by Terry Brooks
«Put your leg up on this stool,” Wil ordered, shoving a vacant stool in front of the woman, who dutifully placed her leg on it. «Now pull up your skirt.»
The proprietress gave him a questioning look, as if wondering what his intentions might be for her, then hiked her skirt up to her thigh. Her leg was corded, veined, and covered with dark splotches. Wil dipped the cloth into the mixture in the cup and began rubbing it into the leg.
«Tingles a bit.» The woman giggled.
Wil smiled encouragingly. When the mixture was gone from the cup, he reached into the pouch once more and this time produced a long; silver needle with a rounded head. The woman leaned forward with a start.
«You’re not going to stick that in me, are you?»
Wil nodded calmly. «You won’t feel it; just a touch.» He passed it slowly through the flame of the candle that burned at the center of their table. «Now hold very still,” he ordered.
Slowly, carefully, he inserted the needle into the woman’s leg, just above the knee joint, until only the rounded head was showing. He left it there a moment, then withdrew it. The woman grimaced slightly, shut her eyes, then opened them again. Wil sat back.
«All done,” he announced, hoping that indeed it was. «Stand up and walk about.»
The perplexed woman stared at him a moment, then pulled down her skirt indignantly and rose to her feet. Gingerly, she stepped away from the table, testing the feel of the bad leg. Then abruptly she wheeled about, a broad grin creasing her rough face.
«It’s gone! The pain’s gone! First time in months!» She was laughing excitedly. «I don’t believe it. How’d you do that?»
«Magic.» Wil grinned with satisfaction; then immediately wished he hadn’t said that. Amberle shot him an angry glance.
«Magic, huh?» The woman took a few more steps, shaking her head. «Well, if you say so. It sure feels like magic No pain at all.»
«Well, it wasn’t really magic…» Wil began anew, but the woman was already moving toward the door.
«I feel so good, I’m going to give everyone a free glass.» She opened the door and stepped through. «Can’t wait to see their faces when they hear about this!»
«No, wait…» Wil called after her, but the door closed and she was gone. «Confound it,” he muttered, wishing belatedly that he had made her promise to keep quiet about this.
Amberle folded her hands calmly and looked at him. «How did you do that?»
He shrugged. «I’m a Healer, remember? The Stors taught me a few things about aches and pains.» He leaned forward conspiratorially. «The trouble is, the treatment doesn’t last.»
«Doesn’t last!» Amberle was horrified.
Wil put a finger to his lips. «The treatment is only temporary. By morning the pain will be back, so we had better be gone.»
«Wil, you lied to that woman,” the Elven girl cried. «You told her you could cure her.»
«No, that was not what I said. I said that I could stop the pain. I did not say for how long. A night’s relief for her, a night’s sleep and a meal for us. A fair trade.»
Amberle stared at him accusingly and did not reply.
Wil sighed. «If it is any comfort to you, the pain will not be as bad as it was before. But her condition is not one that any Healer could cure; it has to do with the life she leads, her age, her weight — a lot of other things over which I have no control. I have done as much as I can for her. Will you please be reasonable?»
«Could you give her something for when the pain returns?»
The Valeman reached over and gripped her hands. «You are a truly gentle person, do you know that? Yes, I could give her something for the pain. But we will leave it for her to find after we are gone, if you don’t mind.»
A sudden clamor from the other room brought him to his feet, and he moved to the door, slipping it open just a crack. Before, the inn had been all but empty. Now it was nearly filled as people drifted in off the roadway, attracted by the promise of free drinks and the antics of the proprietress, who was gleefully demonstrating her newfound cure.
«Time to be going,” Wil muttered and hurriedly led Amberle from the room.
They had not taken a dozen steps when the woman called out shrilly and came rushing over to stop them. Heads shook and fingers pointed at Wil. Too many for the Valeman’s comfort.
«A glass of ale, you two?» the heavy woman offered. Her hand clapped Wil on the shoulder and nearly knocked him off his feet. He managed a weak grin.
«I think we should get some sleep. We have a long journey and we are really very tired.»
The woman snorted. «Stay up and celebrate. You don’t have to pay. Drink all you want.»
Wil shook his head. «I think, we better get some sleep.»
«Sleep? With all this noise?» The woman shrugged. «Take room number ten, top of the stairs and down the hall. Sits at the back of the inn. Might be a little more quiet for you.» She paused. «We’re even now, right? I don’t owe you anything more?»
«Nothing,” Wil assured her, anxious to be gone.
The proprietress grinned broadly. «Well, you sold out cheap, you know that? I would have paid you ten times what you asked for what you done. Why, a couple hours without the pain is worth the ale and the meal and the bed! You got to be clever if you expect to get anywhere in this country. Remember that bit of advice, little Elf. It’s free.»
She laughed roughly and turned back to the bar. The free drinks were over. With a crowd of this size, there was money to be made. The woman scurried along the serving board, snatching the coins up eagerly.
Wil gabbed Amberle’s arm and guided her away from the table to the stairway and up the steps. The stares of the patrons followed after them.
«And you were worried about her» the Valeman muttered as they reached the upper hallway and turned down it.
Amberle smiled and said nothing.
Chapter Thirty–Four
They had been asleep several hours when they heard the noises at the door of their room. Wil came awake first, sitting upright in the bed with a start, peering through the deep night blackness. He could hear sounds without — a shuffling of feet, whispered voices, heavy breathing. Not Demons, he told himself quickly, but the chill within him would not subside. The latch on the door jiggled as hands worked quietly to free it.
Amberle was awake as well, sitting next to him, her face white within the shadow of her long chestnut hair. Wil put a finger to his lips.
«Wait here.»
Silently he slipped from the bed and moved to the door. The latch continued to rattle, but the Valeman had thrown the bolt above it, so the room was secure. He bent toward the doorway and listened. The voices without were low and muffled.
«… careful, fool… just lift it…»
«I am lifting it! Step out of the light!»
«… waste of time; just break it in… there’s enough of us.»
«… not if he uses magic.»
«The gold is worth the risk… break it!»
The voices argued on, whispers laced with the slur of ale, mixed with grunts and ragged breathing. There were at least half a dozen men out there, the Valeman decided — thieves and cutthroats, most probably, undoubtedly led to them by the idle tongue of someone who had heard the tale of their miraculous cure of the proprietress of the inn and who could not resist a few embellishments in a retelling of the story. He backed away hurriedly, groping for the bed. Amberle’s hand gripped his arm.
«We have to get out of here,” he whispered.
Wordlessly, she moved off the bed into the dark. They had slept in their clothes and it took them only moments to pull on the travel cloaks and boots. Wil hastened to the window at the rear of the room and pushed it open. Immediately below, a veranda roof sloped downward from the wall. From its edge, there was a drop of a dozen feet to the ground. Wil turned back to find Amberle again and brought her to the window.
«Out you go,” he whispered and took her arm.
In that sa
me instant, there came a loud oath from the hall, and a heavy body crashed into the door, splintering boards and metal fastenings. The would — be thieves had lost their patience. Wil all but shoved the Elven girl through the open window, glancing back hurriedly to see if the intruders had broken through completely. They had not. The door still held. But then the door was struck again. This time the bolt gave way. Into the room surged a knot of cloaked figures, stumbling over one another, cursing and yelling.
Wil did not wait to see what might happen next. Scrambling through the window, he leaped hurriedly onto the veranda roof.
«Jump!» he yelled to Amberle, who crouched in front of him.
The Elven girl slipped over the edge of the roof and dropped to the earth below. In a moment’s time, Wil was beside her. Above them, leaning through the open window, the cloaked figures shouted in anger. Wil pulled Amberle back within the shadows of the building, then looked about hurriedly.
«Which way?» he muttered, suddenly confused.
Wordlessly Amberle took his hand and sprinted to the end of the wall, then broke for the building next to the inn. The shouts of their pursuers rose sharply, followed by the sound of booted feet on the veranda roof. Valeman and Elven girl ran silently through the darkness of the buildings, slipping down passageways, through alleys, and along walls until at last they were back to the edge of the main roadway.
Still, the shouts pursued them. Grimpen Ward seemed to come suddenly awake, lights flaring in darkened buildings all about them, voices raising in anger. Amberle started out onto the roadway, but Wil pulled her hastily back. Less than a hundred feet away, in front of the Candle Light Inn, several dark forms fanned out onto the road, searching carefully the shadows about them.
«We have to go back,” the Valeman whispered.
They retraced their steps, following the wall of the building until they reached its end. A series of sheds and stalls stood clustered together against the dark backdrop of the forest. Wil hesitated. If they tried to escape into the forest, they would become hopelessly lost. They had to work their way back around the buildings to where the main roadway wound south out of Grimpen Ward. Once beyond the town, they would probably not be pursued further.
Cautiously they moved along the rear of the building. Walls and fences hemmed them in on all sides and barrels of trash cluttered the path forward. But the shouts had quieted now, and the buildings ahead were still dark. A few minutes more and they might be clear of their pursuit.
They turned down a narrow alley that ran through a row of stables behind a feed store. Horses whickered softly at their scent, stamping impatiently within their stalls. A small paddock stretched out before them beyond a line of sheds.
Wil started along the paddock fence with Amberle at his side. They had taken no more than a dozen steps when a sharp cry went up behind them. From out of the shadows of the feed store, a dark form appeared, arms waving, voice raised in alarm. Answering cries sounded from the buildings beyond. Startled by the suddenness of their discovery, Valeman and Elven girl stumbled over one another in their haste to flee, lost their footing, and went down.
Instantly their pursuer was on top of them. Arms flailed and fists pummeled wildly. Wil grappled with the man, a wiry fellow reeking of ale, as Amberle rolled clear. His hands fastened on his attacker’s cloak; with a sudden heave, Wil threw the man sideways into the paddock. There was a sharp whack as the man’s head struck the fence boards, and he collapsed in a heap.
Wil scrambled back to his feet. Lights came on in the rooms above the feed store and in the surrounding buildings. In the darkness behind them, torchlight flickered through the night. Cries of pursuit sounded from everywhere. The Valeman seized Amberle’s hand and they raced together along the ring of the paddock to the line of sheds. There they turned back toward the main roadway, following a narrow alley that ran between two shuttered buildings. Shadows darkened the passage and the two ran blindly. Wil leading. Ahead, the earthen line of the roadway slipped into view.
«Wil!» Amberle cried out in warning.
Too late. The Valeman’s eyes were not as sharp as the Elven girl’s, and he stumbled headlong into a pile of loose boards strewn across the alley passage. Down he tumbled, crashing into the side of the building. Pain exploded in his head; for an instant, he lost consciousness completely. Then somehow he was back on his feet, weaving forward dizzily, Amberle’s voice a faint buzzing in his ears. His hand reached for his forehead and came away wet with blood.
Abruptly the Elven girl was next to him, her arms wrapping tightly about his waist. He sagged against her weakly forcing himself to stagger ahead toward the distant light of the street. He felt himself blacking out again and fought against it. He had to keep moving; he had to keep awake. Amberle was talking to him, her voice urgent, but he could not make out the words. He felt like a fool. How could he have let something this stupid happen now?
They staggered clear of the alley and turned into the shadows of a porch. Down its length they stumbled, the Elven girl fighting to keep the Valeman on his feet. Blood ran down into Wil’s eyes, blinding him further, and he muttered in anger.
Suddenly he heard Amberle gasp in surprise. Through the haze that blurred his vision, he watched a tangle of shadows appear out of the dark. Voices sounded, low and rough, and there was a hiss of warning. Them Amberle was gone, and he felt himself being lifted. Strong hands bore him quickly through the dark. There was a swirl of color before his clouded eyes, mingled with a rush of torchlight. Then he was being lifted again, this time through a narrow opening of canvas flaps. An oil lamp flickered beside him. Voices sounded, whispers of caution, and he felt a damp cloth wipe his face clean of blood. Hands worked buy to wrap him in blankets and to place a pillow beneath his head.
Slowly he opened his eyes. He lay within a gaily colored wagon, its walls decorated with tapestries, beads, and bright silks. The Valeman started. He knew this wagon.
Then a face bent close, dark and sensuous, framed in ringlets of thick black hair. The smile that greeted him was dazzling.
«I told you we would meet again, Wil Ohmsford.»
It was Eretria.
Chapter Thirty–Five
For five days the army of the Elves and the Legion Free Corps fought their way back across the Westland to Arborlon. Across the broad valley of the Sarandanon, through woodlands dense and tangled, and down forest roads and rutted trails they fell back slowly, steadily eastward, pursued at every turn by the Demon hordes. They marched in daylight and at night, without rest, often without food, for the creatures that tracked them neither slept nor ate. Unburdened by human needs, free of human limitations, the Demons came after them, purposeful, unrelenting, driven by their own peculiar form of madness. Like dogs at hunt, they harried the withdrawing army, nipping and slashing at its flanks, rushing it now and then in full assault, striving to turn it from its course, to cripple it, to destroy it. The attack was incessant, and the Elves and their allies, already weary from their stand at Baen Draw, grew quickly exhausted. With exhaustion came despair and then fear.
Ander Elessedil fell victim to that fear. It began for the Elven Prince with his own sense of failure. The dead, the defeats of the few days past, and all that the Elves had hoped to accomplish and had not done haunted him. Yet even this was not the worst. For as his battered army struggled eastward and his countrymen continued to die all about him, Ander began to realize that none of them might survive the long march back — that all of them might die. Out of this stark realization was born the fear that became his own private devil — faceless, insidious, lurking just within the shadow of his determination. Leader of the Elves, it asked slyly, what will you do to save them? Are you so helpless, then? So many have been lost — yet what if all those who remain be lost? It teased and tormented him, threatening to turn weary resolve into total despair. Even Allanon’s presence did not help, for the black–robed Druid stayed distant and aloof as he rode at Ander’s side, veiled in his own world of dark secrets.
So Ander fought his fear alone within the silence of his mind, the whole of his strength directed toward its defeat, as slowly, grimly he led his failing soldiers back toward Arborlon.
In the end, it was Stee Jans who saved them all. It was in this darkest time of seeming failure and desperation that the giant Borderman displayed the tenacity, endurance, and courage that had created the legend of the Iron Man. Assembling a rear guard of Elves and Free Corps, he began a defense of the main column of his army as it bore its dead and wounded eastward under cover of night. In a series of lunges and feints, the Legion Commander struck out at his pursuers, drawing them after him, first one way, then another, utilizing the same tactics that he had so successfully employed at Baen Draw. Time and again the Demons came at him, sweeping first through the valley of the Sarandanon, then into the forestland beyond. Time and again they sought to trap the fleet, gray–cloaked Legion riders and the swift Elven horse, always to close an instant too late, finding only an empty grassland, a blind draw, a hollow dark with shadow, or a scrub–choked trail that turned back upon itself. With a deftness that baffled and maddened the Demons, Stee Jans and the riders following him played a deadly cat–and–mouse game that seemed to place them everywhere at once, yet always away from where the main body of the army moved back toward the safety of Arborlon.
Demon anger and frustration mounted; as night became day and day night again, the pursuit grew frenzied. These Demons were different from the lean, black creatures that had swarmed out of the hill country north of Baen Draw to sere the Sarandanon. These were Demons that had gone east above the Kensrowe, more dangerous than their lesser brethren, with powers that no ordinary human could withstand. Some were monstrous in size, corded with muscle and scaled with armor — creatures of mindless destruction. Others were small and fluid and killed with just a touch. Some were slow and ponderous, some quicksilver as they slipped through the forest shadows like wraiths. Some were multilimbed; others had no limbs at all. Some breathed fire as the Dragons of old, and some were eaters of human flesh. Where they passed, the land of the Elves was left blackened and scarred, ravaged so that nothing might live upon it. Yet, the Elves themselves remained just beyond their reach.