The Scions of Shannara

“What do you want?” Par asked abruptly. He was liking this less and less.

The woodswoman edged forward another step. There was something wrong with her, something that Par hadn’t seen before. She didn’t seem to be quite solid, shimmering a bit as if she were walking through smoke or out of a mass of heated air. Her body didn’t move right either, and it was more than her age. It was as if she were fastened together like one of the marionettes they used in shows at the fairs, pinned at the joints and pulled by strings.

The smell of the cove and the crumbling cottage clung to the woodswoman even here. She sniffed the air suddenly as if aware of it. “What’s that?” She fixed her eyes on Par. “Do I smell magic?”

Par went suddenly cold. Whoever this woman was, she was no one they wanted anything to do with.

“Magic! Yes! Clean and pure and strong with life!” The woodswoman’s tongue licked out at the night air experimentally. “Sweet as blood to wolves!”

That was enough for Coll. “You had better find your way back to wherever you came from,” he told her, not bothering to disguise his antagonism. “You have no business here. Move along.”

But the woodswoman stayed where she was. Her mouth curled into a snarl and her eyes suddenly turned as red as the fire’s coals.

“Come over here to me!” she whispered with a hiss. “You, boy!” She pointed at Par. “Come over to me!”

She reached out with one hand. Par and Coll both moved back guardedly, away from the fire. The woman came forward several steps more, edging past the light, backing them further toward the dark.

“Sweet boy!” she muttered, half to herself. “Let me taste you, boy!”

The brothers held their ground against her now, refusing to move any further from the light. The woodswoman saw the determination in their eyes, and her smile was wicked. She came forward, one step, another step . . .

Coll launched himself at her while she was watching Par, trying to grasp her and pin her arms. But she was much quicker than he, the walking stick slashing at him and catching him alongside the head with a vicious whack that sent him sprawling to the earth. Instantly, she was after him, howling like a maddened beast. But Par was quicker. He used the wishsong, almost without thinking, sending forth a string of terrifying images. She fell back, surprised, trying to fend the images off with her hands and the stick. Par used the opportunity to reach Coll and haul him to his feet. Hastily he pulled his brother back from where his attacker clawed at the air.

The woodswoman stopped suddenly, letting the images play about her, turning toward Par with a smile that froze his blood. Par sent an image of a Demon wraith to frighten her, but this time the woman reached out for the image, opened her mouth and sucked in the air about her. The image evaporated. The woman licked her lips and whined.

Par sent an armored warrior. The woodswoman devoured it greedily. She was edging closer again, no longer slowed by the images, actually anxious that he send more. She seemed to relish the taste of the magic; she seemed eager to consume it. Par tried to steady Coll, but his brother was sagging in his arms, still stunned. “Coll, wake up!” he whispered urgently.

“Come, boy,” the woodswoman repeated softly. She beckoned and moved closer. “Come feed me!”

Then the fire exploded in a flash of light, and the clearing was turned as bright as day. The woodswoman shrank away from the brightness, and her sudden cry ended in a snarl of rage. Par blinked and peered through the glow.

An old man emerged from the trees, white-haired and gray-robed, with skin as brown as seasoned wood. He stepped from the darkness into the light like a ghost come into being. There was a fierce smile on his mouth and a strange brightness in his eyes. Par wheeled about guardedly, fumbling for the long knife at his belt. Two of them, he thought desperately, and again he shook Coll in an effort to rouse him.

But the old man paid him no notice. He concentrated instead on the woodswoman. “I know you,” he said softly. “You frighten no one. Begone from here or you shall deal with me!”

The woodswoman hissed at him like a snake and crouched as if to spring. But she saw something in the old man’s face that kept her from attacking. Slowly, she began to edge back around the fire.

“Go back into the dark,” whispered the old man.

The woodswoman hissed a final time, then turned and disappeared into the trees without a sound. Her smell lingered on a moment longer, then faded. The old man waved almost absently at the fire, and it returned to normal. The night filled again with comforting sounds, and everything was as before.

The old man snorted and came forward into the firelight. “Bah. One of nighttime’s little horrors come out to play,” he muttered in disgust. He looked at Par quizzically. “You all right, young Ohmsford? And this one? Coll, is it? That was a nasty blow he took.”