"Now what?" Hunter Predd asked quietly.
Rue Meridian shook her head, staring fixedly at Black Moclips. "Maybe we ought to take a closer look."
Leaving Obsidian to roost, they walked down from the heights to the shoreline, taking their time, moving cautiously through the deepening darkness so as to make as little noise as possible. In the silence of the cove, noise would travel a great distance. Little Red's eyes were sharp, but Hunter Predd's were sharper still, so he led the way, choosing the path that offered them the quietest passage. It took them almost an hour to make the descent, and by then darkness had fallen completely and the sky was bright with the light of stars and moon.
Standing on the shoreline, well back within the trees, the Rover and the Wing Rider stared out across the bay at the anchored airship. They could see movement on her decks now, guards at watch, crewmen at work. They could hear voices, kept deliberately low, but audible. They could just catch glimpses of lantern light masked by shadows and curtains within the cabins below the decking.
After standing there for a time, Hunter Predd turned to her. "What are you thinking?"
She kept silent. What she was thinking was wild and dangerous. What she was thinking was that perhaps fate had presented them with a unique opportunity. She had come looking for the missing members of the Jerle Shannara's company, but instead found their enemy's transport.
The Ilse Witch couldn't know yet that they had liberated the Jerle Shannara from the Mwellrets and Federation sailors left to keep watch over her. She couldn't know that she now commanded only Black Moclips. She would believe both vessels still safely under her control.
Rue Meridian pursed her lips. There was a chance for real irony here, a bit of poetic justice, if she could just figure out how to orchestrate it.
Wouldn't it be fitting, she was thinking, if she could somehow put the witch in the same position that the witch had put her?
Frowning in discontent, the Ilse Witch glanced over her shoulder at the darkening silhouette of Black Moclips as she disappeared into the trees. Twilight cloaked the bay in shadows that stretched in the wake of the sunset to seize and entwine the airship like ghost fingers. She had given strict instructions to Cree Bega and his rets. The boy had been placed in their care, to be watched and warded until her return. They were not to try to speak with him, to interact with him, or to have anything at all to do with him. He was to be kept locked up. He was to be given food and drink, but nothing else. He was not to be allowed out. No one was to visit him. No one was to disturb him.
Whether or not her instructions would be followed was another matter entirely.
Cree Bega was suspicious, but she had deflected the worst of it by offering up a small lie. The boy had information that would prove useful to them, but she must be the one to extract it from him since he could not speak. The Mwellret had no way of knowing that the reason the boy couldn't speak was because of the magic she had used against him, so he might do as he was told and wait for her return. It was a risk she had to take. She could not take the boy with her; it was too dangerous to go looking for the Druid with him in tow. She could not chance leaving him anywhere else besides the ship; someone from his company might find and free him. She had taken the Sword of Shannara with her, to be certain he found no use for it. She wore it slung across one shoulder, sheathed in the worn scabbard she had found to hold it. Without the use of his talisman or his voice, the boy would have no magic to call upon. It was best to leave him where he was and hope that her absence would be brief.