ahead. The one virture to the lowlands is that they will hide any trace of our passing.»
Wil shook his head doubtfully. «A thing like the Reaper won’t give up easily ”
«No, it will keep hunting us,” the Elf agreed. «But it won’t catch us like that a second time. It was waiting for us at Drey Wood because it knew we were coming I don’t know how it knew, but it did.» He glanced at the Valeman, but Wil said nothing. «In any case, it won’t know where we are now. If it expects to find us again, it will have to track us. That might have been done easily enough if we had stayed within the forestland, but it will be very difficult here. It will have to determine first where we left the River; that alone could take days. Then it will have to follow us into the Brakes. But the Brakes swallow you up without a trace; this marsh hides tracks ten seconds after you’ve made them. And we’ve got Katsin, who was born in this country and has crossed the Brakes before. The Demon, however powerful it may be, is in strange country. It will have to hunt by instinct alone. That gives us a very definite edge.»
Wil Ohmsford did not agree. Allanon had thought that the Demons would not track him when he fled Paranor. But they did. The Valeman had thought they would not find him again once Amberle and he were carried to the far shores of the Rainbow Lake by the King of the Silver River. But again they did. Why should it be any different this time? The Demons were creatures of another age; their powers were the powers of another age. Allanon had said that himself. He had said as well that the one who led them was a sorcerer. Would it be so difficult for them to track a handful of Elven Hunters, a young girl, and a Valeman?
Still, there was nothing to be done about it, the Valeman knew. If the Reaper could track them in the Brakes, it would track them anywhere. Crispin had made the right decision. The Elven Hunters possessed considerable skill; perhaps that would be enough to see them safely through.
The Valeman was far more concerned about another unpleasant possibility, and since their encounter with the Reaper at Drey Wood he had been able to think of little else. The Reaper had known that they were coming to that Elven outpost. It had to have known, because it had lain in wait for them. Crispin was right about that. But there was only one way it could have known — it must have been told by the spy concealed within the Elven camp, the spy whom Allanon had worked so carefully to deceive. And if the Demons, knew of their plan to travel south to the Elven outpost at Drey Wood, then how much more about this journey did they know? It was altogether possible, the Valeman realized, that they knew everything.
It was a chilling possibility, one that he would have preferred not to consider further, but which seemed more and more plausible as he weighed the facts. Allanon had been certain that there was a spy within the Elven camp. Somehow the spy had managed to overhear their conversation in Eventine’s study. He could not conceive of how that could have been accomplished, but he was certain that it had. Drey Wood had been mentioned; that would account for the Reaper. But the Wilderun had also been mentioned. That meant that the Demons knew exactly where they were going after Drey Wood; and if the Demons knew that, then regardless of the route the little company chose to follow or the deceptions they chose to employ to elude would–be pursuers, chances were excellent that when the company arrived at the Wilderun there would be Demons waiting for them.
The thought lingered with Wil Ohmsford all that day as the little company slogged through the marshy tangle of the Brakes. Thorny brush and saw grass cut them at every passing, mist turned their clothing damp and chill, and mud and foul–smelling water seeped through their boots and filled their nostrils with its stench. They walked separate and apart from each other, speaking little, eyes peering guardedly through rain and swirling haze as the land passed away about them in a changeless wash of gray. By nightfall, they were exhausted. They made their camp in a sparse outcropping of brush that grew up against a low rise. There was too much risk in a fire, so they wrapped themselves, in blankets that were damp with the lowland’s chill and ate their food cold.
The Elven Hunters finished quickly and prepared to stand watch in shifts. Wil had just completed his own small meal of dried meat and fruit, washed down with a little water, when Amberle came over and huddled down beside him, her child’s face peering out at him from within the folds of the blanket she had pulled up about her head. Stray locks of chestnut hair fell loosely over her eyes.
«How are you holding up?» he inquired.
«I’m fine.» She had the look of a lost waif. «I need to talk.»
«I’m listening.»
«I have been thinking about something all day.» He nodded wordlessly.
«The Reaper was waiting for us at Drey Wood,” she said quietly. She hesitated. «You realize what that means?»
He said nothing. He knew what was coming next. It was as if she had read his mind.
«That means that it knew we were coming.» She spoke the words he was thinking. «How could that have happened?»
He shook his head. «It just did.»
That was the wrong answer, and he knew it. Her face flushed.
«Just as the Demons found us at Havenstead? Just as they found Allanon at Paranor? Just as they seem to find us everywhere we go?» Her voice stayed low, but there was anger in it now. «What kind of a fool do you think I am, Wil?»
It was the first time that she had ever used his given name, and it startled him so that for a moment he simply stared at her. There was hurt and suspicion in her eyes, and he saw that he must either tell her what Allanon had directed him to keep secret or lie to her. It was an easy decision to make. He told her about the spy. When he had finished, she shook her head reprovingly.
«You should have told me before now.»
«Allanon asked me not to,” he tried to explain. «He thought that you already had enough to worry about.»
«The Druid does not know me as well as he thinks. Anyway, you should have told me.»
He no longer felt like arguing the point. He nodded in agreement.
«I know. I just didn’t.»
They were silent for a moment. One of the Elves on Watch appeared, wraithlike, out of the mist, then disappeared into it again. Amberle stared after him, then glanced over at Wil. Her voice floated out of the folds of her hood, her face masked in shadow.
«I’m not angry. Really, I’m not.»
He smiled faintly. «Good. This marsh is dismal enough as it is.»
«I would have been angry if you had not told me the truth just now.»
«That was why I told you.»
She let the matter drop. «If this spy overheard what was said in my grandfather’s study that night before we left Arborlon, then the Demons know where we are going, don’t they?»
«I imagine so,” he replied.
«That means they know about Safehold as well; they know everything the Ellcrys told the Chosen, because Allanon repeated it to us. They have as much chance of finding the Bloodfire as we do.»
«Maybe not.»
«Maybe not?»
«We have the Elfstones,” he pointed out, wondering as he did so if it made any difference that they did. After all, he did not really know if he could use the Stones again. The thought depressed him.
«Who could have gotten close enough to hear what we were saying?» She frowned and looked at him.
He shook his head wordlessly. He had been wondering that, too.
«I hope that my grandfather is all right,” she murmured after a minute.
«I would guess that he is better off than we are.» Wil sighed. «At least he has someplace warm to sleep.»
He hunched his knees up to his chest, trying to find an extra bit of warmth. Amberle moved with him, shivering with the cold. He let her settle close against him, bundled in her coverings.
«I wish this were finished,” she whispered distantly, almost as if she were saying it to herself.
The Valeman grimaced. «I wish it had never begun.»
She turned her head to look at him. «As long as we are wishing, I wish you would be honest with me after this. No more secrets.»
«No more secrets,” he promised.
They were quiet after that. A few moments later, Amberle’s head slipped down against his shoulder and she
