The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“You should have saved yourself.”


She didn’t say anything for a long time, then she put her lips close to his ear and said, “Saving you is the same as saving myself.” And then he thought he heard her say, so softly he couldn’t be sure, “I love you, Pied.”

There was light ahead of them now, a fuzzy ball against the black, dim but growing brighter, and he found himself staring at it, watching it grow. He was a deadweight atop the flit, and Troon was a deadweight atop him. The flit was no longer flying straight, but beginning to slide downward, to dip and sway like a leaf tumbling from a tree.

“Troon?”

No answer. Pied stared at the light ahead. It didn’t seem to have a source, didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere. It occurred to him that there wasn’t any light at all, that the light was inside his head. It occurred to him that he was watching the approach of his own death.

Fascinated, he kept his gaze fixed as it became a huge glowing ball and then swallowed him.





NINETEEN


Sen Dunsidan was awake long before his guards came to rouse him, dressed and waiting by the time they did. A light sleeper in the best of circumstances, he heard the sounds of the battle being fought on the airfield from inside his tented compound at the center rear of the Federation encampment almost a mile away. At first, he thought the entire camp was under attack, and his sole thought was to reach his private airship and flee. But as he dressed, frightened and angry and confused, standing in the dark to keep from becoming a ready target, he realized that the tumult was much farther away than the site of his compound and that any danger to him was still remote.

Nevertheless, he was edgy and impatient by the time his aide called to him from outside the tent flap. “My lord?”

“What is it?” he snapped, unable to keep his voice from betraying him. “What’s happening?”

“The airfield is under attack!”

He knew the truth at once then. He didn’t even have to leave his tent. The Free-born had watched him test-fly the Dechtera the day before, had taken note of how she performed, and had decided to act on the results. Having already witnessed the devastation wrought to the Elven airfleet, they would not have held anything back in their efforts to destroy her this time. He cursed himself for a fool, waiting one day too long, confident that he had them hemmed in and helpless, waiting for the end. He should have paid better attention to what had happened to the command he had sent to finish off those Elves. He had thought them helpless, too.

Still, why was it that his army, the biggest and most powerful army in the Four Lands, couldn’t manage to keep the Free-born from breaking through the siege lines and reaching the airfield, which was miles away? Why was it that his soldiers couldn’t manage to protect a single airship?

He pushed through the tent flap into the night and saw the huge blaze east, the flames rising up against the darkened horizon, an inferno. He felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, the last of his hopes fading, his worst fears confirmed. The Dechtera was destroyed. His weapon was gone. His plans for a strike against the Free-born on the morrow were ruined. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. He stood looking at the flickering glow of the fire in stunned silence, his aide hanging back, his guards keeping well away from him until they knew what his reaction was going to be.

He turned to his aide. “Find Etan Orek. Bring him to the airfield.”

His aide hurried away, and he signaled to his guards to bring up the carriage. Someone was going to pay for this.

It took them only minutes to reach the airfield, which was filled with soldiers running in every direction, some of them carting off the bodies of the dead and wounded, some of them trying to put out the flames of the fires that burned all across the field. The biggest of the fires was fed by what remained of the charred hulk of the Dechtera, a smoking, blackened ruin, as he had known she would be. Several other airships were burning, as well, but it didn’t appear that they would be a total loss. Weapons lay scattered everywhere, and he could just barely identify twisted pieces of flits.

Composing himself, putting in place his politician’s look, the one that masked his true feelings and left his features devoid of expression, he climbed from the carriage.

One of his field commanders came over, saluted, and started to give his report, but Sen Dunsidan cut him short.

“How many of them were there?”

His commander blinked. “We think about a dozen.”

“A dozen.” He was filled with sudden rage. A mere dozen had done this. “They used flits?”

His commander nodded. “They flew in from the backside of the camp. A suicide mission. We got all of them but two, and we’ll have those two, as well, before dawn. Elves, from what we can tell.”