High druid of Shannara_ Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks [41]
“Whose is it?” he asked Tagwen.
“It is a Druid ship.”
Pen shook his head, watching the vessel’s slow, steady approach, feeling knots of doubt begin to twist sharply in his stomach. “Maybe they’re just...”
He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
Tagwen stepped close, the smell of dampness and wood smoke emanating from his clothing. “Tell you what. You can wait here and find out what they want if you wish, but I think I will be moving along. Maybe I won’t go out the way I came in, however. Do you have a horse you can let me borrow?”
Pen turned to look at him. There was no mistaking the mix of determination and fear he saw in the Dwarf’s eyes. Tagwen wasn’t taking any chances. He had made up his mind about the ship and its inhabitants, and he did not intend for them to find him. Whatever Pen decided to do, the Dwarf was getting out.
The boy looked back across the lake at the airship, and in the wake of the uneasiness that its dark and wicked look generated, his indecision faded.
“We don’t have any horses,” he said, taking a deep breath to steady himself. “How about a small airship and someone to sail her, instead?”
Chapter EIGHT
In that single instant, Penderrin Ohmsford’s life was changed forever. Given what had happened already at Paranor, it might have been changed in any event, but likely not in the way his decision to go with Tagwen changed it. Later, he would remember thinking that, at the time, making the decision felt like a shifting of the world, not so much in the noisy manner of an earthquake but in the quiet way of the light deepening at sunset. He would remember thinking, as well, that he could do nothing about it because his family’s safety was involved and he couldn’t ignore the danger to them just to protect himself.
He took hold of Tagwen’s arm and propelled him up from the landing to the dry dock where the cat-28 was tethered, telling the Dwarf to get aboard. There was no time to outfit her in the right way, to gather supplies and equipment of the sort a proper expedition required. He had her packed with spare parts, so that he could fix her if something went wrong out on the lake, but that was about it. He took just a moment to run into the shed for his toolbox, grabbing up a water container and some dried foodstuffs that he kept around to nibble on, then bolted back out the door.
He wondered for just an instant how big a mistake he was making. Then he dismissed the thought completely because he had no time or patience for it. Hesitation in circumstances like these always led to trouble, and he thought he probably had trouble enough with things just the way they were.
“Strap that safety line around your waist!” he called up to Tagwen, tossing the bag of foodstuffs and the water container onto the deck. “Stuff these into one of the holds in the pontoons!”
He worked his way swiftly from one tethering line to the next, loosening the knots from the securing pins and tossing the rope ends back onto the cat’s decking. He did not look out again at the approaching airship, but he felt the weight of its shadow. He knew he had to get airborne and away before it got much closer or he would not be able to gain the protective concealment of the Highland mists and the low-slung clouds that would hide his escape. With luck, they might not even see him leaving, but he could not count on that.
When all the lines were unknotted save the one that secured the bow, he paused to look around the compound and tried to think if he was forgetting anything. A bow and arrows, he thought, and he rushed back into the shed to take a set from the weapons cupboard, along with a brace of long knives.
Rushing out again, he climbed aboard the cat-28, finding Tagwen, arms wrapped protectively about his knees, already strapped in and hunkered down in the aft hold of the starboard pontoon. It looked so comical that Pen wanted to laugh, but he resisted the impulse, instead scurrying