The Elves of Cintra (Book 2 of The Genesis of Shannara)

“They’re coming!” she spat at him furiously, practically throwing him ahead of her. “We can’t let them find us! Run!”


Angel was already in flight, heading away from the voices.

Kirisin took one final look at Erisha, felt everything he had hoped for slip away as he did so, and then began to run.





Chapter THIRTEEN


ANGEL PEREZ had no idea where she was running to, only what she was running from—Erisha, lying on the ground, bleeding out her life, surrounded by a swarm of Feeders drawn to the smell and taste of her death, dark shadows that her companions could not see. The shouts of the Elven sentries spurred her on, a clear reminder of how horribly wrong things had gone. Still stunned by what had happened amid the tombs of the Gotrins, still wrestling with the inescapable implications of what it meant—implications that perhaps only she yet realized—she was reacting more to her emotions than to reason.

Simralin overtook her, long legs eating up the distance between them. “You don’t know where you’re going!” she shouted as she surged past. “Follow me!”

Ashenell was huge, and it all looked the same to Angel, clusters of stone markers and tombs, mausoleums and crypts, memorials to the dead amid a scattering of trees and flowering bushes, everything shrouded by cold white moonlight that flooded down out of a deep blue sky. She listened to the sound of her breathing and her footfalls as the cries of their pursuers slowly faded into the distance. She clutched her black staff and agonized in dismal silence over how sometimes even a Knight of the Word could do so little.

“Angel!”

She turned at the sound of her name and saw Kirisin desperately trying to catch up. She slowed and stopped. Ahead of her, Simralin glanced back, saw what was happening, and wheeled around, as well.

Kirisin came to a ragged halt in front of her. “Wait,” he panted.

“What about Ailie?”

There was blood on his hands and the front of his tunic.

Erisha’s blood, from his vain attempt to stop her bleeding. His eyes were empty and haunted, staring without really seeing, blinking rapidly, as if trying to adjust. He looked to be on the verge of collapse, chest heaving, face sweat-streaked and dusty, his body all bones and sinew seemingly in danger of flying apart, a ragged scarecrow cut down from its post in the field and set loose in the world, struggling to learn how to move.

“What about her, Angel?” He dropped to one knee, breathing hard. “We can’t just leave her!”

Tears filled Angel’s eyes, and she shook her head. Little Ailie, her self-appointed conscience, her companion and friend. Thinking of the tatterdemalion made her hurt in a way she thought she would never get past.

“She’s dead, Kirisin.”

Simralin appeared beside her, confusion mirrored on her strong features as she looked from one to the other.

“Dead? How can you say that?” Kirisin was aghast.

Angel tightened her lips. “Because if she weren’t dead, she would have warned us. That demon never would have gotten past her.”

“But we can’t be sure!” Kirisin insisted.

From the way he said it, Angel knew that he needed to believe it. He needed to believe that he was right, that there was still some hope for Ailie. Perhaps it was because there was none at all for Erisha, and losing both would be too much for him to bear. But Angel was a veteran of the streets, and she had lost others she had cared about as much as Ailie. Losing Johnny had nearly finished her, but she had gotten past it. She would get past losing Ailie, too. She had to. The living could not bring back the dead.

Memories of the dead were all they could hold on to.

She started to say this to Kirisin, but he was already looking back over his shoulder. “You could be wrong. What if you’re wrong?”

She started to say that she wasn’t and stopped herself.

What if she were? What if, despite what she knew in her heart, Ailie was still alive? It didn’t feel to her as if that were possible, but she had been wrong before.

She took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll go back and look.”

“No,” Simralin said at once, stepping in front of her. “You are the last one who should go. They are probably already looking for you. I’ll go. Another Elven Hunter won’t draw any special attention.”

She turned to Kirisin. “Take Angel to the house. Wait inside. Don’t light any lamps. Don’t do anything to draw attention. If you see anyone coming, get out of there. If we lose each other, we’ll meet up at the north crossroads by Tower Rock.” She reached out and hugged him to her. “Be careful, Little K.”

Then she raced away, heading not directly back in the direction from which they had come but angling off to the right, choosing a roundabout approach that would allow her to slip out of Ashenell and come up on the searchers from the rear. Angel hoped they didn’t know exactly who they were looking for, or Simralin would be in trouble.

Then the boy turned to her. “That demon. It knew—”