Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(105)
Whatever he was up against, he assured himself, it wouldn’t be the equal of this blade and his skill at using it.
Even so, he remained uneasy. He still didn’t know what was out there, and he wasn’t used to that. As an assassin, he always made it a point to know his victims before he hunted them, to familiarize himself with their personal habits and to learn what to expect from them. None of that was possible here, and even the terrain in which he found himself was unfamiliar. Everything was working against him. He was seldom required to defend himself, but he thought it entirely probable that he would have to do so here.
Cymrian was crouched in the deep shadows of fog and trees when the mutants shouldered into view, big and menacing and dangerous beyond anything the Elven Hunter had ever encountered. He didn’t know what they were, but he knew at once he was no match for them in a straight-up fight. These were not creatures he could subdue or trick as he might other foes. They would have to be killed and killed quickly. His only hope was to isolate and eliminate them one by one.
He waited as they passed him, moving ahead into the trees, each separated from the others by perhaps ten or twelve feet as they hunted. They had his scent, but they didn’t yet know where he was; he could tell by the way they were hunting. When they were out of sight again, he left his hiding place and went after them. He followed at a safe distance, letting them stay well ahead. They were aggressive predators, but they did not have the look of forest creatures, and this was his country, not theirs.
When one of them fell slightly behind the others, he moved up on it swiftly. He had his short sword out, and he was on top of it before it knew he was there. With both hands locked around the handle, he swung the blade in a quick, hard arc. The creature’s head flew off and the rest of it collapsed in a heap. Cymrian was already moving, darting back into the gloom. But one of the others caught a glimpse of him and howled with rage.
The Elven Hunter fled, leaping and bounding through the scrub and deadwood, and still only barely managed to escape. His hunters were much quicker than they looked, and soon enough he could hear the sound of their ragged breathing. But he darted between the trunks of trees that were grown so close together that his much larger pursuers had to go around to get through. By then Cymrian was lost again in the concealment of the gloom.
He did not slow. The mutants were hunting him, and would track him until they caught him.
He angled away from where he had left Aphen and Arling, working his way through the trees while seeking a place to set an ambush. He had to find something quickly, because he suspected his hunters were much stronger and their endurance greater. He did not think for a moment that anything would turn them aside or draw their attention away from him. They would keep coming until he was dead.
He wondered about the origin of the things. He didn’t give a second thought to the possibility that they were creatures native to the region; the Elves would have encountered something this big and dangerous before now. Most likely they had come from the Federation warship, which suggested strongly they must have been brought along for the express purpose of hunting Aphen and Arling and had only focused on him when he attacked them. But who would want to do this? Who would be desperate enough to go to this much trouble to hunt down a pair of young women? Probably the same people who were behind the earlier attacks in Arborlon. Were they seeking to steal the blue Elfstones, or was there something more involved?
Without slowing, he vaulted into a tree whose branches were sufficiently low hanging that he could swing himself quickly into the cover of the foliage. He climbed from there—a rapid ascent that took him well into the forest canopy—and then he leapt to a second tree and from there to a third, their branches all closely linked. When he reached the third tree, he settled back to wait.
The mutants charged past moments later, still following his scent. But in their efforts to overtake him quickly, they were past his hiding place before they realized they had lost him. By then, he was back on the ground and coming on them from behind, a pair of long knives drawn. He heard them thrashing about just ahead, then suddenly they went silent.
Instantly he froze in place. There was no sound from ahead—or from any other direction.
They were waiting on him, he thought. They had realized what he was about and set an ambush. He hesitated, undecided. Going forward risked becoming trapped between them. Waiting risked losing any advantage he had gained.
He was still debating when he heard fresh sounds at his back—a slow creeping approach by someone coming up from behind.
No longer certain what was happening, he eased backward into the heavy brush, squirmed into a shallow depression amid the grasses, and settled down to wait.
Stoon was almost into the clearing before he sensed the other’s presence. It wasn’t smell or sound or movement that alerted him; it was instinct. He could feel the other—a kind of tingling of his nerve ends, warning him that someone was lying in wait. He stopped where he was and dropped into a crouch, making himself as small as he could manage and going completely still, wondering if it was too late, if he had been seen, if he was already a dead man. In this cat-and-mouse game, had he become the mouse?
But moments passed and nothing happened. So he began the process of discovering where his adversary was hiding. There was no question as to who it was. It was one of those his creatures were hunting—probably the women’s protector, the one with all the hunting and tracking skills, who was hiding just ahead of him. He tried to imagine what sort of cover the other would choose, how he would go about concealing himself, and what he was attempting to accomplish. He wondered, as well, where the remaining two mutants had gone. Surely they weren’t dead. If they were, he should turn around and get out of there as swiftly and silently as he could manage.