Read The Elf Queen of Shannara for Free Online

elapsed or until someone came. The horses were tethered back in the trees at the edge of the valley. As long as it didn’t rain, they would be comfortable enough sleeping in the open.
    Garth offered to stand the first watch, and Wren agreed. She wrapped herself in her blankets at the edge of the fire’s warmth and lay back. She watched the flames dance against the darkness, losing herself in their hypnotic motion, letting herself drift. She thought again of her mother, of her face and voice in the dream, and wondered if any of it was real.
    Remember me.
    Why couldn’t she?
    She was still mulling it over when she fell asleep.
    Â 
    She came awake again with Garth’s hand on her shoulder. He had woken her hundreds of times over the years, and she had learned to tell from his touch alone what he was feeling. His touch now told her he was worried.
    She rolled to her feet instantly, sleep forgotten. It was early yet; she could tell that much by a quick glance at the night sky. The fire burned on beside them, its glow undiminished. Garth was facing away, back toward the valley. Wren could hear something approaching—a scraping, a clicking, the sound of claws on rock. Whatever was out there wasn’t bothering to hide its coming.
    Garth turned to her and signed that everything had been completely still until just moments before. Their visitor must have drawn close at first on cat’s feet, then changed its mind. Wren did not question what she was being told. Garth heard with his nose and his fingers and mostly with his instincts. Even deaf, he heard better than she did.
A Roc?
she suggested quickly, reminded of their clawed feet. Garth shook his head.
Then perhaps it was whoever the Addershag had promised would come?
Garth did not respond. He didn’t have to. What approached was something else, something dangerous . . .
    Their eyes locked, and abruptly she knew.
    It was their shadow, come to reveal itself at last.
    The scraping grew louder, more prolonged, as if whatever approached was dragging itself. Wren and Garth moved away from the fire a few steps, trying to put some of the light between themselves and their visitor, trying to put some of the darkness at their backs.
    Wren felt for the long knife at her waist. Not much of a weapon. Garth gripped his hardened quarter staff. She wished she had thought to gather up hers, but she had left it with the horses.
    Then a misshapen face pushed into the light, shoving out of the darkness as if tearing free of something. A muscled body followed. Wren went cold in the pit of her stomach. What stood before her wasn’t real. It had the look of a huge wolf, all bristling gray hair, dark muzzle, and eyes that glittered with the fire’s light. But it was grotesquely human, too. It bad a human’s forelegs with hands and fingers, though the hair grew everywhere, and the fingers ended in claws and were misshapen and thick with callouses. The head had something of a human cast to it as well—as if someone had fitted it with a wolf’s mask and worked it like clay to make it fit.
    The creature’s head swung toward the fire and away again. Its hard eyes locked on them.
    So this was their shadow. Wren took a slow breath. This was the thing that had tracked them relentlessly across the Westland, the thing that had followed after them for weeks. It had stayed hidden all that time. Why was it showing itself now?
    She watched the muzzle draw back to reveal long rows of hooked teeth. The glittering eyes seemed to brighten. It made no sound as it stood before them.
    It is showing itself now because it has decided to kill us,
Wren realized, and was suddenly terrified.
    Garth gave her a quick glance, a look that said everything. He had no illusions as to what was about to happen. He took a step toward the beast.
    Instantly it came at him, a lunge that carried it into the big Rover almost before he could brace himself. Garth jerked his head back just in