The First King of Shannara

by Terry Brooks

  Mareth nodded vaguely. Kinson saw an imperceptible change in the features of the stranger before them. No longer was he quite so human. No longer did he resemble either Bremen or Mareth. He was, instead, becoming something else.

  Slowly, painfully, the Borderman strained against the invisible chains that bound his muscles. Carefully, he eased his hand along his thigh to where his long knife was sheathed.

  “Father?” Mareth called out suddenly. “Father, why did you abandon me?”

  There was along silence in the deepening night. Kinson’s hand closed about the handle of his knife. His muscles screamed with pain, and his mind felt drugged. This was a trap of the same sort as the one the Warlock Lord had set for them at Paranor! Had the stranger been waiting for them, or just for whoever happened through? Had he known that Mareth, in particular, would come? Had he hoped it might be Bremen? His fingers tightened on the knife.

  The stranger’s hand lifted free of the cloak and beckoned to the young woman. The hand was gnarled, and the fingers were clawed. But Mareth did not seem to see. She took a small step forward.

  “Yes, child, come to me,” the stranger urged, his eyes gone as red as blood, fangs showing behind a smile as wicked as a snake’s strike. “Let me explain everything to you. Take my hands, your father’s hands, and I will tell you what you are meant to know. Then you will understand. You will see that I am right in what I tell you. You will know the truth.”

  Mareth took another step forward. The hand that held the Druid staff lowered slightly.

  In the next instant Kinson Ravenlock wrenched free of the magic that ensnared him, threw off its shackles, and unsheathed his long knife. In a single fluid motion, he flung the knife at the stranger. Mareth cried out in fear—for herself or her father or even Kinson, the Borderman could not tell. But the stranger transformed in the blink of an eye, changing from something human to something that was definitely not. One arm swept up, and a sheet of wicked green fire burst forth, incinerating the long knife in midair.

  What stood before them now in a haze of smoke and flickering light was a Skull Bearer.

  A second burst of fire exploded from the creature’s clawed fingers, but Kinson was already moving, flinging himself into Mareth and carrying her from the trail and into a pocket of ash-coated rubble. He was back on his feet instantly, not waiting to see if she had recovered, dodging around a wall and toward the Skull Bearer. He would have to be quick now if he wanted to live. The creature was slouching toward them, fire sparking from the tips of its fingers, red eyes burning out of the shadows beneath its hood. Kinson darted across an open space, the fire just missing him as he threw himself down and rolled behind the skeleton of a small tree. The Skull Bearer swung toward him, whispering words insidious and hateful, words filled with dark promise.

  Kinson drew out his broadsword. He had lost his bow, which might have made a better weapon—though in truth he possessed no weapon that could make a difference. Stealth and guile had protected him in the past, and neither was of any use now.

  “Mareth!” he cried out in desperation.

  Then he launched himself from his hiding place and charged toward the Skull Bearer.

  The winged hunter shifted to meet the attack, hands lifting, claws sparking. Kinson could tell already that he was too far away to close with the monster before the fire struck. He dodged to his left, looking for cover. There was none to be found. The Skull Bearer rose before him, dark and forbidding. Kinson tried to cover his head.

  Then Mareth cried out sharply, “Father!”

  The Skull Bearer whirled at the sound of the young woman’s voice, but already the Druid fire was lancing from the raised tip of Mareth’s staff. It slammed into the winged hunter’s body and flung it backward against a wall. Kinson stumbled and fell trying to shield his eyes. Mareth’s face was harsh in the killing light, and her eyes were cast of stone. She sent the fire into the Skull Bearer in a steady stream, burning through its defenses, through its toughened skin, and into its heart. The creature screamed in hatred and pain, flinging up its arms as if to fly away. Then the Druid fire consumed it completely, and it was turned to ash.

  Mareth threw down the staff in fury, and the Druid fire died away.

  “There, Father,” she hissed at the remains, “I have given you my hands to hold in yours. Now explain to me about truth and lies. Go on, Father, speak to me!”

  Tears began to stream down her small, dark face. The night closed about once more, and the silence returned. Kinson climbed slowly to his feet, walked to her, and carefully drew her against him. “I don’t think he has much to say on the subject, do you?”

  She shook her head wordlessly against his chest. “I was such a fool. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I couldn’t stop myself from listening to him. I almost believed him! All those lies! But he was so persuasive. How did he know about my father? How did he know what to say?”

  Kinson stroked her hair. “I don’t know. The dark things of this world sometimes know the secrets we keep hidden. They discover our fears and doubts and use them against us. Bremen told me that once.” He lowered his chin to her hair. “I think this creature was waiting for any of us to come—for you, me, Bremen, Tay, or Risca—any of those who threaten his Master. This was a trap of the same sort set by the Warlock Lord at Paranor, designed to snare whoever walked into it. But Brona used a Skull Bearer this time, so he must be very afraid of what we might do.”

  “I almost killed us,” she whispered. “You were right about me.”

  “I was wrong,” he replied at once. “Had I come alone, had you not been with me, I would be dead. You saved my life. And you did so with your magic. Look at the ground on which you are standing, Mareth. Then look at yourself.”

  She did as he asked. The ground was blackened and scorched, but she was untouched. “Don’t you see?” he asked softly. “The staff channeled your magic, just as Bremen said it would. It carried off the part that would threaten you and kept only what was needed. You have gained control of the magic at last.”

  She looked at him steadily, and the sadness in her eyes was palpable. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Kinson. I don’t want control of the magic. I don’t want anything to do with it. I am sick of it. I am sick of myself—of who I am, of where I came from, of who my parents were, of everything about me.”

  “No,” he said quietly, holding her gaze.

  “Yes. I wanted to believe that creature or I would not have been so mesmerized. If you hadn’t broken his hold on me, we would both be dead. I was useless. I am so caught up in this search to discover the truth about myself that I endanger everyone around me.” Her mouth tightened. “My father, he called himself. A Skull Bearer. Lies this time, but maybe not the next. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps my father is a Skull Bearer. I don’t want to know. I don’t want anything more to do with magic and Druids and winged hunters and talismans.” The tears had started again, and her voice was shaking. “I am finished with this business. Let someone else go on with you. I quit.”

  Kinson looked off into the darkness. “You can’t do that, Mareth,” he told her finally. “No, don’t say anything, just listen to me. You can’t because you are a better person than that. You have to go on. You are needed to help those who cannot help themselves. It isn’t a responsibility you went looking for, I realize. But there it is, your burden to bear, given to you because you are one of only a few who can shoulder it. You, Bremen, Risca, and Tay Trefenwyd—the last of the Druids. Just the four of you, because there is no one else, and perhaps there never will be.”

  “I don’t care,” she murmured dully. “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do,” he insisted. “You all do. If you didn’t, the struggle with the Warlock Lord would have been finished long ago, and we would all be dead.”

  They stood looking at each other in the ensuing silence, like statues left standing amid the ruins of the city.

  “You are right,” she said finally, her voice so soft he could barely hear her. “
I do care.”

  She moved against him, lifted her face to his, and kissed him on the mouth. Her arms slipped around his waist and held him to her. Her kiss lasted a long time, and it was more than a kiss of friendship or gratitude. Kinson Ravenlock felt something grow warm deep inside that he hadn’t even known was there. He kissed Mareth back, his own arms coming about her.

  When the kiss was finished, she stayed pressed against him for a moment, her head lowered into his chest. He could feel her heart beat. He could hear her breathing. She stepped back and looked at him without speaking, her huge, dark eyes filled with wonder.

  She bent down to pick up the fallen staff and began walking toward the woods again, following the Silver River east. Kinson stared after her until she was only a shadow, trying to make sense of things. Then he gave it up and hurried to catch her.

  They walked for two days afterward and encountered no one. All of the villages, farms, cottages, and trading centers that they passed were burned out and deserted, There were signs of the Northland army’s passage and of the Dwarves’ flight, but there were no people to be found. Birds flew across the skies, small animals darted through the undergrowth, insects hummed in the brambles, and fish swam in the waters of the Silver River, but no humans appeared. The man and the woman kept careful watch for any more of the Skull Bearers or any of the other myriad netherworld creatures that served the Warlock Lord, but none came. They found food and water, but never in abundance and always in the wild. The days were slow and hot, the sticky swelter of the Anar cooled infrequently by passing rains. The nights were clear and deep, filled with stars and bright with moonlight. The world was peaceful and still and empty. It began to feel as if everyone, friend and foe alike, had vanished into the firmament.

  Mareth did not speak again of her origins or of abandoning her quest. She did not mention her loathing of the magic or her fear of those who wielded it. She traveled mostly in silence, and when she did have something to say it concerned the country through which they passed and the creatures living there. She seemed to have put the events of Culhaven behind her. She seemed to have settled on staying with Kinson, though she gave her decision no voice. She smiled often in his direction. She sat close to him sometimes before sleeping. He found himself wishing more than once that she would kiss him again.

  “I am not angry anymore,” she said at one point, her eyes directed ahead, carefully avoiding his. They were walking side by side across a meadow filled with yellow wildflowers. “I was angry for so long,” she continued after a moment. “At my mother, at my father, at Bremen, at the Druids, at everyone. Anger gave me strength, but now it only drains me. Now I’m simply tired.”

  “I understand,” he replied. “I have been traveling for more than ten years—for as long as I can remember—always in search of something. Now I just want to stop and look around a little. I want to have a home somewhere. Do you think that’s foolish?”

  She smiled at his words, but she didn’t answer.

  Late on their third day out of Culhaven, they reached the Ravenshorn. They were within its shadow and climbing into the foothills when the sun began to sink beneath the western horizon. The sky was a wondrous rainbow of orange, crimson, and purple, the colors spilling everywhere, staining the earth below, reaching out to the darkening corners of the land. Kinson and Mareth had paused to look back at the spectacle when a solitary Dwarf appeared on the trail before them.

  “Who are you?” he asked bluntly.

  He was alone and bore only a heavy cudgel, but Kinson knew at once there would be others close at hand. He told the Dwarf their names. “We are searching for Risca,” he advised. “The Druid Bremen has sent us to find him.”

  The Dwarf said nothing, but instead turned and beckoned for them to follow. They walked for several hours, the trail climbing through the foothills to the lower slopes of the mountains. Daylight faded, and the moon and stars came out to light their way. The air cooled, and their breath puffed before them in small clouds. Kinson searched for signs of other Dwarves as they traveled, but he never saw more than the one.

  At last they crossed into a valley where several dozen watch fires burned and ten times as many Dwarves huddled close about them. The Dwarves looked up as the Southlanders came into view, and some rose from where they had been sitting. Their stares were hard and suspicious, and their words to each other were kept purposefully low. They carried few possessions, but every last one of them wore weapons strapped to his waist and back

  Kinson wondered suddenly if he and Mareth were in danger. He moved closer to her, his eyes darting left and right. It did not feel safe. It felt ugly and threatening. He wondered if these Dwarves were renegades fled from the main army. He wondered if the army even existed anymore.

  Then abruptly Risca was there, waiting for them as they approached, unchanged from the time they had left him at the Hadeshorn save for the new lacing of cuts that marked his face and hands. And when a smile appeared on his weathered face and his hand stretched out in greeting, Kinson Ravenlock knew that everything was going to be all right.

  XXX

  Ten days following Jerle Shannara’s midnight assault, the army of the Warlock Lord attacked the Elves at the Valley of Rhenn.

  The Elves were not caught unprepared. All that night the level of activity in the enemy camp had been unusually high. Watch fires were built up until it seemed as if the entire grassland were ablaze. The siege machines that had been salvaged from the raid were hauled forward, massive giants looming out of the night, the squarish, bulky towers swaying and creaking, the long, bent arms of the catapults and throwers casting their shadows like broken limbs. Long before daybreak the various units of the army began to assemble, and from as far away as the head of the pass the Elves could hear the sounds of armor and weapons being strapped in place. The heavy tromp of booted feet signaled the forming up of battle units. Horses were saddled and brought around, and the cavalry mounted and rode off to assume positions on the army’s flanks, warding the archers and foot soldiers. There was no mistaking what was happening, and Jerle Shannara was quick to respond.

  The king had used well the time that his raid had gained him. It had taken the Northlanders even longer to recover than he had hoped. The damage his raid had inflicted on the siege machines and supply wagons was extensive, requiring that new machines be built, old ones be repaired, and more supplies be brought down from the north. Some of the scattered horses were recovered, but a large number had to be replaced. The Northland army swelled anew as further reinforcements arrived, but the Elves were encouraged by the fact that they had damaged this superior force so easily. It had given them renewed hope, and the king was quick to take advantage of it.

  The first thing Jerle did was to relocate the greater part of his army from the west end of the valley to the east, from the narrow pass to the broad mouth opening onto the flats. His reasoning was simple. While it was easier to defend the deeper pass, he preferred to engage the enemy farther out and make it fight for every foot of ground as it advanced through the valley. The danger, of course, lay in spreading his lesser force too thinly before a superior army. But to offset that risk, the king employed his engineering corps to construct a series of deadly traps in the wide gap opening out onto the plains through which the Northlanders must pass. He met as well with his commanders to discuss strategy, working out a complex but comprehensive set of alternatives he believed would offset the magnitude of the Northland strike. The larger army would win if it could bring its superior size and strength to bear. The trick was to prevent this from happening.

  So when dawn arrived on that tenth day and the Northland army stood revealed, the Elves were waiting. Four companies of foot soldiers and archers stood arrayed across the wide mouth of the valley’s east entrance, arms at the ready. Cavalry under Kier Joplin had already fanned out to either side along the fringe of the Westland forests that screened the cliffs and hills. On the high ground, three more companies of Elven Hunters had set themselve
s in place, warded by earthworks and barricades, with bows, slings, and spears in hand.

  But the army assembled before them was truly daunting. It numbered well over ten thousand, spread out all across the plains for as far as the eye could see. The huge Rock Trolls stood centermost, their great pikes lifted in a forest of wood and iron. Lesser Trolls and Gnomes flanked and fronted them. Heavy cavalry ranged behind, lances set in stirrup rests. Twin siege towers bracketed the army, and catapults and throwers were scattered through its midst. In the blaze of new sunlight and old shadows, the Northland army looked to be large enough to crush any obstacle it encountered.

  There was an expectant silence as the sun lifted out of the horizon and the new day began. The two armies faced each other across the grassland, armor and weapons glinting, pennants flying in a soft breeze, the sky a strange mix of brightening blue and fading gray. Clouds sailed overhead in vast, thick masses that threatened rain before the day was through. The acrid smell of scorched earth wafted on the air, a residue from the watch fires doused. Horses stamped nervously and shifted in their traces. Men took deep breaths and closed off thoughts of home and family and better times.

  When the Northland army began its advance toward the valley, the earth shook with the sound. Drums thudded in steady cadence to mark time for the foot soldiers marching in step. The wheels of the catapults and siege towers rumbled. Boots and hooves thudded so heavily that the trembling of the ground could be felt all the way back to where the Elves stood waiting. Dust began to rise from the parched plains, the wind stirring it in wild clouds, and the size of the army seemed to swell even more, to rise on the dust as if fed by it. The silence shattered, and the light changed. In the roil of the dust and the thunder of the army’s coming, Death lifted its head in expectation and looked about.