Terry Brooks - First King of Shannara

They stole in silence from the stairwell and along the corridor to the doorway at which the young Elf stood watch. They clung to the shadows where the torchlight did not reach, using small conjurings of magic given them by the Master—sweet taste of power—to cloak themselves from the young guard’s eyes.

Then they were upon him, one of them striking a sharp blow to his head to knock him senseless. The other two worked quickly and furiously at the locks that secured the stone door, releasing them one by one, hauling back on the heavy iron grate, lifting off the massive bar from its fittings, and finally, irrevocably, pulling open the door itself so that Paranor lay open to the night and the things that waited without.

The Druids stepped back as the first of those things slouched into the light. It was a Skull Bearer, hunched and massive within its black cloak, claws extended before it. All sharp edges and flat planes, all hardness and bulk, it filled the corridor and seemed to suck away the very air. Red eyes burned into the three who cowered before it, and it shoved its way past them disdainfully.

Leathery wings beat softly. With a hiss of satisfaction, it seized the young Elven guard, ripped out his throat, and cast him aside. The Druids flinched as the rending sprayed them with the victim’s blood.

The Skull Bearer beckoned to the darkness without, and other creatures poured through the doorway, things of tooth and nail, twisted and gnarled and bristling with dark tufts of hair, armed and ready, quick-eyed and furtive in the silence. Some were vaguely recognizable; perhaps they had once been Trolls. Some were beasts of the netherworld and looked in no way human. All had been waiting since just after sunset in a dark alcove in the shelter of the outer walls where they could not be seen from the parapets.

There they had hidden, knowing these three pitiful beings who cowered before them had been claimed by the Master and would gain them access to the Keep.

Now they were inside and eager to begin the bloodletting that had been promised them.

The Skull Bearer sent one back out into the night to summon those still within the forest. There were several hundred, waiting for the signal to advance. They would be seen from the walls as they emerged from the trees, but the alarm would come too late.

By the time Paranor’s defenders could reach them, they would be inside the Keep.

The Skull Bearer turned and started down the hall. It did not acknowledge the three Druids. They were less than nothing to it.

It left them behind, discards, leavings. It was up to the Master to decide what would become of them. All that mattered to the winged hunter was the killing that lay ahead.

The attackers divided into small groups as they went. Some crept up the stairway to the Druid sleeping chambers. Some turned down a secondary corridor that led deep into the Keep. Most continued with the Skull Bearer along the passageway that led to the main gates.

Soon, the screams began.

Caerid Lock came racing back across the courtyard from the north gate when the alarm was finally given. The screams came first, then the sound of a battle horn. The Captain of the Druid Guard knew everything in an instant. Bremen’s prophecy had come true. The Warlock Lord was inside the gates of Paranor. The certainty of it chilled him to the bone. He called his men to him as he ran, thinking there might still be time. They charged into the Keep and down the corridor that led to the door the traitor Druids had breached. As they rounded a turn, they found the passageway ahead packed with black, hunched forms that squirmed through the opening out of the night. Too many to engage, Caerid realized at once. He took his men back quickly, and the beasts were quick to pursue. The guards abandoned the lower level and went up the stairs to the next, closing doors and dropping gates behind them, trying to seal their attackers off. It was a desperate gamble, but it was all that Caerid Lock could think to do.

On the next floor, they were able to close off the lesser entrances and move to the main stairs. By then, they were fifty strong—but still not enough. Caerid sent men to wake the Druids, to beg their assistance. Some among the elders knew magic, and they would need whatever power they could call upon if they were to survive. His mind raced as he rallied his men. This was no forced entry. This was a betrayal from within. He would find those responsible later, he swore. He would deal with them personally.

At the top of the main stairs, the Druid Guard made its stand.

Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, and one or two Gnomes, they stood shoulder to shoulder, ordered and ready, united in their determination. Caerid Lock stood foremost in the center of their ranks, sword drawn. He did not try to fool himself; this was a holding action at best and doomed eventually to fail. Already he was considering his options when they were defeated. There was nothing he could do about the outer walls; they were lost already. The inner walls and the Keep were theirs for the moment, the entries sealed off, his men rallied in their defense. But these efforts would only slow a determined attacker. There were too many ways into and over and under the inner wall for the Druid Guard to hold for very long. Sooner or later their attacker would break through from behind. When that happened, they would have to flee for their lives.

An attack was mounted from below under the direction of the Skull Bearer, and crooked-limb monsters ascended the stairs in a knot of teeth and claws and weapons. Caerid led his guards in a counterattack, and the rush was repulsed. The monsters came again, and again the Druid Guard threw them back. But by now half of the defenders were either dead or injured, and no more had appeared to replace them.

Caerid Lock looked around in despair. Where were the Druids?

Why weren’t they responding to the alarm?

The monsters attacked a third time, a bristling mass of thrashing bodies and windmilling limbs, shrieks and cries rising out of gaping throats. The Druid Guard counterattacked once more, cutting into the monsters, beating them back down the stairway, leaving half their number sprawled lifeless on the blood-slicked steps. In desperation Caerid dispatched another man to summon help from wherever he could find it. He grabbed the man by his tunic as he was about to leave and pulled him close. “Find the Druids and tell them to flee while there is still time!” he whispered so that no other might hear. “Tell them Paranor is lost! Go quick, tell them! Then flee yourself!”

The messenger’s face drained of blood, and he sprinted away wordlessly.

Another assault massed in the shadows below, a congealing of dark forms and guttural cries. Then, from somewhere higher up within the Keep, where the Druids slept, a piercing scream rose.

Caerid felt his heart sink. It’s finished, he thought, not frightened or sad, but simply disgusted.

Seconds later, the creatures of the Warlock Lord surged up the stairway once more. Caerid Lock and his failing command braced to meet them, weapons raised.

But this time there were too many.

Kahle Rese was asleep in the Druid library when the sounds of the attack woke him. He had been working late, cataloging reports he had compiled during the past five years on weather patterns and their effects on farm crops. Eventually he had fallen asleep at his desk. He came awake with a start, jolted by the cries of wounded men, the clash of weapons, and the thudding of booted feet. He lifted his graying head and looked about uncertainly, then rose, took a moment to steady himself, and walked to the door.

He peered out guardedly. The cries were louder now, more terrible in their urgency and pain. Men rushed past his door, members of the Druid Guard. The Keep was under attack, he realized.