High druid of Shannara_ Jarka Ruus - Terry Brooks [110]
Yet the Jarka Ruus had existed for thousands of years. She tried to imagine a lifetime in such a world and failed. It frightened her to think of being trapped here for long. If she had not believed that she would find a way out, she would have been devastated.
But she never wavered in her certainty that she would find a way out. Those who had sent her here had made a mistake in letting her live. They might think themselves rid of her, but she would prove them wrong.
Her thoughts drifted frequently to the cause of her predicament. It was impossible for her to know exactly who had transported her, but she could make an educated guess or two. What baffled her was why they hadn’t simply killed her and been done with it. It was what she would have done to them when she was the Ilse Witch. Leaving a dangerous enemy alive to come looking for you later, no matter how difficult the task, was always risky. So why had they let her live? It would have been no more difficult for them to kill her than to send her into the Forbidding. It made her think something else was happening, a reason for her enemies to keep her alive and imprisoned. It also made her ponder anew the source of the power it had taken to put her here. It was more than even the most powerful of the Druids possessed. It was beyond anything that existed in her world.
It was a power, she was beginning to think, that might have come from the Forbidding, itself.
Her ruminations kept her occupied for much of her journey. Weka Dart continued to skitter about, dodging sideways and occasionally climbing up and down trees and rock formations, but always moving. He did not talk much, for which she was grateful, absorbed apparently in keeping an eye out for the things they should avoid.
There were a great number of those, and they encountered many of them on their way. Ogres and giants stomped through the grasslands, mindless behemoths, dim-sighted and single-minded, with great shoulders hunched and massive arms dragging. Harpies flew overhead, winged shrews that screamed and spit venom at each other and anything below. A scattering of dragons came and went, smaller for the most part and different from the Drachas. Various forms of Faerie creatures were glimpsed, as well, particularly kobolds, which seemed to live in large numbers in that region.
Once, they saw a village of Gormies, far in the distance, a mud and grass huddle of shelters cut like caves into a hillside. Walls fronted the village and spikes jutted out of the earth in pointed warning. The Gormies themselves, ferret-eyed and wiry, crept about their enclosure like shades.
“What would frighten an entire village of those little terrors?” she asked Weka Dart.
He laughed and growled deep in his throat. “Wait and see.”
She did so, and a few hours later she had her answer. They had just crested a small rise, catching sight of a valley that stretched away beyond to the east when Weka Dart wheeled around suddenly, hissing, “Down, down!” She dropped at once, flattening herself against the earth, pressing into tufts of the spiky grass that grew everywhere, her breathing turned sharp and quick. The Ulk Bog, stretched out beside her, wormed forward just far enough that he could see something that was still hidden from her.
“Watch,” he whispered over his shoulder.
She did so, peering into the valley, waiting. The minutes passed and nothing happened. Then an ogre of monstrous size lumbered into view, hunched over and shouldering a massive club. It was young, Grianne guessed, coarse hair still black along its spine and across its shoulders, and its thick skin leathery and smooth. It was shaking its head from side to side and brushing at