Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(21)

That changed when, several hours into their march, he brought them to a hurried halt and ordered them all to crouch down and remain perfectly still. Redden peered out from the cover of the broken rise behind which they all hid and watched a swarm of creatures with cat faces and sleek, supple bodies lope across the plains west, dozens moving together in an undulating mass. Separately, they seemed small and vulnerable. But as a pack they had a dangerous look to them.

When the boy asked Tesla Dart afterward what they were, he smiled his toothy smile and said, “Furies.”

They spied many other creatures after that: ogres, Goblins, Wights, Harpies, and things that Redden had never even heard mentioned before. Everything seemed to be hunting, and none of them seemed too particular about what they found. Some scoured the land alone and some did so in packs. Now and then, the company came upon hunters absorbed in eating prey they had caught. Twice, they watched killings take place. Much of their traveling time was spent hiding in plain sight, crouching down and not moving until the danger was past. All of it was vaguely surreal, backdropped by a setting in which everything already seemed half dead and flattened by a sky that was hazy and dark and pressed down upon the earth like an anvil. The stench of death was everywhere, animal and vegetable alike—the world a giant cairn in which everything born into it was already on its way to dying.

As he walked through this grim wilderness, Redden found himself repeating the same words over and over.

I just want to get out of here. I just want to go home.

“They are called the Jarka Ruus, but the meaning for them is not the same as it is for us,” Khyber offered at one point while they were walking together. Tesla Dart had scurried on ahead and was out of hearing. “Jarka Ruus for them means ‘the free peoples.’ For us, as recorded in the Druid Histories, it means ‘the banished peoples.’ They have never accepted that they are anything but creatures tragically wronged by us, put here in this prison of magic for no reason other than being different. Grianne told me of this when she returned. She said no one would ever be able to persuade them otherwise.”

“How did she manage to survive this place?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “She wouldn’t talk of it.”

“I wouldn’t, either, I guess.”

“She was aided by Weka Dart after she was taken prisoner by the Straken Lord. He helped her get free and find a way back to where she had come into the Forbidding. He probably saved her life by doing so. I seem to remember that he wanted her to do something for him in return, but I don’t know what it was. In the end, she left him behind and returned with your grandfather, then took Paranor back from Shadea a’Ru and the rebel Druids who had aided her in seizing control.”

“And then she disappeared,” he finished.

“She entrusted the Druid order to me and those who had survived the war with me. She abdicated her position as Ard Rhys and went away with Penderrin, and no one ever saw her again.” Khyber Elessedil glanced over. “Did your grandfather ever tell you what became of her?”

Redden shook his head. “Only that she went somewhere far away to live out the rest of her life. Too many still saw her as the Ilse Witch, and she could never escape what that meant. She’d had enough of Druids—and magic, as well. She didn’t want to be part of that anymore. My father told me this when I was little. Railing and I. But he never said anything about where she had gone or what she had done afterward.”

He paused. “I remember asking my grandmother once. I always thought she knew something that she didn’t want to talk about. But I asked her anyway. I was young, persistent, and didn’t know anything about boundaries when it came to asking personal questions. I pushed her for an answer. She broke down in tears and wouldn’t talk to me afterward for almost two weeks.” He smiled sadly. “I never asked about it again.”

“It was a long time ago,” the Ard Rhys said. “A lifetime ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Redden nodded. “I still think about it. I still wonder where she went. I wonder if she was happy then.”

“She was solitary and aloof when she was alive, always conscious of how she was seen by others. I don’t know that she was ever happy.”

She moved away from him, leaving him with his thoughts.

Midday passed; the air thickened and the heat grew intense. Water was running dangerously low, and food was being rationed. They had never had much of either to begin with, carrying only enough for personal use when they’d passed through the waterfall. Soon, they would have to begin foraging. Tesla Dart seemed uninterested in the problem, leaving them to their midday meal as he danced off into the distance, looking this way and that, always active and eager, always moving. Redden watched him in fascination. How could anyone have so much energy?

When they set out again after eating, the Ulk Bog beckoned for Redden to walk ahead with him, making a series of quick, demanding gestures that the boy felt compelled to obey. Reluctantly, he moved up to where the other was waiting.

“You are family to the Ard Rhys, Grianne?” Tesla Dart asked as they walked together.

“She was my great-grandfather’s sister. But I never knew her.”

“She died?”

He hesitated. “She went away before I was born. I guess she must have died.”

The sharp eyes watched him. “She is friends with my uncle, Weka Dart. He helps her.”