It was only an illusion, she realized at once. It wasn’t the Morgawr at all. She had been tricked.
She turned around to find him standing right behind her.
Bek and Rue Meridian heard the explosion from several chambers away while still winding through the maze in a futile effort to catch up with Grianne. The sound was like nothing either of them had ever heard, a sort of metallic scream that set their teeth on edge. But Bek recognized the source instantly, Grianne had invoked the magic of the wishsong. He screamed her name, then charged ahead heedlessly, abandoning any effort at a silent approach, anxious now just to get to where things were happening before it was too late.
“Bek, stop!” Rue called after him in dismay.
Too late. Rounding the corner of a twisting passageway hemmed in by walls so tall they left only a sliver of blue sky visible overhead, they ran right into Cree Bega and his Mwellrets. Rushing from opposite directions into a tiny courtyard littered with debris and streaked with shadows, they skidded to a stop. It happened so quickly that the image was still registering in Bek’s mind as Rue whipped out both throwing knives and sent them whistling across the short space in a blur of bright metal. Two of the rets died on their feet as the rest charged.
They would have been finished then, if Bek, watching the massive bodies of the rets bear down on them, had not reacted instinctively to the threat. Calling up his own magic in a desperate response, he sent a wall of sound hurtling into his attackers. It caught up the rets as it had the creepers in the ruins of Castledown and sent them flying. Three got past, breaking in at the edges. Bek had only a moment to catch the glitter of their knife blades, and then they were on top of him.
Rue, swift, agile, and lethal, killed the first, ducking under his massive arms and burying her third throwing knife in his throat. She intercepted the second as well, but it bore her backwards, its momentum too great to slow. Bek saw her go down, then lost track as the final assailant crashed into him, knife slicing at his throat. He blocked the blow, screaming at the ret in defiance. His voice was threaded with the wishsong’s magic,—it exploded out of him in automatic response to his fear and anger and shredded the Mwellret’s head like metal shards. The ret was dead before he knew what had happened, and Bek was scrambling back to his feet.
“Rue!” he called out frantically.
“Not so loud. I can hear you.”
She hauled herself out from under the body of her assailant, but only with some difficulty. Blood covered her, a jagged tear down the front of her tunic and another down her left sleeve. Bek dropped to his knees next to her, shoving the dead Mwellret out of the way. He began searching through her clothing for the wounds, but she pushed him away.
“Leave me alone. I’ve broken my ribs again. It hurts just to breathe.” She swallowed against her pain. “Bring me my knives. Watch yourself. Some of them might still be alive.”
He pulled free the knife buried in the throat of the ret a few feet away, then crossed the courtyard to where the others lay in tangled heaps. The impact of striking the wall had smashed them so badly they were barely recognizable. He stared at them a moment, sickened by the fact that he was responsible for this, that he had killed them. He hadn’t seen so many dead men since the attack on the company of the Jerle Shannara in the ruins weeks earlier. He hesitated a moment too long, thinking about the deaths here and there, and was suddenly sick to his stomach. He went down on his knees and retched helplessly.
“Hurry up!” Rue called impatiently.
He retrieved the other two throwing knives, carried them back and gave them to her, and again reached to bind her wounds. “Leave that to me,” she said, holding him off.
“But you’re bleeding!” he insisted.
“The blood isn’t all mine. It’s mostly the ret’s.” Her eyes were bright with tears, but her gaze steady. “I can’t go any further hurting like this. You have to go on without me. Find your sister. She needs you more than I do.”