The Heritage of Shannara
Chapter One
1
The old man sat alone in the shadow of the Dragon’s Teeth and watched the coming darkness chase the daylight west. The day had been cool, unusually so for midsummer, and the night promised to be chill. Scattered clouds masked the sky, casting their silhouettes upon the earth, drifting in the manner of aimless beasts between moon and stars. A hush filled the emptiness left by the fading light like a voice waiting to speak.
It was a hush that whispered of magic, the old man thought.
A fire burned before him, small still, just the beginning of what was needed. After all, he would be gone for several hours. He studied the fire with a mixture of expectation and uneasiness before reaching down to add the larger chunks of deadwood that brought the flames up quickly. He poked at it with a stick, then stepped away, driven back by the heat. He stood at the edge of the light, caught between the fire and the growing dark, a creature who might have belonged to neither or both.
His eyes glittered as he looked off into the distance. The peaks of the Dragon’s Teeth jutted skyward like bones the earth could not contain. There was a hus ... read full excerpt from: The Heritage of Shannara ebook
