The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

It was coming too fast for him to outrun it.

“Khyber!” he shouted in sudden fear.

The girl wheeled back, saw the figure, as well, and thrust out both arms in a warding gesture. The magic caught the figure in midleap and sent it spinning out of sight.

“What was that?” she shouted at him.

He didn’t reply. He had no idea what it was. He just knew he didn’t want to see it again. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe the fall had killed it. Or injured it badly enough that it couldn’t keep after them.

As they began to run again, he glanced back worriedly. He was right to do so. His pursuer was atop the roofs once more, leaping and bounding from one building to the next, coming fast.

“Khyber!” He grabbed her arm and pointed.

She turned a second time, saw the figure, lifted her arms to summon the magic, and immediately it disappeared. They stood looking for it, but it was as if the night and rain and mist had swallowed it whole. That hadn’t happened, of course; it was still out there, coming for him. Only it was on the ground, lost in the shadows.

The hairs on the back of Pen’s neck pricked up. He backed toward the water, away from the buildings.

“Run!” Khyber hissed at him.

He did so, Tagwen beside him, their boots pounding on the wooden planks of the docks, the rain and mist a thick curtain all about them. Pen glanced toward the warehouses as he fled, searching for his pursuer. There was no one to be seen. But it was there, still chasing him. He could feel it. If it got close enough, it would use that dagger again. Or another like it. It would send its blade hurtling out of the darkness, and he would be dead before he knew what had happened. His lungs burned and his legs ached from running, but he didn’t slow. He had never been so scared. It was one thing to stand up to an enemy in the light, face-to-face. It was another to be stalked by something he couldn’t even see.

They reached the Skatelow and clambered aboard in a rush. Not until they were crouched down behind the pilot box did Pen quit feeling as if a fresh blade was already winging its way out of the gloom toward his unprotected back. Scanning the lamplit shadows of the docks, he found no sign of his mysterious hunter. But he was scared enough that he was going to stay right where he was, with his back to the open water.

“What was that?” Khyber asked him for the second time, her breathing quick and labored.

Pen scanned the darkness, searching. “I don’t know. I don’t even know where it came from. Did you see what it did?”

“Killed that man,” she whispered.

“But it meant to kill you, didn’t it?” Tagwen’s rough face pressed forward so that their eyes met.

“I think it did,” Pen answered, watching the mist shift along the dock front and down the side streets like a serpent. Shadows moved everywhere he looked. “I think it’s still out there.”

Ahren Elessedil, already on board, was speaking heatedly with Gar Hatch. Ahren’s clothes were disheveled and rain-soaked and his face flushed. He glanced over at the three hiding behind the pilot box wall, a hint of uncertainty in his blue eyes, then turned back to the Rover Captain, ordering him to cast off their mooring lines. But Hatch refused to do so, folding his arms across his chest and planting his feet. They weren’t ready, he said. They hadn’t finished their repairs.

“They’ve found you, haven’t they?” he sneered. “The Druids? You think I don’t know who you are or what you are about? I want no part of this. You can’t pay me enough to take you farther. Get off my ship!”

His Rover crewmen moved closer, ready to act on his behalf. From somewhere farther down the docks, shouts arose. The other pursuit—Pen had forgotten about Terek Molt and his Gnome Hunters.

“There!” Tagwen hissed suddenly, pointing left. “Something moved by that building!”

They peered into the gloom. Pen’s heart was hammering in his chest, blood pounding in his ears. He was cold and hot at the same time, so afraid that he was holding his breath.

Then a huge shadow burst into view, leaping from the dockside onto the deck of the airship in a single bound, an impossible distance. It landed in a skid, its crooked limbs scrambling to find purchase on the smooth, damp wooden planking. Ahren Elessedil and Gar Hatch, startled, turned to look at it, both of them frozen in surprise. Pen caught the sudden flash of a blade, wicked and bright, but he couldn’t make himself move, either. It was Khyber who leapt up, screaming in challenge. Hands outstretched, she summoned elemental magic in the form of a wind that picked up the dark form while it was still trying to regain its balance and threw it back over the side of the vessel into the cold lake waters.

Pen and Tagwen rushed to the side of the airship and peered down. The dark figure was gone.