Terry Brooks: The Scions of Shannara

A wolf’s head.

The men in black were Seekers.

Par’s voice faltered and the images shimmered and lost their hold. Men began to grumble and look about. Coll stopped his narration. There was movement everywhere. There was someone in the darkness behind them. There was someone all about.

Coll edged closer protectively.

Then the lights rose again, and a wedge of the black-garbed Seekers pushed forward from the front door. There were shouts and groans of protest, but the men making them were quick to move out of the way. The owner of the Blue Whisker tried to intervene, but was shoved aside.

The wedge of men came to a stop directly in front of the platform. Another group blocked the exits. They wore black from head to toe, their faces covered above their mouths, their wolf head insignia gleaming. They were armed with short swords, daggers, and truncheons, and their weapons were held ready. They were a mixed bunch, big and small, stiff and bent, but there was a feral look to all of them, as much in the way they held themselves as in their eyes.

Their leader was a huge, rangy man with tremendously long arms and a powerful frame. There was a craggy cast to his face where the mask ended, and a half-beard of coarse reddish hair covered his chin. His left arm was gloved to the elbow.

“Your names?” he asked. His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

Par hesitated. “What is it that we have done?”

“Is your name Ohmsford?” The speaker was studying him intently.

Par nodded. “Yes. But we haven’t...”

“You are under arrest for violating Federation Supreme Law,” the soft voice announced. There was a grumbling sound from the patrons. “You have used magic in defiance of...”

“They was just telling stories!” a man called out from a few feet away. One of the Seekers lashed out swiftly with his truncheon and the man collapsed in a heap.

“You have used magic in defiance of Federation dictates and thereby endangered the public.” The speaker did not even bother to glance at the fallen man. “You will be taken

He never finished. An oil lamp dropped suddenly from the center of the ceiling to the crowded ale house floor and exploded in a shower of flames. Men sprang to their feet, howling. The speaker and his companions turned in surprise. At the same moment the tall, bearded man who had taken a seat on the platform’s edge earlier came to his feet with a lunge, vaulted several other astonished patrons, and slammed into the knot of Seekers, spilling them to the floor. The tall man leaped onto the stage in front of Par and Coll and threw off his shabby cloak to reveal a fully armed hunter dressed in forest green. One arm lifted, the hand clenched in a fist.

“Free-born!” he shouted into the confusion.

It seemed that everything happened at once after that. The decorative netting, somehow loosened, followed the oil lamp to the floor, and practically everyone gathered at the Blue Whisker was suddenly entangled. Yells and curses rose from those trapped. At the doors, green-clad men pounced on the bewildered Seekers and hammered them to the floor. Oil lamps were smashed, and the room was plunged into darkness.

The tall man moved past Par and Coll with a quickness they would not have believed possible. He caught the first of the Seekers blocking the back entrance with a sweep of one boot, snapping the man’s head back. A short sword and dagger appeared, and the remaining two went down as well.

“This way, quick now!” he called back to Par and Coll.

They came at once. A dark shape clawed at them as they rushed past, but Coll knocked the man from his feet into the mass of struggling bodies. He reached back to be certain he had not lost his brother, his big hand closing on Par’s slender shoulder. Par yelled in spite of himself. Coll always forgot how strong he was.

They cleared the stage and reached the back hallway, the tall stranger several paces ahead. Someone tried to stop them, but the stranger ran right over him. The din from the room behind them was deafening, and flames were scattered everywhere now, licking hungrily at the flooring and walls. The stranger led them quickly down the hall and through the rear door into the alleyway. Two more of the green-clad men waited. Wordlessly, they surrounded the brothers and rushed them clear of the ale house. Par glanced back. The flames were already leaping from the windows and crawling up toward the roof. The Blue Whisker had seen its last night.

They slipped down the alleyway past startled faces and wide eyes, turned into a passageway Par would have sworn he had never seen before despite his many excursions out that way, passed through a scattering of doors and anterooms and finally emerged into a new street entirely. No one spoke. When at last they were beyond the sound of the shouting and the glow of the fire, the stranger slowed, motioned his two companions to take up watch and pulled Par and Coll into a shadowed alcove.

All were breathing heavily from the run. The stranger looked at them in turn, grinning. “A little exercise is good for the digestion, they say. What do you think? Are you all right?”

The brothers both nodded. “Who are you?” asked Par.

The grin broadened. “Why, practically one of the family, lad. Don’t you recognize me? Ah, you don’t, do you? But, then, why should you? After all, you and I have never met. But the songs should remind you.” He closed his left hand into a fist, then thrust a single finger sharply at Par’s nose. “Remember now?”

Mystified, Par looked at Coll, but his brother appeared as confused as he was. “I don’t think...” he started.

“Well, well, it doesn’t matter just at the moment. All in good time.” He bent close. “This is no longer safe country for you, lad. Certainly not here in Varfleet and probably not in all of Callahorn. Maybe not anywhere. Do you know who that was back there? The ugly one with the whisper?”

Par tried to place the rangy speaker with the soft voice. He couldn’t. He shook his head slowly.

“Rimmer Dall,” the stranger said, the smile gone now. “First Seeker, the high mucky-muck himself. Sits on the Coalition Council when he’s not out swatting flies. But you, he’s taken a special interest if he’s come all the way to Varfleet to arrest you. That’s not part of his ordinary fly-swatting. That’s hunting bear. He thinks you are dangerous, lad—very dangerous, indeed, or he wouldn’t have bothered coming all the way here. Good thing I was looking out for you. I was, you know. Heard Rimmer Dall was going to come for you and came to make sure he didn’t get the job done. Mind now, he won’t give up. You slipped his grasp this time, but that will make him just that much more determined. He’ll keep coming for you.”

He paused, gauging the effect of what he was saying. Par was staring at him speechlessly, so he went on. “That magic of yours, the singing, that’s real magic, isn’t it? I’ve seen enough of the other kind to know. You could put that magic to good use, lad, if you had a mind to. It’s wasted in these ale houses and backstreets.”

“What do you mean?” Coll asked, suddenly suspicious.

The stranger smiled, charming and guileless. “The Movement has need of such magic,” he said softly.

Coll snorted. “You’re one of the outlaws!”

The stranger executed a quick bow. “Yes, lad, I am proud to say I am. More important, I am free-born and I do not accept Federation rule. No right thinking man does.” He bent close. “You don’t accept it yourself now, do you? Admit it.”

“Hardly,” Coll answered defensively. “But I question whether the outlaws are any better.”

“Harsh words, lad!” the other exclaimed. “A good thing for you I do not take offense easily.” He grinned roguishly.