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

Behind them, Owl talked to the boy who had shot Squirrel, telling him about the Ghosts, asking him questions about himself, trying to draw him out.

It didn’t seem to be working. The boy slouched down in the rear seat and looked out the window and never said a word. Now and then he was forced to look at her when Panther dropped back to walk next to the AV, his eyes on the boy, a half smile on his dark face. Logan could see the fear in the boy’s eyes; he knew what Panther had planned for him. Owl tried to motion Panther away from the AV, but even when he moved off, it was only for a while and only to return to walk next to the window and the boy, the same look on his face.

They continued on through midday at a slow, almost desultory pace. Logan allowed them to stop for lunch but did not plan to stop again until nightfall. The walkers shared bottled water slung on straps across their shoulders and energy bars he had salvaged from some warehouse in the Chicago area several months back. He had a case of the bars, but with this many sharing them it would be empty in a week. He wished he had been given a better opportunity to stock up on supplies before leaving the city. The Ghosts hadn’t brought much, either, concentrating on hard-to-find items like purification tablets and medicines along with their clothes and bedding. They were a ragtag bunch for sure, he thought, and not likely to find themselves better off anytime soon.

Candle rode up front with Logan when they set out again, her intense gaze focused ahead, her blue eyes filled with hidden knowledge. He remembered that she experienced premonitions, that she saw things that foretold the future and warned of danger, things hidden from the others. She was their guide dog through dark places.

He remembered, too, how she had defended him to the others.

Once or twice, he caught her looking at him out of the corner of her eye, but he let her think he didn’t notice. She was still taking his measure, deciding how she really felt about him, how far she wanted to trust him. He was a part of the outside world, and for a girl of ten years who had seen so much darkness and experienced so much doubt and fear, there was a great deal of which to be wary.

At one point, she asked, “Do you think we’ll see Hawk soon?” She gave him a quick look as she did so.

“I don’t know,” he answered, cocking one eyebrow. “I would feel better about things if we did.”

“Hawk belongs with us.”

He maneuvered the Lightning past a downed utility pole.

“The Ghosts are a family. Isn’t that right?”

She nodded. “Hawk will lead us to the Promised Land.” She did not look at him this time. “Owl tells the story better than me.” She hesitated. “Do you believe that?”

He smiled despite himself, thinking of Two Bears and the Lady and the destiny of the gypsy morph. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he said.

He saw her smile back. That was all she said for a while, gone back inside herself, her gaze directed out the window to the gray landscape of the countryside.

And then, “Were you a street kid like us when you were little?” She was looking at him again, studying him closely this time. “Did you belong to a tribe?”

He shook his head. “I was a compound kid.”

“What happened to you? Why did you leave the compound? Did they make you leave?”

“The compound was overrun and my family was killed. I escaped with a band of rebel freemen that managed to save a few of us. Their leader adopted me.”

“Do you remember your real parents?” she asked.

“A little. Not very well anymore.”

“I don’t remember mine at all.”

He thought about it. “Maybe that’s okay.”

Her head cocked slightly. “Why would you say that?”

“Because the dead belong in the past.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time, watching his face, her blue eyes intense. Then she said softly, “I don’t think that’s true.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because they were our friends and they need to be remembered.

Don’t you want to be remembered by someone when you’re dead?”

It seemed strange to hear this little girl talk like that; it seemed too grown-up for a ten-year-old. In any case, talking about the dead made him uncomfortable.

“Don’t you?” she asked again.

He glanced over and shrugged. “I guess maybe I do.”

She hunched her thin shoulders. “I know I do. I don’t want everyone to forget about me.”

It was nearing mid afternoon, and they had covered almost twenty miles. They were well below the big airfield that stretched along the highway south of the city when they passed a huge industrial complex closed off by heavy chain-link fencing topped with razor wire. The fence and the wire reminded Logan of the slave camps, but the buildings beyond were of a different sort entirely and there was no sign of life anywhere. A service road branched off the highway and climbed an incline through a grove of withered spruce interspersed with ornamental stone to a pair of gates, which were chained and locked. A sign, faded and weather-stained, hung from the mesh:ORONYX