He had to admit he didn’t know. She was right, it didn’t make much sense. But neither did a lot of other things that had happened on this voyage, and he wasn’t about to discount the way his instincts kept tugging at him in warning. Something was bothering him. Maybe it was just his fear of ending up like Joad Rish and the others. Maybe it was his indelible memory of the carnage and screams and dying. It was all too fresh to allow him to think objectively yet.
“There’s no time to look for anyone else,” she insisted. “There may not be anyone out there to find!”
It was his greatest fear, of course. That there was no one else alive, that they were all that was left.
She was pressing her hands over his, cupping them. He lifted his chin from their cradle, but she would not release him. “Ahren,” she whispered. “Come with me. Please.”
She was afraid, too. He could feel it in her touch and hear it in her voice. She was no less vulnerable than he. She could see the future, and perhaps she had seen things that she shouldn’t, things that frightened her more than what was past. But she was going because she felt so strongly about Walker that she could not abandon him no matter what. He envied her such strength. It eclipsed his own and left him newly ashamed. She would go whether he went or not. And what would he do then? Go back to the bay, hide from the Mwellrets, and wait for the Jerle Shannara to return? Fly home again and live for the rest of his life with what he had done?
He might as well be dead if he did that.
“All right,” he said quietly, taking her hands in his, holding them like tiny birds. He bent to her reassuringly, his voice steady. “We’ll give it a try.”
NINE
Quentin Leah crouched in the shadowed concealment of a partially collapsed building just below the maze into which the Mwellrets had ventured all too boldly a little earlier and from which they were now fleeing in a somewhat less orderly fashion. Panax and Tamis flanked him, motionless as they peered out through cracks in the walls. The Elven Hunters Kian and Wye knelt a little to the side. The Mwellrets raced past them unheeding and uncaring. Quick glances were cast over their shoulders, to see what might be following, and nowhere else. Some of the rets were bloodied, their cloaks torn and stained, their movements halting and ragged. They had not had a good time of it back there, certainly no better than Quentin and his companions, and they were anxious to be well away.
“How many do you count?” Tamis whispered to him.
He shook his head. “Maybe fifteen.”
“That means five or six didn’t make it out.” She said it matter-of-factly, eyes straight ahead, watching the Mwellrets slide through the ruins. “It doesn’t look like they managed to catch up to the seer.”
Unless she was dead, of course. Quentin kept that thought to himself. Tamis wasn’t saying anything about Bek, but that may have been because she still wasn’t sure which way he had gone. She’d picked up Ryer Ord Star’s trail easily enough, even with the herd of Mwellrets tromping all over everything, but there had been no sign of his cousin. Quentin felt frustrated and increasingly desperate. Time was getting away from them, and they weren’t making any progress. He’d had reasonable hopes that they would encounter Bek or Ryer Ord Star by following the rets. Now it looked as if they wouldn’t be encountering anyone.
The last of the Mwellrets trailed past, hurrying away through the bright midday light, disappearing back the way they had come. Tamis didn’t move, so neither did Quentin or the others. They stayed where they were, frozen in place, watching and listening. After what seemed a very long time, Tamis turned to face them, her small, blocky form squared away and her gray eyes calm.
“I’m going to slip out for a quick look, try to find out what’s happened. Wait here for me.”
She was starting away when Quentin said, “I’m coming with you.”