The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

He pointed, and when the Dwarf turned to look, Pen shoved him so hard the Dwarf lost his balance, tumbled off the deck of the cat, and fell to the ground. Pen didn’t think about it; he just did it, an act of desperation. He leapt into the pilot box and shoved the thruster levers all the way forward, unhooding the parse tubes completely. The response from the cat was instantaneous. It lurched as if it had been struck from behind, bucking from the surge of power fed into the crystals, snapping the bowline as if it were string, and careening directly toward the Galaphile.

Pen, braced in the pilot box and hanging on to the controls for dear life, had only an instant to respond to the danger. He pulled back on the port thrusters, swinging the cat left to sweep past the foremast of the Druid airship, coming so close that he might have reached out to touch her. Shouts and cries followed after him, then a volley of arrows and sling stones. The whang and snap of them caused him to crouch deep in the box, gasps escaping him in little rushes as arrows embedded themselves in the wood frame of his momentary shelter. The cat shot out over the waters of the cove and surged through an opening in the conifers to Rainbow Lake and the approaching storm.

What had he done?

There was no time to consider the matter and little time for much of anything else. He caught a glimpse of Tagwen flinging off the canvas covering and peering back at the flurry of activity onshore, where the Dwarf and the Gnomes were rushing for the long boat. Pen’s heart was pounding so hard he could hear it inside his ears. It would take them only minutes to reach the Galaphile, and then they would be coming after him. As big and fast as the Druid airship was, they would quickly run him to earth.

If they caught him now …

He didn’t bother finishing the thought. There was no time for thinking about anything but flying the cat. He gave her all the power the diapson crystals could deliver, bringing her up to a little over two hundred feet, then turning her east down the lakeshore toward the distant Highlands and the heavy mists that draped those rugged hills. Concealment could be found there, a way to lose pursuit, his best hope for finding a way to escape.

“Do you know who that was?” Tagwen gasped from his shelter, peeking frantic-eyed over the gunwales. “That was Terek Molt! He would have cut you to ribbons! Still might, Penderrin Ohmsford! Can this ship fly any faster?”

Pen didn’t bother with an answer. The Highlands were still some distance away, and a quick glance over his shoulder revealed the dark rams of the Galaphile nosing into view out of the cove, already in pursuit. Those Gnomes were sailors; they knew what they were doing. He had hoped that they were land creatures filling in, but he should have known better. Druids wouldn’t bother using anyone who wasn’t good at what was needed.

“If Terek Molt is behind this, then I was right about the Ard Rhys!” Tagwen shouted, and then disappeared back down into the pontoon hold.

Pen canted the mainsail to take advantage of the storm wind howling across the water. The cat was buffeted and shaken by its force, but propelled forward, as well, riding the back of sharp, hard gusts. Rain was falling steadily, picking up strength as clouds closed about. The storm would help to hide them, but Pen didn’t want to be caught out on the lake when it struck. A blow of that magnitude could knock a cat-28 right out of the skies.

He took her down to less than a hundred feet off the surface of the water, hugging the shore as he fought to regain land. They were well beyond the Duln and the mouth of the Rappahalladran, the Highlands already visible on their right, rugged and mist-shrouded under a ceiling of clouds hung so low that the horizon had disappeared.

“Penderrin!” Tagwen shouted in warning.

Pen turned and found the Galaphile looming out of the rain and mist, closing the distance between them far too quickly. How much time had passed since they fled from her? It didn’t seemed like any time at all. Pen glanced ahead, then angled the cat to starboard, heading directly off water and inland, seeking the cover of the Highlands. If he could gain the hills, he would look for a place to set down, somewhere leafy and shadowed where he couldn’t be seen from the air. But if one didn’t present itself immediately, he would have to keep flying. On balance, his situation seemed hopeless, his chances so poor he couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking to try running in the first place. What if Terek Molt had the use of magic to track them, just like his aunt? Druids had all sorts of magic they could call upon.

Pen, on the other hand, had none at all.