The Scions of Shannara Read Online Free Page A

them a sense of anxiety and expectation, trying unsuccessfully not to experience the same feelings himself.
    At the rear of the room, men were moving to block the doors and windows, men suddenly shed of cloaks and dressed all in black. Weapons glittered. There were patches of white on sleeves and breasts, insignia of some sort. Par squinted, Elven vision sharp.
    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.
    â€œYour names?” he asked. His voice was soft, almost a whisper.
    Par hesitated. “What is it that we have done?”
    â€œIs your name Ohmsford?” The speaker was studying him intently.
    Par nodded. “Yes. But we haven’t . . .”
    â€œYou 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 . . .”
    â€œThey 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.
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œFree-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.
    â€œThis way, quick now!” he called