He could hear voices nearby, faint and indistinguishable. “How long have you been here?”
“Almost a week.”
He blinked in disbelief. “You can’t fly?”
“Can’t get off the ground at all.”
“So we’re trapped. How many of us are left?”
She shrugged. “A handful. Big Red, Black Beard, the Highlander, you, and me. Three of the crew. The two Wing Riders. Panax and an Elven Hunter. The Wing Riders found them yesterday, not too far from here, with a tribe of natives called Rindge. They’re camped at the top of the bluff.”
“Ahren?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nor the seer. Nor anyone else who went ashore. They’re all dead or lost.” She looked away. “The Wing Riders are still searching, but so are those airships with their rets and walking dead. It’s dangerous to fly anywhere in these mountains now. Not that we could, even if we wanted to.”
He looked at the airship, then back at her. “Where’s Grianne? Is she all right?”
The smile faded from Rue Meridian’s face. “Grianne? Oh, yes, your missing sister. She’s down below, in Big Red’s cabin, staring at nothing. She’s good at that.”
He held her gaze. “I know that—“
“You don’t know anything,” she interrupted, her voice oddly breezy. “Not one thing.” She pushed back loose strands of her long red hair, and he could see the dangerous look in her green eyes. “I never thought I would find myself in a position where I would have to keep that creature alive, let alone look after her. I would have put a knife to her throat and been done with it, but you were raving so loudly about keeping her safe that I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“I appreciate what you’ve done.”
Her lips tightened. “Just tell me you have a good reason for all this. Just tell me that.”
“I have a reason,” he said. “I don’t know yet how good it is.”
Bek told her everything then, all that had happened since he had left the Jerle Shannara weeks earlier and gone inland with Walker and the shore party. Some she already knew, because Quentin had told her. Some she had suspected. She had guessed at his imprisonment aboard Black Moclips and subsequent escape, but she had not realized the true reason for either. She was skeptical and angry with him, refusing at first to listen to his reasons for saving his sister, shouting at him that it didn’t matter, that saving her was wrong, that she was responsible for all the deaths suffered by the company, especially Hawk’s.
Rue told Bek her story then, relating the details of her imprisonment along with the other Rovers by the witch and her followers, and of her escape and battle aboard the Jerle Shannara, where Hawk had given his life to save hers. She told him of her struggle to regain control of the ship and the freeing of her brother. She told him of her search for Walker and the missing company, which led in turn to her regaining possession of Black Moclips and fleeing inland toward the safety of the mountains as the fleet of enemy airships pursued her. She told her story in straightforward fashion, making no effort to embellish her part in things, diminishing it, if anything.
He listened patiently, trying with small gestures to encourage and support, but she was having none of it. She hated Grianne to such an extent that she could find no forgiveness in her heart. That she had kept his sister alive at all spoke volumes about her affection for him. Losing Furl Hawken had been a terrible blow, and she held Grianne directly responsible. Rue Meridian refused to let Bek sit by passively, turning her anger and disappointment back on him, insisting that he respond to it. He did so as best he could, even though he was not comfortable doing so. So much had happened to both of them in such a short time that there was no coming to grips with all of it, no making sense of it in a way that would afford either of them any measure of peace. Both had suffered too many losses and were seeking comfort that required different responses from what each was willing to provide. Where the Ilse Witch was concerned, there could be no agreement.