The High Druid's Blade (The Defenders of Shannara, #1)(32)

“Two. The one who left the tavern ahead of us and a second who must have already been out here waiting. What’s going on? Did both forms of the magic you sensed earlier belong to these two men? Or did one belong to whatever talisman the boy was hiding?”

“I’m not certain. At least one form of magic was what killed this boy, so we know that much. To know anything more, we would have to find the men who did this. If they were men.”

Paxon stared at him. If they were men? What else would they be? Were they dealing with some other form of creature?

“Let’s go after them,” he said abruptly. “Maybe we can still catch them.”

Starks gave him a look. “Maybe they would like that.” Then he shrugged. “Let’s do it anyway.”

They set out at once. Starks seemed to know where he was going, his head lifted, his eyes peering through the darkness as if he could see beyond it. They went at a fast trot, heading farther outside the town in the opposite direction from which they had come, following a narrow pathway into the trees. The shouts and laughter of Grimpen Ward slowly faded away, and the night’s stillness grew deep and pervasive. The only sounds now were of their own breathing and footfalls as they ran. Paxon had his sword out, ready for use, fully expecting that he would need it. Starks didn’t object. Once or twice, as they were running, Paxon caught sight of familiar boot prints in the soft earth ahead, and he knew they were on the right track.

Ahead, the woods opened onto a broad treeless stretch of pasture, and an airship sat bathed in moonlight on its far side. Two figures were running toward it and had nearly reached it.

“Leah! Leah!” roared Paxon, caught up in the moment, and with a sudden burst of speed he raced right past Starks in an effort to catch the fleeing men.

He should have used better judgment. Ordinary men would have offered no threat to him from this distance. But magic users were another story. They turned, and the entire pasture lit up with explosions of green fire. It had the look and feel of an attack by flash rips and fire launchers, and Paxon was suddenly dodging this way and that to avoid being struck. He heard Starks calling out to him from behind, but he was too busy trying to stay alive to respond.

One of the men abandoned the attack and scrambled aboard their two-man, powering up the diapson crystals and preparing to lift off. Paxon ran harder, close enough now that he thought he could launch his own attack.

But in the next instant he was struck a powerful blow that lifted him off his feet and threw him backward, his clothing on fire and his ears ringing. He collapsed, still clinging to his sword, fighting to stay conscious. An instant later Starks was bending over him, smothering the fire with a sort of dry mist that spilled from his fingers. Paxon gasped for breath and tried to sit up, hearing the sound of the airship ascending into the night sky.

“Stay where you are,” Starks ordered, pushing him down again. “It’s too late now. They’ve gone. What were you thinking, anyway?”

“I just thought … they might panic … and then I could catch them,” he gasped. “Stupid, I know.”

The Druid felt carefully along his arms and legs and torso. “No harm done, apparently. But don’t ever do that again or it will be your last outing with the Druids. Am I understood?”

Paxon nodded. “Can I get up now?”

Starks pulled him to his feet. “At least we know a few things we didn’t know before.”

“We do?”

The Druid grinned. “Well, for one, we know you can’t readily disengage your brain from your impulses. You’ll have to work on that. I’ll tell you the rest on our flight back to Paranor. Come along. And put that sword away, please.”

Feeling both exhilarated and sheepish, Paxon Leah did as he was told.





[page]TEN




ON THEIR RETURN FROM GRIMPEN WARD, STARKS AND PAXON went immediately to the Ard Rhys to give their report. It was not a comfortable situation. Nothing they had set out to do had been accomplished. They had failed to find and claim the source of the magic the scrye waters had detected. The user—a boy not yet fully grown—was dead, likely at the hands of the men who had stolen the magic and escaped the Druids. A thorough investigation of the matter failed to turn up any explanation of what the magic was or how the boy had found it in the first place. No one had seen him use it; no one knew anything about how he had found it. No one even knew much about the boy himself. He was an orphan who had come looking for work several years ago and been hired to care for the horses of the inn guests. He lived in the maintenance shed and had no friends.

But, as he had indicated to Paxon, Starks had a couple of pieces of information he felt the Ard Rhys would find useful. First, it was clear that at least one of the men they had fought was a powerful magic wielder with skills the equal of his own. Second, the Druid had noted that the vessel their attackers had been flying had Federation markings, and it was likely the men aboard were in some way connected to the Southland.

“But this is the most important piece of information, Mistress,” he finished. “The men who stole the magic were expecting us. Clearly, they were magic hunters, and they would have taken precautions in any case. But they had set up a watch inside the tavern, and they knew us for who we were even though I wasn’t wearing the Druid robes that would identify us. They had it in their minds to kill us, and they very nearly did. But how did they know to look for us? How did they know we were coming?”