The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (126 page)

Crispin guided Amberle from the walk and placed her against the tower entry. When Wil had scrambled up beside them, the Elf reached into a wooden box built against the tower wall and withdrew a pair of heavy mallets. He handed one to the Valeman and pointed out toward the bridge. His voice was muffled by the wind’s shriek.

“There are six pins that hold the supports of the catwalk—three on each side! Knock out those pins and the walk will collapse! It was constructed that way to prevent pursuit by enemies in case the fortress was ever overrun. Take the three on the right!”

Wil hastened onto the platform. Three horizontally fixed pins driven through eyelets secured the struts on each side of the catwalk to the platform on which he stood. Taking the mallet firmly in hand, he began to hammer at the first. Rust and dirt had congealed about it, and it moved very slowly from its seating. When at last it came free, it tumbled soundlessly into the gorge. He went quickly to the next, the wind deafening him to the sound of the blows he struck, the cold numbing his unprotected hands. The second pin edged clear of its seating and fell.

Something heavy shook the bridge. Wil and Crispin looked up together, mallets poised. In the deep shadows at the far end of the walk, something moved.

“Hurry!” the Elf Captain called.

Wil hammered frantically at the final pin, raining blows on its rounded head, desperately trying to knock it free. It was rusted in place. He struck it with both hands, and at last it inched a fraction of the way out.

On the bridge, just beyond the band of moonlight, a shadow darker than the night about it edged into view. Crispin came to his feet with a bound. Two of the pins on his side were free, the third driven halfway through.

But time had run out. The Reaper appeared, stepping forward into the light—huge, cloaked, faceless. Crispin brought up the ash bow and sent his arrows winging at the thing so quickly that Wil could barely follow the archer’s movements. All were brushed aside effortlessly. Wil felt his stomach tighten. Desperately he hammered at the pin before him, sending it several inches further through the eyelet. But there it froze.

Then abruptly he remembered the Elfstones. The Elfstones! He must use them now! Determination surged through him. He bounded up, reached into his tunic and pulled free the leather pouch that held them. In seconds, he held the Stones in his hand, gripped so tightly that they cut him. The Reaper was moving toward them, still crouched low upon the catwalk,
huge and shadowy. It was not twenty feet away. The Valeman brought up the fist that held the Stones and, with every bit of willpower he could muster, he called up the fire that would destroy this monster.

The Elfstones flared sharply, the blue fire spreading. But then something seemed to lock within Wil. In the next instant the power died.

Terror gripped the Valeman. Desperately, he tried again. Nothing happened. Amberle rushed to his side, calling frantically to him—but her words were lost in the shriek of the wind. Wil staggered back, stunned. He had failed! The power of the Elfstones was no longer his to command!

An instant later, Crispin was on the bridge. He never hesitated. Dropping the bow, he drew his sword and started toward the Demon. The creature seemed to hesitate slightly. It had not expected a direct confrontation. Wind buffeted the catwalk, causing metal supports to creak in protest as the structure swayed unsteadily.

“The pins!” Crispin called back sharply.

In a daze, Wil thrust the Elfstones back into his tunic, retrieved his mallet, and resumed striking futilely at the frozen pin. Still it would not move. From the shadows behind him, Amberle darted forward. Picking up the mallet that Crispin had discarded, she began to hammer wildly at the other pin.

On the catwalk, Crispin closed with the Reaper. Feinting and lunging, the Captain of the Home Guard sought to catch the Demon off balance, hoping that it might slip and tumble from the walk. But the Reaper stayed low upon the slender bridge, warding off the Elf’s thrusts with one massive arm, waiting patiently for its chance. Crispin was a skilled swordsman, yet he could not penetrate the creature’s defenses. The Reaper edged forward, and the Elf was forced to give ground.

Rage and frustration swept through Wil Ohmsford. Gripping his mallet in both hands, he pounded the rusted pin with every ounce of strength left in him, and at last the pin flew from its seating into the chasm. But as it did, the bridge buckled slightly and Crispin was thrown off balance. As he stumbled back, the Reaper lunged. Claws fastened about the Elf’s tunic. As Wil and Amberle watched in horror, the Reaper lifted Crispin clear of the catwalk. The Elf Captain’s sword flashed downward toward the Demon’s throat, the blade splintering as it struck. The Reaper shrugged off the blow as if it were nothing. Holding Crispin above its shrouded head, it threw the Elf from the catwalk into the void beyond. Crispin fell soundlessly and was gone.

Again, the Reaper started forward.

Then a sudden burst of wind caught the already weakened catwalk with a powerful thrust that snapped the final pin in its seating. Separating from the platform, the narrow span fell away from the cliff face, carrying with it
the clinging form of the Reaper. Slowly it dropped, falling with a groan of iron toward the far cliff, metal snapping, breaking, twisting. It swung through the narrow band of moonlight back into the shadows, crashing against the mountainside. Yet it did not break free entirely, but continued to hang from its ruined supports, swinging precariously with the motion of the wind. In the darkness of the cliffs, it was barely visible. The Reaper was nowhere to be seen.

Amberle’s voice rose above the pitch of the wind, a thin frightened wail, calling to Wil. Wind howled past the Valeman in frenzied bursts, chilling him to the bone, filling his ears with its whine. He could not understand what the girl was saying. He did not care. His fist still clutched his mallet uselessly. His mind whirled. Crispin and the Elven Hunters were gone. The power of the Elfstones was lost. Amberle and he were alone.

She was crying into his shoulder, pleading with him to come away. He turned to her now and pulled her close against him. For an instant he seemed to hear Allanon’s voice telling him that it was he most of all whom the Druid would depend upon. He stood at the edge of the chasm a moment Longer, holding the Elven girl, staring helplessly into the blackness below. Then he turned away. With Amberle clutched tightly against him, he disappeared into the shelter of the tower.

I
t took them the remainder of the night to find their way out again. With only the single torch that Crispin had left fastened in an iron wall bracket at the tower entry to guide them, they followed a seemingly endless succession of passages and stairways that wound steadily downward through the mountain’s rock. Completely exhausted by the ordeal of the past few days, they stumbled mindlessly along the corridors of the ancient keep, eyes fixed on the blackness ahead, hands clasped. They did not speak; they had nothing to say. The shock of all that had happened had left them numb with fright. They wanted only one thing now—to escape this mountain.

Their sense of time slipped quickly away from them until it no longer had meaning. It might have been minutes or hours or even days that they had been shut within the rock; they no longer knew. They had no idea where the passageways were taking them. They were trusting blindly to luck and to instinct, following the tunnels and corridors with a desperate, unvoiced insistence that somehow they would eventually break free. Muscles ached and cramped, and their vision blurred with fatigue. The single torch they carried burned down until it was little more than a stump. Still the passageway burrowed on.

But at last it ended. A massive iron door sealed with double locks and a crossbar stood before them. Wil was reaching for the locks when Amberle seized his arm, her voice weary and strained.

“Wil, what if there are Demons waiting for us out there as well? What if the Reaper wasn’t alone?”

The Valeman stared at her wordlessly. He hadn’t considered that possibility until now. He hadn’t allowed himself to consider it. He thought back to all that had befallen them since Drey Wood. Always, the Demons seemed to find them. There was a sense of inevitability about it. Even if the Reaper were finally gone, there were other Demons. And the spy at Arborlon had heard everything.

“Wil?” Amberle’s face was anxious as she waited for him to respond.

He made his decision. “We have to chance it. There is nowhere else for us to go.”

Gently he removed her hand from his arm and positioned her behind him. Then cautiously he released the locks, lifted clear the crossbar and swung open the door. Hazy daylight slipped through the opening. Beyond, the murky waters of the Mermidon lapped softly at the walls of a deep
grotto that housed the hidden docks of the Elves. Nothing moved. Valeman and Elf girl exchanged quick glances. Wordlessly, Wil dropped the torch to the tunnel floor where it died.

The docks and boats moored to them were rotted and useless. Valeman and Elf girl made their way along a narrow ledge within the grotto until they had emerged onto the forested riverbank that lay at the base of the Pykon. There was no one there. They were alone.

Dawn was just breaking, a chill, frosted morning half-light that had crystallized the dew of nightfall on the trees and brush and left the land white with a covering of false snow. They stared at it wonderingly, seeing their own breath cloud the air before their faces, feeling the chill seep into their damp bodies beneath the covering of their clothes. The river churned noisily between the mountain peaks, flowing eastward through the forest-land, its broad surface shrouded in a heavy blanket of fog. The Pykon rose into this fog, massive, dark spires that shadowed the land.

Wil glanced about uncertainly. Within the darkness of the cave, the boats of the Elves lay in ruins. There was nothing here that could help them. Then he caught sight of a small skiff pulled up on the riverbank and partially concealed within the brush just a dozen yards away. Taking hold of Amberle’s hand, he led the way along the heavily overgrown bank until they had reached the skiff. It was a fishing boat in good condition, secured by lines, obviously left by someone who from time to time must have enjoyed the fishing close to the deep grotto waters. The Valeman released the lines, placed Amberle within the skiff, and pushed off into the river. Their need for the boat was much greater than that of the absent fisherman.

They drifted eastward with the river’s flow as dawn lengthened into morning and the day began to warm. Wrapping herself in her cloak, Amberle was asleep almost at once. Wil would have slept as well had sleep been possible. But sleep would not come to him, his weariness so great that it actually inhibited sleep. His mind filled with thoughts of what had befallen them. Fitting a small oar that lay within the skiff into a stem oarlock, he propped himself at the rear of the little boat and guided it along the river’s channel, watching numbly as the sun rose from behind the mountains and the haze of early morning burned away. Bit by bit, the frost melted away in the forest about him. The peaks of the Pykon disappeared as the river carried them on, and the damp green of the forestland rose up in their stead. The sky was free once more from rain clouds and darkness, turned a brilliant blue and laced with thin white streamers that floated lazily through the morning sunshine.

Toward noon, the Mermidon began to swing back on itself, curving slowly south until at last it swung westward toward the dark line of the Rock Spur. The day had warmed, and the dampness and chill of dawn had
seeped from their bodies and clothing. Across the span of the Mermidon flew birds in brilliant bursts of sound and color. The smell of wildflowers filled the air.

Amberle stretched and came awake, her sleepy eyes settling quickly on the Valeman.

“Have you slept?” she asked drowsily.

He shook his head. “I couldn’t.”

She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Then sleep now. I will steer the boat while you do. You have to get some rest.”

“No, it’s okay. I am not tired.”

“Wil, you are exhausted,” There was concern in her voice. “You have to sleep.”

He stared at her wordlessly for a moment, his eyes haunted.

“Do you know what happened to me back there?” he asked finally.

She shook her head slowly. “No. And I don’t think you do, either.”

“I know, all right. I know exactly what happened. I tried to use the Elfstones and could not. I no longer command their power. I have lost it.”

“You don’t know that. You had trouble with the Stones before when you tried to use them in the Tirfing. Perhaps this time you tried too hard. Perhaps you did not give yourself enough of a chance.”

“I gave myself every chance,” he declared softly. “I used everything I had within me to call up the power of the Elfstones. But nothing happened. Nothing. Allanon told me this might happen. It is because of my Elf blood mixing with my human blood. Only the Elf blood commands the Stones, and mine is thin indeed, it seems. There is a block within me, Amberle. I overcame it once, but I can no longer do so.”