First King of Shannara (19 page)

She looked directly at him. “I do not apologize for what I have done.”

He gave her a long look. “I never thought for a minute that you would. Nor do I propose to judge you for your choice. I have not lived your life. But I think the lies should end here. I think you should tell to Bremen when we see him next what you have told to me. If you expect his help, you should at least be honest with him.”

She nodded, wiping irritably at her eyes. “I intend that,” she said. She looked small and vulnerable, but her voice was hard. She would give up nothing further of herself, he realized. She must have agonized over telling him as much as she had.

“I can be trusted,” she said suddenly, as if reading his mind.

“With everything but your magic,” he amended.

“No. Even with that. I can be trusted not to use it until Bremen tells me to.”

He studied her wordlessly for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.” He was thinking suddenly, unexpectedly, that they were much alike. Both had traveled far to leave the past behind, and for neither was the journey finished. Both had bound themselves to Bremen, their lives inextricably intertwined with his, and neither could envision now that there had ever been any other choice.

He glanced at the sky and climbed to his feet. “Time for us to be on our way.”

They blackened their faces and hands, tied down their metal implements and weapons so they would not clink, went down from their hiding place in the rocks, and set out across the Rabb. The night air was cool and soft, a small breeze blowing out of the foothills and carrying with it the scents of sage and cedar. Clouds drifted overhead, screening away the half-moon and stars so that their light was diffused and they appeared only in brief glimpses. Sound traveled far on such a night, so Kinson and Mareth walked softly, carefully in the tall grasses, avoiding the loose rock that might betray their presence. North, the light of the encamped army was a blaze of smoky saffron against the dark, stretched between the Dragon's Teeth west and the Anar east. Every so often Kinson would stop and listen, picking out the sounds that belonged, wary of those that didn't. Mareth followed a step behind and did not speak. Kinson could feel her there without having to look, a shadow at his back

The hours passed, and the plains stretched away about them, lengthening as they crossed so that for a time it appeared they were making no headway. Kinson kept watch over the clouded skies, wary of the winged hunters that would be prowling the night. He kept watch out of habit and not because he expected to see the dark ones. He had learned from experience that he would feel them first, and when he did he must hide at once, for if he waited until he saw them it would be too late. But the unpleasant tingling, the rush of chilling trepidation, the warning of something untoward did not come, and with Mareth following dutifully, he pressed on.

They stopped once to drink from their aleskins, crouching down in a twisting gully choked with brush, sitting close together in the dark. Kinson found himself wondering what it must have been like for her, bereft of family and friends, made outcast by her magic, left homeless by circumstance and choice alike. She showed courage, he thought, in persevering, in not giving up when it would have been easy for her to do so. Nor had she compromised herself or others in choosing her path. He wondered how much of this Bremen had deduced in making his decision to allow her to accompany them. He wondered how well Mareth had succeeded in deceiving the old man. Not so well as she thought, he suspected. He knew from experience that Bremen could look inside you as if you were made of glass and see all the working parts. That was one reason he had managed to stay alive all these years.

Sometime after midnight one of the Skull Bearers crossed their path. He came out of the east, from the direction in which they were proceeding, surprising Kinson, who was thinking any danger would come from the north. He sensed the creature and went down on his face in a patch of brush immediately, dragging Mareth after him. He could tell from the look on her face that she knew what was happening. He pulled her close against him, deep within the concealment.

“Do not look up,” he whispered. “Do not even think of what flies above us. It will sense us if you do.”

They lay against the earth as the creature flew closer and the fear within them grew until it rushed through them like the sun's heat at midday. Kinson forced himself to breathe normally and to think of days gone when he was a boy hunting with his brothers. He held himself quiet, his body still, his muscles relaxed, his eyes closed. Pressed against him, Mareth matched his breathing and his poise. The Skull Bearer passed overhead, circling. Kinson could feel it, knowing how close it was from experience, from his days spent scouting in the Northland, when the winged hunters had scoured the land in which he traveled every night. Bremen had taught him how to avoid them, how to survive. The feelings the monsters generated could not be avoided, but they could be endured. The feelings alone, after all, could not cause harm. Mareth understood. She did not shift or tremble within the crook of his arm. She did not attempt to rise or bolt from their hiding place. She lay as he did, patient and determined.

At last the Skull Bearer flew on, moving to another part of the plains, leaving them shaken, but relieved. It was always like this, Kinson thought, climbing to his feet. He hated the feeling, hated the shame it generated within him to have to cower so, to have to hide. But he would have hated dying more.

He gave Mareth a reassuring smile, and they walked on into the night.

 

They reached Storlock just before dawn, wet and bedraggled from a sudden shower that had caught them only a mile or so from the village. Sad-faced and deferential, the white-robed Stors came out to meet them and take them inside. Hardly a word was spoken; words did not seem necessary. The Stors appeared to recognize them both and asked no questions. It was possible they were remembered from before, Kinson thought as he was led in out of the weather. Mareth had lived among the Stors, and he had visited them on several occasions with Bremen. In any case, it made things simpler. Though typically aloof and preoccupied, the Stors were generous with both food and shelter. As if they had been expecting their guests all along, the Stors provided hot soup, dry clothes, and beds in guest rooms in the main building. Within an hour of their arrival, Kinson and Mareth were asleep.

When they woke, it was late afternoon. The rain had stopped, so they stepped outside to look around. The village was quiet, and the surrounding forest felt empty of life. As they walked the roadways from one end to the other, Stors passed wraithlike and silent in pursuit of their tasks, barely looking up at the strangers. No one approached them. No one spoke. They visited several of the hospitals where the Healers were at work on the people who had come to them from various parts of the Four Lands. No one seemed concerned that they were there. No one asked them to leave. While Mareth stopped to play with a pair of small Gnome children who had been burned in a cooking accident, Kinson walked outside and stood looking off into the darkening trees, thinking of the dangers posed by the approach of the Northland army.

At dinner, he told Mareth of his concern. The army would have reached a point on the Rabb close to where the village lay. If there was a need for food or supplies, as there almost always was, scouts would be sent to forage and Storlock would be in real danger. Most knew of the Stors and the work they did, and they respected their privacy. But Brona's army would be held to a different code of conduct, a different set of rules, and the protections normally afforded the village would likely be absent. What would become of the Stors if one of the Skull Bearers came prowling? The Healers had no means of protecting themselves; they knew nothing of fighting. They relied solely on their neutrality and disinterest in politics to keep them safe. But where the winged hunters were concerned, was that enough?

While mulling this dilemma over, they asked after Cogline and discovered almost immediately where he could be found. It seemed not to be any great secret. Cogline kept in regular contact with the Stors, preferring to deal with them to obtain what he needed as opposed to the trading posts that dotted the fringes of the wilderness into which he had retreated. The once-Druid had made his home deep within the Anar, in the seldom traversed tangle of Darklin Reach at a place called Hearthstone. Even Kinson had never heard of Hearthstone, though he knew of Darklin Reach and regarded it as a place to be avoided. Spider Gnomes lived there, wiry, barely human creatures so wild and primitive they communed with spirits and sacrificed to old gods. Darklin Reach was a world frozen in time, unchanged since the advent of the Great Wars, and Kinson was not pleased to learn that they would probably have to travel there.

After dinner was completed and the Stors had drifted back to whatever work commanded their attention, the Borderman sat with the girl on a hard-backed bench on the dining-hall porch and looked out at the gathering gloom. His thoughts were distracting to him. Bremen had not appeared. Perhaps he was still at Paranor. Perhaps he was trapped on the other side of the Rabb, with the Northland army settled between them. Kinson did not like the uncertainty of it. He did not like being forced to await the Druid's arrival, kept idle when he would rather be active. He could wait when it was necessary, but he questioned the reason for waiting now. It seemed to him that Bremen should have sent him on ahead to look for Cogline, even if it meant going into Darklin Reach. It felt to him as if time was slipping away from them all.

A line of Stors appeared from the hall, cloaked and hooded, withdrawn and secretive. They went down the porch steps and across the roadway to another building, their white forms slowly fading into the gray haze of twilight, ghosts in the night. Kinson wondered at their single-mindedness, at the peculiar mix of dedication to work and obliviousness to the world beyond their tiny village. He glanced at Mareth, trying to picture her as one of them, wondering if she still wished she had been accepted into their order. Would the isolation better agree with her, beset by the dictates of her magic's use, by the threat of its escape? Would she feel less constrained here than at Paranor? The puzzle of her life intrigued him, and he found himself thinking of her in ways he had never thought of anyone else.

He slept poorly that night, plagued by dreams rife with faceless, threatening creatures. When he came awake shortly before dawn, he was on his feet and had his sword in hand almost before he realized what he was doing. There were voices without, harsh and guttural, and he could hear the ring and scrape of armor. He knew at once what had happened. Leaving his boots behind, taking only his sword, he eased from his bedroom and slipped down the hallway to the front entry where a bank of windows opened onto the main street. Keeping to the shadows, he peered out.

A large Troll raiding party had appeared in the roadway and was facing a small cluster of Stors who stood on the steps of the main healing center across the way. The Trolls were armed and threatening; their gestures made it clear that they intended to go inside. The Stors were not opposing them in an overt manner, but neither were they giving way. The angry voices belonged to the Trolls; the Stors were silent and stoic in the face of the intruders' threats. Kinson could not tell what the Trolls wanted—whether it was food and supplies or something more. But he could tell that the Trolls were not going to give up on their demands. They understood as clearly as he did that there was no one in the village to oppose them.

Kinson stared from darkened building to shadowed walkway, from heavy forest to open road, and considered his options. He could stay where he was and hope that nothing happened. If he did that, he was condemning the Stors to whatever fate the Trolls decided upon. He could attack the Trolls from the rear and probably kill as many as four or five before the rest overpowered him. Not much would be accomplished with that. Once he was killed, as he surely would be, the Trolls would be free to do as they chose with the Stors anyway. He could try a diversion. But there was nothing to guarantee that he would draw all of the Trolls away from the village or that they would not return later.

He thought suddenly of Mareth. She had the power to save these people. Her magic was powerful enough to incinerate the entire Troll raiding party before even one could blink. But Mareth was forbidden to use her magic, and without her magic she was as vulnerable as the Stors.

Across the way, one of the Trolls had begun to climb the steps onto the porch, his huge pike lowered menacingly. The Stors waited for him, white-robed sheep in the path of a wolf. Kinson gripped his sword tighter and moved to the front door, easing it carefully open. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it quickly.

He was ready to step out from the shadows of the doorway when a shriek arose from the midst of the beleaguered Stors. Someone pushed through them from out of the building they warded, a shambling, half-clothed figure that tottered and flailed as if beset by a form of madness. Rags trailed from the figure, the bindings for wounds that now lay open and weeping. The creature's face was ravaged by sores and lesions, the body made frail by a wasting disease that had left the bones taut against the mottled and withered skin.

The figure stumbled from the midst of the Stors to the edge of the porch, wailing in despair. The Trolls brought up their weapons guardedly, the foremost falling back a step in shock.

“Plague!” the ravaged creature howled, the word rising up in the silence, harsh and terrible. A swarm of insects rose off the creature's back, buzzing madly. “Plague, plague everywhere! Flee! Flee!”

The creature swayed and dropped to its knees. Bits of flesh fell from it, and blood dripped from its open wounds onto the wooden steps, steaming in the cool night air. Kinson winced in horror. The disease was causing it quite literally to fall apart!