The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

Grianne glanced back the way they had come, toward Kraal Reach. “Do you think they have begun to track us yet?”


“Oh, yes.” Weka Dart sounded indifferent. “The Straken Lord will have found his guards and your discarded collar. He will have determined which way you have gone. He will have sent Hobstull and his minions to bring you back.” His dark eyes glittered in the fading light. “His magic is very powerful, Grianne Ohmsford. Very powerful. But not so powerful as yours.”

She knelt in front of the Ulk Bog. “Listen to me. I know you want me to take you out of the Forbidding, and I have promised I will try. But if Hobstull and whatever dark things he commands catch up to us, I want you to leave me to deal with them. I want you to find someplace to hide—and don’t let them see you. Don’t give yourself away.” She paused. “They don’t know about you yet, do they?”

He snorted. “Of course they know about me. Tael Riverine will have determined my presence as easily as he will have recognized your absence. Running and hiding will do me no good. I settled my fate by coming to you in the dungeons of Kraal Reach, Straken Queen. That is why it is so important that you take me with you. If I remain in the world of the Jarka Ruus, I am dead. Now, come.”

She ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach and followed him to the trees he called wincies. They were tall, spidery hardwoods with long, thin, whiplike branches that interlaced and, at some points, knotted together. With Weka Dart leading, they slipped into their midst, ducking more than once to get through, wending their way into the center of the grove. The Ulk Bog made a quick check of their surroundings and determined them safe.

“Now you should sleep while I keep watch,” he told her. “We must set out early, and you will need your strength. Go ahead. Sleep.”

Too tired to argue, she lay down obediently. She closed her eyes, thinking to do little more than nap. Her mind was awash in doubts and fears, in worries of what they would have to do to stay alive another day. Images of her imprisonment and of the creatures that had threatened her paraded like specters. She felt the magic of the conjure collar even as she slept, ripping her apart, draining her strength, and filling her with pain.

She would never sleep again, she thought, and was asleep in seconds.


Her waking thoughts followed her into her sleep and became her dreams, dark and menacing. The Straken Lord tracked her down shadowy corridors, close behind but just out of sight. He carried in one hand the conjure collar with which he would bind her to him, its fastenings glittering like teeth. Other creatures from the Forbidding appeared in front of her, creatures of all sizes and shapes, their features not entirely distinct, but their intentions clear. Winged monsters clung to the ceiling overhead, with claws that gripped like iron, threatening to drop on top of her if she dared to slow. She ran from all of them, blindly and helplessly, with no destination in mind and no end in sight.

She came awake to the sound of howling wolves, and a terrified gasp escaped her lips.

“Hssstt!” Weka Dart whispered in her ear. He was crouched next to her in the darkness, a vague shape barely distinguishable from the night. “Demonwolves! They’ve found us!”

She tried to scramble to her feet, but he forced her down again, hissing, “No, no, don’t move! Stay still! They don’t know exactly where we are and we don’t want to tell them. Let them come to us!”

She panicked. “But they’ll—”

“They’ll go the way I want them to go, Straken Queen. They’ll go the way of dead things!”

She forced herself to remain calm while trying to sort through what he was talking about. He didn’t seem panicked. He didn’t even seem particularly worried. He stared past her east, toward Kraal Reach and the sound of the howling as it drew steadily louder, drawing nearer.

She realized suddenly that she was cold. She glanced down and saw that she was missing her cloak.

Weka Dart glanced over quickly. “They have your scent well and good. But they won’t have you, Grianne of the wincie woods!”

The howls were very close, coming fast, and there were other sounds as well, shouts and cries of other creatures as they urged the demonwolves on. The pursuit was heated, a sense of expectancy reverberating in the wildness of its sounds.

Then suddenly, with a swiftness that turned her stomach to ice, everything changed. The howls turned to screams and growls filled with rage. The shouts and cries turned to shrieks filled with terror. The pitch rose and the rawness sharpened, and the night was alive with a cacophony that transcended anything Grianne Ohmsford had ever heard. Her pursuers were under attack themselves and fighting for their lives.