talk to one another at all, moving through the forest as silently as they, could, all too conscious of the fact that somewhere within that same forest the Reaper prowled. Wil had never felt quite so helpless as he did then. It was bad enough that he could see almost nothing; it was worse knowing that the Reaper was down there with him. He thought constantly of Amberle. If he were frightened; what must it be like for her? His fear made him ashamed. He had no right to be afraid, not when she was the one who was alone and unprotected, and he was the one who had left her that way.
Yet the fear stayed with him. To ward it off, he clutched the pouch with the Elfstones in one hand, grasping it firmly, as if having it there might somehow protect him against whatever hid within the forest night. Yet deep within, the feeling persisted that the Elfstones would not protect him, that their power was lost to him and he could not get it back again. It made no difference what Amberle had told him or what he had, told himself. The feeling lacked reason or purpose; it was simply there — haunting, malignant, terrifying. The power of the Elfstones was no longer his.
He was still trying to shake the feeling when the rope before him went suddenly slack. He almost stumbled over Hebel, who had come to a complete stop. Eretria bumped up against him, and the three stood bunched together, peering ahead into the gloom.
«Drifter’s found something,” the old man whispered to Wil.
Dropping to his knees, he worked his way forward to where Drifter was sniffing the ground, Wil and Eretria following close behind. He patted the dog soothingly and felt along the earth for a time, then rose.
«Mallenroh.» He spoke her name softly. «She’s got the Elfling girl.»
«Are you sure?» Wil whispered back.
The old man nodded. «Has to be. That Reaper thing’s somewhere else now. Drifter doesn’t smell it anymore.»
Wil did not understand how Hebel could be certain of all this, especially when it was so impossibly black, but there was no point in arguing the matter.
«What do we do now?» he asked anxiously.
«Keep going.» Hebel grunted. «Drifter — go, boy»
The dog started ahead once more, the tree humans trailing after. The minutes slipped away, and gradually the forest began to lighten. At first Wil thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but finally he realized that night was fading and a new day had begun. Trees and brush began to take shape about him, the dimness sharpening slowly as the sun slipped its faint glow through the forest roof. Ahead, the shaggy black form of Drifter became visible for the first time since they had descended from the Hollows rim, head lowered to the trail as he sniffed his way along the damp earth.
Then abruptly the big head lifted and the dog stopped. The humans stopped with him, startled looks on their faces. Before them stood the strangest creature that any of them had ever seen. It was a man made of sticks — two arms, two legs and a body all of sticks, gnarled roots curling out from the ends of the arms and legs to form fingers and toes. It had no head. It faced them — or at least they thought it faced them since the roots that formed its fingers and toes appeared to point in their direction. Its slender body swayed slightly as if it were a sapling caught in a sudden wind. Then it turned and walked back into the forest.
Hebel glanced quickly at the other two. «I told you. That’s Mallenroh’s work.»
Beckoning hurriedly to them, he started after the creature. Wil and Eretria looked doubtfully at each other, then followed. Wordlessly, the little procession trudged ahead into the gloom, weaving and twisting through the maze of the forest. After a time, other stick men like the first began to appear about them, headless, gnarled things, noiseless but for the slight skittering sound they made as they walked. Almost before the humans knew it, there were dozens of the creatures ringing them, trailing like ghosts through the shadows.
«I told you,” Hebel kept whispering back to the Valeman and the Rover girl, his leathered face intense.
Then abruptly the forest thinned. Before them stood a solitary tower, its dark turret rising up into the trees that grew about it. It sat atop a small knoll, a nearly windowless keep, its stone aged, worn, and grown thick with vines and moss. The knoll had become an island, encircled by a stream that flowed from somewhere back in the forest, wending its way down in a series of drops and turns before meandering off into the trees to their left. A low wall ringed the tower, built close to the bank of the stream; where it faced them, a drawbridge stood open and empty, chains hanging limply from small watch houses at either side, a heavy wooden bridgehead spanning the waters beneath. All about the rise and the tower grew massive oaks, ancient trees whose boughs interwove and shut away the morning sky, leaving the isle, like the rest of the Hollows, draped in deepest shadow.
The stick man they had followed stopped. It turned about slightly, as if its headless form would ascertain whether or not they were there. Then it began walking toward the drawbridge. Hebel limped after it without hesitating, Drifter at his side. Wil and Eretria hung back a moment, less certain than the old man that they ought to go further. The tower was a forbidding structure; they new that they should not set foot within its walls, knew that they had already gone much farther than they should.
But the Valeman sensed somehow that it was here he would find Amberle. He looked back at Eretria, and they started forward.
Down to the edge of the stream the little band went, following the silent stick man, its brethren all about them. Except for the sounds of their movements and the flow of the stream, the forest lay wrapped in silence. The stick man stepped onto the bridgehead and walked across, fading from sight in the shadow of the gate. The men, the girl, and the dog passed over the bridge behind it, Wil and Eretria casting apprehensive glances at the massive black tower beyond.
Then they were beneath the gate. The stick man reappeared before them, standing now just beyond the shadowed arch. In a line, they moved forward, watching as it started once more toward the tower. They had barely walked clear of the gateway when they heard the sudden sound of chains creaking and groaning. Behind them, the drawbridge lifted and sealed against the wall.
Now there was no turning back. In a knot, they walked to the tower. The stick man was waiting, standing within a high alcove that sheltered a pair of broad, ironbound wooden doors. One door stood open. The stick man stepped through and was gone. Wil stared upward at the massive stone face of the tower, then reached into his tunic and brought forth the pouch that contained the Elfstones. With the others, he stepped through the doorway into blackness.
For an instant no one moved, standing just within the entry, peering blindly into the gloom. Then the door swung shut behind them, locks snapping into place. Light flare from within a glass–enclosed lamp that hung suspended from above, its glow white and soft, neither from burning oil nor pitch, but something that gave off no flame as it burned. All about stood the stick men, their gnarled shadows cast upon stone walls, swaying gently in the light.
From the gloom behind them, a woman appeared, cloaked all in black and trailing long streamers of crimson nightshade.
«Mallenroh,” Hebel whispered, and Wil Ohmsford felt the air about him turn to ice.
Chapter Forty–Two
The second day of the battle for Arborlon belonged to Ander Elessedil. It was a day of blood and pain, of death and great courage. All during the night the Demon hordes had continued to ferry their brethren across across the waters of the Rill Song, singly and in groups, until, for the first time since their break from the Forbidding, the whole of their army was gathered to strike, massed at the base of the Carolan from cliff face to riverbank, stretched north and south as far as the eye could see, awesome and terrible and endless in number. At dawn, they attacked the city. Up against the walls of the Elfitch they rushed, wave upon wave, maddened and howling with hate. Up against the heights they surged, scrambling onto the sheer rock, clawing their way through a hail of arrows. Onward they came, like a wave that would sweep across the defenders who waited and leave them buried.
It was Ander Elessedil who made the difference. It was as if on that day he became at last the King his father had been, the King who had led the Elves against the armies of the Warlock Lord those fifty years past. Gone was the weariness and the disillusion. Gone was the doubt that had haunted him since Halys Cut. He believed again in himself and in the determination of those who fought with him. It was an historic moment, and the Elven Prince
