The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“Twenty degrees starboard,” Cinnaminson told her father. “We’ll find better speed on that heading. Oh,” she gasped suddenly, “behind us, Papa!”


They all swung about in response and found the Galaphile emerging from the remnants of the fog bank, sails furled and lashed, the warship flying on the power of her diapson crystals. She was moving fast, surging through the night, bearing down on them like a tidal wave.

Gar Hatch threw the thruster levers all the way forward and yelled to his Rover crewmen to drop the mainsail. Pen saw the reason for it at once; the mainsail was a drag on the ship in that windless air and would be of less help if the wind resumed from the east. The Skatelow was better off flying on stored power, as well, though she could not begin to match the speed of the Galaphile. Still, she was the smaller, lighter craft and, if she was lucky, might be able to outmaneuver her pursuer.

The chase was under way in earnest; the fog that had offered concealment only moments earlier all but vanished. Pen did not care for what he saw as he watched the Galaphile draw closer. As fast as she was coming, the Skatelow could not outrun her. The Lazareen stretched away in all directions, vast and unchanging, and there was no sign of the shoreline they so desperately needed to reach. Clever maneuvers would get them only so far. Cinnaminson was still calling out tacks and headings, and Gar Hatch worked the controls frantically in response, trying to catch a bit of stray wind here, to skip off a sudden gust of air there. But neither could do anything to change their situation. The Galaphile continued to close steadily.

Then a fresh rainsquall washed over them, and Ahren Elessedil, seeing his chance, stepped away from the railing, arms raised skyward, and called on his magic to change the squall’s direction, sending it whipping toward the Druid warship. It caught the Galaphile head-on, but by then it had changed into sleet so thick and heavy that it enveloped the bigger ship and swallowed it whole. Clinging to the Galaphile in a white swirling mass, it coated the decking and masts with ice, turning the airship to a bone-bleached corpse.

Now the Skatelow began to pull away. Burdened by the weight of the ice, the Galaphile was foundering. Pen saw flashes of red fire sweeping her masts and spars, Druid magic attempting to burn away the frigid coating. The fire had an eerie look to it, flaring from within the storm cloud like dragon eyes, like embers in a forge.

Ahead, the fog bank drew nearer.

Ahren collapsed next to Pen and Khyber, his lean face drawn and pale, his eyes haunted. He was close to exhaustion. “Find us a place to hide, Cinnaminson,” he breathed softly. “Find it quickly.”

Pressed against the pilot box wall, rain-soaked and cold, Pen peered in at the girl. She stood rigid and unmoving at the forward railing, her face lifted. She was speaking so low that Pen could not make out the words, but Gar Hatch was listening intently, bent close to her, his burly form hunched down within his cloak. He had dropped the Skatelow so close to the Lazareen that she was almost skimming the surface. Pen heard the chop of the lake waters, steady and rough. The wind was back, whipping about them from first one direction and then the other, sweeping down out of the Charnals, cold and bleak.

Then they were sliding into the mist again, its gray shroud wrapping about and closing them away. Everything disappeared, vanished in an instant.

“Starboard five degrees, Papa,” Cinnaminson called out sharply. “Altitude, quickly!”

Blinded by the murky haze, Pen could only hear tree branches scrape the underside of the hull as the Skatelow nosed upward again—a shrieking, a rending of wood, then silence once more. The airship leveled off. Pen was gripping the pilot box railing so hard his hands hurt. Khyber was crouched right beside him, her eyes tightly closed, her breathing quick and hurried.

“There, Papa!” Cinnaminson cried out suddenly. “Ahead of us, an inlet! Bring her down quickly!”

The Skatelow dipped abruptly, and Pen experienced a momentary sensation of falling, then the airship steadied and settled. Again there was contact, but softer, a rustling of damp grasses and reeds rather than a scraping of tree limbs. He smelled the fetid wetland waters and the stink of swamp gas rising to meet them; he heard a quick scattering of wings.

Then the Skatelow settled with a small splash and a lurch, sliding through water and mist and darkness, and everything went still.


“I was so frightened,” she whispered to him, her blind gaze settling on his face, her head held just so, as if she were seeing him with her milky eyes instead of her mind.

“You didn’t look frightened,” he whispered back. He squeezed her hands. “You looked calmer than any of us.”