THE VOYAGE OF THE JERLE SHANNARA : Morgawr (BOOK THREE)

“You won’t be flying off to rescue anyone for a while. You broke your arm and several ribs. You ripped open the knife wounds on your thigh and side. You banged yourself up pretty good, all without the help of a single Mwellret.”


She started to giggle, then grimaced. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.” She lifted her head and glanced around, taking in as much as she could, then lay back. “We don’t seem to be flying, so I guess I didn’t dream that we crashed. Are we all in one piece?”

“More or less. There’s damage, but it can be repaired. The problem now is that we can’t fly. We lost all our spare diapson crystals through a break in the hull. I have to take a search party down into the valley and find them before we can get out of here.” He shrugged. “Thank your lucky stars it wasn’t worse.”

“I’m busy thanking them that I’m still alive. That any of us are, for that matter.” She licked her lips. “Got anything to drink that doesn’t come from a stream?”

He brought her an aleskin, holding it up for her as she took deep swallows. “You hurt anywhere I can’t see?” he asked when she was done. “A little honesty here wouldn’t hurt, by the way.”

She shook her head. “Nothing you haven’t already taken care of.” She wiped her lips and sighed deeply. “Good. But I’m really tired.”

“Then you’d better sleep.” He arranged the torn bit of sail he had folded under her head for a pillow and tucked in the ragged folds of her great cloak about her arms and legs. “I’ll let you know when something happens.”

Her eyes closed at once, which was what he had expected, given the strength of the sleeping potion he had dropped into her drink. He took the aleskin and tucked it away in a storage bin to one side of the control panel, out of sight but ready to use if he needed it again. But she wouldn’t wake for twelve hours or better, if he’d measured the dosage right. He looked down at her, his little sister, tough as nails and so anxious to demonstrate it she would have insisted on getting up if he hadn’t drugged her. She confused him sometimes, the way she was always trying to prove herself, as if she hadn’t already done so a dozen times over. But better to be like that, he supposed, than to be content with the way things were. His sister set the standard, and she was always looking to improve on it. He could wish for more like her, but he wouldn’t find them no matter how hard he looked. There was only one Little Red.

He yawned, thought he wouldn’t mind a little sleep himself, then walked over to the ship’s railing and looked down at Spanner Frew and the others as they placed the rolling logs under the pontoons. The block and tackle was already in place, strapped to a huge old oak fifty yards back with the rope ends clipped to iron pull rings that had been screwed into the aft horns just above the waterline.

“We could use another pair of hands!” the shipwright shouted up at Big Red as he took in the slack in the ropes with an audible grunt.

Redden Alt Mer climbed down the ship’s ladder and joined the others as they picked up the lead rope, set themselves, and began to heave against the weight of the airship. Even after she had been pulled off the rocks and straightened so that her pontoons were resting on the logs, the Jerle Shannara was difficult to budge. Eventually, Big Red took three others forward and began to rock her. After some considerable effort and harsh words had been expended, she began to move. Once she got rolling, they worked swiftly. Pulling steadily on the ropes, they rotated the rolling logs under her floats as she lumbered backwards until they got her perhaps three dozen yards off the exposed flat and into a mix of trees and bushes.

After taking down the block and tackle and unhooking the ropes, Redden Alt Mer ordered Kelson Riat and the big Rover who called himself Rucker Bont to cut some of the surrounding brush and spread it around the decks of the airship as camouflage. It took them only a little while to change her appearance sufficiently that the Rover Captain was satisfied. With all the sails down and the decking partially screened, the Jerle Shannara might look like a part of the landscape, a hummock of rock and scrub or a pile of deadwood.

“Good work, Black Beard,” he told Spanner Frew. “Now see what you can do with that hole in her side while I take a look down below for those crystals.”

The big man nodded. “I’ve given you Bont and Tian Cross for company.” He took hold of the Captain’s arm and squeezed. “Little Red and I won’t be there to look out for you. Watch yourself.”

Redden Alt Mer gave him a boyish grin and patted the big, gnarled hand. “Always.”