Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara (3 page)

“They’re going back up into the mountains,” Prue observed. She brushed back a lock of her flaming-red hair, tucking it under her cap. “Do you think they might be Kodens?”

The great bears lived at the higher elevations, solitary and reclusive, appearing now and then to hunters and trappers but hardly ever coming close to the communities. Certainly Kodens were big and strong enough to kill a pair of unsuspecting Trackers, as Panterra had surmised earlier.

But it still didn’t feel right. “Kodens don’t hunt in pairs,” he pointed out. “Nor would they savage a body that way. They only kill to eat or protect their young. There were no signs of young Kodens and no reason for the savaging. Unless they were maddened by some disease or chance brought them together at the campsite, it doesn’t make sense.”

Prue didn’t say anything for a minute, her breath clouding the air, her footfalls silent in the soft snow. “But what else could do something like this?”

He gave her a shake of his head. He didn’t know. He glanced over and saw the mask of determination etched on her face. They were so different, Prue and he. For all that they shared talents that bound them closer than if they were siblings, they were still polar opposites in almost every way. He was tall and broad-shouldered and much stronger than he looked. She was slight, almost frail—although she could also be very tough when it was called for. She was emotional about everything, and he was emotional about almost nothing, a cerebral thinker, a planner and calculator. He was cautious while she was quick to act. He was forward thinking while she preferred to live in the moment.

He could list other differences, other contrasts, but in truth they were still more alike than not. They shared a love of life lived outside walls, a life of exploration and discovery. They were skilled survivalists, able to convert almost anything at hand into tools and shelter. They were athletic and good with weapons. They were of a like mind about the ways in which the world was changing, too, here within the valley, where the once united peoples who had been saved were splintering into groups that no longer had much to do with one another and who, in some instances, were openly hostile to those who were not like them.

They were in agreement about the one they called Hawk, who had brought their people here five centuries ago, and about those who now called themselves his children.

Ahead, the blood trail, which had diminished steadily the farther they got from the killing ground, bloomed anew amid a line of thinning trees. Pan slowed their pace, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, searching the shadows for signs of their quarry. But nothing moved on the landscape or amid the trees and rocks.

The silence was deafening.

“Do you sense anything?” he asked Prue.

“Nothing that I didn’t sense before.” She glanced over, her fine-boned features tense beneath her cap. “Is that stain ahead what I think it is?”

He chose not to answer. “Wait here,” he told her.

He edged ahead toward the smear, already as certain as she must have been that it was blood. But as he neared, he saw that there were bones, too. There were bits of flesh and clothing.

There was part of a head.

Prue, who had come up beside him, silent as a shadow, threw up on the spot, unable to help herself, choking and gasping as she knelt in the snow. Panterra gripped her shoulders, bending close. “Take deep breaths,” he whispered.

She did as she was told, and the sickness appeared to dissipate and her head to clear. “Don’t look,” he told her.

“Too late,” she replied.

He helped her to her feet. “They ate them here, didn’t they?” she murmured.

He nodded, forcing himself to look anew at the mess, studying the ground carefully, reading the signs. “They ate them, and then they slept. Over there.” He pointed.

They walked over to a pair of depressions in the snow that gave a clear indication of the size and bulk of their quarry. Panterra knelt once more, touching the packed snow, trailing his fingers across its surface.

“They slept here after eating, then rose and went that way.” He pointed off to the west and back down the slopes. “They’re not done hunting.”

“How far ahead?” she asked.

He rose and stood looking bleakly down into the deep woods that spread out below them. “Only an hour or so.”

They set out once more, neither of them saying anything now, both of them concentrating on the task at hand. The air was growing warmer as the sun moved higher, the morning inching toward midday. They had been tracking for more than seven hours, and Panterra was aware of the need for food and rest. But they couldn’t afford to stop for either until they finished this. The risk of losing their quarry, now that they were so close, was too great to set aside in favor of personal needs.

The snow line had been left behind more than a mile back, and the frozen ground of earlier had softened. Traces of footprints reaffirmed that there were two of them, and the width and depth of their prints
was worrisome. Panterra was growing steadily less comfortable with every step they took. If they inadvertently stumbled onto these beasts or if the beasts happened to catch sight of them following, he did not like to think of the consequences. Both Prue and he carried long knives and bows, but these were poor weapons against opponents of this size. A spear or sword would better serve them, but Trackers did not like to be burdened with heavy weapons and neither Pan nor Prue bore them.

He thought some more about what they were doing, hunting creatures strong enough to kill two older and more experienced Trackers. He felt his reasons for doing so were good ones, but he had to wonder if he was displaying sufficient common sense. He knew that he and Prue were blessed with unusual talent and excellent instincts, but it would only take one slip for them to end up as two additional casualties with no one the wiser. He glanced momentarily at the girl, but she was concentrating on studying the way forward and paid him no attention. He did not see any doubt on her face.

He quickly erased his own.

The woods ahead grew increasingly dense, and the shadows dark. It was harder to see much of anything in the gloom, the sun unable to penetrate the heavy canopy. But that was where the tracks led.

He slowed anyway, signaling to Prue. She looked over. “What?”

He shook his head, not sure “what.” Something, though, was not right. He could feel it in his bones.

“Still don’t sense anything?” he pressed.

She shook her head no.

He hesitated, wondering if she might be mistaken. But she had never been mistaken before. It was foolish to start doubting her now. “Let’s keep moving,” he said.

They entered the woods, slipping noiselessly between the trunks of the trees, through the weeds and tall grasses. Because of the denseness of the foliage, they were forced to separate to avoid traveling in single file where only one could see ahead, working their way forward perhaps ten or twelve feet apart. The light faded, and the gloom deepened. There were no longer any tracks to follow, but broken stalks and scrapes on the bark marked the way.
Good enough for now
, Panterra thought. These were sufficient to keep them on the trail.

Then abruptly the woods opened onto a swamp, a morass of grasses alive with buzzing insects and groundwater thick with pond scum. A wind blew foul and sour across the waters and into the trees, carrying the scents of death and decay.

Panterra knew at once that he had made a mistake. He sank into a crouch, watching Prue, now almost fifteen feet away, do the same. While they had been tracking the creatures that had killed Bayleen and Rausha, the creatures had sensed them and led them to this bog. Swampy water ahead and a choking forest all about—it was a trap.

A quick shiver ran down his spine. How had Prue missed this? Had the stench of the swamp somehow masked their presence? Was that why her instincts had failed her? He reached for his knife and slowly drew it from its sheath. Prue was too far away, he realized suddenly—too distant for him to protect. He cast about swiftly, searching for a sign that would tell him from which direction the attack would come.

He found it almost immediately.

The creatures were right behind him.

P
ANTERRA QU TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND STARTED
to turn around to face whatever was there. But a voice as cold and hard as winter stopped him where he was.

“Stay still. They know you’re here, but they don’t know exactly where yet. If you move, they will.”

Pan was so shocked that he did what he was told without thinking. Whoever was speaking was right behind him, but obviously it wasn’t one of the creatures he was tracking. He had been mistaken about that.

“Where are they?” he whispered, keeping his eyes focused on the swamp and its dense foliage. “I don’t see them.”

“It’s a standoff then, boy. You don’t see them, and they don’t see you. No one sees anyone, do they? No, don’t move. Don’t try to turn around. Just stay still and listen to me.”

Panterra shot a quick look over at Prue, who was staring at him in bewilderment. She didn’t see the speaker, either, and couldn’t figure out what Pan was doing just crouching there, staring out at the swamp. He made a small gesture for her to stay where she was.

“Will she do as you say?” the speaker asked. “That was a Tracker sign. Are you both Trackers?”

Pan nodded. “Yes.”

“Kind of young for that sort of work. You must be good or know someone in the council. Do you come from Glensk Wood?”

Pan nodded again. “Who are you?”

“A friend. A good friend, as it turns out. I might even be able to save your life. Another few minutes, though, and I might have been too late. They’ve set you a trap.”

“Have you been following them, too?” Pan tried to reason it through. “Or were you following us?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, boy. I was following them, but you cut across their tracks ahead of me. Anyone else, another Tracker, would have gone back to the village for help. Not you, though. Are you brave or stupid?”

“Neither,” Pan answered, a flush rising from his neck to his face. “I knew the two that were killed. They were Trackers, too. But I don’t think what did it is anything we’ve ever seen before. So I thought we ought to get a look so we would know what it is that we’re hunting later on when there are more of us.”

The speaker was quiet for a moment. “You must be pretty good at the Tracker business. The girl, too. I had trouble following your prints where there wasn’t snow to mark the way. Even then, it was easier following the tracks of the creatures than your own.”

He had shifted somehow while he talked, gone more to the left. Pan could tell this by the change in the direction of his voice. But he hadn’t heard the other move at all, not a single rustle. He studied the swamp again, and then cast another glance over at Prue.

To his horror, he saw that she had left her position and was coming toward him in a stealthy crouch.

“Tell her to stop!” the speaker hissed.

But Prue ignored his hand signals, seeing something now that he couldn’t, which meant that the speaker had done something to give himself away and she was now aware of him.

“Can you fight as well as you track?” the speaker asked hurriedly.

A sword was shoved over Panterra’s shoulder, handle-first. “Take
this. You’ll need it if you hope to stay alive. Don’t engage—just fend it off, keep it at bay. I’ll help you if I can, but the girl will need me more.”

“What are we fight—” Pan started to ask.

The rest of his question was cut short by an explosion of movement from two different points at the edges of the swamp, one directly across from him, the other from his far left no more than fifty feet behind Prue. The brush and grasses burst apart, stagnant water geysered skyward into the low-hanging branches of the trees, and two monstrous apparitions came charging out of the gloom. They were down on all fours now, great hulking beasts that were barely visible through the gouts of swamp water and flying bits and pieces of plants and might have been almost anything.

Pan came to his feet, bracing himself. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a gray shadow as it whipped through the grasses behind him, heading for Prue. A man, but so quick and light on his feet that it seemed to the boy he must be an apparition. He reached Prue ahead of the attacking beast, picked her up in one smooth motion, and bolted toward a huge old cedar. A second later he had tossed the girl ten feet into the air, her outstretched arms catching hold of a nest of thick branches from which she then hung desperately.

Pan liked the idea of a big tree, not wishing to climb it so much as to put it between himself and the monster that was now almost on top of him, tearing through the swamp as if it could sense where there was solid footing. Its head was wedge-shaped and armored with thick scales, and its maw was a mass of blackened teeth ready to rend its quarry. Pan fled at once, racing for a second cedar, aware of the closeness of the thing behind him. It moved more quickly than something that big should have been able to, and it was terrifying. Pan got to the tree just ahead of the beast, wheeled around, and struck the creature as its momentum carried it past him.

It was like striking a rock. His blade bounced off without effect, and the force of the blow numbed his arms all the way from his hands to his shoulders. He ducked back around the tree once more, watching the beast skid to a halt amid tufts of flying earth and grass. He needed a better plan than this one, he thought, and he didn’t have one.

Then the stranger was suddenly there once more, flashing out of nowhere to stand between the beast and Pan. He held a black staff
with markings that glowed as white as brilliant sunlight. The armored monster never hesitated when it saw the man. It came at him at once, a juggernaut thundering through gloom and tall grasses with singular intent. The man faced it without trying to escape, the staff held vertically before him, its entire length on fire now.

Run!
Pan wanted to scream, but the word wouldn’t come.