The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

His brother reached him instantly, hammering aside the Gnomes who sought to bar his way, roaring the Taupo Rough battle cry, which was instantly taken up by the Trolls without. The gates sagged inward as Kermadec’s soldiers outside pressed up against them. The crossbar was drawn halfway out by then, a single fastening securing it on its farthest end. Gnome Hunters clinging to him, Atalan threw himself against the levers and the crossbar slid all the way free.

An instant later, the gates heaved open behind the crush of armored giants pressing inward, and the Trolls of Taupo Rough poured through. The remaining defenders held their ground for a moment longer, then broke and ran, looking for somewhere farther inside the Keep to regroup.

Kermadec waited just long enough to be certain that entry into Paranor was secure, then broke free of the others and began to climb the stairs to the north tower.

Although his brother didn’t see him, Atalan was right behind.





TWENTY-NINE


When Shadea a’Ru reached the sleeping chamber door and pushed her way through the knot of Gnome Hunters that surrounded it, the first thing she recognized was that the door was magic-sealed.

“She’s free!” she hissed at Traunt Rowan and Pyson Wence as they came up next to her.

“Free? Of the triagenel?” The Gnome looked stricken. “That’s impossible! No one can break out of a triagenel!”

Traunt Rowan smiled faintly, almost as if he had expected as much. “Perhaps we failed to build it properly.”

Shadea didn’t know and didn’t care. What mattered was that their worst enemy was no longer a captive in any sense. She would have to be dealt with in a more direct and immediate manner or they were all finished.

She motioned for the Gnome Hunters to move behind her, thinking to put some space between all of them and the closed door. “To my left,” she told Pyson, pulling Traunt Rowan to her right. “When she comes through that door, burn her. Don’t hesitate. Don’t think about it. Just do it. We’ll catch her from three sides. Even Grianne Ohmsford isn’t impervious to Druid magic!”

They backed away, Shadea all the way across the hall to the far wall, where she pressed her back up against the stone and summoned her magic to her fingertips. She glanced left and right to the other two, standing perhaps twenty feet away on either side in the middle of the hallway. The Gnome Hunters were crouched behind them, swords drawn, arrows noched into bows. Thirty, perhaps forty strong, they waited.

Then the door flew open, banging hard against the wall, and a specter emerged, a black and impenetrable wraith backlit by light that poured through a ragged hole in the sleeping chamber wall. Its robes billowed out from its slender form, and light from the flameless hallway lamps reflected off the shiny surface of a clasp fashioned in the shape of the Eilt Druin, a hand holding forth a burning torch.

For a second, in spite of their combined resolve, no one among those who obeyed Shadea a’Ru moved. The sight of the ghostly form froze even the sorceress herself.

But then Shadea broke free of her momentary shock and sent Druid Fire streaking into the black-cloaked form, burning it to ash. Fire from the other two Druids followed on the heels of her own, disintegrating even the ash. Shouts of encouragement rose from the Gnome Hunters, who leapt up and down in response to the destruction.

Then silence settled over the hallway, and everyone went still again. Shadea moved out to the center of the corridor, peering cautiously through the haze.

“I am not where you thought me to be,” Grianne Ohmsford said from somewhere off to the right.

All three rebel Druids froze where they were, staring at nothing but wall and smoke and ash as they tried to find her.

“You are not my equal, Shadea,” Grianne continued quietly. “You never were. You never will be. You are banished from the order and from these walls. All of you are. If you leave now, I will let you live. I have seen enough of killing and vengeance and do not wish to see more. You deserve much worse than banishment, but if you go now, that will be the end of it. You have my word.”

A dozen responses went through Shadea a’Ru’s mind, all of them pointless. “I don’t think banishment will suit me,” she said finally. “And it remains to be seen if I am your equal or not. Show yourself, and let’s find out.”

But Grianne Ohmsford stayed invisible, speaking out of shadows and smoke. “Do you have any idea of what you have done? Do you have any idea at all? You sought to confine me to the Forbidding. To do so, you enlisted the aid of demons. One demon, in particular. You never stopped to consider why that demon would want to help you. You never thought that it might be using you as you were using it. What you did, Shadea—what all of you did—was to release a demon into this world by imprisoning me in the Forbidding. That demon remains free. It has a purpose in coming here. It seeks to destroy the wall of the Forbidding and set free all the demons it contains.”