Somewhere close, out in the darkness, a night bird cried shrilly as it flew in search of prey or a mate. Bek looked up, studied the shadows again, and then lit the fire. Once the wood was burning, he walked to the edge of the clearing and bent down to gather more.
When he straightened up again, he found himself facetoface with a blackcloaked stranger. The stranger was no more than two feet away, right on top of him really, and Bek hadn’t heard his approach at all. The boy froze, arms wrapped about the load of deadwood, his heart in his throat. All sorts of messages screamed at him from his brain, but he couldn’t make himself respond to any of them.
“Bek Rowe?” the stranger asked softly.
Bek nodded. The stranger’s cowl concealed his face, but his deep, rough voice was somehow reassuring. Bek’s panic lessened just a hair.
Something about the unexpected encounter caught Quentin Leah’s notice. He walked out of the firelight and peered into the darkness where Bek and the stranger stood facing each other. “Bek? Are you all right?” He came closer. “Who’s there?”
“Quentin Leah?” the stranger asked him.
The Highlander continued to advance, but his hand had dropped to the long knife at his waist. “Who are you?”
The stranger let the Highlander come up beside Bek. “I’m called Walker,” he answered. “Do you know of me?”
“The Druid?” Quentin’s hand was still on the handle of his long knife.
“The same.” His bearded face came into the light as he pulled back the cowl of his cloak. “I’ve come to ask a favor of you.”
“A favor?” Quentin sounded openly skeptical, and frown lines creased his brow. “From us?”
“Well, from you in particular, but since Bek is here, as well, I’ll ask it of you both.” He glanced past them to the fire. “Can we sit while we talk? Do you have something to eat? I’ve come a long way today.”
As if arrived at a truce, they left the darkness and moved into the light, taking seats on the ground around the fire. Bek studied the Druid carefully, trying to take his measure. Physically, he was forbidding—tall and darkfeatured, with long black hair and beard, and a narrow, angular face that was seamed by sun and weather. He looked neither young nor old, but somewhere in between. His right arm was missing from just above the elbow, leaving only a stump within a pinnedup tunic sleeve. Even so, he radiated power and selfassurance, and his strange eyes registered an unmistakable warning to stand clear. Although he said he had come to find them, he did not seem particularly interested now that he had. His gaze was directed toward the darkness beyond the fire, as if he was watching for something.
But it was his history that intrigued Bek more than his appearance, and the boy found himself digging through his memory for bits and pieces of what he knew. The Druid lived in the Keep at ancient Paranor with the ghosts of his ancestors and companions dead and gone. He was rumored to be Allanon’s successor and direct descendant. It was said he had been alive in the time of Quentin’s greatgreatgrandfather, Morgan Leah, and the most famous of all the Elf Queens, Wren Elessedil, and that he had fought with them in the war against the Shadowen. If that was true, then the Druid was more than 130 years old. No one else from that time was still alive, and it seemed strange and vaguely chilling that the Druid should have survived what no ordinary man could.
Bek knew a lot about the Druids. He had made it his business to know about them because of their longstanding connection to the Leah family. There had been a Leah involved in almost every great Druid undertaking since the time of the Warlock Lord. Most people were frightened of the Druids and their legacy of magic, but the Highlanders had always been their advocates. Without the Druids, they believed, the people of the Four Lands would be living much different lives at a cost they would not have cared to pay.