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food chain.
    He felt the eyes of his fellows upon him, awaiting his orders, their own thoughts as dark and vengeful as his. They, too, waited for their chance at the Ilse Witch. Cree Bega would give her the satisfaction of believing him subdued and obedient for now. He had pledged as much to the Morgawr. He would heed her commands and carry out her wishes because there was no reason for him to do otherwise.
    But a shift in the wind was coming, and when it did, it would mark the end of her.
    He wheeled on the others, finding them grouped tightly about him, dark visages expectant and eager within shadowed cowls. They awaited his orders, anxious for something to do. He would accommodate them. Members of the company of the
Jerle Shannara
were loose somewhere ahead within these trees, waiting to be harvested, to be killed or taken prisoner. It was time to accommodate them.
    Growling softly, he told his men to start with Ryer Ord Star, then move on.
    But when they turned to take charge of the seer, she was nowhere to be found.

T HREE
    A rms of iron clutched Bek Ohmsford close to a body that smelled vaguely fetid and loamy, of earth and chemicals mixed. The body moved with the swiftness of thought, sliding through trees and brush, shedding layers of itself like skin, shadows that hung dark and empty on the air and then faded away completely. Some exploded into bits of night as the magic of the Ilse Witch caught up to them, but always Bek and his rescuer were one skin ahead.
    Then they were beyond the clearing and into the concealing trees, still running hard, but cloaked in shadows and screens of brush and limbs. Bek began to struggle then, frightened suddenly of the unknown, of anything powerful and mysterious enough to challenge the Ilse Witch’s magic.
    “Be still, boy!” Truls Rohk hissed, giving him a sharp squeeze of warning with those powerful arms, never once slowing his pace.
    They ran for a long time, Bek crumpled nearly into a ball in the other’s grip, until the clearing and the witch were far behind them. Then they stopped, and the shape-shifter dropped to one knee and released the boy with a nudge of hands and shoulders,letting him roll to the earth in a crumpled heap, there to uncoil and straighten himself again. Bek heard Truls Rohk breathing hard, winded and spent, bent over within his concealing cloak while he waited for his strength to return. Bek climbed to his hands and knees, nerve endings tingling with new life as fresh blood finally reached his cramped limbs. They were in a place grown so thick with trees and brush that the light of moon and stars did not penetrate, where everything was cloaked in deepest silence.
    “Keeping you alive is turning into a full-time job,” the shape-shifter muttered irritably.
    Bek thought of his lost opportunity to persuade the Ilse Witch of who he was. “No one asked you to interfere! I was that close to convincing her! I was just about—”
    “You were just about to get yourself killed,” the other said with a quick, harsh laugh. “You weren’t paying close enough attention to the effect you were having on her, you were so caught up in the righteousness and certainty of your argument. Hah! Convincing her? Couldn’t you feel what was happening? She was getting ready to use her magic on you!”
    “That’s not true!” Bek was suddenly furious. He leapt to his feet in challenge. “You don’t know that!”
    Now the shape-shifter was really laughing, a low and steady howl that he worked hard to suppress. “Can’t afford to laugh as loud as I’d like, boy. Not here. Not this close still.” He stood up, confronting the boy. “You listen to me. Your arguments were good. They were sound and they were true. But she wasn’t ready for them. She wanted to believe some of it, I think. She might have believed all of it in other circumstances, maybe will after time spent thinking it over. But she wasn’t ready for it then and there. Especially not at the end, when you