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. It happened so fast that it was over almost before
it had begun. It 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 me 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 back-
pack, 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 dme, ignoring the Creeper
376
The Talismans of Shannara
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
Paun 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 es-
cape. 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.
XXXII
Twilight shadows lengthened into night, and the sky over
Southwatch grew thick with clouds that screened away
the stars and moon and promised showers before dawn.
The day’s heat cooled, the dust and grime settling back to earth
in motes mat danced like fairies as the air lost some of its
thickness. Improbably, the barest trace of a breeze wafted
down out of the Runne. Silence fell across the land, as smooth
as satin and as fragile as glass. Mist clung to the earth in long
tendrils that snaked through gullies and across ridges and
turned the poisoned grasslands surrounding the Shadowen keep
into a vast white sea.
Foaming and swirling, the sea began to roil.