The Druid of Shannara

Morgan looked around one final time and saw that the Urdas were not following. Either Walker had frightened them off, or Horner Dees had been right about them not leaving their mountains.

He turned back.

In the next instant the entire cliff face was rocked with tremors as parts of it gave way under the relentless pounding of the wind and rain. The trail in front of him, an entire section of earth and rock, disappeared completely and took Quickening with it. She fell back against the slope, grasping. But there was nothing to hold on to, and she began to slide in a cloud of silt and gravel toward the river. Carisman, directly in front of her, almost went, too, but managed to throw himself forward far enough to clutch a tangle of roots from some mountain scrub and was saved.

Morgan was directly behind. He saw that Quickening could not save herself and that there was no one who could reach her. He didn’t hesitate. He jumped from the crumbling trail into the gap, hurtling down the mountainside after her, the trailing shouts of his companions disappearing almost instantly. He struck the waters of the Rabb with jarring force, went under, and came up again gasping in shock at the cold. He caught a flash of Quickening’s silver hair bobbing in a shower of white foam a few feet away, swam to her, seized her clothing, and drew her to him.

Then the current had them both, and they were swept away.





XVI


It was all that Morgan Leah could do to keep himself and Quickening afloat in the churning river, and while he might have considered trying to swim for shore if he had been unencumbered he gave no thought of doing so here. Quickening was awake and able to lend some assistance to his effort, but it was mostly Morgan’s strength that kept them away from the rocks and out of the deep eddies that might have pulled them down. As it was, the river took them pretty much where it chose. It was swollen by the rains and overflowing its banks, and its surface waters were white with foam and spray against the darkness of the skies and land. The storm continued to rage, thunder rumbling down the canyon depths, lightning flashing against the distant peaks, and the rains falling in heavy sheets. The cliff face they had tumbled down disappeared from view almost immediately and with it their companions. The Rabb twisted and turned through the mountain rocks, and soon they lost any sense of where they were.

After a time a tree that had been knocked into the river washed by and they caught hold of it and let it carry them along. They were able to rest a bit then, clutching the slippery trunk side by side, doing what they could to protect their bodies from the rocks and debris, searching the river and the shoreline for a means to extract themselves. They did not bother trying to speak; they were too exhausted to expend the effort and the river would likely have drowned out their words in any case. They simply exchanged glances and concentrated on staying together.

Eventually the river broadened, tumbling down out of the peaks into the hill country north, emptying into a forested basin where it pooled before being swept into a second channel that carried it south again. There was an island in the center of the basin, and the tree they were riding ran aground against it, spinning and bumping along its banks. Morgan and Quickening shoved away from their make-do raft and stumbled wearily ashore. Exhausted, their clothing hanging in tatters, they crawled through weeds and grasses for the shelter of the trees that grew there, a cluster of hardwoods dominated by a pair of monstrous old elms. Streams of water eddied and pooled on the ground about them as they fought their way along the island’s rain-soaked banks, and the wind howled around their ears. Lightning struck the mainland shore nearby with a thunderous crack, and they flattened themselves while the thunder rolled past.

At last they gained the trees, grateful to discover that it was comparatively dry beneath the canopy of limbs and sheltered against the wind. They stumbled to the base of the largest of the elms and collapsed, sprawling next to each other on the ground, gasping for breath. They lay without moving for a time, letting their strength return. Then, after exchanging a long look that conveyed their unspoken agreement to do so, they pulled themselves upright against the elm’s rough trunk and sat shoulder to shoulder, staring out into the rain.

“Are you all right?” Morgan asked her.

It was the first thing either of them had said. She nodded wordlessly. Morgan checked himself carefully for injuries, and finding none, sighed and leaned back—relieved, weary, cold, and unexplainably hungry and thirsty, too, despite being drenched. But there was nothing to eat or drink, so there was no point in thinking about it.