possibly weak as he stumbled back toward the wall, mustering
his strength to face the renewed rush. His plan was falling
apart. He had misjudged something. What was it?
He lifted his arm and sent the fire sweeping in all directions,
scattering it into his attackers in a desperate effort to keep
them at bay. But his strength was depleted now, expended in
his initial attack, siphoned away by Pestilence. The magic
barely slowed the Shadowen, who broke through its screen and
came on. War threw a jagged-edged mace at him, and he
watched it hurtle toward him, unable to act. At the last mo-
ment he summoned magic enough to deflect it, but still the
iron struck him a glancing blow, spinning him backward into
Paranor’s stone with such force that the breath was knocked
from him.
The blow saved his life.
As he clawed at the stone of Paranor’s wall to keep himself
from falling, he found the seam of the hidden door. For an in-
stant his head cleared, and he remembered that he had left
himself a way to escape if things went wrong. He had forgot-
ten it in the rage of battle, in the grip of the fever and delirium.
He still had a chance. The Four Horsemen were bearing down
on him, closing impossibly fast. The fingers of his hand raced
along the hidden door’s seam, numb and bloodied. If only he
had two hands, two arms! If only he was whole! The thought
was there and gone in an instant, the despair that summoned it
banished by his fury.
There was a shriek of metal and claws.
His fingers closed on the release.
The door swung inward, carrying him with it, a shapeless
bundle of robes. As it did, he threw back into the space it left
shards of fire as sharp as razors. He heard them tear into his
pursuers, thought that perhaps he heard the Shadowen scream
somewhere inside his mind.
Then he was in musty, cool darkness, the sound and fury
shut away with the closing of the door, the battle over.
156 The Talismans of Shannara
Cogline found him in the passageway beneath the castle’s
ramparts, curled in a ball, so exhausted he could not bring
himself to move. With considerable effort, the old man brought
Walker to his bed and laid him in it. He undressed him,
sponged him with cool, clean water, gave him medicines, and
wrapped him in blankets to sleep. He spoke words to Walker,
but Walker could not seem to decipher them. Walker replied,
but what he said was unclear. He knew that he was alive, that
he had survived to fight another day, and that was all that mat-
tered.
Shivering, aching, bone-weary from his struggle, he let him-
self be settled in and left in darkness to rest. He was conscious
of Rumor curling up beside him, keeping watch against what-
ever might threaten, ready to summon Cogline if need required
it. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat, thinking that
the sickness would pass, that he would be well again when he
woke. Determined that he would be.
His eyes closed, but as they did so his mind locked tightly
on a final, healing thought.
The battle had been lost this day. The Four Horsemen had
broken him again. But he had learned something from his
defeat—something that ultimately would prove their undoing.
He took a long slow breath and let it out again. Sleep swept
through his body in warm, relaxing waves.
The next time he faced the Shadowen, he promised himself
before drifting off, sheathing his oath in layers of iron resolve,
he would put an end to them.
XIV
While Walker Boh was fighting to break free of the
Four Horsemen at Paranor, Wren Elessedil was con-
vincing the Elven High Council to engage the Feder-
ation army marching north to destroy them, and Morgan Lean
was leading Damson and a small company of free-born to res-
cue Padishar Creel at Tyrsis, Par Ohmsford was tracking his
brother. Coll.
It was an arduous, painstaking effort. When Damson and he
had separated, he had begun his search immediately, aware that