High Druid of Shannara: Straken (The High Druid of Shannara) by Terry Brooks

Author:Terry Brooks [Brooks, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780345486097
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2005-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

By nightfall, she was gone. She left without saying anything further to anyone, slipping from the Elven camp as if her departure were of no consequence. She was like that, a steady presence who never made much of the dangerous work she did. Pied sometimes wondered why she continued to risk herself after so many years, but he could never bring himself to ask her. He felt the reasons were hers, and she was entitled to keep them private. It was enough that she was there for the Home Guard every time he called on her.

Unable to settle in, he slept poorly that night. With Drum gone, he lacked reassurance that things were in any sort of order and kept wondering what he had overlooked. He awoke well before sunrise, stiff and unrested, still dressed in the clothes he had worn for the past three days, rose from his blankets into the chilly morning air, buckled on his weapons, and walked down through the camp to find a cup of hot ale. It had quit raining, though the air was thick with the smell of damp and mist hung in gauzy blankets across the whole of the wilderness. They would march forward the last half mile when the false dawn began to brighten the eastern sky and would be at the backs of the Federation soldiers by true dawn. It would require that they travel in silence, and he had given the order the previous night that everything was to be lashed down or muffled. Whyl and two other scouts would go on ahead to prevent unexpected encounters. If things worked as he hoped, he would catch the Federation just rising and be on them before they knew what was happening.

He found his Elven Hunters mostly awake or coming awake, as anxious as he was to get on with the effort of breaching the Federation lines and rejoining the Free-born army. Activity marked the whole of the camp, and everywhere he walked he was greeted with whispers and nods. He returned the greetings, aware of what they meant. The men and women had come to believe in themselves again, and he must see that they did not lose that newly rediscovered self-confidence through any failure of his.

At the first indication of a graying in the east, the Elven command set out. They were formed up in units of fifty, with a commander of senior rank assigned to each. Erris Crewer had his archers deployed to either side of the regular units, both Elven Hunter and Home Guard, a screen against whatever they might encounter. They moved forward quickly, trusting to the scouts, who had gone on ahead, making their way through the deep gloom like wraiths.

Elves knew how to stay hidden when it was needed; it was one of the first things they were taught while growing up, a part of their heritage from the Old World. That day, in their approach to the Federation, it served them well. Before

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