The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

He glanced around. No one drilled or trained. No one sharpened weapons or tightened straps on armor. There were Elven Hunters manning the walls at the front and there was a watch in place; that was enough. If something more was needed, it was somebody else’s problem.

It was worse elsewhere, in the other armies, where discipline was even less in evidence. It wasn’t that Bordermen, Dwarves, and Trolls weren’t brave and capable; it was that they had no reason to think those attributes would be tested. The Federation army had squatted in place for almost two years without doing anything beyond sending out scouts and attempting an occasional foray into the Free-born lines. They were as indolent and disinterested in fighting as their enemies were. The mobilization of fresh forces along the Federation front in the wake of the departure of the Rover airships did not suggest to the Elves and their allies that their enemy’s attitude had changed.

Pied glanced over at Drumundoon and gestured toward the encampment. “They don’t seem to have much to do with their time, do they?”

Drum said nothing. There was nothing to say. He was of the same mind as his Captain. The Home Guard had a different approach to discipline than everyone else, but that was why they were Home Guard. The rest of the army regarded them as curiosities. They were a small unit assigned a single task—to protect the King. The way they conducted themselves, others believed, was mostly the result of the suspicion that the King was always watching them.

When they reached the heights, Pied paused. The front stretched along the plateau that comprised the Prekkendorran for more than two miles east and west through a series of broad flats segmented by twisting passes and ravines. At present, and for much of the past twenty years, the Free-born had occupied a pair of high bluffs bracketing a deep, wide pass that angled north all the way to the other side of the plateau before turning down through the foothills beyond. Elves occupied the smaller bluff on the west; a mix of Bordermen, Dwarves, and Trolls, the larger one on the east. By placing archers and slingmen on either side of the gap, where it narrowed, they were able to ward against penetration. The Federation’s only choice was to come at the allies from the front or sides and to do so from a highly vulnerable position.

The Federation had penetrated deep into the flats early on in the war, but once the allies had found the bluffs on which to set their defenses, the attack had stalled. Because the Federation was the invading force, the allies could afford to sit back and wait. It was the invader who must come to them, and by now they had constructed defenses of stone and timber that were believed to be sufficiently strong that it would cost the lives of thousands of men to achieve a breakthrough. It was generally agreed by both sides that another way must be found, and as yet it had not.

Pied studied the Federation lines, situated on the flats not half a mile away. A mass of dark figures crowded behind fortifications similar to their own. In the two months he had been on the front, they had not emerged from behind those walls. The most excitement he had experienced was the result of a pair of rather haphazard airship attacks on the Dwarf lines a mile farther down the front, which had been quickly driven back.

Were there more Federation soldiers at those walls than there had been a week ago? A mottled stain of black-and-silver uniforms spread away behind those fortifications for better than a mile, clusters of men settled about cooking fires and stacks of weapons. There was no drilling or training in evidence, no suggestion of an impending attack. Everything looked as it always looked.

But that didn’t mean it was.

He shook his head. He didn’t like anything he was seeing on either side of the front. He had been a soldier all his life, and he had learned to trust his instincts. They were screaming at him, telling him that the possibility of disaster was enormous and close at hand.

“Drum, I can’t let him do this,” he said quietly.

“The King?” His aide shook his head. “You can’t stop him, Captain. You’ve already tried, and he won’t listen. If you can’t tell him something he doesn’t already know, you’ll just make him more determined.”

Pied walked on, saying nothing. There had to be a way to stall, something he could say or do to win a reprieve. He had always been able to out-think Kellen; he ought to be able to do so now.