Терри Брукс - Jarka Ruus

Intrigued, the moor cat answered with a series of huffing noises that came from deep within its throat. Pen was working furiously now, taking in the sounds and translating them into words and phrases, into deciphering the nature of the big animal's interest in them. The moor cat wanted reassurance that Pen and his companions were passing through to other places and had no intention of trying to usurp its territory. There was an unmistakable challenge in the sounds, a testing for antagonistic intent. Pen responded at once, doing his best to create a semblance of the coughing sounds, demonstrating that he and his companions were on their way to their own home, that a challenge to the moor cat's territory was of no interest.

He acted instinctively, almost without thinking about what he was doing. His magic guided him, leading him to say and do what was needed to connect with the moor cat. He was surprised by how easily the sounds came to him, at the certainty he had of what they were communicating to the cat. The huge beast seemed to be listening to him.

«Is he actually talking with that beast?» Tagwen whispered to Khyber.

«Shhhh!» was her quick, irritated response.

Then all of a sudden the moor cat started toward Pen, its great head swinging from side to side, its huge eyes gleaming.

It stopped right in front of him and leaned in to sniff his face and then his body. It was so big it stood eye to eye with him, equal in height but dominant in every other respect. Pen stood perfectly still, frozen with shock and fright. Running or fighting never entered his mind. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, letting the cat explore him, feeling the heat of its breath on his skin, hearing the sound of its breathing.

Finally, the cat stepped away, satisfied. It circled back the way it had come, then turned in the direction it had been going and disappeared into the trees without even a glance in their direction, and was gone.

Pen and his companions stood statue–still for long minutes, waiting for it to return. When at last it became apparent that it did not intend to, Pen exhaled heavily and looked from Khyber to Tagwen. The expressions on their faces almost certainly mirrored the one on his own, a mixture of heart–stopping awe and deep relief. With one hand he brushed nervously at his mop of reddish hair, which was finally beginning to grow out again, and realized he was coated with sweat.

«I don't care ever to have that experience again," Tagwen declared, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking. «Ever.»

Khyber glanced in the direction of the departed moor cat. «We need to go that way, too," she pointed out.

Pen nodded. «Yes, we do.»

Tagwen stared at them, horror–stricken, then straightened very deliberately. «Very well. But let's rest up a bit before we do.»

And before they could object, he sat down quickly.

TWENTY–NINE

They trooped on for the remainder of the afternoon, fighting through scrub growth woods and a new stretch of swamp laced with mud holes and waterways, everything encased in mist and gloom and crosshatched with shadows. The light lasted for another three hours and then began to fail rapidly. Still, they slogged ahead, reduced to putting one foot in front of the other, simply to pushing on when it would have been much easier not to.

It was almost too dark to see when Khyber realized that the feel of the ground had changed and the air no longer smelled of damp and rot but of grasses and leaves. She stopped abruptly, causing Tagwen, who was walking behind her with his head down, to bump into her. Ahead, Pen heard the sudden oaths and quick apologies and turned around to see what was happening.

«We're out of the Slags," Khyber announced, still not quite believing it. «Look around. We're out.»

She insisted they stop for the night, so bone weary and mentally exhausted from the events of the past few days, so in need of sleep that she barely managed to find a patch of soft grass within a stand of oaks before she was asleep. Her last memory was of the sky, empty for the first time in days of mist and clouds, clear and bright with moon glow and stars.

She dreamed that night of her uncle, a shadowy figure who called to her in words she could not quite make out from a place she could not quite reach. She spent her dream trying and failing to get close enough to discover what he was saying. The dream world was shadowy and uneven in its feel, the landscape misty and changing. It was filled with dark creatures that hovered close to Ahren and her without ever quite coming into view. It was a place she did not want to be, and she was grateful when she woke the next morning to bright sunlight and blue sky.

Pen was already awake and returned from foraging for food, and it was the cooking fire he had built that brought her out of her dream. Somehow, the boy had snared a rabbit, which he was skinning, dug up some root vegetables, and picked several handfuls of berries. Added to the fresh stream water he had collected, it made the best meal Khyber could remember in years and gave her a welcome and much needed sense of renewal.

They set out shortly after, heading east and north into the hilly country that fronted the Charnals, determined to find Taupo Rough and the Troll Maturen, Kermadec. None of them had ever been in that part of the world or knew enough about it to be able to discern much more than the general direction they should take. Taupo Rough lay at the foot of the mountains somewhat north of the Slags. The best they could do was to use the pocket compass and head in that general direction, trusting that sooner or later they would come across someone to help them. The Rock Trolls were a tribal people and there was some animosity between tribes, but the Trolls were not at war with the other Races just then and there was no reason to think they posed a threat to travelers in their country. At least, that was what Khyber hoped.

She gave it some thought on setting out, but they had little choice in the matter and therefore little reason to dwell on the unpleasant possibilities if they were wrong. Tagwen seemed to think that whatever Rock Trolls they encountered would be of help once they heard Kermadec's name. Maybe that was so. Khyber was so grateful to be clear of the Slags that she was willing to risk almost anything. Even the simple fact of no longer being shrouded by the wetland's gloom and mist gave her a large measure of relief.

But it was more than that, of course. It was the leaving behind of the place in which Ahren Elessedil had died. It was the sense that maybe she could come to terms with his death if she could put time and distance between herself and its memory. She had persuaded herself to continue on without him, but accepting that he was really gone was much more difficult. Losing him had left her devastated. He had been more than an uncle to her; he had been the father she had lost when she was still a child. He had been her confidant and her best and most dependable friend. As compensation for her anguish, she told herself that he was still there, a spirit presence, and that he would look out for her in death even as he had in life. It was wishful thinking, but shades were real and sometimes they helped the living, and she needed to think it could happen there because she had serious doubts about herself. She did not believe that her meager talents with Druid magic were going to be enough to see them through the remainder of their journey, no matter what reassurances Ahren had offered her. Even her use of the Elfstones was suspect. She had managed to bring the magic to bear in the battle against Terek Molt, but that had been facilitated by her uncle's sacrifice. She still shivered at the memory of the Elfstone power coursing through her, vast and unchecked, and she did not know that she could make herself summon it again, even to defend herself. In truth, she did not know what she might do if she was threatened, and the uncertainty could prove as dangerous as the threat itself. It was one thing to talk as if she possessed both resolve and confidence, but it was something else again to demonstrate it. She wished she had a way of testing herself. But she didn't, and that was that.

They walked on through the morning, and she felt a little better for doing so. Time and distance helped to blunt her sadness if not her uncertainty. Given the nature of their journey thus far, she would take what she could get.

«Did you see him?» Pen asked her when they stopped at midday to drink from a stream and to eat what remained of the roots the boy had foraged that morning.

She stared at him. «See who?»

«The cat. It's tracking us.»

«The moor cat?»

Tagwen, sitting a little bit farther away, turned at once. His eyes were big and frightened. «Why would it be doing that? Is it hunting us?»

Pen shook his head. «I don't think so. But it is definitely following us. I saw it several times, back in the trees, trying to keep out of sight, following a course parallel to our own. I think it's just interested.»

«Interested?» the Dwarf croaked.

«You can't mistake that masked face," Pen went on, oblivious to the other's look of terror. He grinned suddenly at Khyber, a little boy about to share a secret. «I've decided to call it Bandit. It looks like one, doesn't it?»

Khyber didn't care what the moor cat looked like, nor did she care for the idea of it tracking them into the mountains. She had always thought moor cats pretty much stayed in the swamps and forests and clear of the higher elevations. She hoped theirs would lose interest as they climbed.

They trekked on through the remainder of the day, through hill country dotted with woods and crisscrossed by streams that pooled in lakes at the lower elevations, bright mirrors reflecting sunlight and clouds. The hours drifted away, and although they covered a fair amount of ground, they did not encounter any of the region's inhabitants. Darkness began to fall and the shadows of the trees to lengthen about them, and still they had not seen a single Troll.

«Is that moor cat still out there?» Khyber asked Pen at one point.

«Oh, sure," the boy answered at once. «Still watching us, sort of like a stray dog. Do you want me to call it over?»

They made camp in the lee of a forested bluff, finding shelter in a grove of pine by a stream that tumbled down out of the rocks. Behind them, the hill country they had trekked through all day sloped gently away through woods and grasslands until it disappeared into the twilight shadows. Although Pen made a valiant effort to catch something, he was unsuccessful; there was nothing to eat. They drank stream water and chewed strips of bark from a small fig tree.

«Don't worry," Pen reassured his companions. «I'll go hunting at sunrise. I'll catch something.

They sat back to watch the stars come out, listening to the silence fill with night sounds. No one spoke. Khyber felt an emptiness that extended from the darkness down into her heart. She could not put a name to it, but it was there nevertheless. After a moment, she rose and walked off into the trees, wanting to be alone in case she cried. She felt so unbearably sad that she could hardly manage to keep from breaking down. The feeling had come over her insidiously, as if to remind her of how badly things had gone for them and how desperate their circumstances were. She might argue that they were all right, that they would find their way, but it wasn't what she felt. What she felt was utter abandonment and complete hopelessness. No matter what they tried or where they went, things would never get any better for them. They would struggle, but in the end they would fail.