It had ended there, Cogline standing with him until the
sound of the Shadowen challenge had reverberated through
Paranor’s stone walls and Walker had gone out into the
gloomy dawn to meet it.
Strengths of all kinds, he repeated as he stood now in the lee
of the castle wall and listened to the approach of the next of
the circling Shadowen. He would need especially a resolve of
the sort that Cogline possessed—a fierce determination not to
give in to the hardest and most certain of life’s dictates—if he
was to survive this day. Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death—
the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, come to claim his soul.
But on this day he was Fate, and Pate would determine the
destiny of all.
He looked up as Pestilence appeared, then straightened per-
ceptibly. It was time.
Walker Boh waited in the shadow of the wall, an invisible
presence, while the Horseman approached. It came disinterest-
edly, lethargically, borne on its serpent mount, a swarm of
buzzing, plague-ndden insects gathered in the shape of a man.
Pestilence lacked features and therefore expression, and Walker
could not tell what it was seeing or thinking. It passed without
slowing, serpent claws scraping roughly on the path. Walker
The Talismans of Shannara 219
fell into step behind it. The spell of invisibility kept him from
being seen, and the sound of the serpent’s own passage kept
him from being heard. Walker had considered using the spell
of invisibility to slip clear of the Shadowen entirely. But they
had been quick enough to find him when he had tried to es-
cape through Paranor’s underground tunnels, even though he
had been as silent as thought, and he believed that they could
sense him when he was far enough from the Keep, from his
sanctuary and the source of his Druid power. Even invisibility
might not protect him then. Better, he had decided, to use his
advantage where it could be relied upon and put an end to the
Horsemen once and for all.
In the wake of Pestilence he circled the castle walls,) the si-
lence of midday broken only by the scrabble of serpent claws
and the buzzing of caged insects. They moved out of the
cooler north wall and down along the west, passing the gates
at which each morning the Horsemen gathered to issue chal-
lenge to him. He had chosen the north wall in which to hide,
aware that he would be out there for hours in the heat, hoping
that the castle’s lee shadows might give him some protection.
But the south wall was where he would fight these
Shadowen—south, where the sunlight was strongest. Already it
was brightening ahead as they passed from the last shade of-
fered by the castle ramparts and edged out into the light.
They rounded the comer of the south wall, a towering, flat
expanse of burning stone that faced out across a broad sweep
of forestland towards the densely clustered peaks of the Drag-
on’s Teeth. A worn, dusty stretch of bluff offered what pas-
sageway there was below the wall, barren save for a smattering
of scrub and a few stunted trees that fell away in a steep slide
toward the cooler woodlands. The heat rose in a swelter that
threatened to suck the air from Walker’s lungs, but he held
himself steady against the burning rush, trailing Pestilence at
the same distance, catching sight momentarily of Famine far
ahead disappearing into the shadows formed by the parapet
arch beneath the eastern fasthold.
The seconds slipped away. Walker could feel the tension
build inside. Be patient, he reminded himself. Wait until it is
time.
Within, his magic began to come together.
220 The Talismans of Shannara
When Pestilence was midway between the near watchtower
and the south gates. Walker Boh struck. Still concealed within
the spell of invisibility, he unleashed a thunderbolt at Pesti-
lence that sent both rider and mount tumbling to the earth. The
Horseman tried to rise, and Walker struck again, the magic a
cool heat lancing from his hands, slamming the Shadowen
backward in shock. Already Walker could hear the sound of
the others coming, a shriek in his mind. Already he could feel