"Either she stumbled on our real trail and is relying still on her magic to track us or she's found an ally who can read sign." The shape-shifter's voice was low and menacing, a whisper of dark anger above the soft gurgle of the water. His cloaked form seemed to glide through the shallows, his movements steady and deliberate against the current. "We'll have to find out which."
They continued upstream for a mile or so, then climbed out on a rocky flat on the far shore and worked their way inland for a time. East, the sky was beginning to brighten with a silver glow as sunrise neared. Bek found himself thinking of sunrise in the Highlands of Leah, of hunts with Quentin in the early dawn, of how much alike it felt and yet how different, too. Awake now, his mind picked its way nimbly through the debris of his life. He wasn't afraid anymore, not in the way he had been afraid in the ruins of Castledown when the fire threads and creepers had attacked them. But he was feeling lost; he was feeling disconnected. Everything he knew from his past life had been stripped away from him-his home, his family, and his land. There was nothing left of any of it, and the farther he walked, the more unlikely it seemed that he would ever have any of it back.
It was as if he were walking out of himself, as if he were shedding his skin.
He hitched up the Sword of Shannara across his back and tried to find comfort in its solid, dependable presence, but could not.
Truls Rohk took him back down to the river and into the cold waters once more. The sun was up, the silver light brightened to gold, the first tinges of blue sky visible. The sound of the rushing water enveloped him, and he turned his attention to keeping upright and moving ahead. They crossed the channel a second time, back to where they were close to the other bank, then began wading upriver. The cold water numbed Bek's legs, and after a time he could barely feel the feet in his boots. He kept on, forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other and think of better times, because there was nothing else he could do.
When they were several miles farther upstream, at a bend in the river where the limbs of towering cedars and hickory overhung the water, Truls Rohk stopped. He reached within his cloak and produced a length of thin rope and an odd grappling hook on which the arms were collapsed against the base, but which unfolded and locked in place when he released the wire that held them down. Doubling the rope through an eye at the base of the hook, he coiled it carefully about his left forearm. Motioning for Bek to stay put, he crossed the river, stepped ashore momentarily, took several steps into the trees, then carefully backed up, retracing his own footprints, reentered the water, and moved ahead fifty yards onto a rise barely concealed by the swift waters. Checking to make certain that the boy was where he had left him, he began to swing the grappling hook overhead, playing out the rope gradually to widen the arc. Then he released the hook with a heave and sent it soaring high into the tree limbs overhead. The grappling hook caught and held. He tugged at it experimentally, then motioned for Bek to join him.
"Climb onto my back, put your arms about my neck, and hold on."
Bek did so, feeling the ridged muscles beneath him, the ropes of sinew and gristle that crisscrossed the other's shoulders and gave him the feel of an animal. The boy tried not to think of that. Clasping his right hand about his left wrist, he took firm hold.
Truls Rohk lunged up the rope and began climbing hand over hand as they swung out across the river. Skimming over the chill waters, they drew up their legs as they bottomed out at the nadir of their arc before rising again to the near shore where the river hooked left. Just above the bank, deep within the woods, Truls Rohk loosened his grip just enough to slide back to the ground. Still holding on to the ends of the rope, he waited for Bek to climb off his back, then ran the rope out through the eye until it dropped free of the hook, coiled it up once more, and tucked it away beneath his robes.
"That should give her something to puzzle out," the shape-shifter growled softly. "If we're lucky, she'll think we went ashore on the far bank and track us that way."