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

Logan nodded. “Maybe not. Maybe you should explain it.”


“One is good, but two are better. Two would share the burden of the struggle, make it easier, make it more bearable.” His voice lowered, and his eyes strayed off into the distance. “What good are you doing anyone, Logan? You travel here and there, you attack slave camp after slave camp, you do battle with one set of once-men or another, you face down a demon or two, and what does it get you? How much better off are you now than you were ten years ago? How much better off is anyone you’ve tried to help? It won’t last, you know. Your luck. Your determination. Sooner or later, it will give out.”

“I took an oath to serve the Word,” Logan said. “I am doing what I can where I can. It doesn’t do any good to sit around waiting for the enemy to find you. You have to get out and find them. You have to destroy them before they have a chance to destroy you.” He hesitated. “What about the oath you took as a Knight of the Word? Have you forgotten it?”

The big man made a dismissive gesture. “It was a false oath made to a false god. It was a promise given without adequate consideration for the consequences. What help does the Word offer us? What hope are we given? The Lady and the Indian, where are they when it comes time to fight our enemies?

Where are any of them? No, Logan, we owe nothing of allegiance to anyone but ourselves.”

The gleam in his eye had grown brighter, and there was an almost rapturous look on his scarred face. Krilka Koos, whatever else he was, had turned his back on his life as a Knight of the Word and embraced something Logan could not yet define. He might carry the staff and wield the power of the Word, but he no longer served the cause he had once committed to.

Logan shook his head. “I don’t think it would work out, you and me. Your fight and mine, they’re not the same. You decided to go one way, but it’s not my way. I have my own path to follow.”

“Once you join me, you will be second in command of my army.” Krilka Koos seemed not to have heard him. “I have been training my followers. They are invincible. They will stand and fight against anything that threatens. They will survive because they have no fear of dying, because they have been tested, over and over. I will not let them die. There are thousands, and more come to join every day. If you join, as well, you will have a chance to do something that matters, a chance to make a difference. No more wasting time and effort on those who don’t merit it. Slave camps were built for sheep. You and I, we’re wolves! We stand and fight! We do what Knights of the Word should have done years ago: we leave the sheep to their fate and conduct ourselves as warriors.”

Again Logan shook his head. “We were given the staffs we carry to help those sheep. We owe it to them to do so.”

“We owe no one!” the other screamed suddenly, the words echoing off the metal walls of the building. “No one! We have tried that way, and we have failed! We have been all but broken trying to save those sheep, those pitiful creatures that won’t fight for themselves! We’ve wasted enough time on them!”

Logan knew where this was going, and there was nothing he could do to change its direction. “I can’t join you,” he said simply.

Krilka Koos, flushed with his passion, stared at him for a long moment. “You might want to rethink that answer. Come with me.”

He took Logan to one corner of the building, back behind the bleachers where the shadows were deep and layered. There was a sort of alcove there, a recessed portion of the wall perhaps fifteen feet high and another thirty long.

Logan could just make out what appeared to be a series of implements fastened to the sheet metal by means of ties and bolts, all carefully arranged.

Krilka Koos walked over to the adjoining wall and threw open a pair of metal shutters to let in the light.

Logan stared. The alcove wall was decorated with weapons, everything from Parkhan Sprays and Tyson Flechettes to knives and spears and swords, Iron Stars and viper-pricks and hundreds of others. At the very center of the collection were three black staffs carved with runes, their once polished surfaces turned dull and lifeless, their symbols of power as gray and cold as ashes.

Logan looked quickly at Krilka Koos. “You’re not mistaken,”

the big man answered his unspoken question. “They belonged to other Knights of the Word, men and women who stood where you are standing now, men and women who gave way to the darkness in their hearts. They were asked to join me; they refused. The price of refusal is sometimes much steeper than what we imagine it will be.”

“You killed them?” Logan asked in disbelief. “Other Knights of the Word? You killed them?”

Krilka Koos shook his head. “Not in the way you think. I wouldn’t do that.

That isn’t who I am. They killed themselves.”