The Druid of Shannara

They worked their way downward, discovering a pathway that led directly toward the center of the valley and the barren ridge. They moved quietly, Dees leading, Quickening behind him, Morgan, Walker, and Pe Ell bringing up the rear. They passed out of sunlight into shadow, and the air turned cool. The valley rose up to meet them and for a time swallowed them up. Then the trail lifted onto the ridgeline, and they found themselves in the midst of the blighted trees. Morgan studied the lifeless skeletons for a time, the blackening of the bark, the wilting of leaves and buds where there were any to be seen at all, and turned instinctively to look at Walker. The Dark Uncle’s pale, drawn face lifted, and the hard eyes stared back at him. They were both thinking the same thing. The Spikes had been sickened in the same way as the rest of the land. The Shadowen were at work here, too.

They crossed a band of sunlight that had slipped through a break in the peaks and then dipped downward into a hollow. It was abnormally still there, a pool of silence that magnified the sound of their footsteps as they worked their way ahead. Morgan had grown increasingly edgy, reminded of his encounter with the Shadowen on the journey to Culhaven with the Ohmsfords. His nose tested the air for the rank smell that would warn of the other’s presence, and his ears strained to catch even the smallest sound. Dees moved ahead purposefully, Quickening’s long hair a slender bit of silver trailing after. Neither exhibited any sign of hesitation. Yet there was tension in all of them; Morgan could feel it.

They passed out of the hollow and back onto the open ridge. For a time they were high enough above the trees that Morgan could see the valley from end to end. They were more than halfway through now, approaching the narrow end of the funnel where the mountains split apart and the trees thinned with the beginning of the hills beyond. Morgan’s edginess began to dissipate and he found himself thinking of home, of the Highlands of Leah, and of the countryside he had grown up in. He missed the Highlands, he realized—much more than he would have expected. It was one thing to say that his home no longer belonged to him because the Federation occupied it; it was another to make himself believe it. Like Par Ohmsford, he lived with the hope that things might one day change.

The trail dipped downward again and another hollow appeared, this one shaggy with brush and scrub that had filled the gaps left with the passing of the trees. They moved into it, shoving their way past brambles and stickers, angling for the open spaces where the trail wound ahead. Shadows lay thick across the hollow as the light began to creep westward. The forests about them formed a wall of dark silence.

They had just entered a clearing at the center of the hollow when Quickening suddenly slowed. “Stand still,” she said.

They did so instantly, looking first at her, then at the brush all about them. Something was moving. Figures began to detach themselves, breaking their concealment, moving into the light. There were hundreds of them—small, squat creatures with hairy, gnarled limbs and bony features. They looked as if they had grown out of the scrub, so like it were they, and it was only the short pants and weapons that seemed to separate the two. The weapons were formidable—short spears and strangely shaped throwing implements with razor edges. The creatures held them threateningly as they advanced.

“Urdas,” Horner Dees said quietly. “Don’t move.”

No one did, not even Pe Ell who was crouched in much the same way as the creatures who menaced him.

“Who are they?” Morgan asked of Dees, at the same time backing protectively toward Quickening.

“Gnomes,” the other said. “With a little Troll thrown in. No one has ever been sure of the exact mix. You don’t find them anywhere south of the Charnals. They’re Northlanders as much as the Trolls. Tribal like the Gnomes. Very dangerous.”

The Urdas were all about them now, closing off any chance of escape. They had thickly muscled bodies with short, powerful legs and long arms, and their faces were blunt and expressionless. Morgan tried to read something of what they might be thinking in their yellow eyes, but failed.

Then he noticed that they were all looking at Quickening.

“What do we do?” he asked Dees in an anxious whisper, worried now.

Dees shook his head.

The Urdas moved to within a dozen feet of the company and stopped. They did not threaten; they did not speak. They simply stood there, watching Quickening for the most part, but waiting as well.

Waiting for what? Morgan asked himself silently.

And at almost the same moment the brush parted, and a golden-haired man stepped into view. Instantly the Urdas dropped to one knee, heads bowed in recognition. The golden-haired man looked at the five beleaguered members of the surrounded company and smiled.

“The King has come,” he said brightly. “Long live the King.”





XIV


Would you lay down your weapons, please?” the man called out to them cheerfully.” Just put them on the ground in front of you. Don’t worry. You can pick them up again in a moment.”

He sang:

“Nothing given freely is ever given up.

It will be given back to you

Through others’ love and trust.”



The five from Rampling Steep stared at him.

“Please?” he said. “It will make things so much easier if you do.”

Dees glanced at the others, shrugged, and did as he was asked. Neither Walker nor Quickening carried any weapons. Morgan hesitated. Pe Ell didn’t move at all.

“This is only for the purpose of demonstrating your friendship,” the man went on encouragingly. “If you don’t lay down your weapons, my subjects won’t allow me to approach. I’ll have to keep shouting at you from over here.”

He sang: