The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

When she straightened, the final Gnome was crouched a dozen yards away, watching her. They stared at each other across the fire pit, measuring their chances. Having witnessed the fate of his companions, he was clearly in no hurry to rush things. He might try to wait her out, she thought. Blood loss and exhaustion would claim her eventually. All he had to do was be patient.

To force him to expose himself, she started toward the chamber doors again, looking as if she intended to make her escape. The Gnome hesitated, then reached for the quiver of javelins strapped to his back, intending to kill her without getting close enough to be killed in turn. She paused at the first of the doors she came to, watching as he freed the first of his darts and hefted it into throwing position. She moved to the railing and crouched down again, making herself as small a target as possible.

It will take magic to save me. Earth magic, elemental magic. A little more of what Ahren worked so hard to teach me.

She gritted her teeth against a fresh wave of pain and began working her hands in subtle motions, drawing on fire to save her. It was there in the pit, all she could ask for, enough to accomplish anything, enough to put an end to this.

If I can remember how to summon it.

Her concentration faltered momentarily as she allowed herself to be distracted by the Gnome’s stealthy approach, but she refocused instantly. Steady your efforts. Her head swam. She could hear Ahren speaking to her, gently encouraging, guiding her movements and her thoughts, walking her through the exercise. It was only an exercise, after all. It was only a little test to see what she had learned.

Close enough to act, the Gnome came out of his crouch, javelin raised to throw, and she snapped her hands upward in response, a lifting motion that suggested the splashing of water from a basin. But it was fire she was summoning, and it exploded from the furnace in a sudden wave to engulf the Gnome. Her attacker screamed in terror as his clothing caught fire, then his skin, then everything around him. He beat at the flames frantically, dropping his weapons, staggering away from the railing, falling onto the catwalk and rolling over and over. But the magic-summoned fire would not go out, his body the fuel it had been seeking.

In seconds, he stopped moving completely, a blackened husk. The flames died out, and the fire disappeared.

Khyber Elessedil hung on the catwalk railing and closed her eyes.





SEVENTEEN


Rain, a blessing and a curse, fell in windblown sheets that draped the whole of the wetlands through which the Elves trudged. On the one hand, it kept the Federation airships grounded, lessening considerably the chances that their enemy would discover their intentions. No vessel could fly safely in such weather, not even the little three-man skiffs that both sides preferred for scouting missions and which normally were so reliable. On the other hand, it made foot passage through the northwest bottom country all but impossible. Their enemies might not be able to see them, but they, in turn, could barely see the noses in front of their faces.

Pied Sanderling, at the point of the scouting patrol he led, heard something move just ahead and signaled silently for a halt. The three men spread out behind him froze, weapons ready. Somewhere behind them, lost in the mist and rain, the rest of his makeshift army followed, strung out through the wetlands like a long snake, relying on him to act as its eyes. They had been on the march for the better part of three days with no sleep in the last two. The weather had turned foul the first day and hadn’t improved since. It hadn’t mattered as much in the beginning, when they were still in the hill country north, the ground rolling but solid beneath their feet. Then the rain provided concealment from those who hunted them. But the wetlands were a treacherous bog that swallowed men whole and through which passage was difficult under the best of circumstances. The decision to go that way had been based on Pied’s certainty that the Federation’s perception of them as little more than harmless remnants of a defeated Elven army had changed with their destruction of the enemy force sent to track them down and finish them off. The hunt for them now would be intensive. Moreover, it would come from the broader, less congested country west, which persuaded him to choose the more difficult eastern route for his own command.

He just hoped that the veteran scout Whyl, on whom he had relied in making that decision, knew what he was talking about when he had assured Pied that there was passage through. It was his country, and he knew it as well as anyone in the Elven command. But in such miserable weather, it was difficult to find your way out of your own backyard. If Whyl was even a little mistaken or had in any way misjudged …

He broke off thinking about it. Doubts would not help them. Whyl was with the patrol and had not seemed confused even in the face of the disorienting weather. Pied had to trust him. He had no one else.

“Captain,” the veteran whispered, standing at his elbow and pointing ahead into the rain.

At first, the whole of the landscape was gray and rain-washed, earth and sky looking very much the same. Pied didn’t see anything. But then a figure appeared, crouched and hesitant.