Still, it was not much.
They had hiked for perhaps an hour when the Rindge rearguard appeared on the run. Their gestures were unmistakable. The Mwellrets and tracking beasts were catching up to them.
At the same moment, Panax and Obat appeared from the other direction. The Dwarf was excited as he hurried to reach Kian and the Highlander.
“I think we’ve found something that will help,” he said, eyes bright and eager as they shifted from one face to the other. He rubbed vigorously at his thick beard. “The pass divides up ahead. One fork leads to a thousand-foot drop—no way around it. The other leads to a narrow ledge with room for maybe two people to pass, but no more. This second trail winds around the mountain, then further up through a high pass that crosses to the other side. Here’s what’s important. You can get above the second trail by climbing up the mountainside further on and doubling back. There’s a spot, perfect for what we need, to trigger an avalanche that will sweep away the pass and anything on it. If we can get the Rindge through before they’re caught by the rets, we might be able to start a rockslide that will knock those rets and their beasts right off the trail—or at least trap them on the other side of where we are.”
“How far ahead is this place?” Kian asked at once.
“An hour, maybe two.”
The Elven Hunter shook his head. “We don’t have that kind of time.”
“We do if I stay behind,” Quentin said at once.
He spoke before he could think better of it. It was a rash and dangerous offer, but he knew even without thinking it through that it was right.
They stared at him. “Highlander, what are you saying?” Panax asked angrily. “You can’t—”
“Panax, listen to me. Let’s be honest about this. It’s the magic that’s attracting them. No, don’t say it, don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about—we both know it’s true. We all know it. They want the magic, just like Antrax and its creepers did. If I stay back, I can draw them off long enough for you to get past the place on the mountain where you want to start the slide. It will buy you the time you need.”
“It will get you killed, too!” the other snapped.
Quentin smiled. Now that there were so many of the tracking beasts, he had virtually no chance of withstanding a sustained assault. If he couldn’t outrun them—and he knew he couldn’t—they would be all over him, sword or no. He was proposing to give up his life for theirs, a bargain that didn’t bear thinking on too closely if he was to keep it.
“I’ll stay with you,” Kian offered, not bothering to question the Highlander’s logic, knowing better than to try.
“No, Kian. One of us is enough. Besides, I can do this better alone. I can move more quickly if I’m by myself. You and Panax get the Rindge through. That’s more important. I’ll catch up.”
“You won’t live that long,” Panax said with barely contained fury. “This is senseless!”
Quentin laughed. “You should see your face, Panax! Go on, now. Get them moving. The faster you do, the less time I’ll need to spend back here.”
Kian turned away, dark features set. “Come on, Dwarf,” he said, pulling at Panax’s sleeve.
Panax allowed himself to be drawn away, but he kept looking back at Quentin. “You don’t have to do this,” he called back. “Come with us. We can manage.”
“Watch for me,” Quentin called after him.
Then the Rindge were moving ahead again, angling through the trees and up the trail. They wound through boulders and around a bend, and in minutes they were out of sight.
Everything went still. The Highlander stood alone in the center of the empty trail and waited until he could no longer hear them. Then he started back down the way he had come.
It didn’t take Quentin very long to find what he was looking for. He remembered the defile from earlier, a narrow split through a massive chunk of rock that wound upward at a sharp incline and barely allowed passage for one. Quentin knew that if he tried to make a stand in the open, the tracking beasts would overwhelm him in seconds. But if he blocked their way through the split, they could come at him only one at a time. Sooner or later, they would succeed in breaking through by sheer weight of numbers or they would find another way around. But he didn’t need to hold them indefinitely; he only needed to buy his companions a little extra time.
The split in the boulder ran for perhaps twenty-five feet, and there was a widening about halfway through. He chose this point to make his first stand. When he was forced to give way there, he could fall back to the upper opening and try again.
He glanced over his shoulder. Further back, another two or three hundred yards, was a deep cluster of boulders where he had stashed his bow and arrows. He would make his last stand there.
“Wish you could see this, Bek,” he said aloud. “It should be interesting.”
The minutes slipped away, but before too many had passed, he heard the approach of the tracking beasts. They did nothing to hide their coming, made no pretense of concealing their intent. Sharp snarls and grunts punctuated the sound of their heavy breathing, and their raw animal smell drifted on the wind. Further away, but coming closer, were the Mwellrets.
Quentin unsheathed the Sword of Leah and braced himself.
When the first of the beasts thrust its blunt head around the nearest bend in the split and saw him, it attacked without hesitating. Quentin crouched low and caught it midspring on the tip of his weapon, spitting it through its chest and pinning it to the earth where it thrashed and screamed and finally died as the magic ripped through it. A second and third appeared almost immediately, fighting to get past each other. He jabbed at their faces and eyes as they jammed themselves up in the narrow opening, and forced them to back away. From behind them, he heard the shouts of the rets and the snarls of other tracking beasts as they tried in vain to break through.
He fought in the defile for as long as he could, killing two of the creatures and wounding another before he made his retreat. He might have stayed there longer, but he feared that the rets would find a way around. If they trapped him in the defile, he was finished. He had bought as much time as he could at his first line of defense. It was time to fall back.
With the tracking beasts snapping at him, he backed through the split, then made his second stand at the upper end. Straddling the opening, he bottled up the frantic creatures, refusing to let them through, killing one and wedging it back inside so that the others could not pass it without climbing over. They tore at their dead companion until it was shredded and bloodied, and still they couldn’t break free. Quentin fought with a wild and reckless determination, the magic driving through him like molten iron, sweeping away his weariness and pain, his reason and doubt, everything but the feel of the moment and its dizzying sense of power. Nothing could stop him. He was invincible. The magic of the sword buzzed and crackled through his body, and he gave himself over to it.
Even when the Mwellrets got around behind him, he stood his ground, so caught up in the euphoria generated by the magic that he would have done anything to keep it flowing. He drove back this fresh assault, then returned to battling the tracking beasts trying to emerge from the split, intent on doing battle with anything that challenged him.
It took a deep slash to his thigh to sober him up enough that he finally realized the danger. He turned and ran without slowing or looking back, gaining enough ground to enable him to clamber into the rocks and find his bow and arrows just before his pursuers caught up with him. He was a good marksman, but his pursuers were so close that marksmanship counted for almost nothing. He buried four arrows in the closest burly head before it was finally knocked back, blinded in both eyes and maddened with pain. He wounded two more, slowing them enough that the others could not get past. He shot every arrow he had, killing two of the rets, as well, then threw down the bow and began running once more.