The Druid of Shannara

“Pe Ell doesn’t seem worried about hunting alone,” Morgan noted.

“He’s a predator, sure enough,” Dees replied. He looked at Quickening speculatively. “How about it, girl? Does he have any chance of finding Belk and the Elfstone on his own?”

But Quickening only said, “He will return.”

They seated themselves to work out a strategy, a method by which the city could be searched from end to end. The buildings ran mostly north of where they were concealed, so it was decided to divide Eldwist in two with one group taking the east half and the other the west. The search would concentrate on the buildings and streets, not the tunnels. If nothing were found aboveground, they would change their approach.

“Pe Ell may be wrong when he says that the Stone King must know we are here,” Quickening said in closing. She brought her slender fingers up in a quick, birdlike movement. “We are insignificant in his eyes, and he may not yet have even noticed us. We are the reason he keeps the Rake in service. Besides, the Maw Grint occupies his time.”

“How do we divide ourselves up?” Carisman asked.

“You will go with me,” Quickening answered at once. “And Walker Boh.”

Morgan was surprised. He had expected her to choose him. The disappointment he felt cut deeply. He started to dispute her choice, but her black eyes fixed him with such intensity that he went instantly still. Whatever her reasons for making this decision, she did not want it questioned.

“That leaves you and me, Highlander,” Horner Dees grunted and clapped one heavy hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Think we can manage to disappoint Pe Ell and keep our skins whole?”

His sudden laugh was so infectious that Morgan found himself smiling in response. “I’d bet on it,” he replied.

They gathered up their gear and went down into the street. Sheets of gloom draped the buildings, hung from skies thick with clouds and mist. The air was damp and chill, and their breath exhaled in a haze of white. They wished each other well and began moving off in separate directions, Morgan and Horner Dees going west, Quickening, Walker, and Carisman east.

“Take care of yourself, Morgan,” Quickening whispered, her exquisite face a mix of shadow and light beneath the sweep of her silver hair. She touched him softly on the shoulder and hurried after Walker Boh.

“Tra-la-la-la, a-hunting we will go!” Carisman sang merrily as they disappeared.

Rain began to fall in a steady drizzle. Morgan and Horner Dees slogged ahead with their cloaks pulled tightly about their shoulders and their heads bent. They had agreed that they would follow the street to its end, until they were at the edge of the city, then turn north to track the peninsula’s shoreline. There had been little enough found within the core of the city; perhaps there was something outside—particularly if the Stone King’s magic was ineffective against water. They kepi to the walkways and glanced cautiously down the darkened corridors of the side-streets they passed. Rainwater collected on the city’s stone skin in puddles and streams, shimmering darkly in the gloom. Seabirds huddled in nooks and crevices, waiting out the storm. In the shadows, nothing moved.

It was nearing midmorning when they reached the Tiderace, the land ending in cliffs which dropped hundreds of feet into the sea. Craggy outcroppings of rock rose out of the churning waters, worn and pitted. Waves crashed against the cliffs, the sound of their pounding mixing with the wind as it swept off the water in a rising howl. Morgan and Dees melted back into the shelter of the outer buildings, seeking to protect themselves. Rain and ocean spray soaked them quickly through, and they were soon shivering beneath their clothes. For two hours they skirted the city’s western boundaries without finding anything. By midday, when they stopped to eat, they were disgruntled and worn.

“There’s nothing to be found out here, Highlander,” Dees observed, chewing on a bit of dried beef—his last. “Just the sea and the wind and those confounded birds, shrieking and calling like madwomen.”

Morgan nodded without answering. He was trying to decide whether he could eat a seabird if he had to. Their food supplies were almost exhausted. Soon they would be forced to hunt. What else was there besides those birds? Fish, he decided firmly. The birds looked too rangy and tough.

“You miss the Highlands?” Dees asked him suddenly.

“Sometimes.” He thought about his home and smiled faintly. “All the time.”

“Me, too, and I haven’t seen them in years. Thought they were the most beautiful piece of work nature ever made. I liked how they made me feel when I was in them.”

“Carisman said he liked it there, too. He said he liked the quiet.”