The Elfstones of Shannara

Chapter One

The night sky brightened faintly in the east with the approach of dawn as the Chosen entered the
Gardens of Life. Without, the Elven city of Arborlon lay sleeping, its people still wrapped in the
warmth and solitude of their beds. But for the Chosen, the day had already begun. Their trailing
white robes billowing slightly with a rush of summer
wind, they passed between the sentries of the Black Watch, who stood
rigid and aloof as such sentries had stood for centuries gone before the
arched, wrought-iron gateway inlaid with silver scroll and ivory chips.
They passed quickly, and only their soft voices and the crunch of their
sandaled feet on the gravel pathway disturbed the silence of the new day
as they slipped into the pine-shadowed dark beyond.

The Chosen were the caretakers of the Ellcrys, the strange and wondrous
tree that stood at the center of the Gardens-the tree, as the legends
told, that served as protector against a primordial evil that had very
nearly destroyed the Elves centuries ago, an evil that had been shut
away from the earth since before the dawn of the old race of Men. In all
the time that had followed, there had been Chosen ... read full excerpt from Elfstones of Shannara ebook