But they had not spoken of it. Not once. At first, it had been too risky with the demon threading his way through the dead, turning this way and that, searching. It was dangerous enough being this close to him. Later, when he had settled down and taken up his current place of watch, they had still kept silent, an unspoken agreement. Once, Aislinne had gestured to suggest that perhaps they should retreat farther back into the pass. But Prue had pointed to where the scarlet dove had come to roost in the rocks overhead. It was no longer leading them, she indicated. It had found what it was looking for. It was waiting here for Panterra Qu, and she and Aislinne must wait with it.
By gesturing and mouthing words, she made her point, and even though Aislinne could not see the dove, she had understood, nodded in agreement, and settled back with her bow and arrows clutched close. If this was where the matter was to be decided, Aislinne Kray would take a stand, as well. Prue knew what she was thinking, how she had made up her mind that it would all end here. Both of them had come searching for a resolution to the madness that had been threatening all of them ever since the demon had found his way into the valley, and now both believed that no resolution could be found without Panterra Qu. He was coming, and the demon was waiting for him. There was no other explanation for what was happening. The dead were meant to draw the bearer of the black staff, and the demon would wait for as long as it took for that to happen.
But Prue and Aislinne would wait with him. They could be patient, too.
Aislinne shifted closer to Prue and put her lips to the girl’s ear.
I could kil him from here.
Prue looked at her.
One shot, through the heart. A second to join it, if I am lucky. It might be worth trying. We could end it al .
Prue shook her head. You can’t kil him that way.
We don’t know that.
I know it. The King of the Silver River said Pan must confront the demon to put an end to him. We must wait for that.
Aislinne studied her face for a long time, and then nodded and settled back once more.
On the slopes leading up to the pass where the demon sat amid the dead, the darkness was beginning to draw back.
THE DEMON WAS A PATIENT CREATURE. Waiting did not trouble it. Even waiting days or weeks did not distress it. It had learned how to wait, helped in part because its life span was so long and time was so unimportant. It was easy to wait in this instance, where it would yield such rich rewards. There were many things not worth waiting for and times when patience was wasted, but it was not the case here. The demon had already been waiting centuries. It had not even come close to laying hands upon one of the black staffs since the collapse of the old world and the destruction of the last of the Knights of the Word.
The possibility of it happening now was exciting and compelling, and his need for it was overwhelming. Possession of power drew the demon now as always—power over life and death. That power would soon be his, and the satisfaction he would feel when it was his to wield was worth any wait.
So he sat there in the killing field, the smell of death all around him, sharp and pungent in the night air. He drank it in out of habit, but barely gave it a thought as he did so. He had drunk it in so often, been surrounded by it so endlessly, that it no longer held much interest. The dead that lay at his feet were worth nothing in any case. It was the bearer’s life that had real value.
It was his anticipation of what it would feel like to take that life that mattered.
Had he been less immersed in the intoxicating smell and taste of death and less obsessed by his craving for the power of the black staff, he might have sensed the presence of Prue Liss, who was hidden little more than a hundred yards away. He might have caught a whiff of her strange magic or a whisper of her companion’s soft breathing. But on this night, in this place, and with his thoughts directed on other matters, he failed to do so.
Time slipped away, and once or twice he thought he heard stirrings from within the shadows of the entrance to the pass. But he gave it almost no thought, assuming it was one of those unfortunates who had managed to crawl from the heaps of dead in a futile effort to reach safety in Glensk Wood. Such safety was an illusion, given what he had planned for those who lived within the valley. And even if it was something or someone who thought to do him harm, he didn’t care because nothing that humans and their like possessed could threaten him. He had already seen the best of what they had, and it was nothing.
Only the bearer of the staff could do him harm, and he would make swift work of that one, once he surfaced. A newly endowed bearer of magic was no match for someone like him, a practiced wielder, a skilled user, and a creature comfortable with death.
He watched the darkness slowly fade, watched dawn’s light surface from behind the mountains east, watched the shadows draw back and begin, one by one, to vanish. The new day had arrived, and it held the promise of something wonderful.
Then suddenly he saw the solitary figure moving across the foothills west, slowly taking shape as it emerged from the gloom. A man carrying a black staff. He could hardly believe his good fortune.