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

Please, mister, we haven’t eaten in days.”


“Street kids,” said another voice. “That one’s a Freak.

Look at her face. Don’t touch her.”

Panther started to turn. “I told you not to move,” the first voice said, closer now, and the cold muzzle of a weapon pressed up against his cheek.

“Just let us go, mister,” Catalya begged, starting to cry.

“I don’t think so,” the first voice said. “Not till I find out something more about you. I think you’d better come with us. Get up.

Slowly.”

Panther was furious. I knew I shouldn’t have given her the Spray!“Hurry it up,” the second urged. “We’ll miss the show.”

The muzzle of the gun left Panther’s face.

As the boy and the girl climbed to their feet, Catalya gave Panther a sideways glance and a wink and mouthed, Trust me. Then she said over her shoulder to their captors, her voice shaking, “What sort of show, mister?”

I hope you know what you’re doing, Panther thought sourly.

WHEN THE HOUR allotted to Logan was almost up, Achille brought him a suit of worn, scarred body armor that had obviously seen extensive use. Pieces were dented, and a few were cracked halfway across. Logan told Achille he didn’t want body armor, didn’t even want this fight, but the other man insisted he put it on. Krilka Koos would be wearing body armor and wouldn’t allow any disparity in protection or weapons that would lend one combatant or the other an advantage. Each would be identically dressed and armed.

Logan allowed the body armor to be fitted—chest and back plates, upper arm and elbow guards, and upper thigh and knee guards with overlapping plates at the juncture of shoulders and arms and hips and thighs.

The armor was lightweight and strong, an alloy perfected in the waning days of the struggle that had seen the end of organized government and its armies. Michael had owned a set. Logan had not.

He found himself standing alone afterward, the body armor cinched tightly about him, his staff held in both hands as he faced the weapons display wall, thinking that this shouldn’t be happening, that it made no sense.

It was what he had thought from the moment he had learned what Krilka Koos intended, and even now, when it was clearly time to do so, he couldn’t make himself face the reality of his situation. It felt surreal to him, a dream that he would wake from at any moment. Even when he heard the sounds of voices outside the building, gathering in volume and intensity, and then inside, changing to shouts and cries of expectation; even when he heard the sounds of boots climbing into the bleachers and hands clapping with rhythmic encouragement; and even when the cacophony was so intense that it blotted out every other sound and left him blanketed in waves of wildness and frenzy, he could not find steady ground on which to stand. He was at sea, cast adrift, and everything around him seemed to be getting farther away.

How was he supposed to prepare for a battle he had no interest in fighting? The question rolled and spun with the bright insistence of sunspots flashing through dark clouds. He wondered suddenly if this was where everything would end for him—his service to the Word, his efforts to find and protect the boy Hawk, his care for the Ghosts, all the unfinished business in his life. Knights of the Word did not have long lives, but somehow he had always believed he would have more time than this.

“They’re ready,” Achille said suddenly, coming up to him.

Logan looked at the man, at the faint smile on his face, and he knew that no one thought for one minute that this was something he was going to walk away from.

“What do I do?” he asked.

“Walk out into the arena. Krilka will be waiting. The rest is up to the two of you.” Achille stepped back. “Good luck.”

What he was saying, Logan knew, was Good-bye.

He took a last look at the weapons display, imagining for a moment the men—and possibly women—who had carried them into battle. He looked once more at the three rune-carved staffs that had belonged to other Knights of the Word, dull and lifeless in their straps, the power gone with their bearers’

lives. They couldn’t have wanted this any more than he did. It was obscene that they should have come to this end. Krilka Koos killed to reassure himself of his prowess. He killed so that his followers would believe he was invincible.

Everything he had sworn to do as a Knight of the Word had been subverted. Logan felt a slow burn of anger build inside. It would never stop unless someone made it stop.

Unless he made it stop.