The Scions of Shannara (41 page)

“Haul him up!” Chandos screamed.

The Trolls jerked on the line in response, the watching outlaws howling in fury and shooting down into the ranks of the Federation archers.

But then somehow Padishar was back on his feet, and the last two remaining casks were splintered and their contents dumped down the rock wall onto the Creeper. The beast hung there, no longer moving, letting the oil run down into it, under it, over it, streams of glistening oil and grease spreading down the cliff face in the harsh glare of the morning sun.

A catapult struck the lift squarely then and shattered it to pieces. The outlaws on the bluff cried out as the lift fell apart. But Padishar did not fall; he caught hold of the rope and dangled there, arrows and stones flying all about him, a perfect target. There was blood on his chest and arms, and the muscles of his body were corded with the effort it required for him to hang on.

Swiftly the rope came up, Padishar Creel was hauled to the edge of the bluff, and his men reached out to pull him to safety. For a moment the battle was forgotten. Chandos shouted in vain for everyone to get back, but the outlaws ignored him as they crowded around their fallen leader. Then Padishar was on his feet, blood streaming down his body from his wounds, arrows protruding from deep within his right shoulder and through the fleshy part of his left side, his face pale and drawn with pain. Reaching down, he snapped the arrow in his side in two and with a grimace pulled the shaft clear.

“Get back to the wall!” he roared. “Now!”

The outlaws scattered. Padishar pushed past Chandos and staggered to the breastworks, peering down at the Creeper.

The Creeper was still hanging there, still not moving, as if glued to the rock. The Federation archers and catapults were continuing their barrage on the outlaw defenses, but the effort had become a halfhearted one as they, too, waited to see what would happen.

“Fall, drat you!” Padishar cried furiously.

The Creeper stirred, shifting slightly, edging right, trying to maneuver away from the glistening sheet of oil. Claws rasped as it hunched and squirmed to keep its hold. But the oil had done its job. The creature's grip began to loosen, slowly at first, then more rapidly as one after another of its appendages slipped free. A howl of dismay went up from the Federation ranks, a cheer from the outlaws. The Creeper was sliding down more quickly now, skidding on a track of oil that followed after it relentlessly, coating its tubular body. Its grip gave way altogether and down it went, tumbling, rolling, falling with a crunch of metal and bone. When it struck the earth at last, dust rose in a massive cloud, and the whole of the cliff face shook with the impact.

The Creeper lay motionless at the base of the cliffs, its oiled bulk shuddering.

“That's more like it!” Padishar Creel sighed and slid down the breastworks into a sitting position, his eyes closing wearily.

“You've finished him sure enough!” Chandos exclaimed, dropping into a crouch beside him. His smile was ferocious. Morgan, standing close at hand, found himself grinning as well.

But Padishar simply shook his head. “This doesn't finish anything. That was today's horror. Tomorrow will surely bring another. And what do we do for oil then, with the last of it spilled out today?” The dark eyes opened. “Cut this other arrow out of me so I can get some sleep.”

 

The Federation did not attack again that day. It withdrew its army to the edge of the forest, there to tend to the dead and wounded. Only the catapults were left in place, sending their loads skyward periodically, though most fell short and the assault proved more annoying than effective.

The Creeper, unfortunately, was not dead. After a time, it seemed to recover, and it rolled over sluggishly and crawled off into the shelter of the Parma Key. It was impossible to guess how badly it had been damaged, but no one was ready to predict that they had seen the last of it.

Padishar Creel was treated for his wounds, bound up, and put to bed. He was weak from loss of blood and in no small amount of pain, but his injuries would not leave him disabled. Even as Chandos was seeing to his care, Padishar was giving instructions for continuing the defense of the Jut. A special weapon was to be built. Morgan heard Chandos speak of it as he gathered a select group of men and sent them off into the largest of the caves to construct it. Work began almost immediately, but when Morgan asked what it was that was being assembled, Chandos was unwilling to talk about it.

“You'll see it when it's completed, Highlander,” he responded gruffly. “Leave it at that.”

Morgan did, but only because he hadn't any other choice. At something of a loss as to what to do with himself, he drifted over to where Steff had been taken by Teel and found his friend wrapped in blankets and feverish. Teel watched suspiciously as the Highlander felt Steff's forehead, a watchdog that no longer trusted anyone. Morgan could hardly blame her. He spoke quietly with Steff for a few moments, but the Dwarf was barely conscious. It seemed better to let him sleep. The Highlander stood up, glanced a final time at the unresponsive Teel, and walked away.

He spent the remainder of the day passing back and forth between the fortifications and the caves, checking on the Federation army and the secret weapon and on Padishar Creel and Steff. He didn't accomplish much, and the hours of the late morning and then the afternoon passed slowly. Morgan found himself wondering once again what good he was doing anyone, trapped at the Jut with these outlaws, resistance fighters or no, far from Par and Coll and what really mattered. How would he ever find the Valemen again, now that they had been separated? Certainly they would not attempt to come into the Parma Key, not while a Federation army had them under siege. Damson Rhee would never permit it.

Or would she? It suddenly occurred to Morgan that she might, if she thought there was a safe way to do so. That made him think. What if there was more than one way into the Jut? Didn't there have to be, he asked himself? Even with the defenses as strong as they were, Padishar Creel would never take the chance that they might somehow be breached, leaving the outlaws trapped against the rocks. He would have an escape route, another way out. Or in.

He decided to find out. It was almost dusk, however, before he got his chance. Padishar was awake again by then, and Morgan found him sitting on the edge of his bed, heavily bandaged, streaks of blood showing vividly against his weathered skin, studying a set of crudely sketched drawings with Chandos. Another man would still be sleeping, trying to regain his strength; Padishar looked ready to fight. The men glanced up as he approached, and Padishar tucked the drawings out of sight. Morgan hesitated.

“Highlander,” the other greeted. “Come sit with me.”

Surprised, Morgan came over, taking a seat on a packing crate filled with metal fittings. Chandos nodded, got up without a word, and walked out.

“And how is our friend the Dwarf?” Padishar asked, rather too casually. “Better, now?”

Morgan studied the other man. “No. Something is very wrong with him, but I don't know what it is.” He paused. “You don't trust anyone, do you? Not even me.”

“Especially not you.” Padishar waited a moment, grinned disarmingly, and then made the smile disappear in the quickness of an eye's blink. “I can't afford to trust anyone anymore. Too much has happened to suggest that I shouldn't.” He shifted his weight and grimaced with the pain it caused. “So tell me. What brings you to visit? Have you seen something you think I should know about?”

The truth was that with the excitement of the events of that morning, Morgan had forgotten about the charge that Padishar had given him to try to find out who it was that had betrayed them. He didn't say so, however; he simply shook his head.

“I have a question,” he said. “About Par and Coll Ohmsford. Do you think that Damson Rhee might still try to bring them here? Is there another way into the Jut that she might use?”

The look that Padishar Creel gave him was at once indecipherable and filled with meaning. There was a long silence, and Morgan felt himself grow suddenly cold as he realized how it must look for him to be asking such a question.

He took a deep breath. “I'm not asking where it is, only if . . .”

“I understand what you're asking and why,” the other said, cutting short his protestation. The hard face furrowed about the eyes and mouth. Padishar said nothing for a moment, studying the Highlander intently. “As a matter of fact, there is another way,” he said finally. “You must have figured that out on your own, though. You understand enough of tactics to know that there must always be more than one way in or out of a refuge.”

Morgan nodded wordlessly.

“Well, then, Highlander, I can only add that Damson would not put the Valemen at risk by trying to bring them here while the Jut was under siege. She would keep them safe in Tyrsis or elsewhere, whatever the situation might require.”

He paused, eyes hard with hidden thoughts. Then he said, “No one but Damson, Chandos, and I know the other way—now that Hirehone is dead. Better that we keep it so until the identity of our traitor is discovered, don't you think? I wouldn't want the Federation walking in through the back door while we were busy holding shut the front.”

Morgan hadn't considered the possibility of such a thing happening until now. It was a chilling thought. “Is the back way secure?” he asked hesitantly.

Padishar pursed his lips. “Very. Now take yourself off to dinner, Highlander. And remember to keep your eyes open.”

He turned back to his drawings. Morgan hesitated a moment, thinking to say something more, then turned abruptly and left.

 

That night, as daylight faded into evening and stars began to appear, Morgan sat alone at the far end of the bluff where a grove of aspen trees sheltered a small grassy clearing, looked out across the valley of the Parma Key to where the moon, half-full again, lifted slowly out of the horizon into the darkening skies, and marshalled his powers of reason. The camp was quiet now except for the muffled sounds of work being done back in the caves on Padishar's secret weapon. The catapults and bows were stilled, the men of both the Federation army and the Movement sleeping or lost in their own private contemplations. Padishar was meeting with the Trolls and Chandos, a meeting to which Morgan had not been invited. Steff was resting, his fever seemingly no worse, but his strength sapped and his general health no better. There was nothing to be done, nothing to occupy the time but to sleep or think, and Morgan Leah had chosen the latter.

For as long as he could remember, he had been clever. It was a gift, admittedly, one that could be traced to his ancestors, to men such as Menion and Rone Leah—real Princes in those days, heroes—but an ability, too, that Morgan had worked long and hard to perfect. The Federation had supplied him with both a purpose and a direction for his skill. He had spent almost the whole of his youth concentrating on finding ways to outwit the Federation officials who occupied and governed his homeland, to irritate them at every opportunity so that they might never feel secure, to make them experience a futility and a frustration that would one day drive them from Leah forever. He was very good at it; perhaps he was the best there was. He knew all the tricks, had conceived most of them himself. He could outthink and outsmart almost anyone, if he were given time and opportunity to do so.

He smiled ruefully. At least, that was what he had always told himself. Now it was time to prove that it was so. It was time to figure out how the Federation had known so often what they were about, how it was that they had been betrayed—the outlaws, the Valemen, the little company from Culhaven, everyone connected with this misadventure—and most important of all, who was responsible.

It was something he could reason out.

He let his lean frame drape itself against the grassy base of a twisted, old trunk, drew his knees partway up to his chest, and considered what he knew.

The list of betrayals was a long one. Someone had informed the Federation when Padishar had taken them into Tyrsis to recover the Sword of Shannara. Someone had found out what they were going to do and gotten word to the Federation watch commander ahead of their arrival. One of your own, the watch commander had told Padishar. Then someone had revealed the location of the Jut to the army that now besieged it— again, someone who knew where it could be found and how to find it.

He frowned. The betrayals had actually begun before that, though. If you accepted the premise—and he was now prepared to—that someone had sent the Gnawl to track them in the Wolfsktaag and had gotten word to the Shadowen on Toffer Ridge where the Spider Gnomes could snatch Par, why then, the betrayals went all the way back to Culhaven.

So had someone been tracking them all the way from Culhaven?

He discarded the possibility immediately. No one could have managed such a feat.

But there was more to the puzzle. There was the sighting of Hirehone in Tyrsis and his subsequent murder in the Parma Key. And there was the killing of the lift watch with the lifts still drawn up. What did those events have to do with anything?

He let all the pieces sift through his mind for a few minutes, waiting to see if he would discover something he had missed. Night birds called out from below in the darkness of the Parma Key, and the wind blew gently across his face, warm and fragrant. When nothing further occurred, he took each piece in turn and tried to fit it to the puzzle, working to see if a recognizable picture would emerge. The minutes paraded past him silently. The pieces refused to fit.

He was missing something.

He rubbed his hands together briskly. He would try it another way. He would eliminate what didn't work and see what was left. He took a steadying breath and relaxed.

No one could have followed them—not for all that time. So it must be someone among them. One of them. But if that someone were responsible for the Gnawl and the Shadowen as well as everything that had happened since their arrival at the outlaw camp, then didn't it have to be one of the members of the original company? Par, Coll, Steff, Teel, or himself? He went back to Teel momentarily, for he knew less of her than of any of them. He could not bring himself to believe it was either of the Valemen or Steff. But why was Teel any better as a candidate? Hadn't she suffered at least as much as Steff?