The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

Once, when she was looking in the right direction, she saw the strange creature that seemed in charge of the little procession, its oddly elongated face peering in at her, topknot of coarse black hair swaying with its steps, bearded face intense and bright-eyed with interest. It did not speak to her as it had the first time it had approached, merely studied her a moment before moving on.

Exhausted and sick at heart, she dozed for a time, and when she woke again they were climbing a long, winding ramp that led to the fortress. It looked even bigger by then, looming up in a cluster of peaked roofs and crenellated walls, blacker than the soot of a wet fire and sharper-edged than a throwing knife. She sat up, bracing herself against the pitch and roll of the wagon, looking up the rampway to where a pair of massive, ironbound gates had opened to admit them. Creatures that reminded her of Weka Dart in the way they carried themselves scurried about on the tops of the walls and along the ramp itself, the metal of their weapons and armor glinting dully. The fortress was heavily defended, whoever its lord, and the only approach seemed to be up the fully exposed ramp.

She was reminded suddenly of Tyrsis, Callahorn’s great fortress in the Four Lands. This keep could be a mirror of that one, and she suspected that it was situated on the same plateau in this world as Tyrsis was in her own. The similarities surprised her, and yet she knew that in the divergence of separate histories, some things would work out much the same. The use of geography in choosing natural positions of defense would surely be one.

The gates swallowed them up and closed behind them with a booming sound. Then there were faces all around her, sharp-featured and hungry looking, fringed in coarse hair and dominated by flat noses and pointed ears. Goblins, she realized, though she had never seen one. They had been banished into the Forbidding in the time of Faerie, she had read in the Druid Histories. Some of them grinned unpleasantly, revealing sharp, pointed teeth and black gums. They reached through the bars to touch her. The wolves snarled and snapped angrily at them, as if protecting a meal they would soon enjoy. The drivers she couldn’t see flicked their whips and croaked. The air was filled with raucous sounds and fetid smells and, even inside the walls of the keep, clouds of dust.

The caravan rolled to a halt at a central tower, one ringed with walls that were spiked and barbed atop their parapets and through which the mouths of spear launchers protruded like serpent tongues. A flurry of activity announced their arrival as dozens more of the Goblins surrounded the wagons, some bearing lengths of rope and chain attached to slip-nooses and clamps and some bearing weapons. Grianne could no longer hear the snarls of the wolves; presumably the huge beasts had been locked outside the last wall they had passed through, their task as herders complete.

The creature with the topknot reappeared, coming out of the Goblin throng to unlock and open the door to her cage. She stood quietly as her keeper entered, thinking that if it got close enough, she might break its neck. But it kept its distance once inside, staying just out of her reach, working instead on the chains that held her fast, releasing them one at a time from the cage walls and passing the ends over to groups of Goblins waiting to receive them. It all seemed well rehearsed and smoothly accomplished, and she was given no opportunity to resist.

So she remained calm and let them do what they chose. She could wait. Her gag was left in place and her irons kept locked as she was led down out of the wagon. She was aware that her jailers held the chains taut so that she could be yanked over quickly if she tried to make a sudden move. It seemed clear to her that any effort at reaching for the gag in her mouth would trigger such a response. She couldn’t know if they were aware of the wishsong’s power and so were keeping her gagged because of it or if they were simply warding against the possibility of her employing any combination of utterances and gestures that might trigger an onslaught of magic.

She glanced once at the drivers of the wagons and found them to be creatures that resembled huge toads, perched on their seats with their hind legs tucked under them, short forearms gripping the reins to the bull beasts, widemouthed heads hunched forward, lidded eyes fixed and staring. They made no move to climb down off the seats. They gave no indication that they had any interest at all in what was happening around them.

She saw that the cages ahead of and behind her were empty. She was the only object of transport.