The Talismans of Shannara

Chapter Thirty

Dusk came to the country south of the Rainbow Lake in a purple and silver haze that crept like a cat out of the Anar to chase a fiery sunset west into the Black Oaks and the lands beyond. Twilight was smooth and silky as it eased the day’s swelter with a breeze out of the deep forest, soothing and cool. Farms dotting the lands above the Battlemound were bathed in a mixture of shadows and light and assumed the look of paintings. Animals stood with their faces pointed into the breeze, motionless against the darkening green pastures. Tenders and hands came in from their work, and there was the sound of water splashing in basins and the smell of food cooking on stoves. There was a serenity in the lengthening shadows and a relief in the cooling of the air. There was a hush that gathered and comforted and promised rest for those who had completed another day.

In a stand of hardwood on a low rise close against the fringe of the Anar just north of the Battlemound, smoke rose from the crumbling chimney of an old hunter’s cabin. The cabin consisted of four timbered walls splintered and aged by weather and time, a shingled roof patched and worn, a covered porch that sagged at one end, and a stone well set back into the deepest shadows in the trees behind. A wagon was pulled up close to one side of the cabin, and the team of mules that pulled it was staked out on a picket line at the edge of the trees. The men who owned both were clustered inside, seated on benches at a table with their dinner, all save one who kept watch from the stone porch steps, looking off into the valley south and east. They were five in number, counting the one outside, and they were shabby and dirty and hard-eyed men. They wore swords and knives and bore the scars of many battles. When they spoke, their voices were coarse and loud; and when they laughed, there was no mirth.

They did not look to Damson Rhee and Matty Roh like anyone who could be reasoned with.

The women crouched in a wash west where a covering of brush screened their movements, and stared at each other.

“Are you sure?” the taller, leaner woman asked softly.

Damson nodded. “He’s there, inside.”

They went silent, as if both lacked words to carry the conversation further. They had been tracking the wagon all day, ever since they had come upon its wheel marks while following the Skree south from the Rainbow Lake. They had crossed the lake three days earlier, sailing out of the mouth of the Mermidon just ahead of the approaching storm after leaving Morgan Leah. The winds fronting the storm had pushed them swiftly across the lake, and the storm itself had not caught them until they were almost to the far shore. Then they had been swept away, buffeted so badly they had capsized east of the Mist Marsh and been forced to swim to shore. They had escaped with the better part of their supplies in tow, waterlogged and weary, and had slept the night in a grove of ash that offered little shelter from the damp. They had walked from there south, drawn on by the Skree’s light, searching for some sign of Par Ohmsford. There had been none until the wagon tracks, and now the men who had made them.

“I don’t like it,” Matty Roh said softly.

Damson Rhee took out the broken half of the Skree, cupped it in her hand, and held it out toward the cabin. It burned like copper fire, bright and steady. She looked at Matty. “He’s there.”

The other nodded. Her clothing was rumpled from wear and weather and torn by brambles and rocks, and washing it had cleaned it but not improved its appearance. Her boyish face was sun-browned and sweat-streaked, and her brow furrowed as she considered the glowing half moon of metal.

“We’ll need a closer look,” she said. “After it gets dark.”

Damson nodded. Her red hair was braided and tied back with a band about her forehead, and her clothing was a mirror of Matty’s. She was tired and hungry for a hot meal and in need of a bath, but she knew she would have to do without all of them for now.

They eased back along the wash to where they had left their gear and settled down to eat some fruit and cheese and drink some water. Neither spoke as the meal was consumed and the shadows lengthened. Darkness closed about, the moon and stars came out, and the air cooled so that it was almost pleasant. They were very unlike each other, these two. Damson was fiery and outgoing and certain of what she was about; Matty was cool and aloof and believed nothing should be taken for granted. What bound them beyond their common enterprise was an iron determination forged out of years of working to stay alive in the service of the free-born. Three days alone together searching for Par Ohmsford had fostered a mutual respect. They had known little of each other when they had started out and in truth knew little still. But what they did know was enough to convince each that she could depend on the other when it counted.

“Damson.” Matty Roh spoke her name suddenly. The silence had deepened, and she whispered. “Do you know how you sometimes find yourself in the middle of something and wonder how it happened?” She seemed almost embarrassed. “That’s how I feel right now. I’m here, but I’m not sure why.”

Damson eased close. “Do you wish you were somewhere else?”

“I don’t know. No, I suppose not.” Her lips pursed. “But I’m confused about what I’m doing here. I know why I came, but I don’t understand what made me decide to do it.”

“Maybe the reason isn’t important. Maybe being here is all that counts.”

Matty shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe it’s not all that difficult to figure out. I’m here because of Par. Because I promised him I would come.”

“Because you’re in love with him.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t even know him.”

“But you know Morgan.”

Matty sighed. “I know him better than he knows himself. But I’m not in love with him.” She paused. “I don’t think.” She looked away, distressed by the admission. “I came because I was bored with standing around. That was what I told the Highlander. It was true. But I came for something more. I just don’t know what it is.”

“I think it might be Morgan Leah.”

“It isn’t.”

“I think you need him.”

“I need him?” Matty was incredulous. “It’s the other way around, don’t you think? He needs me!”

“That, too. You need each other. I’ve watched you, Matty—you and Morgan. I’ve seen the way you look at him when he doesn’t see. I’ve seen how he looks at you. There is more between you than you realize.”

The tall girl shook her head. “No.”

“You care about him, don’t you?”

“That’s not the same. That’s different.”

Damson watched her for a moment without saying anything. Matty’s gaze was fixed on a point in space somewhere between them, the cobalt eyes depthless and still. She was seeing something no one else could see.

When she looked up again, her eyes were empty and sad. “He’s still in love with Quickening.”

Damson nodded slowly. “I suppose he is.”

“He will always be in love with her.”

“Maybe so, Matty. But Quickening is dead.”

“It doesn’t matter. Have you heard how he speaks of her? She was beautiful and magic, and she was in love with him, too.” The blue eyes blinked. “It’s too hard to try to compete with that.”

“You don’t have to. It’s not necessary.”

“It is.”

“He will forget her in time. He won’t be able to help it.”

“No, he won’t. Not ever. He won’t let himself.”

Damson sighed and looked away. The night was deep and still about them, hushed with expectation. “He needs you,” she whispered finally, not knowing what else to say. She looked back again. “Quickening is gone, Matty, and Morgan Leah needs you.”

They stared at each other in the darkness, measuring the truth of the words, weighing their strength. Neither spoke. Then Matty rose and looked back across the grassland toward the cabin. “We have to go down for a look.”

“I’ll go.” Damson rose with her. “You wait here.”

Matty took her arm. “Why not me?”

“Because I know what Par looks like and you don’t.”

“Then both of us should go.”

“And put both at risk?” Damson held the other girl’s eyes. “You know better.”

Matty stared at her defensively for a moment, then released her arm. “You’re right. I’ll wait here. But be careful.”

Damson smiled, turned, and slipped away into the dark. She moved easily down the wash until she was north of the cabin. Lamplight burned from within, a yellowish wash through the shutterless side windows and open front door. She paused, thinking. The sound of the men’s voices came from within, but the red glow of a pipe bowl and the smell of tobacco warned that the sentry still occupied the porch steps. She watched the dark shapes of the mules shifting on the line next to the cabin wall, then heard the sound of breaking glass and swearing inside. The men were drinking and arguing.

She moved on down the wash to the forest and came around behind the cabin, intent on approaching from the south wall, afraid the animals might give her away if she went in from the north. Clouds glided like phantoms overhead, changing the intensity of the light as they passed across moon and stars. Damson edged along the fringe of the trees, lost in shadow, placing her feet carefully even though the voices and laughter likely would drown out other sounds. When she was behind the cabin, she left the trees and came swiftly to the rear wall, then inched along the back and started forward toward the south window. She could hear the voices plainly now, could sense their anger and menace. Hard men, these, and no mistake about it.

She moved to the window in a crouch, rose up carefully, and looked inside.

Coll Ohmsford lay at the back of the musty, weathered cabin and listened to the men arguing as they rolled dice for coins. He was wrapped in a blanket and had turned himself toward the wall. His hands and feet were chained together and to a ring they had hammered into the boards. They had given him food and water and then forgotten about him. Which was just as well, he thought wearily, given their present unpleasant state of mind. Drinking and gambling had turned them meaner than usual, and he had no desire to discover what the result might be if they remembered he was there. He had been beaten twice already since he had been captured—once for trying to escape and once because one of them got mad about something and decided to take it out on him. He was bruised and cut and sore all over, and after being bounced about all day in the back of the wagon he just wanted to be left alone to sleep.

The problem, of course, was that there was no sleep to be had under these conditions. His fatigue and pain were not enough to overcome the noise. He lay listening and wondering what he could do to help himself. He thought again about escape. They were traveling slowly with the wagon and mules, but they were only three or four days out of Dechtera and once there he was finished. He had heard of the slave mines, worked principally by Dwarves. Morgan had described the mines after learning of them from Steff. They were used as a dumping ground for Dwarves who antagonized the Federation occupiers and most particularly for those captured in the Resistance. The Dwarves sent to the mines never returned. No one ever returned. Morgan had heard rumors of Southlanders being sent to work the mines, but until now Coll had never believed it could be so.

He stared at the cracked and splintered wallboards. It seemed he was destined to learn a lot of truths the hard way.

He took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly, wearily. Time was running out and luck had long since disappeared. He was in better shape than he had a right to be, his training at Southwatch with Ulfkingroh having seen him through the worst. But that was of little consolation now, trussed up the way he was. He saw no hope of gaining release from his chains without a key. He had tried to pick the locks, but they were heavy and strong. He had tried to persuade his captors to take them off so he could walk around, but they had just laughed. His plan to rescue Par from Rimmer Dall and the Shadowen was a dim memory. He was as far from that as he was from his home in Shady Vale, and he was so far from there that he sensed he was almost beyond the point of return.

One of the men kicked over a chair, stood up, and walked from the room. Coll risked a quick look out from his coverings. The Sword of Shannara lay on the table. They were gambling for it, or for one another’s shares in it. The three still at the table snarled something ugly after the one leaving but did not look away from each other.

Coll turned back to the wall again and closed his eyes. It didn’t help that these men had no idea of the Sword’s real value. It didn’t help that only he could use the magic and that so much might depend on his doing so. At this point, he thought in despair, nothing short of a miracle would help.

He knotted his hands together beneath the blanket and descended into a black place.

What am I going to do?

“Is it him?”

Moonlight reflected off Matty Roh’s smooth face, giving it a ghostly look beneath the short-cropped black hair. Damson drank from the water skin she offered and glanced back the way she had come, half thinking she might have been followed. But the night was still and the land empty and frozen beneath the stars.

“Is it?” Matty repeated, anxious, persistent.

Damson nodded. “It has to be. He was huddled in the back of the room under a blanket and I couldn’t see his face, but it doesn’t matter. The Sword of Shannara was lying on the table, and there’s no mistaking it. It’s him, all right. They’ve got him chained up. They’re slavers, Matty. I looked in the wagon on my way back and it was full of shackles and chains.” She paused, uneasiness darting across her face. “I don’t know how he stumbled onto them or how he let them capture him, but it shouldn’t have happened. The magic of the wishsong should have been more than a match for men like these. I don’t understand it. Something’s wrong.”

Matty said nothing, waiting.

Damson handed back the water skin and sighed. “I wish I could have seen his face. He looked up once, just for a moment, but it was too dark to see clearly.” She shook her head. “Slavers—there won’t be any reasoning with them.”

Matty shifted her feet. “Reasoning isn’t something men like this understand. We’re women. If given half a chance, they’d seize us, use us for their own pleasure, and then cut our throats. Or if we were really unlucky, they’d sell us along with the Valeman.” She looked out at the night. “How many did you count?”

“Five. Four inside, one standing watch. They’re drinking and throwing dice and fighting among themselves.” She paused hopefully. “When they sleep, we might be able to slip past them and free Par.”

Matty gave her a steady look. “That would be chancy in the dark. We wouldn’t be able to tell them from us if it came to a fight. And if the Valeman is chained to the wall, it would take too much time and make too much noise to try to free him. Besides, they might be up all night the way things are going. There isn’t any way to know.”

“We could wait a bit. A day or two if we must. There will be a chance sooner or later.”

Matty shook her head. “We don’t have the time. We don’t know how long it will be until they get to where they’re going. There may be more of them ahead. No. We have to do it now. Tonight.”

Now it was Damson’s turn to stare. “Tonight,” she repeated. “How?”

“How do you think? If they’ve found a way to capture the Valeman in spite of his magic, they’re too dangerous to fool around with.” Matty Roh seemed to be measuring her. “If we’re quick, they’ll be dead before they know what happened. Can you do it?”

Damson took a deep breath. “Can you?”

“Just follow me in and stay behind me. Watch my back. Remember how many there are. Don’t lose count. If I go down, get out of there.” She straightened. “Are you ready?”

“Now?”

“The quicker we start, the quicker we finish.”

Damson nodded without speaking, feeling distanced from what was happening, as if sue were watching it from some other vantage point. “I only have a hunting knife.”

“Use whatever you have. Just remember what I said.”

The tall girl dropped her cloak and reached down into her gear for the slender fighting sword and strapped it over her back, wearing it the same way Morgan Leah wore his. She fastened a brace of throwing knives to her waist and slipped a broad-bladed hunting knife down into her boot. Damson watched and did not speak. Two against five, she was thinking. But the odds were greater than that. These men were seasoned fighters, cutthroats who would kill them without a second thought. What are we to them? she wondered, and decided it was a stupid question.

They moved off into the night, slipping across the grasslands like ghosts, Damson leading Matty back the same way she had gone earlier, watching the light from the oil lamps hung within the cabin grow brighter as they neared. The voices of the men reached out to greet them, coarse and raucous. Damson could no longer see the glow of the pipe on the porch steps, but that didn’t mean the sentry wasn’t still there. They moved north of the cabin into the trees and came up from behind, flattening themselves against the rough board wall. Inside, the sounds of gambling and drinking continued.

They peered around the south side of the cabin toward the front. There was no sign of the sentry. With Matty leading now, her sword drawn and held before her, they eased up to the window and took a quick look inside. The scene was unchanged. The prisoner was still wrapped in his blanket and lying on the floor at the rear of the cabin. Four of the men still sat at the table. Damson and Matty exchanged a quick glance, then started toward the front. They reached the corner and looked onto the sagging porch.

The sentry was gone.

Matty’s face clouded, but she edged into the light anyway, sword held ready, and moved for the open door. Damson followed, glancing left and right, thinking, Where is he? They were almost to the door when the sentry reappeared out of the dark, come from checking the animals perhaps, looking off that way and muttering to himself. He didn’t see the women until he stepped onto the porch, then grunted in surprise and reached for his weapons. Matty was quicker. She shifted the sword to her left hand, reached down with her right, brought out one of the throwing knives, and flung it at the man. The blade caught him in the chest and he went back off the porch with a hiss of pain.

Then they were through the door and inside the cabin, Matty leading, Damson at her back. The room was small and smoky and cramped, and it seemed as if they were right on top of the slavers. Damson could see their faces clearly, the sweat on their skin, the anger and surprise in their eyes. The men leaped up from the table, weapons wrenched free of belts and sheaths. Shouts and oaths rose up, glasses and tin cups tipped away, and ale spilled onto the floor. Matty killed the nearest man and went for the next. The table flipped over, scattering debris everywhere. One of the men turned toward the captive, but Matty was too close to be ignored, and he twisted back to meet her rush. A second man went down, blood pouring from his throat, clawing at the air and then tumbling away. The two who remained rushed Matty Roh with swords and knives glinting wickedly in the lamplight and forced her back toward the wall. Damson stepped away, looking for an opening. Someone grabbed her from behind, and the fifth man, blood leaking from his chest wound, lurched through the doorway, clutching at her with his fingers. She twisted away, slippery with his blood, then shoved him back out the door and down the steps. Outside, the mules brayed and kicked at the cabin wall in terror.

Matty darted and cut at the men before her, fighting to keep from being cornered, yelling for Damson. A lamp shattered, spilling oil everywhere, and flames spread across the cabin floor. Damson threw herself onto the back of the man nearest, tearing at his eyes. He howled in pain, dropped his weapons, and fought with his bare hands to fling her away. She let go, throwing herself clear, reaching for her knife. The man went for her in a frenzy, heedless of everything else, tripped, and went down in the fire. It caught on his clothing and began to burn, and he ran screaming out the door and into the night.

The last man held his ground a moment longer, then bolted for the door as well. Flames were racing up the walls now, streaking across the rafters, eating hungrily at the dry wood. Damson and Matty raced for the back of the cabin where the captive had risen to his knees and was tearing at the ring that chained him to the wall. Matty shoved him down wordlessly, brought the big hunting knife out from her boot, and hacked and cut and pried at the wall until the ring broke loose. Then in a knot they rushed for the cabin door, the flames all about them, the heat singeing their hair and flesh. They were almost clear when the captive twisted free and turned back, charging into the smoke and fire with the chains trailing behind him, searching the debris on the floor until he came up with the Sword of Shannara.

It wasn’t until they were all outside, gasping for air and coughing up smoke and dust as the cabin burned behind them, that Damson realized it was not Par Ohmsford they had rescued after all, but his brother, Coll.

They took just long enough to break loose the shackles from Coll’s wrists and ankles, casting anxious glances over their shoulders into the night as they did so, then slipped quickly away, leaving behind the smoking ruins of the cabin, the empty wagon, and the bodies of the dead. The mules had long since run off, the remaining slavers had vanished with them, and the land was empty of life. The Valeman and the women smelled of fire and ashes, their eyes watered from the smoke, and they were smeared with the blood of the men they had killed. Matty had received several minor cuts, and Damson was scratched about the face, but both had escaped serious injury. Coll Ohmsford walked like a man whose legs had been broken.

In the shelter of the trees where they had left their gear, they cleaned themselves up as best they could, ate some food and drank some water, and tried to figure out what had happened. They discovered quickly enough that Coll carried the other half of the Skree, the half he had stolen from Par while under the influence of the Mirrorshroud, and that explained why Damson and Matty had thought they were tracking Par. It did not explain why the Skree had brightened in two directions when Damson had used it at Southwatch, although after hearing Colls story of what had befallen the brothers earlier it could be assumed that Par’s magic had affected the disk in some way. Par’s magic seemed to affect almost everything with which it came in contact, Coll noted. Something was happening to the Valeman, and if they didn’t get to him soon and piece together what it was that was tearing at him, they were going to lose him for good. Coll couldn’t tell Damson and Matty why that was so, but he was convinced of it. His triggering of the magic of the Sword of Shannara had revealed a good many truths previously hidden from him, and this was one.

There was no debate about what they would do next. They were of a common purpose, even Matty Roh. They packed up what gear they had and set out across the grasslands north again, heading for the Rainbow Lake and the country beyond, pointing themselves toward a confrontation with the Shadowen and Rimmer Dall. Morgan Leah would be there waiting for them, and together they would attempt another rescue. Four of them, when it came time to stand against their enemies, sustained by their talismans and their small magics, by their courage and determination, and by little else. What they were doing was more than a little mad, but they had left reason behind a long time ago. They accepted it as they did the approach of the new day east, its first faint glimmerings painting the darkened horizon with golden streaks. They accepted it as they did the way in which the disparate directions of their lives had brought them to a crossroads in which they would share a common destiny. There were inevitabilities to life that could not be altered, they knew, and this was surely among them.

They hoped, each in the silence of their unshared thoughts, that this particular inevitability would result in something good.

Morgan Leah barely had time to gasp.

The attack was so swift and unexpected that he was on the ground before he could even think to act, the hand still clamped tightly to his mouth, a dark-cloaked form swinging about to pin him flat. He had lost his Sword, the one thing that might have helped him, and he was so astonished to have been caught off guard that even though his mind screamed at him to move he froze in the manner of a small animal trapped in a snare. His throat constricted, and he stopped breathing. He knew he was dead.

A huge whiskered face pushed close to his own, as if curious to discover what manner of creature he might be, and the luminous yellow eyes of a moor cat blinked down at him.

“Easy, Highlander,” a familiar voice whispered in his ear, soft and reassuring. “You’re safe. It’s only me.”

The hand eased away, and Morgan began breathing again, quick and uneven. He felt the knots in his body loosen and the chill in his stomach fade. “Quiet, now,” the voice whispered. “They’re still close.”

Then the cat face eased away, and he was looking at Walker Boh.