Quentin unsheathed the Sword of Leah and braced himself.
When the first of the beasts thrust its blunt head around the nearest bend in the
split and saw him, it attacked without hesitating. Quentin crouched low and caught
it midspring on the tip of his weapon, spitting it through its chest and pinning
it to the earth where it thrashed and screamed and finally died as the magic
ripped through it. A second and third appeared almost immediately, fighting to get
past each other. He jabbed at their faces and eyes as they jammed themselves up in
the narrow opening, and forced them to back away. From behind them, he heard the
shouts of the rets and the snarls of other tracking beasts as they tried in vain
to break through.
He fought in the defile for as long as he could, killing two of the creatures and
wounding another belore he made his retreat. He might have stayed there longer,
but he feared that the rets would
find a way around. If they trapped him in the defile, he was finished. He had
bought as much time as he could at his first line of defense. It was time to fall
back.
With the tracking beasts snapping at him, he backed through the split, then made
his second stand at the upper end- Straddling the opening, he bottled up the
frantic creatures, refusing to let them through, killing one and wedging it back
inside so that the others could not pass it without climbing over. They tore at
their dead companion until it was shredded and bloodied, and still they couldn't
break free Quentin fought with a wild and reckless determination,
the magic driving through him like molten iron, sweeping away his weariness and
pain, his reason and doubt, everything but the feel of the moment and its dizzying
sense of power. Nothing could stop him. He was invincible. The magic of the sword
buzzed and crackled through his body, and he gave himself over to it.
Even when the Mwellrets got around behind him, he stood his ground, so caught up
in the euphoria generated by the magic that he would have done anything to keep it
flowing. He drove back this fresh assault, then returned to battling the tracking
beasts trying to emerge from the split, intent on doing battle with anything that
challenged him.
It took a deep slash to his thigh to sober him up enough that he finally realized
the danger. He turned and ran without slowing or looking back, saining enough
ground to enable him to clamber into the rocks and find his bow and arrows just
before his pursuers caught up with him. He was a good marksman, but his pursuers
were so close that marksmanship counted lor almost nothing. He buried four arrows
in the closest burly head before it was finally knocked back, blinded in both eyes
and maddened with pain. He wounded two more, slowing them enough that the others
could not get past- He shot every arrow he had, killing two of the rets, as well,
then threw down the bow and began running once more.
There was nowhere reasonable left to stand and fight, so he sprinted for the ledge
where he hoped Panax, Kian, and the Rindge
would be waiting with help. It was a long run, perhaps Iwo miles, and he soon lost
track of time and place, of everything but movement.
Still infused with the magic of the sword, its power singing in his blood, he
found strength he did not know he possessed. He ran so fast that he outdistanced
his bulky pursuers, leaving them to scramble over boulders and rock-strewn trails
he scaled with ease.
Maybe, just maybe, he would find a way out of this.
"Leah, Lean!" he cried out, euphoric and wild-eyed, with reckless
disregard for who might hear him. "Leah!" he howled.
They caught up to him finally at the near end of the ledge, forcing him to turn
and fight. He stood his ground just long enough to throw them back again, then
rushed out onto the ledge. The sweep of the Aleuthra Ark with its massive backdrop
of peaks and valleys stretched like a painting across the horizon, somehow not
quite real.
The tracking beasts came at him once more, but they did not have enough room. Two

tumbled away, clawing and screaming as they fell. He glanced back down the slope
he had just climbed; it was crawling with tracking beasts and Mwellrets. How many
more could there be? Pressed against the cliff face, he retreated as swiftly as he
could, slashing at the closest of his pursuers when they came within reach. I ie
had been clawed and bitten in a dozen places, and the singing of the magic had
taken on a high, frantic whine. His stamina and strength were nearly exhausted,
when they were depleted,
the magic of the Sword of Leah would fail, as well.
"Panax!" he called frantically, fighting to keep his newfound fear at bay, feeling
the euphoria desert him as the brilliance of his blade began to dim.
He was perhaps a hundred feet out from where he had started, the cliff wall to his
left an almost vertical rise, the drop to his right deep and precipitous, when he
heard Panax call back to him. He did not look away from his pursuers. They were
crowded out onto the ledge behind him, still coming, rage and hunger reflected in
their eyes, waiting for him to drop his guard.
Then he heard a rumble of rocks from above, and he turned and ran. He was too
slow. The closest of the beasts was on top of him in a heartbeat, claws slashing.
He whirled and knocked it backwards, slamming his closed fist into the rock wall
with such force that he lost his grip on the sword. Knocked from his hand, it
tumbled over the edge of the path and disappeared into the abyss.
He hesitated then, not quite believing what had just happened, and his hesitation
cost him any chance of escape. Rocks and dirt showered down from above, pouring
over everything in a thunderous slide that swept across the face of the cliff.
Quentin tried to run through it, but he was too late. The avalanche was all around
him, tearing away the mountainside, breaking off chunks of the ledge The tracking
beasts and their handlers disappeared in a roar of stone, then a massive section
of the trail ahead tore free and was gone.
Quentin flattened himself against the cliff wall and covered his head. The entire
mountain seemed to be coming down on top of him. For a moment, he held on, pressed
against the stone. Then the avalanche plucked him from his, perch like a leaf, and
he was gone.

The Highlander regained consciousness in a sea of mind-numbing blackness and bone-
crushing weight. He could smell dust and grit and the raw odor of torn leaves and
earth. At first he could not remember what had happened or where he was, and
panic's sharp talons pricked at him But he held fast, forcing himself to be
patient, to wait for his mind to clear.
When it did, he remembered the avalanche. He remembered being swept over the
narrow ledge and into the void, tumbling downward through a rain of rocks and
debris, catching onto something
momentarily before being torn free, tangling up in scrub thickets, all the while
engulfed in a roar that dwarfed the fury of the worst storm he had ever endured.
Then darkness had closed about in a wave and everything else disappeared.
His vision sharpened, and he realized that the avalanche had buried him in a
cluster of tree limbs and roots. Through small openings
in his makeshift tomb, he saw heavy gray clouds rolling across a darkening sky.
He had no idea how much time had passed. He lay without moving, staring at the
distant clouds and collecting his thoughts. He should, by all rights, be dead. But
the roots and limbs,
while trapping him in a jagged wooden cage, had saved him, as well, deflecting
boulders that would otherwise have crushed him.
tven so, he was not out of trouble 1 lis ears were ringing, and his mouth and
nostrils were dry with dust. Every bone and muscle in his body ached from the
pummeling he had received, and he could not tell as yet if he had broken anything

in his fall.
When he tried to move, he found himself pinned to the ground.
Me listened to the silence, a blanket that cloaked both his stone-encrusted prison
and the world immediately outside. There wasn't the smallest rustle of life, not
the tiniest whisper, nothing but the ragged sound of his breathing. He wondered if
anyone would come looking for him if anyone even could. There might be no one left

to look. Half the mountain had fallen away, and there was no telling whom it had
carried with it. Hopefully, Panax and the Rindge had escaped and the Mwellrets and
their tracking beasts had not. But he could not be sure
He tried not to think too hard on it, focusing instead on the problem at hand. He
forced himself to relax, to take deep breaths, to gather his resources. Carefully,
gingerly, he tested his fingers and toes to make certain they were all working and

broken, even though everything hurt.
Encouraged by his sense of wholeness, Quentin set about looking for a way to get
free. There was only a little room to move in his cramped prison, but he took
advantage of it. He was able to extricate his left leg and both arms through the
exercise of a little time, patience,
and perseverance, but the right leg was securely wedged beneath
a massive boulder. It wasn't crushed, but it was firmly pinned. Try as he might,
he could not work it free.
He lay back again, drenched in sweat. He was aware suddenly of how hot he was,
buried in the earth like a corpse, covered over by layers of rock and debris. He
was coated with dust and grime. He felt as if he knew exactly what it would be
like to be dead, and he didn't care for it.
He wormed himself into a slightly different position, but the smallness of the
space and the immobility of his trapped leg prevented
him from doing much. Deep breaths, he told himself. Stay calm. He felt raindrops
on his face through the chinks in his prison and saw that the sky had darkened.
The rainfall was slow and steady, a soft patter in the stillness. He licked at
stray drops that fell on his lips, grateful for the damp.
He spent a long time after that working with an unwieldy piece of tree limb that
he was able to drag within reach and position as a fulcrum. If he could shift the
boulder just an inch, he might be able to wriggle free. But from his supine
position, he could not get the leverage he needed, and the branch was too long to
place properly in any event- Nevertheless, he kept working at it until it grew so
dark he could no longer see what he was doing.
He fell asleep then, and when he woke, it was still dark, but the rain had stopped
and the silence had returned. He went back to work with the branch, and it was
morning before he gave the task up as impossible. Despair crept through him and he
found himself wondering how desperate his situation really was. No one was coming
to look for him,- he would have heard them by now if they were. If he was going to
survive, he was going to have to do so on his own. What would that cost him? Would
he cut off his leg if there was no other way? Would he give up part of himself if
it meant saving his life?
Sleep claimed him a second time, and he woke to daylight and sunshine flooding
down out of a clear blue sky. He did not give himself time to dwell on the darker
possibilities of his situation, but went back to trying to get free. This time, he
used a sharp-ended stick to dig away at the rock and earth packed in beneath his
leg. If he could tunnel under his leg, he reasoned, he might create enough space
to worm loose. It was slow going, the digging often reduced to one pebble, one
small chunk of hardened earth at a time. He had to start as far back as his knee
and work his way down, inch by painful inch. He had to be careful not to disturb
anything that
supported the boulder. If it shifted, it would crush his leg and trap him for
good.
He worked all day, ignoring his growing hunger and thirst, the aches in his body,
and the heat oi his cage. He had come too far and endured too much to die like