He leaned back into the darkened corner and waited. It was a good run, he thought. I don’t like that it’s ending, but you don’t always get much of a say in that sort of thing. You just take what’s given you. He would miss seeing Sider again. But the girl would explain. What was her name? Prue, wasn’t it? It fit her.
Time stopped. The night went still, the darkness closed about, and his breath turned to frost on the cold air. He could almost make himself believe he was going to get out of this.
The attack came all at once and without warning. But he was ready, and he fired the Tyson into everything that moved until it was empty, jammed in a second clip and fired again. He was struck repeatedly by arrows and darts, but most failed to penetrate and nothing did any real damage until the Drouj came at him in waves. By then the flechette was empty and he was using the spray, riddling the bodies until they were stacked all around him, Trolls and Skaith Hounds alike.
There was a small lull, and he found himself laughing at the absurdity of it all. He was still laughing when they came at him a final time, too many for him to stop, and as they reached him he pulled the cord attached to the pins on the flash-bangs and everything disappeared in sound and fury.
THIRTY
MILES AWAY, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAINS, the Gray Man was trekking west toward the pass at Declan Reach. It was night and he was traveling quickly. He was no longer tracking Arik Siq; his quarry’s destination already known, his course fixed. Matters had taken an unexpected turn here, too, and here, too, time was running out.
When he had left Arborlon in pursuit of the deceiver, he had begun tracking him under the assumption that he was escaping the city with the intention of going back through Aphalion Pass. If his purpose in coming into the valley in the first place was to gather information that would aid the Drouj in their planned invasion, he would be anxious to impart to his father what he had learned before his duplicity was discovered. In order to do that in the fastest way possible, he would take the shortest route out of the valley, and that meant going through Aphalion.
So Sider had set out in that direction, not bothering with trying to pick up the Troll’s footprints, choosing instead to sacrifice caution for speed in order to reach the pass quickly. He did so, only to learn from the Elves on watch that no Trolls had passed that way in the past week. The Orullian brothers, in particular, were adamant that no one could have gotten past the watch they had set at both ends of the pass without someone finding out. Since no sightings or incidents had been reported, Arik Siq must have gone another way.
It was a disturbing discovery, and after doing his own reconnaissance of the terrain surrounding the pass, the Gray Man went back down the interior slopes of the mountains toward Arborlon, this time checking carefully for some indication of where the elusive Troll had gone.
He found it when he was almost all the way back to the Elven city and scouring the terrain above the forest where the boy Xac Wen had last seen the Troll going down the Carolan. The tracks he found were clearly made by a Troll, so the Gray Man was able to follow them easily enough. To his surprise, they led northwest upslope into the foothills for only several miles before turning directly west.
Shortly after that, in a dense forest formed by a mix of hardwoods and conifers grown so thick it was impossible to see much of anything once you were in their midst, he found something that caused him both confusion and concern. In a clearing ringed by spruce, he discovered tracks made by dozens of Trolls and a handful of four-footed beasts that had come down out of the high country west of Aphalion. Having joined up with Arik Siq, the entire bunch had set out west along the high slopes, carefully keeping to the shelter of the ridges and forests below the snow line.
At first, Sider couldn’t figure out what all the Trolls and their beasts were doing. The pattern of the tracks seemed to indicate that they knew Arik Siq was coming and had waited for him. There were no indications of a disturbance, nothing to show that his arrival was unexpected. But if the Trolls were Drouj, how had they managed to get into the valley without being seen? How had they managed to communicate the details of this meeting with Arik Siq without speaking to him directly?
Bearers of the Black Staff
Terry Brooks's books
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- City of Ruins
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)
- The Council of Mirrors
- Born of Ice
- Born of Fire
- Born of Defiance
- Gates of Paradise (a Blue Bloods Novel)
- A Very Levet Christmas (Guardians of Eternity)
- Darkness Eternal (Guardians of Eternity)
- City of Fae
- The Invasion of the Tearling
- The Book of Speculation: A Novel