The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

No one cared to be the first to speak. She was a big woman, and she dominated with her size as much as with the force of her personality. Fully six feet tall, broad-shouldered and strong, she had fought in the front lines on the Prekkendorran for two years, and none of them had survived anything nearly as terrible as that. The contrasting hues of her sun-browned skin, smooth and dusky, and wind-blown blond hair, short-cropped and uncombed, gave her a look of good health and vitality. When she stepped into any room, heads turned in her direction and conversation slowed.

Here, however, the reaction was different. Here, they all knew her too well to be much more than cautious. She looked from face to face, her calculating blue eyes searching out signs of doubt or hesitation, challenging them to try to hide it from her. Their responses were as different as they were. Terek Molt disdained even to look at her, his flat, hard features directed toward the doorway of the room that concealed their secret meeting. Iridia Eleri’s stunningly perfect features had a cool, distant look. Neither Dwarf nor Elf had ever demonstrated any hesitation in their joint endeavor. Either would have undertaken the effort alone long ago but for Shadea’s insistence on unity.

Traunt Rowan and Pyson Wence glanced uneasily at each other. The problem lay with the Southlander and the Gnome. Cowards, she thought angrily, though she knew better than to say so to their faces.

“Act in haste, regret at leisure, Shadea,” the former offered softly, shrugging.

She wanted to kill him. He was the only one of them who would dare to speak to her like that, and he did so for no better reason than to demonstrate that she could push him only so far before he would dig in his heels. He wanted this as much as she did, as all of them did, but he was too cautious for his own good. It came out of being the child of Federation functionaries; the fewer chances you took in that world, the better off you were.

“Please don’t fall back on platitudes to justify your reluctance to do what is necessary!” she snapped in reply. “You’re better than that, Traunt. Smarter than that. We can nose this matter about like a dog with an old bone for as long as you wish, but it won’t change a thing. Nothing will happen to improve matters unless we make it happen.”

“She smells out plots like ours,” Pyson Wence said, his small hands gesturing for emphasis. “Step wrong with her, and you might find yourself down here for good!”

They were deep underground in the cellars of Paranor, gathered in one of the rooms used primarily for storage. The room smelled of dust and the air was cold and stale to the taste. Stone walls locked them away beneath tons of rock and earth, a safehold that few ever bothered to visit save to retrieve stores. It was the one place in Paranor where some degree of privacy was assured.

They had been meeting for almost a year, just the five of them. Shadea a’Ru had carefully selected the other four, discovering where their loyalties lay, then approached them one by one. Each shared her distaste for the Ard Rhys. One hated her openly. All wanted her gone, if for widely differing reasons. To some extent, they complemented each other, each bringing an attribute to the endeavor that the others lacked. The Southlander, Traunt Rowan, was strong of heart and body, more than a match even for Shadea—a warrior seeking to put right what he perceived as wrong. The Elven sorceress, Iridia Eleri, was cold of heart and hot of temper, but quick-witted and intuitive, as well. Her ability to stanch her emotions masked the dark truths that had set her on this path. The Dwarf, Terek Mott, while stolid and taciturn in the manner of Dwarves, was hungry for power and anxious to find a way to get past the Ard Rhys’ rules and restrictions so that he could claim the destiny he so desperately craved. Pyson Wence, so frail and helpless-looking, was a snake trapped in a supplicant’s body, a rare combination of treacherous instinct and decisive purpose. No superstitious tribal pagan, he wielded his magic in a cold and calculating fashion.

Had the Ard Rhys any inkling of their true dispositions when she accepted them into the order? Shadea a’Ru could not be certain. It was possible, if only because Grianne Ohmsford herself had been such a dark creature for so long—the Ilse Witch, the Morgawr’s tool. She had found redemption, she believed, and so thought others could find it, as well. She was mistaken on both counts, but that was to the advantage of those gathered in this room, those who waited only on fate to provide them with the chance they needed to be rid of her.

As perhaps it did here, if their impatient leader could gain the pledge of support she required.

“You want her gone, don’t you?” she asked Pyson Wence pointedly. “Dead or otherwise, but gone?” She looked around. “How about the rest of you? Changed your minds about her? Decided you like having her as Ard Rhys? Come! Speak up!”