“Going soft, boy?” The other’s laugh was a derisive bark. “Try carrying your sister and see how you do.”
“Do you think we’ve lost them?” he asked, having figured out by now why they had kept going.
“For the moment. But they’ll find the trail again soon enough.” The shape-shifter put Grianne down on a log, where she sat with limp disinterest, eyes unfocused, face slack. “We’ve bought ourselves a little time, at least.”
Bek stared at Grianne a moment, searching for some sign of recognition and not finding it. He felt the weight of her inability to function normally, to respond to anything, pressing down on him. They could not afford to have her remain like this if they were to have any chance of escape.
“What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Run and keep running.” Bek could feel Truls Rohk staring at him from out of the black oval of his cowl. “What would you have us do?”
Bek shook his head and said nothing. He felt disconnected from the world. He felt abandoned, an orphan left to fend for himself with no chance of being able to do so. With Walker gone and the company of the Jerle Shannara dead or scattered, there was no purpose to his life beyond trying to save his sister. If he let himself think about it, which he refused to do, he might come to the conclusion that he would never see home again.
“Time to go,” Truls Rohk said, rising.
Bek stood up, as well. “I’m ready,” he declared, feeling anything but.
The shape-shifter grunted noncommittally, lifted Grianne back into the cradle of his powerful arms, and set out anew.
They walked for the remainder of the day, traveling mostly over ground where it was wet enough that their tracks filled in and disappeared behind them and their scent quickly washed away. It was the hardest day Bek could remember having ever endured. They stopped only long enough to catch their breath, drink some water, and eat a little of what small supplies Truls carried. They did not slow their pace, which was brutal. But it was the circumstances of their flight that wore Bek down the most—the constant sense of being hunted, of fleeing with no particular destination in mind, of knowing that almost everything familiar and reassuring was gone. Bek got through on the strength of his memories of home and family and life before this voyage, memories of Quentin and his parents, of the world of the Highlands of Leah, of days so far away in space and time they seemed a dream.
By nightfall, they were no longer able to hear their pursuers. The forest was hushed in the wake of the storm’s passing and the setting of the sun, and there was a renewed peace to the land. Bek and Truls sat in silence and ate their dinner of dried salt beef and stale bread and cheese. Grianne would eat nothing, though Bek tried repeatedly to make her do so. There was no help for it. If she did not choose to eat, he couldn’t force her. He did manage to make her swallow a little water, a reflex action on her part as much as a response to his efforts. He was worried that she would lose strength and die if she didn’t ingest something, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Let her alone” was the shape-shifter’s response when asked for his opinion. “She’ll eat when she’s ready to.”
Bek let the matter drop. He ate his food, staring off into the darkness, wrapped in his thoughts.
When they were finished, the shape-shifter rose and stretched. “Tuck your sister in for the night and go to sleep. I’ll backtrack a bit and see if the rets and their dogs are any closer.” He paused. “I mean what I say, boy. Go to sleep. Forget about keeping watch or thinking about your sister or any of that. You need to rest if you want to keep up with me.”
“I can keep up,” Bek snapped.
Truls Rohk laughed softly and disappeared into the trees. He melted away so quickly that he might have been a ghost. Bek stared after him for a moment, still angry, then moved over to his sister. He stared into her cold, pale face—the face of the Ilse Witch. She looked so young, her features radiating a child’s innocence. She gave no hint of the monster she concealed beneath.
A sense of hopelessness stole over him. He felt such despair at the thought of what she had done with her life, of the terrible acts she had committed, of the lives she had ruined. She had known what she was doing, however misguided in her understanding of matters. She had embraced her behavior and found a way to justify it. To expect her to shed her past as a snake would its skin seemed ludicrous. Truls was probably right. She would never be the child she had been. She would never even come back to being human.
Impulsively, he touched her cheek, letting his fingers stray down the smooth skin. He couldn’t even remember her as a child. His image of her was formed solely from his imagination. She remembered him, but his own memory was built on a foundation of wishful thinking and imperfect hope. She looked enough like he did that no small part of his image of her was based on his image of himself. It was a flawed concoction. Thinking of her as he thought of himself was fool’s play.
He reached out and gently drew her against him. She came compliantly, limply, letting him hold her. He imagined what she must feel, trapped inside her mind, unable to break free. Or did she feel anything? Was she conscious at all of what was happening? He pressed his cheek against hers, feeling the warmth of her, sharing in it. He couldn’t understand why she invoked such strong feelings in him. He barely knew her. She was a stranger and, until lately, an enemy. Yet what he felt was real and true, and he was compelled to acknowledge it. He would not abandon her, not even if it cost him his own life. He could not. He knew that as surely as he knew that nothing about his life would ever be the same again.
Some part of his sense of responsibility for her, he admitted, was the result of his need to feel useful. His life was spinning out of control. With her, if with no one else, himself included, he was in a position of power. He was her caretaker and protector. She had enemies all about. She was more alone than he was. Accepting responsibility for her gave him a focus that would otherwise be reduced to little more than self-preservation.
He laid her down on a dry patch of ground beneath the sheltering canopy of a tree that the rains hadn’t penetrated, and covered her carefully with her cloak. He stared down at her for a long time, at the clear features and closed eyes, at the pulse in her throat, at her chest rising and falling with each breath. His sister.
Then he stood and stared out into the darkness, tired but not sleepy, his mind working through the morass of his troubles, trying to decide what he might do to help himself and Grianne. Surely Truls would do what he could, but Bek knew it was a mistake to rely too heavily on his enigmatic protector. He had done that before, and it hadn’t been enough to keep him safe. In the end, as the shape-shifters in the mountains had warned him he must, he had relied on himself. He had waited for Grianne, confronted her, and changed the course of both their lives.
What he could not tell as yet was whether or not the change had been for the better. He supposed it had. At least Grianne was no longer the Ilse Witch, his enemy and antagonist. At least they were together and clear of the ruins and Black Moclips and the Mwellrets. At least they were free.
He sat down, closed his eyes to rest them, and in moments was asleep. His sleep was deep and untroubled, made smooth by his exhaustion and his willingness to let go of his waking life for just a little while. In the cool, silent blanket of the dark, he was able to make himself believe that he was safe.
He did not know how long he slept before he woke again, but he was certain of the cause of his waking. It was a voice summoning him from his dreams.
–Bek–
The voice was clear and certain, reaching out to him. His eyes opened.
–Bek–