High druid of Shannara_ Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks [164]
But he did not turn around or come back. He kept walking, and she kept watching him until he was out of sight.
She found a stream from which to drink, then began retracing her steps west. She was near exhaustion from her encounter with the shade of Brona, but she didn’t think she should try to sleep until she reached less open country. She was hungry, as well, but as usual there was no food to be found. She thought she might find some ground roots when she reached the forests again, but there was no way to be certain. Grudgingly, she admitted that having Weka Dart along would have solved the problem, but the Ulk Bog just wasn’t worth the trouble. It wasn’t entirely his fault, of course. He couldn’t understand what she was trying to do, and that frustrated him. It was better that he was gone, even if she was hungry.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t help wondering at his extreme reluctance to return to where he had found her. He was adamant about avoiding that place, and she thought there was more to it than his fear of encountering the tribal members he had fled. Something else was going on, something he was keeping to himself. Had she wanted to, she could have used her magic to force it out of him, but she no longer did things like that just to satisfy her curiosity. That approach to problem solving belonged to the Ilse Witch, and she was careful to keep it in the past.
Her trek, though across open, mostly unencumbered ground, quickly tired her, and by midday she was having trouble concentrating. The oppressive grayness closed about her in a deep gloom, and tracking the sun through the screen of clouds took more than a little effort. Sometimes, there was no indication of where it was in the sky, and she could only guess at its progress. Sometimes, she felt as if there were no sun at all.
It was wearing on her, this prison to which she had been consigned. It was breaking down her confidence and her determination. The erosion was incremental, but she could feel it happening. Even the prospect of rescue seemed remote and gave her no real encouragement. Too much relied on chance and the efforts of others. She didn’t like that. She had never trusted either.
She was approaching the hill country where they had encountered the Furies two days earlier. Now she decided to turn north toward the mountains again. Her memories of the death of that ogre were too fresh to ignore, and she thought that if she stayed close to the base of the cliffs, she might have better luck escaping notice. She didn’t know enough about Furies to have a clear idea of how to avoid them, but she knew that staying out in the open was not a good idea. Better to take her chances where there was a chance for finding cover if the need arose.
Her choice yielded unexpected benefits. She found fresh water and an odd tree that bore a round orange and yellow fruit that, while bitter, was edible. She ate the fruit, sitting by the stream in the shadow of the tree and looking out into the blighted landscape. She felt light-headed and heavy-eyed afterwards, a condition she attributed to lack of rest. She would feel better by the next morning. At least, she reminded herself, she was still alive.
Did any of those she had left behind believe her so? Or did they believe her dead and gone?
She took a moment to picture what it must have been like when she disappeared. Tagwen and Kermadec would have been frantic, but there would have been nothing they could do. Nothing anyone could do, the Druids included. Only a handful, at most, knew what had really happened, those few who had orchestrated her imprisonment. But how much did they understand of what they had done? Not as much as they thought, perhaps. The shade of the Warlock Lord had called them pawns. It was the creature