«How wide is the pass?» asked Balinor absently, still pacing.
«About two hundred yards at the point the Gnomes are gathered,” Dayel replied, avoiding a confrontation with Menion. He thought a minute longer, and then snapped his fingers in recollection. «The right side of the pass is completely open, but on the left side there are small trees and scrub brush growing along the cliff face. They would give us some cover.»
«Not enough,” interrupted Hendel. «The Pass of Jade is wide enough to march an army through, but trying to get past with the little cover offered would be suicidal. I’ve seen it from the other side, and any Gnome looking would spot you in a minute!»
«Then they’ll have to be looking somewhere else,” Balinor growled as the faint glimmer of a plan began to form in his mind. He stopped suddenly, and kneeling on the forest floor drew a crude diagram of the pass entrance, looking to Dayel and Hendel for approval. Menion had stopped complaining long enough to join them.
«From the drawing, it appears that we can stay under cover and out of the light until we reach here,” Balinor explained, indicating a point of ground near the line representing the left cliff face. «The slope is gentle enough to allow us to remain above the Gnomes and within the cover of the brush. Then there is an open space for about twenty–five or thirty yards until the forests begin against the steeper cliff face beyond. That is the point of diversion, the point where the light will show us clearly to anyone looking. The Gnomes will have to be turned another way when we cross that open space.»
He paused and looked at the four anxious faces, wishing fervently that he had a better plan, but knowing there was no time to come up with another if they were to preserve any chance of recovering the Sword of Shannara. Whatever else was at stake now, nothing was of such paramount importance as the life of the frail– looking Valeman who was heir to the Sword’s power and the one chance left to the people of the four lands to avoid a conflict that would consume them all. Their own lives could be sold comparatively cheaply to preserve that single hope.
«It will take the best bowman in the Southland,” the tall borderman announced quietly. «That man will have to be Menion Leah.» The highlander looked up in surprise at the unexpected declaration, unable to hide the sense of pride he felt. «There will be only one shot,” continued the Prince of Callahorn. «If it is not exactly on target, we will be lost.»
«What is your plan?» interrupted Durin curiously.
«When we reach the end of our cover at the open space, Menion will locate one of the Gnome chieftains to the far side of the pass. He will have one shot with the bow to kill him, and in the confusion that follows, we can slip by.»
«It won’t work, my friend,” growled Hendel. «The minute they see their leader struck by the arrow, they’ll be all over that pass entrance. You’ll be found in minutes.»
Balinor shook his head and smiled faintly, but unconvincingly.
«No, we won’t, because they will be after someone else. The minute the Gnome chieftain falls, one of us will show himself back in the pass. The Gnomes will be so incensed and so eager to get their hands on him, that they won’t take the time to search for anyone else, and we can slip by in the confusion.»
Silence greeted his appraisal of the situation, and the anxious faces looked from one person to the next, the same thought in every mind.
«It sounds just fine for everyone but the man who stays behind to show himself,” broke in Menion in disbelief. «Who gets that suicidal chore?»
«It was my plan,” declared Balinor. «It will be my duty to stay behind and lead the Gnomes into the Wolfsktaag, until I can circle back and join you later at the edge of the Anar.»
«You must be insane if you think I’m letting you stay behind and claim all the credit,” Menion declared. «If I make the shot, I stay to take the bows, and if I miss…»
He trailed off and smiled, shrugging casually, clapping Durin on the shoulder as the other looked on incredulously. Balinor was about to object further when Hendel stepped forward shaking his broad head in disagreement.
«The plan is fine as it goes, but we all know that the man who stays behind will have several thousand Gnomes attempting to track him down, or at best, waiting for him to come out of their taboo land. The man who stays must be a man who knows the Gnomes, their methods, how to fight and survive against them. In this case, that man is a Dwarf with a lifetime of battle knowledge behind him. It must be me.
«Besides,” he added grimly, «I told you how badly they want my head. They won’t pass up the chance after such an affront.»
«And I’ve already told you,” insisted Menion again, «that’s my…»
«Hendel is right,” Balinor cut in sharply. The others looked at him in amazement. Only Hendel knew that the decision the borderman had made, however distasteful, was the same one he would have made had their positions been reversed. «The choice has been made, and we will abide by it. Hendel will have the best chance to survive.»
He turned to the stocky Dwarf warrior and extended a broad hand. The other gripped it tightly for a brief moment, then turned quickly from them and disappeared up the trail at a slow trot. The others watched, but he was gone in a matter of seconds. The booming of the drums and the chanting of the Gnomes rolled deeply out of the lighted sky to the west.
«Gag the Valemen so they cannot cry out,” ordered Balinor, startling the other three with the sharpness of the sudden command. When Menion failed to move, but remained rooted to the spot, looking silently up the path Hendel had taken a moment before, Balinor turned to him and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. «Be certain, Prince of Leah, that your shot is worthy of his sacrifice for us.»
The still–twisting bodies of the two Valemen were quickly secured to the makeshift stretchers and their low cries effectively muffled by tightly bound cloth gags. The four remaining men picked up their gear and the stretchers and moved out of the cover of the trees toward the mouth of the Pass of Jade. The Gnome fires blazed up before them, lighting the night sky in a brilliant aura of yellow and orange flame. The drums crashed out in steady rhythm, the sound deafening in the ears of the four as they drew closer. The chanting grew louder until it seemed as if the entire Gnome nation must be gathered. The overall sensation was one of eerie unreality, as if they were lost in that primitive world of half–dreams traversed by mortal and spirit alike in strange rituals that have no recognizable purpose. The walls of the towering cliffs rose jaggedly into the night sky on either side, distant but ominously huge intruders on the little scene taking place at the high entrance to the Pass of Jade. Rock walls glimmered in a shower of color — red, orange, and yellow blended into an overriding deep green that danced and flickered in the man– made firelight. The color reflected off the hardness of the rock and mirrored softly in the grim–set faces of the four stretcher bearers, touching momentarily the fear they were trying to conceal.
Finally the men stood within the corridor of the pass, just out of sight of the chanting Gnomes. The slopes rose steeply on either side, the northern incline offering little or no cover whatsoever, while the southern fairly bristled with small trees and dense scrub brush that grew so thickly it was choking on itself. Balinor silently signaled the others to make their way up the side of this slope. He took the lead himself, searching out the safest approach, moving cautiously upward toward the small trees that grew higher on the mountain. It took them quite awhile to reach the safety of the trees, and Balinor motioned them slowly ahead into the mouth of the pass. As they inched forward, Menion could look through breaks in the trees and brush to catch quick glimpses of the fires burning below, still ahead of them, their bright flames almost completely masked by the hundreds of small, gnarled figures who moved rhythmically in the light, chanting in a deep, soul–searching drone to the spirits of the Wolfsktaag. His mouth felt dry as he visualized what would happen to them if they were discovered, and he thought grimly of Hendel. He was suddenly very afraid for the Dwarf. The brush and trees began to thin out, rising higher on the slope, and the four crept upward under their cover, but slower now, more hesitantly, as Balinor kept one eye fixed on the Gnomes below. Durin and Dayel walked on cat feet, their light Elven frames moving soundlessly through dry, brittle limbs and twigs, blending into the natural terrain about them. Again Menion peered worriedly at the Gnomes, closer than before, their yellowish bodies weaving to the drums, gleaming with the sweat of hours spent calling on their gods and praying to the mountains.
Then the four reached the end of their cover. Balinor pointed ahead to the yards of open space that lay between them and the dense forests of the Anar standing darkly beyond. It was a long distance, and there was nothing between the men and the floor of the pass but the scrub brush and a few sparse blades of grass, dried from
