Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(33)

Then she looked down.

She was hanging over a line of jagged rocks forming part of the lip of a broad ravine. The ravine itself was little more than a black gash in the mix of rain and mist, and she couldn’t tell how deep it went. Huge trees ringed everything, some of them shredded of all foliage, all of them old and gnarled, their limbs twisted together in knots. The ravine zigzagged its way right through their center, in some places exposing huge roots that hung into the deep split like the arms of dead men in an open grave.

She looked away quickly. If her safety line had not caught in the trees, she would have fallen into the ravine.

And she would probably never have been found.

Her thick blond hair had come loose from its bandanna and was plastered against her face, obscuring her vision and causing her further discomfort. Using her free hand, she brushed it away, being careful to move slowly. She couldn’t tell how securely she was fastened to the trees, and she didn’t want to do anything that would cause her to shake loose. Bound up as she was by the safety line, she wouldn’t stand a chance of saving herself.

Peering upward for a long moments, she searched the grayness for some sign of the Walker Boh, but there was no hint of her. In a storm like this one, the airship had probably been blown away from where she had fallen overboard, and the Rovers had no idea how to get back to her. Especially not while the storm was still raging.

She was going to have to get out of this by herself.

The wind caught her in a sharp gust, and she found herself swinging in wide arcs over the chasm—out into the void and back over the rocks—a pendulum out of control. She gritted her teeth and tried to will herself to stop, to make her body be still.

Then the rope that suspended her gave way, and she dropped several feet before it caught again.

She closed her eyes against the wave of fear that coursed through her.

What can I do to save myself?

She looked down again, searching for something that might offer a way out of this. But there was nothing within reach she might grab on to and nowhere to attempt to swing herself and land safely.

Even if she managed somehow to free herself from the safety line.

Then she remembered her throwing knife. She had tucked it into her belt when the coin had broken and the throwing competition had ended. It should still be there.

She reached back, fumbling for the handle, grasping at hope.

But the knife was gone.

She felt all the air go out of her. No surprise, she told herself. She must have lost it in the fall. And she had no other blade. No other weapon at all.

She heard something beneath her, a kind of hissing sound. She glanced down and saw the lizard looking up. Or something like a lizard, only much more unpleasant. It was big, fully eight feet long. Its mouth opened as it lifted its head toward her, perhaps thinking she might fall into it like a piece of fruit. Except she didn’t think this creature ate fruit. Not with so many sharp teeth and such strong jaws for snapping bones and chewing flesh. No, this was a meat eater, and it was hoping to make a meal out of her.

Her eyes shifted.

A second lizard had appeared off to one side, even bigger than the first.

Mirai took a moment to catch her breath. She had imagined this expedition would be dangerous, and she had prepared herself for what she might encounter. But she had not prepared for this, and suddenly all she could think about was how foolish she had been to come. How foolish all of them had been. She should have refused to accompany Redden and Railing, and then perhaps they wouldn’t be here, either. Now all of them were caught up in a world of monsters and bleakness and rapidly vanishing possibilities.

Or that was how she saw it as she dangled helplessly over a chasm with a pair of hungry lizards waiting for her to drop.

But Mirai Leah was not the kind to give way to either despair or fear, so she gathered up the shreds of her courage and resolve and tried anew to find a way to save herself.

Then a shriek sounded off in the darkness to one side, piercing even the sounds of the wind and rain. The lizards turned at once, hesitated only a moment, then skittered off into the brush, leaving the clearing empty.

Mirai waited, searching the gloom. A stout figure wrapped in the black robes of the Druids stepped into view, moving toward her.

“Mirai?”

She exhaled sharply. “Seersha!”

“Are you all right?”

“As all right as I can be, trussed up like this. Can you help me?”

The Dwarf moved over to the edge of the chasm, glanced down, and stepped back again. “Close your eyes and keep them closed. Hold tight to yourself. Don’t move, no matter what you feel. Not until I tell you to. Ready?”

Mirai closed her eyes, hugged herself as best she could, and grunted affirmatively. Almost instantly she felt herself being lifted away, and then she was floating weightlessly. The wind and rain still buffeted her, but she was no longer swinging in midair. Mirai wanted desperately to see what was happening, but she had been told not to try and she wouldn’t have been told that if there wasn’t a good reason.

She felt herself moving, and then the rain-soaked earth was pressing up from beneath her, and she was lying on the ground.

Seersha was next to her at once, cutting away the remnants of the tangled safety line, tossing the pieces aside. “Must be a good story behind all this,” she said.

Mirai finally opened her eyes. “Not if you’re me.” She stretched her arms and legs as the rope fell away. “How did you find me?”