The Shannara Chronicles - 'Fury'

Rovers, tramps and thieves...

We open where we left off, with a fury about to chow down on our heroes, Wil and Amberlie. Fortunately, Druidstroke comes in and gets all up in its face, hacking it to pieces with his flick sword before succumbing to his injuries and having to be taken to a Druid Cave to heal. Despite Allanon's insistence that they get themselves to Arborlon, Wil insists on gathering healing mud from the Silver River, and while doing so they get captured by Eretria and her Rover band. Daddy Rover offers Wil a place in the band as a healer and basically arranges a designated girl fight in an attempt to provoke Wil into 'unlocking his Elfstones' (sooo a euphemism.) The long feud between elves and Rovers is elucidated, pretty much coming down to the fact that elves are the 1% and Rovers are thieves and vagabonds although in no way intended to be a depiction of any actual travelling people.

"Heart, motherfucker!"

Fortunately, another Fury attacks. Wil unlocks the Elfstones and shoots the Fury with a beam of magic light until it asplodes, coping some deep tissue burns in the process. I'm starting to wonder if 'magic has a price' actually means 'magic is radioactive'. Wil also blacks out, but luckily massive trauma and blood loss are nothing to a druid and Allanon pops up to move the story on again. Eretria is totally back on the market, but she must be significant because we keep coming back to her.

En route to Arborlon, the band rescue an elven visionary who was chained up in his cellar by his folks. Their reason is unknown, but the joke's on them because they were eaten by demons and he wasn't. He warns Wil that Amberlie will die if he leaves her, because visions! Prince Grumpus is then a Grumpus at Wil until Allanon drops the S-bomb (Shannara) and is all 'bitches, he be regaler than thou!' Apparently this is an argument and Prince Grumpus looks flummoxed.

I can't help figuring she must have passed Pandora from Sleepy
Hollow on the way down.

Consequently, and because apocalypse, Amberlie is reinstated as one of the Chosen and enters the tree through a magical door that no-one seems to have mentioned before now (it may have been there, I can't quite recall.)

The biggest problem with The Shannara Chronicles continues to be one of scale. Arborlon is apparently a brisk morning's ride from anywhere of consequence and an overnight journey to the absolute boonies in all direction, yet the greatest city in the Four Lands clearly exercises no territorial control, with elf princesses being abducted by vast bands of travelling riff-raff less than a day's travel from the heart of the capital, which is crappy politics and worse economics. On the other hand, this does make it easier for plot to just stumble over people.