The crewman turned at the sound of her approach, weapons lifting. She was too slow and still too far away!
Then abruptly, he crumpled to the deck, and Hunter Predd stepped from behind the mainmast, sling in hand.
“Cut the anchor lines!” she called, changing direction for the pilot box.
She heard muffled shouting, sibilant and angry, from the raft. She gained the box and sprang to the controls, drawing down ambient light from the single sail already set in place to keep Black Mo-dips aloft, throwing the levers to the parse tubes, opening them up all the way. The airship lurched with the infusion of power. She heard Hunter Predd cut the aft anchor line, then run forward to cut the bow one, as well.
Faster!
The Wing Rider’s sword rose and fell twice. Slowly, ponderously, Black Moclips rose into the air, severed anchor ropes trailing from her decking, arrows and javelins thudding into the underside like hailstones. The raft with its furious, helpless Mwellrets fell away and disappeared into the darkness.
She closed down the parse tubes and eased off on drawing down ambient light for power. The ship was an old friend and responded well to her touch. But maneuvering her alone was rough and uncertain. Without help, Rue Meridian could not manage a ship of that size for very long. She would need help, as well, with the dozen Federation soldiers she had trapped in their sleeping quarters below. She recognized the situation readily enough and knew that before long Aden Kett and his men would find a way to escape.
She slowed the airship to a crawl and brought her about, pointing her inland toward Castledown. Somewhere ahead, the Ilse Witch was hunting Walker, Bek was running for his life, and whoever still lived of the company of the Jerle Shannara waited for a rescue.
A rescue that perhaps only she could manage.
She watched Hunter Predd approach, saw the questioning look in his dark eyes, and shook her head.
She wished she had a better answer to give him. She knew she had better find one soon.
TWENTY-FOUR
Quentin Leah was listening so intently that he started in surprise when Tamis touched his arm in warning. “He’s coming,” she whispered.
Consumed by the fact that Ard Patrinell’s mind was still alive inside, she was still calling the wronk he rather than it-as if the human part mattered more. The rest of it might be mechanical- armor, wires, and machine parts, cold and emotionless metal-but not its mind, trapped as it was, whole and intact, thinking Ard Patrinell thoughts, using Ard Patrinell skills, hunting them with a determination that was relentless and implacable.
Heeding her warning, Quentin listened for its coming. Try as he might, he still could not hear it.
In the twilight he glanced over at her. Her roundish, pixie face was sweaty and her short brown hair tangled with bits of debris. Her clothing was torn and bloody and as dirty as the rest of her. She had the look of a hunted thing, a creature run to earth by something as inescapable as the coming of night.
A mirror of himself, he allowed. He did not need to see what he looked like to know it was so. They were a matched set, fugitives from a fate that neither could escape, that both were forced to confront.
They had been running from it all day, running since the coming of dawn had persuaded them they must find a way to kill it. All through the forests surrounding Castledown’s ruins they had played cat and mouse with the inevitable, marking time as they searched for a way to put an end to the creature. It was a chase marked by fits and starts, by schemes and subterfuges, by equal parts skill and blind luck. The wronk was a terrifying adversary, made more dangerous by the fact that Ard Patrinell’s thinking guided it. Sometimes it would come after them in direct pursuit, a hunter using strength and stamina to run them down. Sometimes it would circle around to lie in wait, a predator set to pounce. Sometimes it would stop altogether and wait for them to pause in turn, to wonder if they had lost it entirely, and then it would approach from an unexpected direction, swift and sudden, trying to catch them off guard. Many times it almost had them, but they were saved in each instance by their combined experience and skill and by the kind of luck that defies explanation.