figure at the High Council, the one whom Allanon had brought into the chamber with Amberle, and who had never shown himself. That would be Wil Ohmsford.
He turned quickly to Allanon, questions forming on his lips, then caught himself and turned away again. Perhaps this was not something he should be asking about, he thought. After all, nothing had been said before. If Allanon had wanted him to know more, he would have told him. But then why had the Druid said anything at all?
Confused, he stared out across the Flats as the sun slipped beneath the horizon, the colors of the sunset fading slowly into the night.
«There are watch fires laid across the mouth of the pass,” his father murmured after a moment. «I must order them lighted.»
He walked down into the gorge, and Ander was left alone with Allanon. The two stood wordlessly, motionless statues in the growing dark, looking after the stooped figure of the old King as he wound his way down along the broken rock. The minutes slipped away. Ander thought himself forgotten when the Druid’s voice floated up suddenly out of the silence.
«Would you know something more of Wil Ohmsford, Elven Prince?»
Ander stared at the big man in astonishment, then managed a startled nod.
«Then so you shall.» Allanon never even glanced at him. «Listen.»
Quietly he told Ander of Wil Ohmsford — of his heritage and of his mission to the Elves. Memories came back then to the Elven Prince of his father’s stories of the Valemen, Shea and Flick Ohmsford, and of their search for the legendary Sword of Shannara. And now Shea’s grandson, heir to the power of a magic that no Elf had wielded since the destruction of the old world, had been made Amberle’s protector.
When the Druid finished, Ander was silent for a moment. He stared down into the shadows where his father had disappeared, thinking. Then he glanced once more at the Druid.
«Why have you told me this, Allanon?»
«It is something you should know.»
Ander shook his head slowly. «No — I mean, why me?»
Then at last the Druid turned to look at him, hawk face barely visible within the shadows of the cowl. «For many reasons, Ander,” he said softly and paused. «Perhaps because when no one else would come forward to stand with Amberle that night in the High Council, you did. Perhaps because of that.»
His black eyes remained fixed on Ander for a moment, and then he turned away again. «You should rest now. You should sleep.»
Ander nodded, his mind elsewhere. Had the Druid really answered his question? He glanced briefly at Allanon, then looked away again, puzzled. Moments later, when he glanced back once more, the Druid was gone.
Chapter Thirty
Dawn broke, and a deep, gray mist covered the whole of the Hoare Flats. Thick, still, and impenetrable, it lay, stretched across the earth like a death shroud. Night drew away from the mist as the pale, silver light of sunrise crept down out of the Breakline; when the night had gone, the mist came awake. With a sluggish heave, it began to churn against the wall of the mountains like some foul soup stirred within its kettle. Faster and faster it swirled, surging up against the cliffs until it seemed the rock must be swallowed and lost.
High within the shadowed closure of Halys Cut, flanked by his father and Allanon and ringed by the Home Guard, Ander Elessedil stared downward. Below, the army of the Elves prepared to defend against the Demon hordes. Row upon row of archers, lancers, and pikemen bridged the gorge that opened onto the Flats, their weapons held ready, their eyes riveted on the mist as it boiled before the mouth of the pass. Out of this mist must come the Demons, yet nothing could be seen of them. As the minutes slipped by and still the attack did not come, the soldiers began to grow restless. Ander could sense their uneasiness, like his own, turning slowly to fear.
«Stand fast; do not be frightened!» Allanon’s voice rang out suddenly, and all eyes turned toward the black– cloaked Druid. «It is but mist, though Demon–wrought! Courage, now! The Forbidding gives way; the Demons are about to cross over!»
Still the mist churned wildly at the entrance to the Cut; as if shut away by some invisible barrier that would not let it advance further. Silence hung across the land, deep and pervasive. Ander’s hands were trembling as he gripped the staff from which the banner of the House of the Elessedils hung limply, and he fought silently to still them.
Then abruptly the cries began, distant and haunting, as if drifting out of the bowels of the earth. Within the mist, streaks of red fire lanced upward to the still–darkened morning sky, and the roiling haze seemed to heave. The cries grew louder, turning suddenly to screams that were shrill and savage, filled with madness. They rose steadily, building into a single, unending shriek that emptied out of the Flats into the narrow defile of Halys Cut.
«It comes,” Allanon whispered harshly.
The soldiers of the Elven army dropped to their knees, the sound breaking over them like a wave. Arrows were notched quickly in bow strings; spears and pikes were braced against the earth. Across the mouth of the pass, the mist erupted in red fire that turned the whole of the sky and earth crimson with its reflection. The shrieks and screams rose to a deafening pitch, and suddenly the air itself seemed to explode in a thunderous clap that burst out of the wilderness to the wall of the Breakline and shook the rock to its core. Ander cried out in dismay, and the force of the thunder threw them all to the earth. Hurriedly, they scrambled back to their feet, eyes searching. The air had gone silent. The mist hung gray and still once more.
«Allanon?» he questioned, softly.
«It is finished — the Forbidding is broken,” the Druid breathed.
In the next instant the screams welled up anew from out of the emptiness of the Flats, a maddened roar of exultation, and the Demon hordes, freed at last from their centuries–old prison, spilled through the mouth of Halys Cut. Down the length of the gorge they came, a wave of struggling, dark bodies. The Demons were of all shapes and sizes, bent and twisted by the blackness that had encased them. There were teeth and claws and razor–sharp spines, hair and scales and bristled fur; they slouched and crawled, burrowed and flew, leaped and slithered; all were things of legend and nightmare. Every creature from the oldest tales of horror was there; were–creatures, half–human, half–animal, fleet gray shadows that the eye could barely follow; massive, shambling Ogres with hideously distorted features; Gremlins that flitted about as if blown on the wind; Imps and Goblins, black with muck and slime; serpent forms that hissed their venom and twisted in frenzy; Furies and Demon–wolves; Ghouls and other things that ate of human flesh and drank of human blood; Harpies and bat–things that blackened the sky as they lifted their unwieldy bodies from the mass of their brethren. Surging through the mist, they ripped and tore at one another in their eagerness to break free.
Elven longbows hummed, and a rush of black arrows cut apart the foremost Demons. The rest barely slowed, scrambling quickly over the bodies of those who had fallen. Elven archers shot again and yet again, and still the Demons came at them, screaming their rage and frustration. Less than fifty yards separated the two forces, and now the archers fell back and to either flank as the forward phalanx of lancers and pikemen moved to the crest of the rise, bracing their weapons in readiness. The Demons surged forward, a mass of twisting bodies as they bounded up the broken rock of the gorge to where the Elves waited.
With a muffled crunch, the tide broke against the wall of the phalanx, claws and teeth ripping. The front ranks of the Elven line wavered slightly, but held. Demons hung impaled on spears, their shrieks filling the narrow gorge. With a heave, the Elven Hunters threw them back onto their own, watching in horror as the shattered forms were swallowed in the mass that came after. Again the Demons surged up against the Elves, and this time several knots broke through, only to perish instantly as the rear phalanx moved quickly to plug the gaps in the forward lines. But now the Elves were dying also, buried under the black mass of their attackers, dragged forcibly from their ranks and torn apart. And still the Demons continued to pour out of the mist, thousands strong, spreading out across the floor of the gorge and up its walls. Arrows cut them down in steady numbers; but where one fell, three more appeared to take its place. The Elven flanks were beginning to buckle under the rush of attackers, and the entire line was in
