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

The big man laughed, reaching out boldly to clap Logan on his shoulder. “This? This is about—everything!” He extended his arms wide, his laugh deepening. “Everything that matters in this godforsaken world, this hellish killing ground populated by demons and once-men and things that are abominations too terrible to name. It is about being cast out of our lives like rats from a sinking ship. It is about being forced to rebuild those lives in the image of our enemy. It is about who will die and who will survive in the days ahead.”


He paused. The scars on his face were livid. “It is about you and me, Logan. Because when you come right down to it, we’re all that counts.”

Logan stared at him. Krilka Koos might have been mistaken for something approaching normal if not for his eyes. They were eyes that Logan recognized immediately, because he had seen them once before, ten years earlier, staring back at him from Michael’s face on the day he had killed him.

He shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Krilka Koos nodded, as if Logan were merely stating what he already knew. “

Give it time. Now then, let me see if I can guess which one you are. Which of the Knights who remain alive. There are only a few of us left, you know.

Only a handful, and that was yesterday’s news. Let me guess. You travel with children. I like that. A man who has children fights for someone other than himself. And you drive that modified Lightning S-One-fifty AV. Shows you have talent, skills that other men lack. You’d be the one who’s laid waste to the slave camps all through the middle of the country, freeing the prisoners so that they can run off to find a new set of captors and be made slaves once more. Am I right?”

“Probably. How do you know of me?”

“Word gets out this way, if you know how to listen for it.

Word travels through one means and another. I came here five years back to make my stand.

Fought all the way out from the East Coast while the oceans rose and the seaboard flooded and its cities sank. Fought all the way past the inland cities after that and watched them fall, one by one, to the demon-led armies. Took out my share of demons and once-men while it was happening, and I liked doing it. But there were always more, always others. I grew tired, Logan.” He paused. “Isn’t that what’s happened to you? Haven’t you grown tired?”

“Long since,” Logan agreed. A dark suspicion was beginning to form. “So you came west to escape all that. Over the mountains?”

“Through the passes.”

“North, traveling through what used to be Montana?”

The big man smiled. “You know who I am, don’t you? You found those pathetic creatures that worship the mountain spirits, and they told you about me.”

Logan nodded, his suspicions confirmed. This was the rogue Knight of the Word whom the Spiders had told him about when he crossed the mountains on his way west weeks earlier. This was the man who’d killed thirty of them for challenging his right to pass.

“I heard they had made the mistake of angering you, so you killed several dozen in retaliation.”

“Not in retaliation,” Krilka Koos advised with a thoughtful look. “As a lesson. My reputation is not something I can afford to let anyone tarnish—certainly not a bunch of Spiders. If word of that got around, I would be finished. They had no right to challenge me. So I made an example of them.

By the time I was settled in this place, ready to make my preparations, word had gotten around. Those who came to join me already knew that there would be no tolerance for disobedience. It saved me a lot of time. You would have done the same in my place. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

There were many responses Logan could have made, but the bright gleam in the other man’s eyes suggested he wasn’t open to hearing them.

So he shrugged his seeming indifference. He didn’t need an argument. He simply needed to get out of there. “What is it you want of me?” he asked.

“What is it I want of you?” The big man laughed anew. “Why, Logan! I want you to join me! I want you to stand with me when it comes time to face them down!”

“Face who down?”

“Our enemies! The demons and once-men! The armies that are coming here to destroy us! Wake up and smell the roses, Logan! They tear down the compounds one by one. They enslave or kill the inhabitants. They eradicate everything. Eventually, they’ll come here to try to do the same. But they won’t find it so easy when they do.”

He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I have been preparing for them for almost three years now. I have been training every day, working at making myself invincible. Testing myself. We exist in a crucible where our metal is toughened by the raw heat of combat. We pass through the fire and emerge purer and stronger. More resilient. When they come, the demons and once-men and anything else that seeks to destroy me, I will be ready for them.” He paused.

“I am ready now.”

“Why can’t you do this alone?” Logan asked quietly. “You seem to have been managing all right until now.”

Krilka Koos gave him a hard look. “You don’t understand.”