The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

The Moric waited until he was out of sight then climbed from the coach, as well. It stood looking off in the direction the Prime Minister had taken, thinking that Sen Dunsidan was proving to be more obstinate than anticipated. At first it had seemed a simple thing to twist his thinking in the way that was necessary. Persuade him of the need to attack the Elves on their own ground, to fly to their home city and let them discover firsthand the consequences of a war against the Federation, and the rest would be simple.

But Sen Dunsidan was a politician, first and foremost, and he constantly shifted his position to take advantage of the most favorable winds. He had rethought the matter, it seemed, and found that the attack was perhaps not to his advantage after all. He hadn’t said so, but the Moric could tell that his hesitation to act quickly and decisively was governed by his sense that in doing as his adviser had recommended he might be making a mistake. Perhaps it was the visit from Shadea a’Ru that had caused him to back away from his earlier position. Perhaps it was something else. It didn’t matter to the Moric. What mattered was that his mind had to be changed back.

The Moric breathed in the human stench, the smell of the Federation camp and its occupants, and was revolted. It was eager to have the matter over and done with. It was anxious to break down the wall of the Forbidding so that its brethren could join it and the killing could begin. It never doubted that this would happen. Superior to humans in every way, it knew it would not fail in its efforts. It would find a way to trick Sen Dunsidan into doing its bidding, fly the fire weapon to Arborlon, turn it on the Ellcrys, and destroy the Forbidding. The Moric would do that because there was no one to stop it. No one even knew it was there, save Tael Riverine, who had sent it. By the time the truth was out, there would be no way back.

Unless the Moric made a serious mistake, which it was thinking it might have done. Perhaps its decision to depend on its ability to influence Sen Dunsidan was such a mistake.

It started walking toward the rear of the Prime Minister’s camp, back toward the wetland bog it had discovered on the first night of its arrival from Arishaig. Sen Dunsidan thought it settled somewhere within the larger Federation camp, but the Moric wanted nothing to do with humankind and its mode of dwelling. It thought fondly of its home in the swamps of Brockenthrog Weir in the world of the Jarka Ruus, steamy and fetid and rich with the smell of carrion. This world was too sterile, too clean. That would change when the demonkind reclaimed it.

It was deep in thought, paying little attention to anything around it, when the dart buried itself in its neck.

The Moric slowed, feeling the sting of the poison as it seeped into its flesh. Was the poison meant to kill it or merely to put it to sleep? Already its attackers were separating themselves from the surrounding shadows, coming toward it with knives drawn, crouched and ready. Apparently, they were determined to make certain of its demise. Or more to the point, to make certain of Iridia Eleri’s demise. She was the one they had come to kill.

The Moric swung slowly about, counting heads. Four in all, stocky and garbed in black cloaks. Dwarves, perhaps. Assassins, whatever their species. But they had misjudged their quarry. They had come to kill a human. What they had found, unfortunately for them, was a demon.

The Moric waited for them to get closer, revealing nothing of its resistance to the poison, of its ability to shrug it off as nothing more than an irritation. When the closest of them, knife extended, rushed in from behind to finish it, the Moric whipped around swiftly, took hold of the attacker’s arm, and yanked it from its socket. The attacker screamed and fell writhing on the earth. The Moric left this one where it lay and moved on to the next, catching it as it hesitated just a moment too long. Fingers twisting tightly into the folds of its cloak, the Moric yanked it off its feet and snapped its neck with a crack that sounded like the breaking of a piece of deadwood. The other two showed courage—or perhaps only foolishness—in choosing not to flee, but to attack as a unit, coming at the Moric from two sides. A foolish, pathetic effort. The demon tore the face off the first and crushed the skull of the second, all so swiftly that the struggle was over almost before it had begun.

A quick glance around assured it that no more attackers lurked in the shadows, that four had been deemed sufficient for the job. It pulled the attacker with the ruined face to its feet. It was still alive, though barely, and the Moric licked the blood from what remained of its face. Sweet. It took a second lick, then snapped the man’s neck and threw the carcass down. One by one, it went to each of them and finished the job.

Then it took a moment to identify their species. It was surprised to discover that they were Gnomes.