Терри Брукс - Jarka Ruus

He sighed wearily. «Let me think about this. Come up to the house for a glass of hot cider, and we can talk about it.»

But the Dwarf's face had gone white. «I appreciate the offer, Penderrin, but it comes too late. Have a look.»

He pointed out across the lake. An airship was making its way toward them through the drifting curtains of mist—a big, sleek three–master, as black as midnight. Frozen by the vessel's unexpected appearance and the consequences it heralded, Pen stared. All of a sudden, he wished his parents were there.

«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?»

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 to raise the sails to draw down whatever ambient light this gray day offered. There would be energy stored in the parse tubes, but the diapson crystals were small and not designed for long–term storage, so he could not rely on that alone to elude the larger ship.

He found himself wondering suddenly if its occupants would even bother coming after him. After all, they couldn't know who he was or what he was about. They were likely just to land and walk up to the house in the mistaken belief that the presence of Steady Right indicated that his family was still in residence. By the time they found out differently, he would be far away.

But what if Tagwen was wrong? What if the Druids were actually there to help in some way?

Maybe those aboard the approaching ship were not among his aunt's enemies, but her friends. They might have come for the same reason Tagwen had come—to seek help from his father in tracking down the Ard Rhys. This could all be a big mistake.

He glanced at the Dwarf. Tagwen was staring out at the lake, his eyes wide. «We're too late, Pen," he whispered.

Pen wheeled around. The big airship was right on top of them, sliding through the entry to the cove to hover over the water in front of the docks. It had advanced much more quickly than Pen would have believed possible, which indicated all too clearly how powerful and fast it really was. It might even be a match for Swift Sure, although he didn't think the airship existed this side of the Blue Divide that was that fast.

He saw her name carved into her great, curved rams, bold and etched in gold. Galaphile.

«That's her airship!» Tagwen exclaimed in dismay. «Your aunt's! They're using her own ship!»

«Get down!» Pen hissed at Tagwen. «Hide!»

The Dwarf ducked below the gunwales of the pontoon, and Pen threw a canvas over him, concealing him from view. He had no idea what he was going to do, but whatever it was, there was no point in taking chances until he found out if the Dwarf was right about who these visitors were.

There was also no point in pretending that he didn't see them, so he turned to watch the Galaphile's dark hull settle heavily into the waters of the cove. The skies over Rainbow Lake were darkening steadily with thunderheads and rainsqualls. It was going to be a bad storm when it hit. If he was going to make a run for it, he was going to have to do so soon.

He watched as a long boat was lowered over the starboard pontoon. Half a dozen passengers sat hooded and cloaked within, dark figures in the late afternoon gloom. Several took up oars and began to row, pointing the boat toward the docks. Pen caught a glimpse of their lifted faces as they strained against the oars. Gnomes, swarthy and sharp–featured, yellow eyes glittering and cold.

Something about the Gnomes convinced him instantly that Tagwen was right. He couldn't say exactly why, because he had encountered Gnomes before at Patch Run and on his travels about the lake. He stepped into the pilot box, unhooded the parse tubes stacked on both sides of the cat, and pushed the controls to the port and starboard thrusters forward just far enough to nudge the diapson crystals awake.

«Whatever happens," he whispered to Tagwen, his head lowered to hide his words, «don't let them know you're there.»

«You'd better worry about yourself," came the muffled reply.

The long boat had landed, and its occupants were climbing onto the dock and walking toward the compound, spreading out in all directions right away, a maneuver clearly intended to cut off anyone trying to get around behind them. Pen was terrified by then, standing alone on the deck of the cat–28, the brace of long knives strapped about his waist and the bow and arrows at his feet pathetically inadequate for mounting any kind of a defense. He couldn't begin to fight off men like those. Funny, he thought, how quickly he had given up on the possibility that they might be friendly.

One of them separated from the others and came toward him. This man wasn't a Gnome, and he wasn't wrapped in their mottled green and brown cloaks. This man wore the dark robes of a Druid.

He was a Dwarf, and as he pulled back his hood to give himself a better field of vision, Pen immediately thought him twice as dangerous as the Gnomes. He had the stocky, square build of all Dwarves, the blunt, thick hands and the heavy features. But he was tall for a Dwarf, standing well over five feet, and his face looked as if it had been chiseled from rough stone, all ridges and valleys, nothing smooth or soft. His razor–edged eyes found the boy, and Pen could feel them probing him like knives.

But Pen stood his ground. There was nothing else to do except to run, and he knew that would be a big mistake.

«Can I help you?» he called out as the other neared.

The Dwarf came right up to the cat and climbed aboard without being invited, an act that in some quarters was considered piracy. Pen waited, fighting to control his terror, catching sight of the heavy blades the Dwarf wore strapped beneath his robes.

«Going somewhere?» the Dwarf asked him bluntly, glancing around in a perfunctory manner, then back at Pen.

«Home," Pen answered. «I'm done for the day.»

He thought he kept his voice from shaking, but if he hadn't, there was nothing he could do to steady it that he wasn't already doing.

«Is this the Ohmsford place?» the Dwarf asked, squaring up before him, much too close for comfort. Behind him, the Gnomes were beginning to poke around in the shed and under the canvas–sheltered stores and equipment. «Bek Ohmsford?»

Pen nodded. «He's away, gone east on an expedition. I don't expect him back for weeks.»

The Dwarf studied him wordlessly for a moment, eyes searching his, measuring. Pen waited, his heart frozen in his chest, his breathing stopped. He didn't know what to do. He understood now why Tagwen had been so afraid. The Dwarf's gaze made Pen feel as if wild animals were picking him apart.

«Left you to look after things?» the Dwarf pressed.

Pen nodded again, not bothering with an answer this time.

«He must have some faith in you, boy. You don't look very old.» He paused, a lengthy silence. «I'm told Ohmsford has a boy about your age. Penderrin. That wouldn't be you, would it?»

Pen grinned disarmingly. «No, but he's my friend. He's up there at the house, right now.»

He pointed, and when the Dwarf turned to look, Pen shoved him so hard the Dwarf lost his balance, tumbled off the deck of the cat, and fell to the ground. Pen didn't think about it; he just did it, an act of desperation. He leapt into the pilot box and shoved the thruster levers all the way forward, unhooding the parse tubes completely. The response from the cat was instantaneous. It lurched as if it had been struck from behind, bucking from the surge of power fed into the crystals, snapping the bowline as if it were string, and careening directly toward the Galaphile.

Pen, braced in the pilot box and hanging on to the controls for dear life, had only an instant to respond to the danger. He pulled back on the port thrusters, swinging the cat left to sweep past the foremast of the Druid airship, coming so close that he might have reached out to touch her. Shouts and cries followed after him, then a volley of arrows and sling stones. The whang and snap of them caused him to crouch deep in the box, gasps escaping him in me rushes as arrows embedded themselves in the wood frame of his momentary shelter. The cat shot out over the waters of the cove and surged through an opening in the conifers to Rainbow Lake and the approaching storm.