him. When Bek tried to speak, the shape-shifter motioned him silent.

Finally, they stopped on a wooded rise, where the shape-shifter set down Grianne, faced back in the direction they had been heading, then slowly pivoted to his right on a line parallel to the one they had been taking.

His rough voice was dark and hard. “It’s moving with us, staying just ahead. It’s waiting. It’s waiting for us to come to it.”

Bek had not missed the repeated use of the pronoun it in reference to whatever tracked them. “What is it, Truls?” he asked.

The shape-shifter stared into the distance for a moment without replying, then said, “Let’s find out.”

He picked up Grianne and started toward their stalker. Bek wanted to tell him that this was a bad idea and they should keep moving away. But trying to tell the shape-shifter what to do in this situation would just enrage him. Besides, if whatever tracked them could do so without following their scent or prints, it was not likely to be thrown off by a simple change of direction.

They moved ahead for a time, listening to the sounds of the forest. Slowly, those sounds died away. Within minutes, the woods had gone silent. Truls Rohk slowed, sliding noiselessly through the trees, stopping now and then to listen before continuing on. Bek stayed close to him, trying to move as quietly as the shape-shifter did, trying to be as invisible.

In a shallow vale through which a tiny stream meandered, the shape-shifter brought them to a halt. “There,” he said, and pointed into the trees.

At first, Bek saw just a wall of trunks interspersed with clumps of brush and tall grasses. It was dark where they stood, the light shut away by a thick canopy of limbs. The floor of the vale sloped down to the stream, where a patchwork of shadows and hazy light carpeted the forest floor. The air was cold and still, unwarmed by the sun, unstirred by the wind.

Then he saw a shadow that didn’t quite fit with everything else, squat and bulky, crouched back by the treeline where the dark trunks masked its features. He stared at it for a long time, and then it moved slightly, shifting position, and he saw the yellow glitter of its eyes.

A moment later, it detached itself from its concealment and padded into view. It was a massive creature, hump shouldered and broad chested, covered with coarse gray hair that stuck out in wild clumps. It had a wolf’s head, but the head had mutated into something dreadful. The snout was long and the ears pointed like a wolf’s, but the jaws were massive and broad, and when they split wide in a kind of panting grin, they revealed double rows of finger-long serrated teeth. Down on all fours, it moved with a shambling gait, its long forelegs disproportionate to its rear, which were short and powerful and sprouted from hindquarters dropped so low it appeared to be crouching.

It eased its way down into the vale until it was almost to the stream. There, it stopped, lifted its head, and emitted the most terrible mewling sound Bek had ever heard, a combination of wail and snarl that froze the woods into utter silence.

“What is it?” Bek whispered.

Truls Rohk’s laugh was low and wicked. “Your sister’s destiny, come back to claim her. That’s the thing she made to track us when we fled from her before, the thing the shape-shifters saved me from. I thought it dead and gone, but they must have set it free outside their boundaries. It’s a caull, but look at it! It’s mutated beyond what even she had intended. It’s become something even more monstrous. Bigger and stronger.”

“What does it want with us?” Bek looked at him. “It tracks us, you said. What does it want?”

“It wants her,” the shape-shifter answered softly. “It’s come for her. See how it looks at her?”

It was true. The hard yellow eyes were fixed not on the men, but on the sleeping girl, locked on her as she slept in the shape-shifter’s arms—focused on her with such intensity that its purpose was unmistakable.

“There’s true madness,” Truls whispered, a hint of wonder in his voice. “Captured, mutated, driven out, lost. It seeks only one thing. Revenge. For what has been done to it. For what has been stolen. A life. An identity. Who knows what it thinks and feels now? It must have tracked her through the connection of their magic, a joining of kindred. She created it, and it remains connected to her. It must be able to read her pulse or heartbeat. Or the sound of her breathing. Who knows? It sensed her and came.”

The caull cried out again, the same high-pitched wail. The skin on the back of Bek’s neck prickled and his stomach clenched. He had been afraid before on this journey, but never the way he was now. He couldn’t tell if it was the look of the caull, all crooked and bristling, or the sound of its cry, or just the fact of its existence, but he was terrified.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, barely able to get the words out.

Truls Rohk snorted derisively. “We let it have her. She made it; let her deal with the consequences.”

“We can’t do that, Truls! She’s helpless!”

The other turned on him. “This might be a good time for some rational thinking on your part, boy.” He emphasized the word. “There are so many things waiting to kill your sister that we can’t even begin to count them! Sooner or later, one of them will finish the job. All we do by interfering now is to prolong the process. You think you can save her, but you can’t. Time to let go of her. Enough is enough!”

Bek shook his head. “I don’t care what you say.”

“She is the Ilse Witch! Your sister is dead! Why are you so stubborn about it? Bah, I’ve had enough of this! You do what you wish, but I’m leaving!”

Bek took a deep, calming breath. “All right. Leave. You don’t owe me anything. It isn’t fair to ask you to do more than you have. You’ve done enough already.” He looked over at the caull as it hunched down at the edge of the stream. “I can take care of this.”

Truls Rohk snorted. “You can?”

“The wishsong was powerful enough to stop Antrax’s creepers. It can stop that thing.” He stepped close to the shape-shifter. “Give her to me.”

Without waiting for the other to respond, he reached in and took Grianne right out of his arms. Cradling her, he stepped away again. “She’s my sister, Truls. No matter what you say.”

Truls Rohk straightened and looked directly at Bek. “The wishsong is a powerful magic, Bek Ohmsford. But it isn’t enough here. You still haven’t mastered it. Your sister proved that to you already. That thing over there will be at your throat before you figure out what’s needed.”

Bek looked at the caull and went cold to the bone thinking of how it would feel to have those teeth and claws tearing into him. It would be over quickly, he guessed. The pain would be momentary. Then it would be Grianne’s turn.

“You could do something for me,” he said to the shape-shifter. “If you could draw its attention away, just for a moment, I might be able to catch it off guard.”

Truls Rohk stared at him. Bek couldn’t see the shape-shifter’s eyes within the dark confines of his cowl, but he could feel the weight of their gaze, hard and certain. For a long moment, Truls didn’t speak. He just kept looking at Bek.

“Don’t do this,” he said finally.

Bek shook his head. “I have to. You know that.”

“You won’t survive it.”

“Then you can do what you wish with my sister, Truls.” He gave the shape-shifter a defiant look. “I won’t be there to stop you.”

Another long silence stole away the seconds. Bek brushed at a stray lock of hair and felt a bead of sweat slide down his forehead. He was hot in spite of the chill in the air. He felt as if he might never be cool again.

The shape-shifter stood where he was a moment longer, still staring at Bek. “All right,” he said finally, his voice harsh and angry. “I’ve said what I needed to say. Staying with her is up to you.” He turned away. “I’ll try to draw its attention. Maybe that will help, but I doubt it. Good luck to you, boy.”

Bek watched as Truls Rohk angled down the gentle slope, moving with the grace and precision of a moor cat. Deformed and ill made, an aberration of nature, he was nevertheless beautiful to watch. Bek could not believe he was really leaving. They had been together since the beginning of the journey west out of the Wolfsktaag. Truls had saved him so many times Bek had lost count, had given him the insights he needed to come to terms with his heritage and his destiny. They had not always agreed on everything, and there had been a degree of mistrust and uncertainty between them, but the alliance had worked. It was shattering now to see that alliance end. Even watching the other go, Bek couldn’t believe it was happening. It felt as if the shape-shifter was taking a part of Bek with him. His confidence. His heart.

Truls, he wanted to call out. Don’t go.

The caull swung around to watch the shape-shifter; its powerful body flattened and tensed. Bek lowered Grianne to the ground, placing her carefully behind him before turning back to defend them. When the caull struck, it would do so swiftly. He would have only one chance to stop it.

He never got even that. Before he could prepare himself, the caull attacked, springing sideways with blinding speed and tearing across the stream and up the slope in a blur of churning legs and gaping jaws. Bek would have been dead an instant later but for Truls Rohk, who moved even faster. So quick that he seemed simply to leave one place and reappear at another, he intercepted the caull from the side, slammed into it, and knocked it sprawling.

Then he was on top of the beast, tearing at it like an animal himself, snarling with such ferocity that for an instant Bek wasn’t sure that it was Truls at all. The shape-shifter ripped at the caull using weapons that Bek couldn’t see—weapons he concealed beneath his cloak or perhaps just fashioned out of the mass of raw and jagged bone that comprised his ruined body. Whatever they were, they proved effective. Bits and pieces of the caull’s body flew into the air, and blood jetted in dark spurts of inky green. The fighters careened across the vale, locked in combat, joined in purpose, lost in their desperate struggle to kill each other.

Bek recovered himself enough to remember to use the wishsong, but he could not think how to use it effectively. Shape-shifter and caull were so tightly fused that there was no opportunity to bring the magic to bear without striking both. Bek darted right and left at the edge of the battle, enveloped by its sound and fury, desperately seeking a way to intervene, unable to do so.

“Truls!” he screamed helplessly.

Bright fountains of red spurted out of the tangle, the shape-shifter’s human blood released from a wound somewhere beneath the concealing cloak, a wound that Bek could not see. He heard Truls snarl in rage and pain, then tear at the caull with renewed fury, bearing it down against the earth. The caull screeched with a sound like metal tearing, writhing and snapping in a flurry of claws and teeth, but it could not break free.

Then Truls Rohk locked his arms about the caull’s head and hauled back on its long, thick neck, twisting violently. Bek heard cartilage snap and ligaments tear. The caull shrieked with such fury that the sound matched the howl of the worst storm Bek had ever witnessed, of hurricane winds tearing past windows and walls, of funnel clouds ripping at the earth. The caull heaved upward in one last futile effort to dislodge the shape-shifter, then its head separated from its body and exploded into an unrecognizable ruin.

In the ensuing silence, cacophonous and empty both at once, Truls Rohk threw down the remains of the body. Still twitching, it fell to the forest floor, dark blood spreading everywhere. The shape-shifter stood over it a moment, bent to the stream to drink and wash, then strode back up the hill to where Bek waited.

Without pausing for even a second, he reached down and picked up Grianne, lifting her into the cradle of his arms.

“I changed my mind,” he said, his voice harsh and broken, his breathing ragged.

Then he set off walking once more, leaving an astonished Bek to follow.