First King of Shannara (44 page)

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

 

T
en 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 themselves 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.

Jerle Shannara sat atop his charger, a white-faced bay called Risk, and watched in silence as the enemy advanced. He did not like the effect that it was having on his men. The sheer number of the enemy was disheartening, and the sound of its coming was immense and heart-stopping. The king could feel the fear it generated in his soldiers. His impatience with what was happening began to grate on him. It began to work against his own resolve.

Finally, he could abide it no longer. Impulsively he spurred forward to the head of his army, leaving Preia, Bremen, and his personal guard staring after him in shock. Charging to the fore, exposed to all, he reined in and began to walk Risk up and down the front ranks, speaking boldly to the Elven Hunters who stood there looking up at him in delighted surprise.

“Steady now,” he called out calmly, smiling, nodding in greeting, meeting every pair of eyes. “Size alone won't make the difference. This is our ground, our home, our birthright, our nation. We cannot be driven from it by an invader who lacks heart. We cannot be defeated while we believe in ourselves. Stay strong. Remember what we have planned for them. Remember what we must do. They will break first, I promise you. Keep steady. Keep your wits.”

So he went, up and down the lines, pausing now and again to ask a man he recognized some small question, demonstrating to them the confidence he felt, reminding them of the courage he knew they possessed. He did not bother to glance at the juggernaut that approached. He pointedly ignored it. They are nothing to us, he was saying. They are already beaten.

When the behemoth was two hundred yards away, the thunder of its approach so pervasive that there was room for no other sound, he raised his arm in salute to his Elven Hunters, wheeled Risk into their front ranks, and took his place among them. Dust gusted across the plains, shrouding the marching army and the roiling machines. Drums hammered out the cadence. The siege weapons lurched closer, hauled forward by massive ropes and trains of pack animals. Swords and pikes glittered in the dusky light.

Then, when the advancing army was a hundred and fifty yards away, Jerle Shannara signaled for the plains to be fired.

Forward raced a long line of archers, dropping to one knee to light their arrows. Six-foot-long bows were lifted and tilted skyward, and bowstrings were drawn taut and released. The arrows flew into the midst of the Northland army, landing in grasses that the Elves had soaked with oil under cover of darkness the night before, when they knew the attack was at hand. Flames sprang to life all about, rising into the dust-clogged air, blazing skyward amid the close-set enemy ranks. Down the long lines the fire raced, and the Northland march slowed and broke apart as the screams of frightened men and animals rose into the morning air.

But the army did not retreat or try to flee. Instead it charged, its forward ranks breaking free of the deadly flames. Gnome archers loosed their arrows in wild bursts, but they lacked Elven longbows and the arrows fell short. The soldiers with their hand weapons came on, howling in rage, anxious to close with the enemy that had surprised them. Fully a thousand in number, most of them Gnomes and lesser Trolls, ill-disciplined and impulsive, they surged forward into the trap that waited.

Jerle Shannara held his soldiers in place, the bowmen drawn back again into the ranks of Elven Hunters. When the enemy was close enough to smell, he brought up his sword in signal to the haulers set in lines amid the swordsmen. Back they pulled on the heavy, greased ropes concealed in the grasses, and dozens of barricades buttressed with sharpened stakes lifted to meet the rush. The attackers were too close to slow, pressed on by those who pushed from behind, and were driven onto the deadly spikes. Some tried to cut at the ropes, but the blades slid harmlessly along the greased cords. The cries of attack changed to screams of pain and horror, and Northlanders died in agony as they fell on the barricades or were trampled underfoot.

Now the Elven bowmen loosed their arrows a second time in long, steady waves. The Northlanders, slowed by the barricades blocking their path of attack, were easy targets. Unable to protect themselves, with nowhere to hide, they were felled by the dozens. The flames of the grass fires closing in from behind gave them no chance to retreat The rest of the Northland army had split apart in an effort to skirt the center of the inferno and lend support to those trapped in front. But the positioning of the siege machines and the trains of animals hauling them forward hampered their progress, and now Elven cavalry rode at them from both sides, sweeping across their flanks with javelins and short swords. One of the towers caught fire, and in an effort to douse the flames, the occupants frantically splashed down buckets of water drawn from containers stored within the wooden shell. Catapults loosed their deadly hail of stones and jagged metal, but their aim was obscured by the smoke and dust

Then Jerle Shannara had the ropes to the spiked barricades released, and the barricades dropped away. The Elves marched forward, lancers and swordsmen set in staggered lines, their ranks tight, the shield of the man on the right protecting the man on the left. Straight into the ravaged Northland front they marched, a steady, relentless advance. Dismayed at their predicament, the Northlanders who were trapped between the Elves and the fire threw down their weapons and tried to flee. But there was no escape. They were hemmed in on all sides now, and with no place to go they were quickly cut to pieces.

But the grass fires began to die, and a company of the Rock Trolls that formed the core of the Northland army's strength marched into view, their great pikes lowered. They held their ranks and maintained their pace without slowing as they trampled over their own dead and dying, making no distinction between friend and enemy. Anything caught in their path was killed. Jerle Shannara saw them coming and gave the order to retreat. He pulled back his front lines to their original position and set them in place again. On his right, Cormorant Etrurian commanded. On his left, Rustin Apt. Arn Bandit set the bowmen amid both companies, staggering their lines, and had them loose their arrows at the advancing Trolls. But the Trolls were too well armored for the arrows to do much damage, and the king signaled the archers to fall back.

Out of the fire and smoke the Rock Trolls marched, the finest fighters in the Four Lands, massive of shoulder and thigh, heavily muscled, armored and steady. Jerle Shannara signaled anew, and up came a new set of spikes to block their path. But the Rock Trolls were more disciplined and less easily confused than the Gnomes and lesser Trolls, and they set themselves in place to push back the spiked barricades. Behind them swarmed the balance of the Northland army, appearing out of the haze in seemingly endless numbers, hauling with them their siege towers and catapults. Cavalry rode their flanks, engaging Kier Joplin's command, keeping it at bay.

Jerle Shannara withdrew his army another hundred yards, well into the broad eastern mouth of the Rhenn. Line by line, the Elves fell back, a disciplined, orderly retreat, but a retreat nevertheless. Some among the Northland army cheered, believing the Elves had panicked. Surely the Elves would break and flee, they thought. None among them noticed the lines of small flags through which the Elves carefully withdrew and which they surreptitiously removed in their passing. Advancing implacably, relentlessly into the valley, the Rock Trolls were oblivious of the ordered form of the Elven retreat. Behind them smoke and fire gusted and died as the wind faded with the approach of midmorning. Kier Joplin's command rode back into the valley ahead of the Northland assault, anxious to avoid being cutoff. They galloped past the foot soldiers and wheeled about on their flanks, forming up anew. The entire Westland army was in place now, stretched across the mouth of the valley, waiting. There was no sign of panic and no hint of uncertainty. They had set a second trap, and the unsuspecting enemy was marching directly into it

So it was that when the front ranks of the Rock Trolls reached the entrance to the valley, the ground beneath their feet began to give way. The heavily armored Trolls tumbled helplessly into pits the Elves had dug and concealed several days earlier and themselves carefully avoided during their retreat. The ranks parted and moved ahead, avoiding the exposed drops, but there were pits staggered over a span of fifty yards at irregular intervals, and the ground continued to collapse no matter which way the Trolls turned. Confusion slowed their advance, and the attack began to falter.

Immediately, the Elves counterattacked. The king signaled the men concealed on the cliffs to either side, the casks of the flammable oil were rolled down hidden ramps onto the grasslands to smash apart on exposed rocks and spill into the pits. Once more fire arrows arced skyward and fell into the spreading oil, and the entire eastern end of the valley was abruptly engulfed in flames. The Rock Trolls in the pits were burned alive. The balance of the assault came on, but the solidarity of the Troll ranks was shattered. Worse, the Trolls were being overrun by the unwitting Northlanders who had followed in their wake. Confusion began to overtake the army. The fire chased them, the arrows from the Elven longbows fell among them, and now the Elven army was marching into their midst, bearing massive, spiked rams before them. The rams tore into their already decimated ranks and scattered the Trolls further. On came the Elven Hunters, who fell upon the rest with their swords. Those trapped between the Elves and the fire stood their ground and fought bravely, but died anyway.