The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“What are you doing?” Khyber hissed at him.

Pen wasn’t sure, but it seemed to be working. He made a few more sounds, all of them nonspecific but indicative of his desire to be friendly. We’re no threat, he was saying to the cat. We’re just like you, even if we look and smell a little different.

Intrigued, the moor cat answered with a series of huffing noises that came from deep within its throat. Pen was working furiously now, taking in the sounds and translating them into words and phrases, into deciphering the nature of the big animal’s interest in them. The moor cat wanted reassurance that Pen and his companions were passing through to other places and had no intention of trying to usurp its territory. There was an unmistakable challenge in the sounds, a testing for antagonistic intent. Pen responded at once, doing his best to create a semblance of the coughing sounds, demonstrating that he and his companions were on their way to their own home, that a challenge to the moor cat’s territory was of no interest.

He acted instinctively, almost without thinking about what he was doing. His magic guided him, leading him to say and do what was needed to connect with the moor cat. He was surprised by how easily the sounds came to him, at the certainty he had of what they were communicating to the cat. The huge beast seemed to be listening to him.

“Is he actually talking with that beast?” Tagwen whispered to Khyber.

“Shhhh!” was her quick, irritated response.

Then all of a sudden the moor cat started toward Pen, its great head swinging from side to side, its huge eyes gleaming. It stopped right in front of him and leaned in to sniff his face and then his body. It was so big it stood eye to eye with him, equal in height but dominant in every other respect. Pen stood perfectly still, frozen with shock and fright. Running or fighting never entered his mind. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, letting the cat explore him, feeling the heat of its breath on his skin, hearing the sound of its breathing.

Finally, the cat stepped away, satisfied. It circled back the way it had come, then turned in the direction it had been going and disappeared into the trees without even a glance in their direction, and was gone.

Pen and his companions stood statue-still for long minutes, waiting for it to return. When at last it became apparent that it did not intend to, Pen exhaled heavily and looked from Khyber to Tagwen. The expressions on their faces almost certainly mirrored the one on his own, a mixture of heart-stopping awe and deep relief. With one hand he brushed nervously at his mop of reddish hair, which was finally beginning to grow out again, and realized he was coated with sweat.

“I don’t care ever to have that experience again,” Tagwen declared, doing his best to keep his voice from shaking. “Ever.”

Khyber glanced in the direction of the departed moor cat. “We need to go that way, too,” she pointed out.

Pen nodded. “Yes, we do.”

Tagwen stared at them, horror-stricken, then straightened very deliberately. “Very well. But let’s rest up a bit before we do.”

And before they could object, he sat down quickly.





TWENTY-NINE


They trooped on for the remainder of the afternoon, fighting through scrub-growth woods and a new stretch of swamp laced with mud holes and waterways, everything encased in mist and gloom and crosshatched with shadows. The light lasted for another three hours and then began to fail rapidly. Still, they slogged ahead, reduced to putting one foot in front of the other, to pushing on when it would have been much easier not to.

It was almost too dark to see when Khyber realized that the feel of the ground had changed and the air no longer smelled of damp and rot but of grass and leaves. She stopped abruptly, causing Tagwen, who was walking behind her with his head down, to bump into her. Ahead, Pen heard the sudden oaths and quick apologies and turned around to see what was happening.

“We’re out of the Slags,” Khyber announced, still not quite believing it. “Look around. We’re out.”

She insisted they stop for the night, so bone weary and mentally exhausted from the events of the past few days, so in need of sleep that she barely managed to find a patch of soft grass within a stand of oaks before she was asleep. Her last memory was of the sky, empty for the first time in days of mist and clouds, clear and bright with moonglow and stars.