could not permit him to do this to her again. Without hesitating, she went after him.
So began their race to save Amberle. Wil Ohmsford, riding as if he were a man possessed, quickly lost all track of where he was. Gloom and mist slipped about him as he came down off the ridge line into the deep forest, and he could barely make out the dark shapes of the trees at either side as he whipped past them. Yet he did not slow; he could not. He heard the sound of another horse following and realized that Eretria had come after him. He muttered a quick oath; did he not have enough to worry about already? But there was no time to concern himself with the Rover girl. He dismissed her from his thoughts and concentrated his efforts on finding the cutoff leading south.
Even so, he rode right past it. If Eretria had not called out to him, he might have kept riding east all the way to the mountains. Wheeling about in surprise, he charged back again. But now Eretria had taken the lead, spurring her mount forward into the darkness. More familiar than he with the trail, she galloped ahead, calling for him to follow. Surprised all over again, he gave chase.
It was a harrowing ride. The darkness was so thorough that even the sharp eyes of the Rover girl could barely pick out the pathway as it twisted through the forest night. Several times the horses almost went down, barely springing clear of gullies and fallen logs that lay across the narrow trail. But these were Rover horses, trained by the finest riders in the Four Lands, and they responded with a quickness and agility that brought a fierce cry from the lips of the Rover girl and left the Valeman breathless.
Then suddenly they were back upon the roadway that Amberle and Wil had followed south to the Hollows, with branches and vines slapping against them and muddied water lashing up from the deep puddles that had collected upon the trail. Without slowing, they turned south. The minutes slipped by.
At last they broke from the forest onto the rim of the Hollows, its black circle spread out before them like some bottomless pit in the earth. Reining in their horses sharply, they sprang to the ground, staring about at the forest gloom. Silence hung across the Hollows, deep and pervasive. Wil hesitated only a second, then began searching for the bushes in which he had hidden Amberle. He found them almost at once and pushed his way to their center. There was no one there. For an instant, he panicked. He groped about for some sign of what might have happened to the Elven girl, but there was nothing to be found. His panic increased. Where was she? He rose, backing from the bushes. Perhaps these were the wrong ones, he thought suddenly, and began to look about for others. He stopped almost at once. There were no others like them close enough to be seen. No, it was here that he had hidden her.
Eretria hurried up to him. «Where is she?»
«I don’t know,” he whispered, his lean face sweating. «I can’t find her.»
He regained control of himself with an effort. Reason, it through, he told himself. Either she fled or the Reaper took her. If she fled, where would she go? He looked at once to the Hollows. There, he decided — to Spire’s Reach or as close to it as she could get. What if she had been taken, what then? But she had not been taken, he realized, because there was no sign of a struggle. She would have fought back; she would have left him some sign. If she had fled, on the other hand, she would have been careful to leave nothing behind to show her pursuer that she had been there at all.
He took a deep breath. She must have fled. But then a new thought struck him. He was assuming in all of this that Amberle had fled from the Reaper. What if it had not been the Reaper, but something that had come out of the Hollows? His jaw locked in frustration. There was no way to tell. In this blackness, he could not hope to find a trail. Either he would have to wait until morning, when it might be too late to help Amberle, or…
Or he would have to use the Elfstones.
He was reaching for the pouch when Eretria’s hand gripped his arm sharply, causing him to jump in surprise.
«Healer!» she whispered. «Someone is coming!»
He felt his stomach knot sharply. For an instant he simply stood there, his gaze following the girl’s as it turned north up the trail they had just traveled. On its shadowed rut, something moved. Fear welled up within the Valeman. His hand fumbled within his tunic and lifted free the Elfstones. At his side, Eretria snatched from her boot a wicked–looking dagger. Together they faced the approaching shadow.
«Just hold on now!» A familiar voice called out to them.
Wil looked at Eretria and she at him. Slowly they lowered Elfstones and dagger. The voice belonged to Hebel. Eretria muttered something under her breath and moved to retrieve the horses, which had strayed back into the forest.
Down the trail trudged Hebel, the shaggy form of Drifter close at his heels. He wore leather woodsman’s garb and carried a sack strapped across his back, a longbow and arrows over one shoulder, and a hunting knife at his waist. He moved with a peculiar hunching motion, leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick. As he came up to them, they could see that he was spattered from head to foot with mud.
«You nearly ran me down, you know!» he snapped. «Look at me! If I’d been foolish enough to stand any further out on the trail than I did when I hailed you back there, I’d be covered with hoof prints as well as mud! What do you think you are doing, riding about the forest like that? It’s black as six feet under out there and you ride about like it was broad daylight. Why didn’t you stop when I called out to you, for cat’s sake?»
«Well… because we didn’t hear you,” Wil answered in bewilderment.
«That’s because you weren’t listening like you should have been!» Hebel was not about to forgive them. He lurched right up to the Valeman. «Took one all day, to get here — all day. Without a horse, I might point out. What took you so confounded long then? The way you were riding a minute ago, you could have been here and gone again half a dozen times!»
He caught sight of Eretria as she reappeared with the horses. «What are you doing here? Where is the Elfling girl? That thing didn’t get her, did it?»
Wil started. «You know about the Reaper?»
«Reaper? If that’s what it’s called, yes, I know about it. It came to my camp earlier today — just after you’d left. Looking for you, it appears now, though at the time I wasn’t sure. Never really saw the thing just caught a glimpse. I think if I’d seen it close up, I’d be dead now.»
«I think so, too,” the Valeman agreed. «Cephelo and the others are. It caught up with them on Whistle Ridge.»
Hebel nodded soberly. «Cephelo was bound to come to that end sooner or later.» He glanced at Eretria. «Sorry, girl, but that’s the truth of it.» Then he turned back to Wil. «Now where’s the little Elfling?»
«I don’t know,” Wil answered him. «I had to go back…» He hesitated. «I had to go back for something I left behind with Cephelo. Amberle had injured her ankle, so I hid her in some bushes. I went back a different way than I had come or I would probably be dead as well. I found Eretria, or she found me, I guess; and after we saw what had happened to Cephelo, we came back here as fast as we could. But now Amberle is gone, and I can’t be sure what has happened to her. I can’t even be sure whether the Reaper has been here yet or is still tracking us.»
«It’s come and gone,” Hebel told him. «Drifter and I have been tracking it while it’s been tracking you. Lost the trail at the fork because the Reaper went east to Whistle Ridge while Drifter and I came south after you. But then the trail started up again further south. Thing must have cut through the wilderness. If it could do that, it’s dangerous, Elfling.»
«Ask Cephelo how dangerous it is,” Eretria muttered, glancing about at the forest shadows. «Healer, can we get out of here now?»
«Not until we find out what happened to Amberle,” Wil insisted.
Hebel tapped his arm. «Show me where you left the girl.»
Wil walked to the clump of bushes, with Eretria, the old man, and the dog trailing after, and pointed to the opening leading in. Hebel bent down, peered inside, and whistled Drifter to him. He spoke quietly to the dog and the animal came forward, sniffed about, then moved over to the rim of the Hollows as the others watched.
«He has the scent, Drifter has.» Hebel grunted with satisfaction. Drifter stopped and growled softly. «She is down in the Hollows, Elfling. The Reaper is down there, too. Probably still tracking her. I’d have guessed as much.»
«Then we have to find her right away.» Wil started forward.
Hebel caught his arm. «No need to rush, Elfling. That’s the Hollows we’re talking about, remember? Nothing down there but the Witch Sisters and the things that serve them. Anything else sets one foot in the Hollows gets snatched right up — I know that from what Mallenroh told me sixty years ago.» He shook his head. «By now, the
