The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“Here?” Now Pied was fully awake. “She came back with you?”


“She wouldn’t have it any other way. The Council tried to dissuade her. Bad enough that we’ve lost a King. Losing a Queen as well would be too much. I even suggested she would do better to wait. But you know Arling. Once she has her mind set on something, that’s pretty much the end of the discussion. She said she was coming or the ships and men were staying.”

Pied nodded. That was Arling. Stubborn, though in an entirely different way from Kellen. She thought matters through first before setting her mind. She considered all sides. The war on the Prekkendorran was not an undertaking she would ever willingly support. No matter what the attitude of the High Council, she would look for a way to extricate the Elves. To do that, she would want to get a firsthand look at how things stood. She was Queen now, and she knew how to rule like one.

Of course, she had come to see how things stood with him, too. He could already picture her reaction.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Right outside the tent,” his aide said. He paused while Pied absorbed that information, looking decidedly uncomfortable with having been the one to deliver it. “She is waiting for you to invite her inside. I told her I ought to wake you first.”

She would have woken me differently, had she been given the chance, Pied thought. He could already see her angry face, hear her accusatory voice. He knew what was coming with the certainty that he knew his own name.

“Let’s not keep her waiting,” he said.

He stood up, straightened his clothes, and nodded. Drum gave him a sympathetic look and ducked back outside. Alone, Pied stood staring at the tent flap, trying to compose himself, to think through what he knew he had to say.

Then the flap stirred and parted, and she stepped through, golden light trailing off her gilt-edged dress, her pale amber skin, and her long blond hair. She was so beautiful that it took his breath away, just as it always did, leaving him wishing for things that he suddenly knew he would never have. The revelation left him shocked. Arling was a Queen; she was always meant to be a Queen. To think that he had ever thought there could be anything permanent between them was a fantasy he had indulged with not the slightest consideration for reality.

“Hello, Pied,” she greeted, coming up and offering her hand.

He bent to kiss it, bowing deeply out of protocol and deference. “My lady.”

She stared at him for a moment, saying nothing. Then she clasped her hands in front of her and lifted her chin slightly, a curiously commanding gesture. “What do you have to say for yourself, Pied?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? I was hoping you could do better than that. I don’t know why, though. Nothing?” She gave him a glacial stare. “When I heard what had happened to Kiris and Wencling, I would have killed you if you had been within striking distance. I would have done so without a second thought. My sons, Pied. You were given responsibility for them.”

“I know,” he said. “I failed you.”

“You failed me. You failed them. You failed your King. And you failed yourself.” She paused. “I am angry with you still. Furious. But not for the same reasons as before. Do you know why?”

He shook his head, feeling foolish and slow-witted.

“Because Drumundoon told me what you have apparently failed to tell anyone else. Not that he wanted to, but I see more things than I am given credit for. When he told me my sons and husband were dead and the Elven fleet was destroyed, I asked what had happened to you. He told me you were alive. He told me you had rallied the survivors and achieved a decisive victory against the Federation force sent to crush what remained of our scattered units. He was quite proud of you. He was quick to tell me that without your presence, the Federation might well have succeeded in destroying the entire army.”

She paused, studying his face. “I asked him how it was that you were in command of the Elven army. If my husband and sons were dead, why you were still alive? I asked why, as Captain of the Home Guard and protector of the King and his family, you hadn’t died with them. How could that possibly be?”

He nodded. “So he told you Kellen dismissed me from his service just before he set out.”