The Elves of Cintra (Book 2 of The Genesis of Shannara)

Krilka Koos. Even the name was loathsome by now. Logan kept the rage from his face, his expression purposely blank. Krilka Koos was going to have a lot to answer for. Maybe more than he was expecting.

They rounded a berm, and Logan found himself moving toward a warehouse-size building that had the look of an implement sales and storage facility. There were faded images of tractors and machinery for which he did not know the names painted on the sides of the corrugated sheet metal, and a tractor-shaped weather vane on a squat steeple. Huge doors were rolled open on the long side of the building facing him, clusters of men standing watchfully at their edges. The interior was lit faintly by daylight that spilled through the doors and seeped through cracks and breathing holes in the ceiling and walls. The stale smells of dirt and manure and hay hung mingled in the air, trapped in the low spaces between the hills.

Beyond the larger building were other, small buildings—houses and sheds and livestock shelters. Beyond that was what remained of a small village, its structures falling apart, long since abandoned and neglected. He studied the ruins for a moment, then glanced back at the larger building. The earth surrounding it was muddied and worn, as if trod on repeatedly by many men. Logan did not see those men and wondered why.

They reached the rolled-back doors and entry into the warehouse building, and the man leading him gestured for him to stop. “Wait here,” he said.

He left Logan standing in the midst of his other captors and walked into the warehouse. Logan glanced at the men surrounding him. All of them were pointing their weapons at him, uneasiness reflected in more faces than not. Logan decided not to give them further reason to worry. He sat down where he was, his legs crossed, his staff resting in his lap.

A few minutes later, the man in charge returned. “Go on in.

Krilka Koos is waiting for you.”

Logan got to his feet, smiling. “All by himself?”

The man laughed. “Of course. He’s no different from you.”

He winked. “You’ll see.”

Logan resisted the urge to turn that wink into something else and passed through the entry into the mix of shadows and suffused sunlight. His eyes worked hard to adjust to the change of brightness as they swept the vast interior. At first he could see almost nothing, but slowly he began to make out a vast open area ringed by bleachers that were set back against the walls. A space had been left between the bleachers at the building entry, and he could see that the flooring below the bleachers had been torn up.

The exposed earth had been carefully, almost lovingly raked, the dirt made soft and loose.

An arena, he thought.

He passed between the stands and stepped out into the center of the open space. A man was sitting on the seats to his right. The man lifted one hand in greeting. “You’re here!” he called out, sounding decidedly cheerful about it. “The road-weary traveler has found his way!”

He stood up and walked over, whistling tunelessly. He was big, much bigger than Logan, and his dark, seamed features suggested that he was older, too.

His black hair was long and uncut, and a heavy beard shaded his jaw. But even the hair and the beard failed to hide the scars that crisscrossed his face like spider webbing. One set lasered up from his mouth to what was left of his right ear in vivid red streaks. Another slashed diagonally across his mouth. His eyebrows appeared to have been burned away.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” he added, breaking into a grin. “Quite anxious for it, really. I can’t deny it.”

He was dressed in loose-fitting gray and black clothing that was tattered and frayed, but the loosening of the seams and the rips in the cloth seemed to suit him. He carried no weapons, but then perhaps he had no need of them: in his right hand he held a black, rune-carved staff identical to Logan’s.

“I’m Krilka Koos,” the big man announced. He glanced at his staff, his smile twisting crookedly. “Are you surprised to find that I’m one of your own?”

Logan nodded. “If you mean that you’re a Knight of the Word, I guess I am.

“

“You should be. How could you even suspect? Achille would never tell you.

He never tells my guests anything.”

Achille. That would be the leader of the men who had brought him here. “He didn’t this time, either.”

“What’s your name?”

“Logan Tom.”

Krilka Koos held out his hand, but Logan ignored it. “I was not brought here by polite invitation, so let’s get to it. What is this all about?”