The Elf Queen of Shannara

Chapter Seven

They fled swiftly, silently through the In Ju. The Splinterscat led, his brownish quilled body shambling through brush and into grasses, under brambles and over logs as if they were all one, a single obstacle that required the same amount of effort to surmount. Wren and Garth followed, forced to skirt the heavier undergrowth, to pick their way more cautiously, to test the ground before they walked upon it. They managed to keep pace only because Stresa had sufficient presence of mind to look back for them now and again and wait until they caught up.

None of them spoke as they hastened on, but they all listened carefully for sounds of the Wisteron’s pursuit.

The jungle grew darker and webs began to appear everywhere. Many were trailers from snares long since sprung or worn away, yet an equal number were triggers to nets stretched through the treetops, across brush, even over pits in the earth. The webbing was clear and invisible except where leaves or dirt had become attached and gave color and definition, and even then it was hard to detect. Wren soon gave up searching for anything else, concentrating solely on the dangerous nets. A spider would spin webs such as these, she thought to herself, and pictured the Wisteron so in her mind.

They had been fleeing for only a handful of minutes when she finally heard it moving. The sound reached her clearly—brush and scrub thrashing, the limbs of trees snapping, bark scraping, and water splashing and churning. The Wisteron was big and it was making no effort to hide its coming. It sounded as if a juggernaut were rolling over everything, implacable, inescapable. The In Ju was a monstrous green cathedral in which the silence had been snatched away. Wren was suddenly very afraid.

They passed through a broad clearing in which a lake had formed, forcing them to change direction. After a moment’s hesitation, they skirted right along a low ridge on which a thick patch of brambles grew. Stresa tunneled ahead, oblivious. Wren and Garth followed bravely, ignoring the scrapes and cuts they received, the sounds of the Wisteron’s coming growing louder behind them.

Then abruptly the sounds disappeared.

Stresa stopped instantly, freezing in place. The Rovers did so as well. Wren listened, motionless. Garth put his hands against the earth. All was still. The trees hovered motionless about them, the misted half-light a curtain of gauze. The only sound was a rustling of the wind... Except that there was no wind. Wren went cold. The air was as still as death. She looked quickly at Stresa. The Splinterscat was looking up.

The Wisteron was moving through the trees.

Garth was on his feet again, his long knife sliding free. Wren searched the canopy of limbs and branches overhead in a frantic, futile effort to catch sight of something. The rustling was closer, more recognizable, no longer the whisper of wind against leaves but the movement of something huge.

Stresa began to run, an odd-shaped chunk of prickly earth skimming toward a stand of koa, silent somehow, but frantic as well. Wren and Garth went, too, unbidden, unquestioning. Wren was sweating freely beneath her clothes, and her body ached from the effort to remain still. She moved in a crouch, afraid now to look back, to look up, or to look anywhere but ahead to where the Splinterscat raced. The rustling of leaves filled her ears, and there was a snapping of branches. Birds darted through the cavernous forest, spurts of color and movement that were gone in the blink of an eye. The jungle shimmered damp and frozen about her, a still life in which only they moved. The koa rose ahead, massive trunks trailing yards of mossy vines, great hoary giants rooted in time.

Wren started unexpectedly. Nestled against her breast, the Elfstones had begun to burn.

Not again, she thought desperately, I won’t use the magic again, but knew even as she thought it she would.

They reached the shelter of the koa, moving hurriedly within, down a hall formed of trunks and shadows. Wren looked up, searching for snares. There were none to be seen. She watched Stresa scurry to one side toward a gathering of brush and push within. She and Garth followed, stooping to make their way past the branches, pulling their packs after them, clutching them close to mask any sound.

Crouched in blackness and breathing heavily, they knelt against the jungle floor and waited. The minutes slipped by. The leafy branches of their shelter muffled any sound from without, so they could no longer hear the rustling. It was close within their concealment, and the stench of rotting wood seeped up from the earth. Wren felt trapped. It would be better to be out in the open where she could run, where she could see. She felt a sudden urge to bolt. But she glanced at Garth and saw the calm set of the big man’s face and held her ground. Stresa had eased back toward the opening, flattened against the earth, head cocked, stubby cat’s ears pricked.

Wren eased down next to the creature and peered out.

The Splinterscat’s quills bristled.

In that same instant she saw the Wisteron. It was still in the trees, so distant from where they hid that it was little more than a shadow against the screen of vog. Even so, there was no mistaking it. It crept through the branches like some massive wraith... No, she corrected. It wasn’t creeping. It was stalking. Not like a cat, but something far more confident, far more determined. It stole the life out of the air as it went, a shadow that swallowed sound and movement. It had four legs and a tail and it used all five to grasp the branches of the trees and pull itself along. It might have been an animal once; it still had the look of one. But it moved like an insect. It was all misshapen and distorted, the parts of its body hinged like giant grapples that allowed it to swing freely in any direction. It was sleek and sinewy and grotesque beyond even the wolf thing that had tracked them out of Grimpen Ward.

The Wisteron paused, turning.

Wren’s breath caught in her throat, and she held it there with a single-mindedness that was heartstopping. The Wisteron hung suspended against the gray, a huge, terrifying shadow. Then abruptly it swung away. It passed before her like the promise of her own death, hinting, teasing, and whispering silent threats. Yet it did not see her; it did not slow. On this afternoon, it had other victims to claim.

Then it was gone.

They emerged from hiding after a time to continue on, edgy and furtive, traveling mostly because it was necessary to do so if they ever wanted to get clear of the In Ju. Even so, they had not succeeded when darkness fell and so spent that night within the swamp. Stresa found a large hollow in the trunk of a dead banyan, and the Rovers reluctantly crawled in at the Splinterscat’s urging. They were not anxious to be confined, but it was better than sleeping out in the open where the creatures of the swamp could creep up on them. In any event, it was dry within the trunk, and the chill of night was less evident. The Rovers wrapped themselves in their heavy cloaks and sat facing the opening, staring out into the murky dark, smelling rot and mold and damp, watching the ever-present shadows flit past.

“What is it that’s moving out there?” Wren asked Stresa finally, unable to contain her curiosity any longer. They had just finished eating. The Splinterscat seemed capable of devouring just about anything—the cheese, bread, and dried meats they carried in equal measure with the grubs and insects he foraged on his own. At the moment he was sitting just to one side of the opening in the banyan, gnawing on a root.

He glanced up alertly. “Out there?” he repeated. The words were so guttural Wren could barely understand them. “Crrrssst. Nothing much, really. Some ugly, little creatures that wouldn’t dare show their faces in other circumstances. They creep about now—hhhrrgg—because all the really dangerous things—except the wwwssst Wisteron—are at Arborlon, waiting for the Keel to give out.”

“Tell me about the Keel,” she urged. Her fingers signed to Garth, translating the Splinterscat’s words.

Stresa put down the root. The purr was back in his rough voice. ‘The Keel is the wall that surrounds the city. It was formed of the magic, and the magic keeps the demons out. Hggghhhh. But the magic weakens, and the demons grow stronger. The Elves don’t seem to be able to do anything about either.” The Splinterscat paused. “How did you find out about the demons? Hssttt. What is your name again? Grrllwren? Wren? Who told you about Morrowindl?’

Wren leaned back against the banyan trunk. “It’s a long story, Stresa. A Wing Rider brought us here. He was the one who warned us about the demons, except that he called them monsters. Do you know about Wing Riders?”

“Ssttppft! The Elves with the giant birds—yes, I know. They used to come here all the time. Not anymore. Now when they come, the demons are waiting. They pull them down and kill them. Fffftt—quick. That’s what would have happened to you as well if they weren’t all at Arborlon—or at least most of them. The Wisteron doesn’t bother with such things.”

Arborlon, Wren was thinking, had been the home city of the Elves when they had lived in the Westland. It had disappeared when they did. Had they rebuilt it on Morrowindl? What had they done with the Ellcrys? Had they brought it with them? Or had it died out once again as it had in the time of Wil Ohmsford? Was that why there were demons on Morrowindl?

“How far are we from the the city?” she asked, pushing the questions aside.

“A long way yet,” Stresa answered. The cat face cocked. “The In Ju runs to a mountain wall called Blackledge that stretches all the way across the south end of the island. Beyond that lies a valley where the Rowen flows. Rrwwwn. Beyond that sits Arborlon, high on a bluff below Killeshan’s mouth. Is that where you are trying to go?”

Wren nodded.

“Ppffahh! Whatever for?”

“To find the Elves,” Wren answered. “I have been sent to give them a message.”

Stresa shook his head and fanned his quills away from his body an inch or so. “I hope the message is important. I don’t see how you will ever manage to deliver it with demons all about the city—if the city is even there anymore. Ssstt.”

“We will find a way.” Wren wanted to change the subject. “You said earlier that the Elves made you, Stresa. And the demons. But you didn’t explain how.”

The Splinterscat gave her an impatient look. “Magic, of course!” he rasped. “Hrrrwwll! Elven magic allows you to do just about anything. I was one of the first, long before they decided on the demons or any of the others. That was almost fifty years ago. Splinterscats live a long time. Ssppptt. They made me to guard the farms, to keep away the scavengers and such. I was very good at it. We all were. Pfftt. We could live off the land, required very little looking after, and could stay out for weeks. But then the demons came and killed most of us off, and the farms all failed and were abandoned, and that was that. We were left to fend for ourselves—grrrsssst—which was all right because we had gotten pretty used to it by then. We could survive on our own. Actually, it was better that way. I would hate to be shut up inside that city with demons—hssstt—all about.” The creature gave a low growl. “I hate even to think about it.”

Wren was still trying to figure out what the Elves were doing using magic again. Where had the magic come from? They hadn’t had the use of magic when they had lived in the Westland—hadn’t had it since the time of faerie except for their healing powers. The real magic had been lost for years. Now, somehow, they had gotten it back again. Enough, it appeared, to allow them to create demons. Or to summon them, perhaps. A black choice, if ever there was one. What could have possessed them to do such a thing?

She wondered suddenly what her parents had to do with all of this. Were they involved in using the magic? If they were, then why had they given the Elfstones—the most powerful magic of all—to her?

“If the Elves... created these demons with their magic, why can’t they destroy them?” she asked, curious still about where these so-called demons had come from and whether they were really demons at all. “Why can’t they use their magic to free themselves?”

Stresa shook his head and picked up the root again. “I haven’t any idea. No one has ever explained any of it to me. I never go to the city. I haven’t spoken to an Elf in years. You are the first—and you’re not wholly elf, are you? Prruufft. Your blood is mixed. And your friend is something else altogether.”

“He is human,” she said.

“Ssspttt. If you say so. I haven’t seen anyone like him before. Where does he come from?”

Wren realized for the first time that Stresa probably didn’t know that there was anyone out there other than Elves and Wing Riders or any place other than the islands.

“We both come from the Westland, which is part of a country called the Four Lands, which is where all the Elves came from years ago. There are lots of different kinds of people there. Garth and I are just one of them.”

Stresa studied her thoughtfully. His quilled body bunched as his legs inched together. “After you find the Elves—rrrgggghh—and deliver your message, what will you do then? Will you go back to where you came from?”

Wren nodded.

“The Westland, you called it. Is it anything like—grwwl—Morrowindl?”

“No, Stresa. There are things that are dangerous, though. Still, the Westland is nothing like Morrowindl.” But even as she finished speaking, she thought, Not yet anyway, but for how long with the Shadowen gaining strength?

The Splinterscat chewed on the root for a moment, then remarked, “Pfftt. I don’t think you can get to Arborlon on your own.” The strange blue eyes fixed on Wren.

“No?” she replied.

“Pft, pft. I don’t see how. You haven’t any idea how to scale Blackledge. Whatever happens you have to avoid the hrrrwwll Harrow and the Drakuls. Below, in the valley, there’s the Revenants. Those are just the worst of the demons; there are dozens of others as well. Ssspht. Once they discover you...”

The quilled body bristled meaningfully and smoothed out again. Wren was tempted to ask about the Draculs and the Revenants. Instead, she glanced at Garth for an opinion. Garth merely shrugged his indifference. He was used to finding his own way.

“Well, what do you suggest we do?” she asked the Splinterscat.

The eyes blinked. The purr lifted from the creature’s throat. “I would suggest that we make a bargain. I will guide you to the city. If you get past the demons and deliver your message and get out again, I will guide you back. Hrrrwwll.” Stresa paused. “In return, you will take me with you when you leave the island.”

Wren frowned. “To the Westland? You want to leave Morrowindl?”

The Splinterscat nodded. “Sppppttt. I don’t like it here much anymore. You can’t really blame me. I have survived for a long time on wits and experience and instinct, but mostly on luck. Today my luck ran out. If you hadn’t happened along, I would be dead. I am tired of this life. I want to go back to the way things were before. Perhaps I can do that where you live.”

Perhaps, Wren thought. Perhaps not.

She looked at Garth. The big man’s fingers moved swiftly in response. We don’t know anything about this creature Be careful what you decide.

Wren nodded. Typical Garth. He was wrong, of course—they did know one thing. The Splinterscat had saved them from the Wisteron as surely as they had saved him. And he might prove useful to have along, particularly since he knew the dangers of Morrowindl far better than they did. Agreeing to take him with them when they left the island was a small enough trade-off.

Unless Garth’s suspicions should prove correct and the Splinterscat was playing some sort of game.

Don’t trust anyone, the Addershag had warned her.

She hesitated a moment, thinking the matter through. Then she shrugged the warning aside. “We have a bargain,” she announced abruptly. “I think it is a good idea.”

The Splinterscat spread his quills with a flourish. “Hrrwwll. I thought you would,” he said, and yawned. Then he stretched out full length before them and placed his head comfortably on his paws. “Don’t touch me while I’m sleeping,” he advised. “If you do, you will end up with a face full of quills. I would feel badly if our partnership ended that way. Phfftt.”

Before Wren could finish communicating the warning to Garth, Stresa’s eyes were closed, and the Splinterscat was asleep.

Wren took the early watch, then slept soundly until dawn. She woke to Stresa’s stirrings—the rustle of quills, the scrape of claws against wood. She rose, her mind fuzzy and her eyes dry and scratchy. She felt weak and unsettled, but ignored her discomfort as Garth passed her the aleskin and some bread. Their food was being depleted rapidly, she knew; much of it had simply gone bad. They would have to forage soon. She hoped that Stresa, despite his odd’eating habits, might be of some help in sorting out what was edible. She chewed a bit of the bread and spit it out. It tasted of mold.

Stresa lumbered outside, and the Rovers followed, crawling from the hollow trunk and pushing themselves to their feet, muscles cramped and aching. Daybreak was a faint gray haze seeping through the treetops, barely able to penetrate the darkness beneath. Vog swirled through the jungle as if soup stirred within a cooking pot, but the air at ground level was still and lifeless. Things moved in the fetid waters of the bogs and sinkholes and on the deadwood that bridged them, a shifting of shapes and forms against the gloom. Sounds wafted dully from the shadows and hung waiting in challenge.

They started walking through the half-light, Stresa in the lead, a shambling, rolling mass of spikes. They continued slowly, steadily through the morning hours, the vog enfolding them at every turn, a colorless damp wrapper smelling of death. The light brightened from gray to silver, but remained faint and diffuse as it hovered about the edges of the trees. Strands of the the Wisteron’s webbing wrapped about branches and vines, and snares hung everywhere, waiting to fall. The monster itself did not appear, but its presence could be felt in the hush that lay over everything.

Wren’s discomfort increased as the morning wore on. She felt queasy now and she had begun to sweat. At times she could not see clearly. She knew she had contracted a fever,—but she told herself it would pass. She walked on and said nothing.

The jungle began to break apart shortly after midday, the ground turning solid again, the swamp fading back into the earth, and the canopy of the trees opening up. Light shone in bold patches through sudden rifts in the screen of the vog. The hush faded in an undercurrent of buzzings and clicks. Stresa mumbled something, but Wren couldn’t make out what it was. She had been unable to focus her thoughts for some time now, and her vision was so clouded that even the Splinterscat and Garth were just shadows. She stopped, aware that someone was talking to her, turned to find out who, and collapsed.

She remembered little of what happened next. She was carried for a short time, barely conscious of the motion, burdened with a lethargy that threatened to suffocate her. The fever burned through her, and she knew somehow that she would not be able to shake it off. She fell asleep, woke to discover she was lying wrapped in blankets, and promptly fell asleep again. She came awake thrashing, and Garth held her and made her drink something bitter and thick. She vomited it up and was forced to drink it again. She heard Stresa say something about water, felt a cool cloth on her forehead, and slept once more.

She dreamed this time. Tiger Ty was there, standing next to Stresa, the two of them looking down on her, bluff and craggy Wing Rider and sharp-eyed Splinterscat. They spoke in a similar voice, rough and guttural, commenting on what they saw, speaking of things she didn’t understand at first, and then finally of her. She had the use of magic, they said to each other. It was clear she did. Yet she refused to acknowledge it, hiding it as if it were a scar, pretending it wasn’t there and that she didn’t need it. Foolish, they said. The magic was all she had. The magic was the only thing she could trust.

She awakened reluctantly, her body cool again, and the fever gone. She was weak, and so thirsty it felt as if all the liquids in her body had been drained away. Pushing back the covers that wrapped her, she tried to rise. But Garth was there instantly, pressing her down again. He brought a cup to her lips. She drank a few swallows—it was all she could manage—and lay back. Her eyes closed.

When she came awake next, it was dark. She was stronger now, her vision unclouded, and her sense of what was happening about her clear and certain. Gingerly she pushed herself up on one elbow and found Garth staring into her eyes. He sat cross-legged beside her, his dark, bearded face creased and worn from lack of sleep. She glanced past him to where Stresa lay curled in a ball, then looked back again.

Are you better? he signed.

“I am,” she answered. “The fever is gone.”

He nodded. You have been asleep for almost two days.

“So long? I didn’t realize. Where are we?”

At the foot of Blackledge He gestured into the darkness. We left the In Ju after you collapsed and made camp here The Splinterscat recognized the sickness that infected you and found a root that would cure it. I think without his help, you might have died.

She grinned faintly. “I told you it was a good idea to have him come along.”

Go back to sleep There are several hours still until dawn If you are well enough, we’ll go on then.

She lay back obediently, thinking that Garth must have kept watch by himself for the entire time she was sick, that Stresa would not have bothered, comfortable within the protection of his own armor. A sense of gratitude filled her. Garth was always there for her. She resolved that her giant friend would have the sleep he deserved when it was night again.

She slept well and woke rested, anxious to resume their journey. She changed clothes, although nothing she carried was clean by now, washed, and ate breakfast. At Garth’s insistence, she took a few moments to exercise her muscles, testing her strength for what lay ahead. Stresa looked on, by turns curious and indifferent. She stopped long enough to thank the Splinterscat for his help in chasing the fever. He claimed not to know what she was talking about. The root he had provided for her did nothing more than to help her sleep. What had saved her was her Elven magic, he growled, and spread his quills and trundled off to find something to eat.

It took them all of that day and most of the next to climb Blackledge, and it would have taken them much longer—if indeed they could have done it at all—without Stresa. Blackledge was a towering wall of rock that ran along the Southwest slope of Killeshan. It lay midway up the ascent and appeared to have been formed when an entire section of the volcano had split away and then dropped several thousand feet into the jungle. The cliff face, once sheer, had eroded over the years, turned pitted and craggy, and grown thick with scrub and vines. There were only a few places where Blackledge could be scaled, and Stresa knew them all. The Splinterscat chose a section of the cliff where the rock wall had separated, and a fissure sliced down to less than a thousand feet above the jungle floor. Within the fissure lay a pass that ran back into a valley, it was there, across the Rowen, Stresa announced, that the Elves would be found.

Resolutely he led them up.

The climb was hard and slow and seemingly endless. There were no passes or trails. There were, in fact, very few places that presented any kind of purchase at all, none of them offering more than a brief respite. The lava rock was knife-edge sharp beneath their hands and feet and would break away without warning. The Rovers wore heavy gloves and cloaks to protect their skin and to keep the spiders from biting and the scorpions from stinging. The vog rolled down the rock face as if poured from its edge, thick and stinking of sulfur and soot. Most of what grew on the rock was thorny and tough and had to be cut away. Every inch of the climb was a struggle that drained their strength. Wren had felt rested when she began. Before it was even midday, she was exhausted. Even Garth’s incredible stamina was quickly depleted.

Stresa had no such problem. The Splinterscat was tireless, lumbering up the cliff face at a slow, steady pace, powerful claws finding adequate footing, digging into the rock, pulling the bulky body ahead. Spiders and scorpions did not seem to affect Stresa; if one got close enough, he simply ate it. He led the way, choosing the approaches that would be easiest for his human companions, frequently stopping to wait until they could catch up. He detoured briefly to bring back a branch laden with a sweet red berry that they quickly and gratefully consumed. When it was nightfall and they were still only halfway up the slope, he found a ledge on which they could spend the night, clearing it first of anything that might threaten them and then, to their utter astonishment, offering to keep watch while they slept. Garth, having spent the previous two nights standing guard over the feverish Wren, was too exhausted to argue. The girl slept the better portion of the night, then relieved the Splinterscat several hours before dawn, only to discover that Stresa preferred talk to sleep in any event. He wanted to know about the Four Lands. He wanted to hear of the creatures that lived within them. He told Wren more about life on Morrowindl, a harrowing account of the daily struggle to survive in a world where everything was always hunting or being hunted, where there were no safe havens, and where life was usually short and bitter.

“Rrrwwll. Wasn’t like that in the beginning,” he growled softly. “Not until the Elves made the demons and everything turned bad. Phhhfft. Foolish Elves. They made their own prison.”

He sounded so bitter that she decided not to pursue the matter. She was still uncertain as to whether or not the Splinterscat knew what he was talking about. The Elves had always been healers and caretakers—never creators of monsters. She found it hard to believe they could have turned a paradise into a quagmire. She kept thinking there must be more to this story than what Stresa knew and she must reserve judgment until she had learned it all.

They resumed their climb at daybreak, pulling themselves up the rocks, scrambling and clawing against the cliff face, and peering up through the swirling mist. It rained several times, and they were left drenched. The heat lessened as they worked their way higher, but the dampness persisted. Wren was still weak from her bout with the swamp fever, and it took all of her strength and concentration to continue putting one foot in front of the other and to reach out with her hand for one more pull up. Garth helped her when he could, but there was seldom room to maneuver, and they were forced to make the ascent one behind the other.

They saw caves in the cliffs from time to time, dark openings that yawned silent and empty. Stresa pointedly steered his charges away from them. When Wren questioned him about what lay within, the Splinterscat hissed and declared rather pointedly that she didn’t want to know.

Midafternoon finally brought them to the bottom of the fissure and the narrow defile that lay beyond. They stood on flat, solid ground again, aching and worn, and looked back across the south end of the island to where it dropped away in a rolling, misted carpet of green jungle and black lava rock to the azure-blue sweep of the ocean. Blackledge rose above them to either side, craggy and misted, stretching in an unbroken wall until it disappeared into the horizon. Seabirds circled against the sky. Sunlight appeared momentarily through a break in the clouds, blinding in its intensity, turning the muted colors of the land below vibrant and bright. Wren and Garth squinted against its glare, enjoying the warmth of it against their faces. Then it faded, gone as suddenly as it had appeared; the chill and damp returned, and the island’s colors became dull again.

Turning away into the shadow of the fissure, they began to climb toward the mouth of the narrow pass. Then they were inside. The cliff rock rose all about them, a hulking, brooding presence, and wind blew down out of Killeshan’s heights in rough, quick gusts like the sound of something breathing. It was cold in the pass, and the Rovers wrapped themselves tightly in their cloaks. Rain descended in sudden bursts and was gone again, and the vog spilled down off the rocks in opaque waves.

Twilight had descended by the time they reached the fissure’s end. They stood at the rim of a valley that stretched away toward the final rise of Killeshan, a green-etched bowl settled beneath a distant stretch of forestline that lifted to the barren lava rock of the high slopes beyond. The valley was broad and misted, and it was difficult to see what lay within. The faint shimmer of a ribbon of water was visible east, winding through stands of acacia-dotted hills and ridgelines laced with black streamers of pitted rock. Across the sweep of the valley, all was still.

They made camp in the shelter of the pass under an overhang that fronted the valley. Night fell quickly, and with the sky so completely screened away the world about them turned frighteningly black. The silence of dusk slowly gave way to a jumble of rough sounds—the intermittent, barely perceptible rumble of Killeshan, the hiss of steam from cracks in the earth where the heat of the volcano’s core broke through, the grunts and growls of hunting things, the sudden screams as something died, and the frantic whispers as something else fled. Stresa curled into a ball and lay facing out at the blackness, less quick to sleep this night. Wren and Garth sat next to him, anxious, uneasy, wondering what lay ahead. They were close now; the Rover girl could sense it. The Elves were not far. She would find them soon. Sometimes, through the black and the haze, she thought she could catch the glimmer of fires like eyes winking in the night. The fires were distant, across the valley, high on the slopes below the treeline’s final stretch. They looked lonely and isolated, and she wondered if the perception was an accurate one. How far had the Elves come in their move away from the Four Lands? Too far, perhaps? So far that they could not get back again?

She fell asleep finally with the questions still on her mind.

They set out again at daybreak. Morrowindl had become a gray, misted world of shadows and sounds. The valley fell away sharply below them as they walked, and it was as if they were descending into a pit. The trail was rocky and slick with damp, and the green that had seemed so predominant in the previous night’s uncertain light revealed itself now as nothing more than small patches of beleaguered moss and grass crouched amid long stretches of barren rock. Tendrils of steam laced with the stench of sulfur rose skyward to blend with the vog, and pockets of intense heat burned through the soles of their boots and seared the skin of their faces. Stresa set a slow pace, picking his way carefully, lumbering from side to side amid the rocks and their islands of green. Several times he stopped and turned back again altogether, choosing a different way. Wren could not tell what it was that the Splinterscat saw,—everything was invisible to her. She felt bereft of her skills once more, a stranger in a hostile, secretive world. She tried to relax herself. Ahead, Stresa’s bulky form rolled with the motion of his walk, daggerlike quills rising and falling rhythmically. Behind, Garth stalked as if at hunt, dark face intense, unreadable, hard. How very alike they were, she thought in surprise.

They had come down off a small rise into a stand of brush when the thing attacked. It launched itself out of the haze with a shriek, a bristling horror with claws and teeth bared, slashing in a desperate frenzy. It had legs and a body and a head—there was no time to tell more. It bypassed Stresa and came for Wren, who barely managed to bring her arms up before it was upon her. Instinctively she rolled, taking the weight of the thing as she did and then thrusting it away. It slashed and bit, but the heavy gloves and cloak protected her. She saw its eyes, yellow and maddened; she felt its fetid breath. Shaking free, she scrambled to her feet, seeing the thing wheel back again out of the corner of her eye.

Then Garth was there, short sword cutting. A glitter of iron and the creature’s arm was gone. It fell, screaming, tearing at the earth. Garth stepped in swiftly and severed its head, and it went still.

Wren stood there shaking, still uncertain what the thing was. A demon? Something else? She looked down at the bloodied, shapeless husk. It had all happened so fast.

“Phfftt! Listen!” Stresa sharply hissed. “Others come! Ssstttfttp. This way! Hurry!”

He lumbered swiftly off. Wren and Garth were quick to follow, tunneling after him into the gloom.

Already they could hear the sounds of pursuit.