Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara (26 page)

“We lose time that way, cousin.”

“We lose opportunity the other way,
cousin.”

“Following your advice the last time didn’t work out so well. Perhaps this time you should defer to us.”

“Thank you for pointing that out. I had forgotten completely. Now that I am reminded, I should probably crawl back into my hole and defer to your superior good judgment for the rest of my life!”

They glared at each other. Tasha, listening silently until now, gave a heavy sigh. “Enough. Both arguments have merit. No good purpose is served if we fight among ourselves. We must weigh the choices and decide. Time slips away.”

“You decide, then,” his brother ordered. “The vote is split between Phryne and me. She says we stay, and I say we go back. You choose, and we will abide by your choice.”

He obviously felt that his brother would side with him. Phryne almost objected to the proposal, but decided to hold her tongue. Better to wait and hear what Tasha had to say before attacking him. She had done enough of that already, and she had a sense that any more of
the same would only be counterproductive. Besides, he was going to have his say in any case. She desperately wanted to stay, to make right the things she had helped make wrong, to not return as the instigator of what could only be termed a disaster. But she had to accept that she could not make this happen by herself, that she needed the acquiescence and support of her cousins.

“What do you say, Tasha?” she asked him, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “What should we do?”

Tasha seemed to consider. “There is one aspect of all this that neither of you has mentioned, one that might be more important than any of the others we have discussed. If we do the smart thing, the reasonable thing, and we return to Arborlon and ask your father to let us return and search for Panterra and little sister, will he allow it? Not just you, cousin, but any of us. Or any Elves at all, for that matter.”

He paused. “Because the people we are asking him to rescue, the people his Hunters must search out and do battle for, are humans. No, don’t say anything yet, Phryne. I know your father is a reasonable and good man. But he differs not so much from other Elves in his dislike and mistrust of humans. He will weigh that against any obligation he feels toward you or us in making his decision. I cannot say for certain which way he will go, even knowing him as I do. That troubles me. If he refused to help our young friends, Tenerife and I would have to come back on our own, likely in direct disobedience of the King, and do what little we could to make things right.”

He looked from his brother to Phryne. “What do you think?”

Phryne knew what she thought. She thought her father was a better man than that. She thought he would stand up for those his daughter had taken responsibility for. But she also knew Tasha was not wrong in his assessment. She shook her head, an indication of her own uncertainty.

Tenerife shrugged. “You make it all sound so reasonable, brother. As you always seem to. I find nothing to disagree with, so I withdraw my vote against abandoning our friends and suggest we go after them.”

He walked over and put an arm around Phryne’s shoulders. “We should leave now before they get any farther ahead, don’t you think?”

She gave him a broad smile in response and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

T
HE TROLLS TRAVELED WEST AND NORTH FOR MOST
of the remainder of the night, armored giants flanking the wagon that bore the prisoners, the sounds of creaking wheels and leather traces blending with the tromp of booted feet and guttural mutterings through a darkness barely broken by the pale light of moon and stars. Panterra and Prue were rolled and bounced about in the wooden bed by the jerky, swaying motion of the wagon, trying as best they could in their bound condition to brace themselves in its corners. Behind them, the mountains that hid their valley home slowly receded into darkness, swallowed by time and distance.

Prue eventually fell asleep, by then folded over and lying prone, her head in Pan’s lap where he kept her as comfortable as he could manage. For himself, there could be no sleep. Not while his head ached and his anger burned. He spent his time trying to loosen his bonds, working them this way and that, twisting his wrists, using sweat and blood drawn from deep cuts incurred through efforts to lubricate the leather—all to no avail. The Trolls kept checking on him in any case, glancing in
from where they walked alongside, keeping close enough that even if he were to break free there would be no chance of a successful flight.

Not that he would ever leave Prue. It was all just an exercise, just a way of passing the time and giving vent to his rage and frustration, the whole of it born of a deadening sense of futility.

He looked more than once for Arik Sarn, thinking to engage him in further conversation, wanting to learn more about what was happening to them. But there was no sign of the enigmatic Troll, no indication when or even if he would reappear, and Pan soon decided that help from that quarter was unlikely. He had thought from the other’s knowledge of the Hawk and his journey to the valley, there might be some sort of kinship shared. In part, that feeling was fostered by the other’s unexpected ability to speak their language and by his familiarity with their history. But in retrospect, Pan wondered if he were reading things into the encounter that weren’t really there. Desperation sometimes fueled false hope. That could be so here.

He wondered anew if the Orullians and Phryne Amarantyne had any idea at all what had happened to them, if their friends even knew they were being taken away. A rescue seemed so unlikely given the odds of success that he found he couldn’t give the idea serious consideration. If there was to be any chance of escape, it would have to come from his own efforts; reliance on others was a fool’s game, and he knew it.

So he worked at his bonds and stared daggers at his captors when he caught them watching. But eventually, even that wasn’t enough to fight off his fatigue, and with Prue’s head still resting in his lap, he slept.

When he woke again, it was to shouts and cries and a rumble of activity all around him. The caravan was descending a long, rolling slope toward plains in which countless tents spread away in dark hummocks amid a sea of burned grasses, spindly weeds, and scattered clumps of rocks. It was daylight again, if only barely so, the eastern sky above the now very distant mountains silvery behind a thin layer of clouds, the landscape washed of color. No greens were visible from where this new encampment was settled, the whole of the land in all directions barren and empty of life. Only the Trolls—and there were
thousands of them—populated the otherwise bleak landscape. They were gathered everywhere about night fires that mostly had burned out by now, leaving spirals of smoke rising into the air like the spirits of the dead. Bent to tasks that Pan could not decipher, to work that lacked recognizable definition or purpose, the Trolls went about their business. Only a few glanced up as the caravan approached, and those only for a quick look before turning away again.

Prue was awake, as well, hunched close against him. “There are so many of them. What are they doing here?”

Her words were barely audible above the rumble of their cart and the jumbled sounds of the camp. He shook his head in reply, saying nothing. Whatever the Trolls were about, it wasn’t good. This was an army on the move, not a permanent camp. The Trolls were thousands strong, and there were arms and armor stacked everywhere. He saw beasts of burden that looked like nothing he had ever seen before, some of them vaguely resembling horses, many with horns and spikes jutting out of their heads and necks. Some were so burly that they had the look of battering rams, all covered in leather and metal clips. Some had the look of Kodens.

He saw a handful of the Skaith Hounds, as well, kenneled off to one side in a wire pen that rose fully eight feet high and was topped with spikes. The beasts pressed up against the wire, tongues lolling out from between rows of teeth. They whined and growled in steady cadence, and the two that had taken the boy and girl raced off to greet them, their master sauntering off in their wake, waving to someone in the distance.

“We can’t stay here,” Prue whispered. “We are in a lot of danger if we do. You know that, don’t you?”

He did, of course, but he also knew he didn’t have a way of changing the situation. “Just wait,” he whispered back, not knowing what it was he expected her to wait for, short of a miracle.

The wagon with its prisoners rolled into the camp and through the tents, and waves of Trolls crowded around and peered in at them, discovering finally that there was something to see. Dozens more came quickly in response to the shouts of those closest. Panterra and Prue pressed together at the center of the wagon bed, trying to elude hands that poked and prodded at them, to evade the odors of sweat and
heated breath washing over them. The Trolls laughed and joked with one another, and one or two brought out knives and gestured at the boy and the girl, taunting them.

Panterra kicked out, trying to drive them back. A powerful hand grabbed his leg and pulled him toward the side of the wagon, away from Prue. “Pan!” he heard her scream as his head banged down on the wooden slats and his head spun anew.

But a second later the Trolls fell back, the men of the escort forcing them away, and Arik Sarn was lowering the gate and reaching in to loosen their leg bonds and help them down. They could barely stand at first, their legs cramped from the binding. The Troll held them up, stronger than he looked, as the blood returned and twinges of pain shot through their lower limbs. Flanked by the men from the escort, the Troll guided them through the crowds and into a large tent at the center of the camp, into fresh darkness and a muffling of the sounds without.

“Stay here,” he told them, steering them over to a pole at the center of a section of the tent that was curtained off from the rest.

As if to make clear that there wasn’t a choice, he sat them down with their backs to the pole and chained them with ankle manacles that kept them in place.

Then he turned without a word and disappeared back the way they had come.

T
HEY REMAINED WHERE THEY WERE
for several hours, and at one point both fell asleep again. The sounds outside their place of confinement provided a steady thrum of noise, and no one came or went from their tent. Pan gave up on trying to free himself from his bonds, the ankle chain a new twist on their imprisonment that he had no way of overcoming. Their best hope now, he decided, was in awaiting the return of Arik Sarn.

When the Troll finally did reappear, he came bearing a tray of dried meat, hard bread, and a pitcher of ale with cups. He set down everything he had brought, knelt beside them, and released them from the bonds that secured their hands, but left the ankle chain in place.
He worked for a long time rubbing Prue’s wrists, restoring her circulation, and then he produced a container of thick salve from his tunic and rubbed it into her abrasions and cuts. He let Panterra take care of himself, glancing over every now and then, his face impassive as he worked, his eyes giving nothing away of his feelings. He took a long time with Prue, curiously tender in his ministrations, then he pointed to the tray and motioned for them to eat. He sat watching silently as they did so, and when Pan started to speak, the Troll shook his head and gestured anew at the food and drink.
First things first
, he seemed to be saying, and Pan left it at that.

But as soon as they pushed back their plates and drained their cups, he was all business. “When your eating is done, Taureq Siq comes to question you. As Maturen of the Drouj, he will decide your fate. I ask the questions because I speak your tongue and can translate answers. But beware. You must answer fully and accurately. My oath as hostage and guest is part of the exchange of eldest sons. I am forbidden from hiding truth, even a little. Honor does not allow for it. Do you understand what I say?”

Panterra understood perfectly. “We should say nothing we would not want you to repeat.”

Sarn nodded. “Yes. Grosha looks to feed you to his hounds. He considers you property that has been taken away from him, and he is angry about it. He blames me, but his father has first claim and Grosha knows this. Even so, I may not be able to do anything more for you. Taureq dotes on Grosha and mostly gives him what he wants. He has little reason here to deny Grosha. I will do what I can to help. But remember about giving answers to questions. Be careful how you speak and of what.”

“Why are you helping us?” Pan asked impulsively. “You owe us nothing. You barely know who we are.”

The Troll gave him an unreadable look. “Would it be better if I didn’t help you?”

There was a sudden flurry of activity from just outside the chamber’s closed flap, and Arik Sarn stood quickly and turned. A moment later a Troll’s flat-featured face poked through, and the Troll spoke quickly to Sarn in their by-now-familiar guttural language. The latter
nodded and gestured the messenger away. “They come for you. Stand up and meet them as equals. Show no fear; do as I told you.”