The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“Well, that’s enough for now about the social structure of Rock Trolls, young Penderrin,” Kermadec declared, seating himself across from the boy and the others. “Tell me everything that’s happened. Bristle Beard, you begin. Right from the time I left you at Paranor. Tell it all.”


So they did, each of them speaking in turn, each of them adding a piece to the larger puzzle. Tagwen told of coming to find Pen’s parents at Patch Run and finding only Pen. The boy related the details of their escape from Terek Molt, the subsequent encounter with the King of the Silver River, and the task he had been given—to travel to the ruins of the ancient city of Stridegate and the forest island of the tanequil. Tagwen then picked up the story once more to tell of their decision to seek help at Emberen from Ahren Elessedil. Much of it was difficult, especially Khyber’s recitation of the events surrounding her uncle’s death in the Slags. When it came Cinnaminson’s turn to speak of the creature that had killed her father and her cousins aboard the Skatelow, she was forced to stop and compose herself several times. But both Elf and Rover made it through their tales, through the dark and terrible hurt they had experienced, to emerge, Pen thought, a little stronger than when they had started out.

Kermadec listened carefully and, when they had finished, shook his head in a mix of disgust and disbelief. “I knew our Grianne had placed too much faith in her ability to keep those Druid sorceresses from reverting to kind, Tagwen. Even an Ard Rhys can do only so much with black hearts and foul schemes.”

He sighed. “But losing Ahren Elessedil? I never thought I would live to see that. I never thought anything could happen to him, as much as he had survived already. He was the best of them, Khyber, your uncle. The best of them all.”

She nodded in acknowledgment of the kindness of his words. “I appreciate hearing that.”

“And Cinnaminson.” He turned to the Rover girl. “I am sorry for the death of your father, whatever the circumstances that brought it about. Your father is an irreplaceable loss. You have shown great courage and presence of mind in surviving the madness that consumed him. I will send my Trolls to see that he and his cousins are given burial.”

He leaned forward. “Now, then. You have told me your tale; let me tell you mine. Maybe we can make some sense of this business once I do.”


After leaving Tagwen at the Druid’s Keep, Kermadec had traveled north on foot out of Paranor and across the Streleheim to the ruins of the kingdom of the Warlock Lord. He did not want to do this, but he had no better idea of where to begin his search for Grianne Ohmsford. Days earlier, he had accompanied the Ard Rhys to investigate rumors of apparitions and strange fires within those ruins and had encountered an impossibly dark and evil presence. The Maturen felt certain that there was a connection between that presence and the disappearance of the Ard Rhys, and he was hopeful that by taking a closer look at the site where the presence had revealed itself, he might discover something useful.

It was a long shot at best, and as Kermadec had made clear to Tagwen, the Troll people did not go into the Skull Kingdom for any but the best of reasons. Kermadec was brave, and there were few dangers that could turn him aside, but that was one of them. Rock Trolls had an inbred fear and distrust of the land where the Warlock Lord had ruled and been destroyed. Rock Trolls, in that time and place, had served the Warlock Lord, slaves and soldiers to help in the conquest and subjugation of the Four Lands. It had taken many years for the Trolls to recover from those monstrous times, years for them to be accepted again by the other Races. Grianne Ohmsford had done much to make that possible. If a journey to the forbidden land was what it would take to help her in turn, then so be it.

Nevertheless, he had determined that he would not go back there alone.

So he traveled first to a Gnome village situated below the River Lethe on the western borders of the Knife Edge, seeking a man he believed would know better how to protect against the danger he expected to encounter in the ruins. The man’s name was Achen Wuhl, and he was a Gnome shaman of some repute in the tribe to which he belonged. He was old, perhaps ninety, and he had been a shaman the whole of his life, living with the Warst, a tribe that migrated across the Streleheim between the Kensrowe and the Charnals.