The Talismans of Shannara

Chapter Thirty-One

Stresa did not come to Wren Elessedil until it was almost dawn. Stars still lingered in the velvet black skies, and the forest was thick with shadows. Only a faint brightening east through the trees revealed the approach of the new day. She rose when he appeared, anxious and relieved. She had been waiting for him all night, even though it could easily have taken him another day to reach her. Her Elven hearing picked up his movements before he emerged from the dark, and she called out to him.

“Stresa,” she whispered. “Over here.”

He trundled forward obediently, spikes laid back against his muscular body, snout lifted to test the air, eyes glittering like candles.

“I can see you well enough, Elf Queen,” the Splinterscat muttered as he came up to her. “And hear you well enough, too.”

Wren smiled at the sound of the familiar voice. It had not been three days ago that she thought she would never hear it again. Her ordeal with Tib Arne and Gloon had given her a new appreciation for the things she had once been too quick to take for granted. It was strange how death’s whisper suddenly made you hear better. She wondered how many times she would need to listen to it before she remembered its lesson.

“What did you find?” she asked him, dropping into a crouch so that she could better see his face.

Stresa sniffed. “A way in for them and one out for us. Phffftt. It can be done.” He glanced around. “Where’s the sstttpp Squeak?”

She gestured. “Watching east, where the others wait. I didn’t want anyone to hear what we said. Funny how much better she and I have become at communicating.”

The Splinterscat’s spines rose and fell back again. “That is hardly an accomplishment. Squeaks haven’t much to say. Hsssttt. Keep your conversation brief, Elf Queen.”

Wren refrained from smiling. No point in encouraging him. “So we can do this, you and I?”

“This isn’t Morrowindl, and the Brakes aren’t the In Ju. Of course we can do it. Sppptt!” He spit. “Should have thought of the idea myself.”

Barely three days gone since her escape from the Shadowen, and Wren was about to challenge them again. She had flown into camp with Tiger Ty and been greeted with elation and astonishment by the Elves of the advance guard, who had given her up for lost. They were settled still within the fringes of Drey Wood, watching the continuing advance of the Federation army, shadowing the Southlanders from cover while they awaited Barsimmon Oridio and the balance of the Elven army. Desidio was effusive in his welcome, telling her straight out that the Elves needed her leadership and he was hers to command, saying more in that single moment than he had said the entire time they had been gone from Arborlon. Triss was furious with her, pointing out that her impulsiveness had caused her abduction, warning her that she was not to go off without the Home Guard ever, that in fact she was not to go off without him personally. She greeted them both with a handclasp and assurances that she would not take such a risk again—already knowing that she intended to do so.

In her absence, the advance guard had been busy. Desidio and Triss had put aside any differences on strategy to continue what she had begun so successfully, sending a second raiding party at the Federation the very night after she was taken, setting fire to supplies and wagons, driving off stock, harassing sleeping troops, doing everything they could think of to cause their enemies discomfort and confusion and to keep them from advancing. With the death of Erring Rift, command of the Wing Riders had passed to Tiger Ty, the most experienced among them and a leader with whom they felt comfortable. Tiger Ty, gruff and abrasive, but up to the challenge, had sent the Wing Riders in support of the Land Elves. The Federation army had been better prepared than before, but still not well enough to prevent considerable damage to supplies and stock. The Elves had lost more than a dozen men this time, but the Federation juggernaut had been brought to a halt once more, forced to stay their march long enough to allow recovery of horses, foraging for food and water, and treatment of their wounded.

Barsimmon Oridio had reached the Valley of Rhenn and was starting down to meet them. Messengers had arrived from the old general to announce that help was on the way. Desidio and Triss had dispatched the messengers back again with the queen’s greetings—unwilling to reveal just yet that the queen herself was missing. Neither had been prepared to concede that she was gone for good, despite what had happened to Erring Rift and Grayl. Wren was pleased to discover that they had kept her disappearance quiet.

But she had already decided that the advance guard must do more than just wait for Bar and the rest of the army to reach them. She had thought it through on the flight in from the grasslands, her body weary from the battle with Tib Arne and Gloon, but her mind strangely sharp and clear. She knew what had to be done, and it had to be done regardless of anything else that happened. The Creepers had to be stopped. They would be gaining rapidly on the Federation army now, come out of the Tirfing and across the Mermidon and into the grasslands east of the Pykon. They would catch up in another few days and join with their allies in the hunt for the Elves. When that happened, it was all over. The Elves had no defense against the Creepers, not in numbers, skills, or strength, and the Shadowen machines would track them through the Westland forests to Arborlon and put a quick end to them.

She was not going to let that happen, she had promised, and she had thought back to Morrowindl and the things that had hunted her there and then back to the things that had hunted Ohmsfords down through the years in their service to the Druids, until surprisingly, unexpectedly, she had found the answer she needed.

But once again it would put her at risk, and once again it would require use of the Elfstones.

She had told Tiger Ty, Triss, and Desidio of her plan that very night, and all three were aghast. They had pleaded with her to give it up, to think of something else, to try a different tactic. They had beseeched her to consider what it would mean to the Elves if she was lost again—this time for good. But she had held them off with reason and hard fact, with strength of will and argument, and in the end they had been forced to accept her decision, however reluctantly. They had managed to wring one concession—Tiger Ty and Triss would go with her for however long it was possible.

That had been two days ago. She had come south that same day with Triss, Tiger Ty, fifty Home Guard, and half-a-dozen Wing Riders. The Rocs had carried the Home Guard in the giant baskets, keeping well back within the shelter of the trees and mountains where they could not be seen from the plains, and Wren had ridden with Tiger Ty. She had held everyone in place just long enough to dispatch Faun into Drey Wood to locate and bring back Stresa. She had told the Splinterscat what she intended, and because so much depended on him she had waited for his assurance that her plan could work. When he had agreed that it might, she had scooped him up, strapped him in place on Spirit’s back, tucked Faun into her pack, and off they had gone.

Desidio and the rest of the advance force had been sent north to meet with Barsimmon Oridio to await her return.

Two days ago. They had traveled all night to get here and spent the first of those two days without sleep. They had all gone exploring instead.

She shook her head, looking off into the darkened trees, smelling moss and bark mold and wildflowers and wondering that so much could happen in such a little time. She heard Stresa shift in the darkness before her, restless, and she looked back again.

“Did you find the Thing?” she asked him, not knowing what else to call it.

“Hssstt.” Stresa was laughing. “Not Thing, Wren Elessedil. Things! There have been some changes in three hundred years, it seems. There are more than the one now.”

And perhaps always were, and only one was ever seen, she thought suddenly. She rose, contemplating the advent of the new day. Before her, east, waited the Wing Riders and the Home Guard, and beyond them, somewhere on the grasslands, the Creepers. Behind her, west, lay the Matted Brakes.

More than one. Well, now.

“Wait for me, Stresa,” she ordered, rising again, anxious now to begin. “The valley opens into a draw that will bring them right through here. It shouldn’t be long.”

Stresa turned and moved back into the shadows. “I’ll take a nap. I’m tired from all this rooting about. It stinks in the Brakes, you know. Pfffttt. Watch yourself until you get back here, Queen of the Elves.”

She let him go without comment, then turned into the trees east and made her way back toward the dawn’s brightening light. The forest was thin here, the draw she had described a broad wash down out of the higher ground where runoff and wind had swept away most of the cover. She found Faun almost immediately, the little creature leaping onto her shoulder and riding there as she slipped ahead through the trees. The plan would work, she told herself, and to make certain, she went over it again in her mind. The mechanics were simple enough. It was the execution that would make the difference. And the execution was almost entirely in her hands.

She moved down into the valley, following the north slope where the shadows were deepest in the growing light, peering out onto the plains beyond where a faint haze concealed what lay there. They had scouted everything thoroughly the day before in preparation. The Home Guard knew the terrain well enough to take advantage of it, and the Wing Riders had found hiding places within the trees close by the Brakes. Games within games, she thought. Wheels within wheels. She thought back to Morrowindl, where she had learned to play cat and mouse with the Shadowen creatures, to put into practice all that Rover knowledge Garth had imparted to her. She thought how far-sighted her mother and father had been to give her into Garth’s keeping, knowing how life must one day be for her. It was strange even now to think how much had been given up for her, but it was no longer so difficult to accept. Life delegated responsibility as need required and never in equal shares. The trick was in not being afraid when you learned that this was so. Faun chittered softly in her ear, and she reached up to stroke the warm, fuzzy face. We must look after each other, she thought to herself. We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But first, unfortunately, we must find a way to survive against the things that would prevent us from doing so.

She found Triss and the Home Guard hidden at the mouth of the valley within a cluster of pine and heavy brush. It was still and hazy on the plains beyond, the coming light diffuse within the ground mist, giving it the look of snow. There was a dampness in the air, and it had a pungent, coppery taste.

“They are no more than a mile below where we wait,” Triss advised quietly, calm and steady-eyed as he faced her. The way Garth had once been. “Scouts screen their coming so that we will not be surprised. Are you ready, my lady?”

She nodded, and tucked Faun down into the backpack she had brought for her to ride in. Faun would not leave her either. “Send someone to Tiger Ty and let’s be off.”

A messenger was dispatched, and the remainder of the Home Guard, armed with longbows and quivers of arrows, slipped out of their concealment and onto the plains, working their way through the heavy grasses and scrub. The plains were wet with dew, but the ground beneath as hard as stone. They moved slowly, cautiously, dropping into a crouch when the lead men signaled to do so, watchful for the monsters that approached.

As it was, they heard them before they saw them, the heavy armored bodies shaking the ground, more quiet nevertheless in their movement than Wren would have thought. The forward scouts dropped back to report that the Creepers were ahead and to the east, not more than five hundred yards away, eight strong, marching two abreast. There were Seekers with them, black-robed and bearing the wolf’s-head marking so that there could be no mistake. Wren was surprised. She had seen no Seekers before. But their presence changed nothing, and so she gave Triss the order to deploy. Silently, the Home Guard slipped away into the haze, fanning out like ghosts.

Then they could only wait. The seconds slipped by, agonizingly slow. They listened to the sounds of the Creepers and to the sudden silence of the land about that marked their coming. Triss muttered something about the mist. He glanced at her, and she smiled. Triss looked away. Even now, after all they had been through together, he kept his distance. She was queen, after all. She must always stand apart.

The sky continued to brighten and the mist to dissipate.

The first pair of Creepers appeared, materializing like spectral apparitions, huge and monstrous, dwarfing the black-cloaked figures that marched beside them. Twenty or so of the latter, Wren counted rapidly.

She reached down into her tunic and took out the Elfstones. The Stones lay comfortably within her palm and glittered like bits of blue fire. Mine alone to use, she thought. She closed her fingers over them and waited.

When the second pair of Creepers was directly abreast, she rose, held out the Elfstones, summoned the power within, and sent the blue fire streaking out. It lanced through the half light and mist and hammered into the closest of the Shadowen monsters. The Creepers jerked in shock, and one went down, smoldering and burning. The others wheeled toward her, and instantly the Home Guard attacked. A rain of arrows showered down on the Creepers and the Shadowen, and shouts rose up from the Elves. There were a few moments of confusion while the Creepers and their tenders milled about uncertainly, and then they counterattacked in a lumbering rush, pounding across the grasslands in search of their assailants.

But the Home Guard were already falling back toward the treeline, firing arrows, screaming oaths, and running for their lives. The Creepers were huge, but very quick, and they began to close the gap. Wren slowed them with a rush of blue fire from the Stones, retreating as she did, Triss at her side. The Creeper who had gone down was back up again, and all eight were coming on. It was what she had hoped for, what she had expected, but now that it was happening it was terrifying. As they lurched through the mist she saw again the Wisteron on Morrowindl, replicated eight times over, and she had to fight down the fear that the memory engendered. She could hear the scrape of claws and the click of mandibles and pincers. She saw the trees west come into view, pocketed the Elfstones, and made a dash for them.

They entered the valley ahead of the Creepers, not bothering to slow yet to see if they were being followed because the sounds of pursuit were unmistakable. Midway through the valley, Wren turned, brought out the Elfstones once more, and sent a wall of blue flame back across the entrance. She could hear the Creepers scream in fury, the sound like the scrape of rusting metal, shrill and inhuman. The Creepers came through the wall with flesh smoking and armor steaming. She sent another strike into them, rising up on her toes with the force of it, so buoyed by the magic that she thought she could float on air. Filled with its power, she began screaming in challenge.

“Enough!” Triss cried, yanking her back. “Run, now!”

Anger flared in her eyes at the intrusion. She closed her fingers over the Elfstones and jerked around with a gasp, tearing free. But she did as he urged, running with him into the draw beyond, into the trees and cool shadows. She breathed as if she could never again get enough air into her lungs, feeling the magic race through her body, anxious and demanding, asking to be freed, begging to be used. So much power! She clenched her hands into fists and ran on.

They raced up through the draw and into the trees beyond, the Elven Hunters leading the way for Wren and Triss and a handful of rear guard. The Creepers came on, tearing apart everything in their path from brush to full-grown trees, the sounds of the destruction frightening. It was working, Wren thought. It was going as planned. But the Creepers were too quick by half!

At a clearing ahead, the Wing Riders waited with their carrying baskets. The Home Guard climbed in, all but Triss, who had insisted he stay with Wren. The Rocs rose skyward and disappeared west. Wren crossed the clearing into the trees and brought out the Elfstones once again. When the Creepers appeared, shouldering their way furiously through the undergrowth, a jumble of jagged metal and spiky limbs, she sent the fire into them once more, burning everything across the clearing, obliterating all traces of the Home Guard escape while drawing the monsters on.

Then she was back within the trees, racing with Triss for the darkness that lay ahead. Stresa appeared suddenly, cutting across their path, taking the lead. He said nothing, did not even look back at them, his blocky form moving far more swiftly than seemed possible as he took them directly toward the gloom that marked the eastern edge of the swamp they called the Matted Brakes.

Wren glanced back once to make certain that the Creepers were still following, and then ran on. In moments, they were within the Brakes. Come after me, come after me, she repeated over and over in her mind, willing that it should be so. The plan she had devised to destroy the Creepers was simple. Attack them on the plains with enough men that they would think it was the vanguard of the Elven army or a significant part thereof, draw them into the trees and the Matted Brakes beyond, take them down a trail that Stresa had chosen and knew and they did not, lead them into a trap they could not escape—a trap where their strength and cunning would prove useless.

Like so many things, the answers to the present lay rooted in the past, and in this case in the songs of Par Ohmsford and the legends of their Shannara ancestors.

With Stresa leading and Triss keeping pace, she drew the Shadowen things deeper into the swamp, never letting them know that they no longer chased an army but only a girl, a man, and a creature from another world. She sent the fire of the Elfstones lancing into them, the earth over which they lumbered, the trees thick with vines and moss, and the fetid, green waters surrounding. She used it to confuse and anger them, to keep them off balance and intent on their chase. Once, she had been afraid to use the Elven magic. But that seemed a long time ago, as distant as the life she had known before her journey to Morrowindl and the discovery of her heritage. She had been freed of her fears when she had accepted her birthright as Queen of the Elves and brought her people out of Morrowindl. The magic now was an extension of herself, a part of the trust bequeathed to her by her grandmother, the fire come from the blood of her ancestors to shield her against whatever threatened. If she was strong, she believed, she could not be harmed.

The day brightened and eased toward noon. They ate and drank when they could, mostly when they paused in their flight, brief stops to listen and make certain of their pursuit. The Brakes thickened in a morass of tangled roots, trees whose branches hung down like corpses, still, depthless waters, and quicksand that would swallow you in an instant. Stresa chose their path carefully, finding the solid ground, moving steadily ahead. Twice the Creepers caught up with them unexpectedly, once on a flanking maneuver that almost trapped them, the second time in a rush that brought the iron-clad horrors barreling through the trees so quickly that they barely escaped being trampled. The swamp seemed to offer no deterrent; the Creepers crossed it as if it were all solid ground. Wren could not tell if any had been lost or had turned back. She hoped not. She hoped she had them all with her still, hunting. They were formed for that purpose and no other, and she prayed that their instinct for it would lead them on when more reasonable, less powerful creatures would turn back.

It was just after midday when they reached the lake.

They slowed as they came up to it, changing their movements so that they approached with as little noise as possible. Behind, the sounds of pursuit echoed through the cavernous trees, rough and heedless, closing rapidly. The lake was huge and stagnant green and as silent as a tomb. It stretched away into a cloud of mist that hung across it like a shroud. The near shoreline faded to either side into the mist. The far shoreline was hidden entirely. Vines and moss hung from the surrounding trees in curtains of lacy green, and roots tangled and twisted down into the waters like feeding snakes. Everywhere there was silence,—no birds, no insects, no fish, not even the whisper of a breeze to disturb the hush. There was the sense of time having come to a standstill here, of life having frozen in place, of everything waiting expectantly.

Here, Wren thought, catching her breath involuntarily. Here is where it will end.

But there was no time to contemplate further. The Creepers were coming, rolling on through the swamp, slashing and hacking and crushing what would not give way. Stresa was already moving right, down the shoreline to a narrow strip of land formed of earth and roots that angled its way out into the center of the vast lake. Wren and Triss hurried after. They turned onto the bridge and began moving toward the wall of mist. Wren glanced skyward once, allowing herself to do so for the first time since they had begun running. But the sky was empty. Too soon yet. They hurried on, stepping lightly, silently, listening to the sound of the Creepers. She looked out across the lake, looking for the Things, but there was nothing to be seen but the flat, opaque surface of the frozen waters.

They were almost into the mist when the Creepers appeared from out of the trees, lurching to a stop, their iron-plated bodies trailing vines and branches and steaming with the heat. They flattened everything close to them as they pushed together at the lake’s edge. The Seekers were with them. Catching sight of Wren, they moved swiftly to follow after her.

“There,” Stresa hissed suddenly, head swinging left.

She looked and saw the ridge that lay within the waters—what appeared to be crusted rock grown thick with moss and lichen until you saw the twin jets of steam that rose from one end and realized you were looking at breathing holes. The’re were two of them, and beyond, almost lost in the haze, another. Still here, just as they had been in the time of Wil Ohmsford, monsters from the deep waters of the Matted Brakes, the Things.

Stresa was moving again, and she hurried after, trying to keep from rushing, trying to keep her passage as silent as that of a cloud across the sky. Do nothing to disturb them, she told herself. Let them sleep a little while more. The haze billowed about, but it was not thick enough to hide them from the creatures following. The Creepers were on the bridge as well, she saw, glancing hurriedly back.

But only two of them!

She stopped abruptly, hissing Stresa and Triss to a stop with her. Two were not enough! She needed them all! She wheeled back, brought out the Elfstones, and held them forth. “No!” she heard Stresa cry out harshly, hissing the word. But she sent the fire forth anyway, flying over the still swamp waters, lancing into the Creepers that hunched down upon the shores, scattering flames into them like arrows, burning and singeing. The Creepers reared back, tearing at the earth. She felt something in the lake stir. Not yet! The Creepers on the shore milled about, their black-cloaked tenders trying to calm them. One of the Seekers disappeared under a flurry of iron claws, screaming.

Ripples spread slowly across the mirrored green waters. Wren took a deep breath. Steady, steady.

Then she struck again, the Elven fire exploding into the Creepers, and this time they all came for her, thundering onto the bridge in a furious rush.

There was movement everywhere in the lake now, a slow shifting of the ridges, a gathering of dark shapes. She saw it out of the corner of her eye as she raced on behind Triss and Stresa—saw it on either side and then ahead and behind, too, and she realized the danger she was in. If the Things attacked now, none of them would escape. Monsters of the swamp, older than the Shadowen spawn and as implacable as time, these were what she had brought the Creepers to face. They had been there when Wil Ohmsford and Amberle Elessedil had passed through the Brakes more than three hundred years earlier in search of the Bloodfire. They had devoured two of the Elven Hunters sent to keep the Valeman and the Chosen safe. She hoped now they would devour the Creepers as well.

Ahead, there was an island, little more than a flat stretch of rock-encrusted earth dotted with scrub and a small stand of cypress. The bridge ran to it and then wound away again beyond. It stood alone in the haze, empty of life.

“Hurry!.” she heard Stresa hiss.

She looked back again and saw the Creepers, all eight of them, clawing their way across the root-entangled strip of land that stretched away behind her. The Seekers ran after, some crying out, most struggling to keep from being crushed. The Creepers were out of control, seeing their prey so close at hand, sensing that they would have them in moments. They were closing quickly, heedless of the dangers about, confident of their strength and armor. The Elven magic might burn, but it could not destroy. Hunters, they thought only to hunt, never to hide, never to turn back. One slipped and fell, floundering momentarily in the stagnant lake waters before struggling back out again.

Come after me, she hissed soundlessly at them. Come see what I have planned for you.

Then she was on the island and turning back once more, the fire from the Elfstones already building in her hand. She went cold as she realized that she might have waited too long, that the closest of the Creepers was less than fifty yards away. She willed forth the magic quickly, and sent the fire not into the Creepers but into the lake about them, into the ridges with their breathing holes, into the Things.

The lake exploded in geysers that shot hundreds of feet into the air as dark shapes lifted skyward like whales breaching. On the bridge, the Creepers slowed, confused by what was happening, iron jaws clicking, claws scraping. The lake boiled and churned about them, and then the Things attacked. They swept out of the stagnant green, out of the depthless shadowed dark, and tore the Creepers from the bridge. The Creepers thrashed and flailed but could find no purchase in the waters and were dragged from sight. The Seekers went with them, screaming, ft happened so fast that it was over almost before it had begun, ft took only seconds, a vast roiling of the lake, a rising up of darkness, a thrashing of iron and flesh, and the Creepers were gone.

Save one—the one that had been closest to the island. That one came on, thundering across what remained of the narrow bridge, shaking the earth with the fury of its attack. Wren shifted the fire to meet it, but it came through the flames as if they were nothing more than gold and scarlet leaves. It was on the island an instant later, so huge that it blocked away the whole of the swamp behind where the last ripples were dying back into stillness across the empty surface. Triss cried out and leaped to Wren’s defense, sword drawn. Stresa was shouting wildly, and even Faun had appeared, working free of the backpack, screaming in fear.

Then a dark shape flashed down out of the haze, swifter than thought, and Spirit’s claws tore at the Creeper’s head and back and knocked the beast aside. The Creeper lurched to its feet and twisted away in rage. Spirit swept past, banked, swung around, and struck the Creeper a second time, knocking it farther back. Triss caught Wren about the waist, flung her over his shoulder and raced across the island and back onto the bridge. No! she wanted to warn him. The Things are still out there! But the breath had been knocked from her lungs, and she could only claw futilely at him. Faun skittered ahead with Stresa, the bunch of them strung out like mice on a rope.

In the lake’s deep shadows, there was new movement.

But Tiger Ty had not forgotten the task Wren had assigned him, and Spirit swept back a third time, ignoring the Creeper and coming for the bridge. Tracking them ever since they had come into the Brakes, Spirit was ready now to fly them to safety. Claws reached down to secure a grip on the causeway, and the great Roc clung there long enough for Triss to toss Wren like a sack of feathers to Tiger Ty and follow her up, for Faun to scurry after, and even for Stresa to be hauled aboard. Then Spirit rose again, just avoiding the monstrous jaws that rose from the swamp to sweep across the bridge in their wake, snapping at the empty air.

They ascended slowly, and Wren righted herself, secured her safety straps, and looked down. The last of the Creepers crouched upon the island, trapped on all sides by the horrors in the lake. Shadows dappled it like a sickness. It could not escape. It would die there in the swamp like the others. Wren stared fixedly at it and felt nothing.

Spirit broke clear of the mist and into the sunlight above, causing Wren to blink from the sudden brightness. The Matted Brakes and what lay hidden within the mist and gloom receded below.

Like Morrowindl, relegated to the past...

Wren turned her face to the sun and did not look back.