The High Druid's Blade (The Defenders of Shannara, #1)(31)

Eventually they reached the far end of the town, the buildings just beginning to give way once more to the forest, lights in windows and streetlamps brightening with the coming of darkness. Starks slowed as they reached a tavern whose sign announced it as the Mudland Rose.

“This is where we want to be,” he said to Paxon. “The magic is close by, but we will have to sniff it out. I will ask the questions, and you will watch my back. If anything looks awry—anything at all—tap me on the shoulder. Don’t hesitate. If there is another magic hunter inside, we don’t want to be caught off guard.”

Paxon nodded. With Starks leading the way, they pushed through the double doors and entered the tavern.

Inside, it was a madhouse. Men and women were crowded up against one another shoulder-to-shoulder, with barely space to move about. The room was cavernous and so dark and smoky that Paxon could not see into the murky corners and higher spaces at all. Patrons stood three-deep at the serving bar, and all the tables were filled. The laughter and shouting were deafening.

Starks took a quick look around, then began maneuvering his way toward the end of the counter where the serving girls were gathering tankards of ale on trays to carry to the tables. Paxon followed, trying to stay close. It required considerable effort, but they eventually reached their destination. Starks immediately bent to the closest server and whispered in her ear. She went white, nodded slowly, and did not turn to look at him. Instead, she mouthed something Paxon couldn’t hear, picked up her tray, and swiftly went about her business. Starks moved deeper into the room, Paxon following in his wake, using him as a buffer against the crowds. Although he was repeatedly jostled, he kept his feet and stayed close, scanning the crowds, taking in everything, thinking he might see something that mattered.

And then he did. At the very back of the room, a tall figure, cloaked and hooded, rose from a table and went out through the back door. Two others sitting with him, thicker of build and heavily muscled, moved in front of the door and stood blocking it.

“Starks!” Paxon hissed, tapping him hurriedly on the shoulder.

The Druid glanced back at him, followed his gaze, and nodded. “How many others?”

“Only one that I saw. He went out through the door just ahead of those two. I can’t be certain, but it looked like …”

He let the rest hang, so uncertain his eyes had not deceived him he didn’t want to finish the thought. Starks was already moving anyway, making for the door and the men guarding it, no longer evidencing even a trace of the careless disinterest that had marked his earlier behavior aboard ship. Paxon started to reach for his sword, but the patrons of the tavern were packed together so tightly that he couldn’t find space to maneuver.

Starks wasn’t waiting anyway. He came up to the men without slowing, felled one with a fist that shimmered with blue fire as it connected, and stunned the second with a bolt of that same fire flung from his hand in a brilliant flash. Both men went down, and Starks was past them and out the door to the yard behind the tavern, Paxon at his heels.

In the next instant a shock wave of black light exploded into them, throwing them back against the rear wall of the tavern. Starks was leading, so he took the brunt of the strike and lay motionless on the ground. But Paxon was only momentarily stunned, and he came back to his feet swiftly, drawing the Sword of Leah as he did. Another flash of fire exploded toward him, but this time Paxon caught it on the edge of his black blade and shattered it into harmless fragments. In the dying light, he saw that the attack had come from a stable set out behind the tavern at the end of the lot—a smallish structure with a handful of stalls and a maintenance shed. He also caught a glimpse of two figures crouched within the shed’s entrance.

Then everything went dark again, and Paxon was forced to wait until his vision adjusted. Crouched in the night’s gloom, aware of Starks unmoving behind him and the figures ahead waiting, he held his ground, ready for a fresh attack.

When he could see again, the entrance to the stable was empty, and the figures were gone. He advanced warily, thinking it might be a trap. But when he reached the building, he could tell it was deserted. There weren’t even any horses in the stalls.

He was about to go back to see to Starks when he noticed the dark bundle in a corner at the rear of the structure. Casting a quick look around, he went over for a closer look and found a boy of perhaps eighteen, his hands and feet bound and his body badly mutilated. It looked as if he had been cut and burned repeatedly. His eyes were wide and staring, and his mouth was stretched as if trying to scream. He must have died in the midst of whatever torture he was enduring. Paxon found and lit a lamp and bent close to the boy. Blood stained the ground surrounding the body, and he could make out the markings of strange boot prints.

“Federation issue,” Starks said, bending close. He was back on his feet, but one side of his face and body were heavily singed. “But these were people who knew magic, not common soldiers. That boy was subjected to a lot of pain, both internal and external. They wanted something from him, and I would be surprised if they didn’t get it.”

“The magic we were hunting?”

“That, for certain. But I think they wanted something else—something that wasn’t so tangible. Perhaps an explanation for how he found the magic. Or how he learned to use it. Or where he heard of it.” He looked at Paxon. “How many of them did you see?”