When they finally stopped, the storm having passed, they were soaked through and chilled to the bone. The temperature had dropped considerably, and the green of the forest had taken on a wintry cast. The skies were still clouded and dark, but beginning to clear where night had faded completely and the silvery dawn of the new day had become visible. The sun was still hidden behind the wall of the storm, but soon it would climb high enough in the sky to brighten the land.
Bek was taking deep, ragged breaths as he faced Truls. “We can’t keep up this pace. I can’t, anyway.”
“Going soft, boy?” The other’s laugh was a derisive bark. “Try carrying your sister and see how you do.”
“Do you think we’ve lost them?” he asked, having figured out by now why they had kept going.
“For the moment. But they’ll find the trail again soon enough.” The shape-shifter put Grianne down on a log, where she sat with limp disinterest, eyes unfocused, face slack. “We’ve bought ourselves a little time, at least.”
Bek stared at Grianne a moment, searching for some sign of recognition and not finding it. He felt the weight of her inability to function normally, to respond to anything, pressing down on him.
They could not afford to have her remain like this if they were to have any chance of escape.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Run and keep running.” Bek could feel Truls Rohk staring at him from out of the black oval of his cowl. “What would you have us do?”
Bek shook his head and said nothing. He felt disconnected from the world. He felt abandoned, an orphan left to fend for himself with no chance of being able to do so. With Walker gone and the company of the Jerle Shannara dead or scattered, there was no purpose to his life beyond trying to save his sister. If he let himself think about it, which he refused to do, he might come to the conclusion that he would never see home again.
“Time to go,” Truls Rohk said, rising.
Bek stood up, as well. “I’m ready,” he declared, feeling anything but.
The shape-shifter grunted noncommittally, lifted Grianne back into the cradle of his powerful arms, and set out anew.
They walked for the remainder of the day, traveling mostly over ground where it was wet enough that their tracks filled in and disappeared behind them and their scent quickly washed away. It was the hardest day Bek could remember having ever endured. They stopped only long enough to catch their breath, drink some water, and eat a little of what small supplies Truls carried. They did not slow their pace, which was brutal. But it was the circumstances of their flight that wore Bek down the most—the constant sense of being hunted, of fleeing with no particular destination in mind, of knowing that almost everything familiar and reassuring was gone. Bek got through on the strength of his memories of home and family and life before this voyage, memories of Quentin and his parents, of the world of the Highlands of Leah, of days so far away in space and time they seemed a dream.
By nightfall, they were no longer able to hear their pursuers.
The forest was hushed in the wake of the storm’s passing and the setting of the sun, and there was a renewed peace to the land. Bek and Truls sat in silence and ate their dinner of dried salt beef and stale bread and cheese. Grianne would eat nothing, though Bek tried repeatedly to make her do so. There was no help for it. If she did not choose to eat, he couldn’t force her. He did manage to make her swallow a little water, a reflex action on her part as much as a response to his efforts. He was worried that she would lose strength and die if she didn’t ingest something, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Let her alone” was the shape-shifter’s response when asked for his opinion. “She’ll eat when she’s ready to.”
Bek let the matter drop. He ate his food, staring off into the darkness, wrapped in his thoughts.