Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(23)
It made him feel cowardly to think this way, but he was beyond caring. He was sick at heart and filled with despair, and he wanted to put all this behind him and get back to his brother.
He was picking at the scant pieces of his meal when Tesla Dart gave out a fresh scream, leapt to her feet, and began jumping up and down. At first Redden thought she had been attacked, but then he realized she was holding Lada, who had reappeared out of the twilight.
Redden and Khyber climbed to their feet as the Ulk Bog charged over, Lada now riding on her shoulder. Tesla Dart was singing and chanting as if it were a day of celebration.
“I will go now!” she exclaimed. “I will do what you asked me! Lada comes back, so all is well. Your friends are not far. I will go to them and bring them here!”
Khyber Elessedil rose. “We can come with you.”
“No, no, you can’t! It isn’t safe. Night is too close. Too many hunters, all bigger and stronger than you. Dangerous to use magic, too. The Straken Lord senses this if you do. Better you stay. Wait here for me.”
Without waiting for a further response, she took off running into the darkness, Lada atop her shoulder, holding on with his claws to her leather vest, hunched down so close that they seemed a part of each other.
Redden and his companions stared after her until she was gone and all they could hear was the sound of her voice, singing in the darkness.
Tesla Dart did not return that night. When morning came, she was still missing. Khyber Elessedil stood looking off into the wilderness where the Ulk Bog girl had disappeared, waiting. Redden sat watching her, growing increasingly anxious. She had been up all night, staring into the darkness. Redden had seen her every time he had come awake, which was often. She was clearly trying to make up her mind about what to do, and he was afraid she was going to come up with the wrong answer. Not for her, necessarily, or maybe even those she sought to rescue. Just for him. But he knew he couldn’t interfere, even though the urge to do so was so strong he could barely contain himself. She was leader of this expedition, and she was experienced and capable in ways he was not. He would only cause trouble by trying to guide her actions.
So he kept silent and willed the time to pass and the answer to come.
When it did, it was a surprise.
“We’re not waiting any longer,” the Ard Rhys announced suddenly, wheeling back to where Redden sat with the Trolls. “We’re going back. If Oriantha and Crace Coram could be found, Pleysia would have found them. Or will, if she is still looking. I’ve used magic to search for signs of the Ulk Bog, but found nothing. Enough is enough. I won’t risk any more lives. We’re wasting our time sitting about. We need to find a way out of the Forbidding and back to the Four Lands.”
Everyone climbed hurriedly to their feet, gathered their gear, and in minutes were walking north again, retracing their footsteps. This day was a mirror image of all the others, the sky iron gray and hard, the air thick with dust and the smell of decay, the land empty and barren everywhere.
“If we find a way out, we will think about coming back to see if the others managed to survive,” Khyber said to the boy. “But we need better preparations and a stronger company to attempt it.”
Redden nodded in agreement. Going on was too dangerous. They had already lost half their number, and there was nothing to say they wouldn’t lose the other half before any of them got free of this place. Only five left, he thought in disbelief. All of the Druids save the Ard Rhys, all of the experts they had recruited to aid them, and most of the Trolls—dead or missing. All in less than four days’ time.
He felt a tightening in his chest just thinking of it.
Nothing could be worse than this.
The trek went on through the rest of the morning, and neither Pleysia nor Tesla Dart reappeared. They moved cautiously, but steadily, keeping a sharp eye out. Khyber used a small scrim of magic to sweep the land just ahead of them, searching out predators and hidden dangers. When she found them—less than half a dozen times altogether—she steered the company clear. When at one point they crossed paths unexpectedly with a huge four-legged beast that was armored and horned, she had them stand still and wait for it to pass. It did so without more than a disinterested glance, lumbering off into the distance.
When they stopped for a brief rest, Redden caught sight of a brilliant green flash that appeared suddenly and was gone again. It reappeared later, after they had set out again, and this time Khyber Elessedil saw it as well. It stood out in sharp relief against the gray of the landscape, and every time it appeared after that—which was often—it caught their attention. But they were never able to get too close, and it didn’t seem to have any particular source.
“What do you think it is?” Redden asked the Ard Rhys after they had seen it appear and disappear repeatedly.
But she only shook her head and kept walking.
Finally, they came to a stretch of heavy woods, the trees barren and skeletal, the grasses gray and dusty and dead. When they began to skirt the woods, the green flash reappeared and settled on a tree branch not fifty yards away, just inside the barren grove. Redden turned and walked toward it, hypnotized by its brightness and mystery, wanting to have a closer look. He heard the Ard Rhys tell him to come back, then heard her coming after him. But he kept going anyway, just wanting to see it a little more clearly, thinking it might be a sort of bird.
He was within twenty feet of his goal when the ground opened up and his feet yanked from under him as a heavy rope net closed about. He had just enough time to thrash in response and to witness the Ard Rhys releasing Druid magic in all directions before attackers bore her to the ground and thick, suffocating fumes filled his nostrils.