The First King of Shannara

They slept well that night and set out again at dawn. They rode slowly, resting their horses often in the midsummer heat, working their way steadily north. To their right, the Battlemound shimmered in the sun, barren and stark, empty of movement. To their left, the Black Oaks were a dark wall, as still as the flats, tall and forbidding. Again they rode mostly in silence, Kinson carrying the sword, Mareth the staff, and Bremen the weight of their future.

By nightfall, they had skirted the quagmire of the Mist Marsh and reached the Silver River. Anxious to gain the heights that lay just beyond so that he could view the Rabb Plains and the whole of the country north before the morrow, Bremen made the choice to cross. They found a shallows, the river low from days of little rainfall and high heat, and with the sun setting wearily beyond the flat glimmer of the Rainbow Lake west, they rode up through a series of hills and onto a bluff. There, back within a thick band of trees, they dismounted, tethered the horses, and proceeded on foot.

By now the daylight had faded to a silvery gray and the shadows of nightfall had begun to lengthen. The air, still thick with heat, had taken on a smoky quality and tasted of dust and parched grass.

Night birds flew through the darkness in search of food, flashes of movement that appeared and were gone in an instant’s time. All about them, insects buzzed hungrily.

They reached the edge of the bluff, the sunlight streaking the flats with red fire, and stopped.

Below them lay the whole of the Northland army. It was camped several miles farther north, well out on the plains so that the details of its battle pennants were obscured, but too vast and dark to be mistaken for anything other than what it was. Cooking fires were already lit, small flickers of light that dotted the grasslands like fireflies. Horses and wagons circled sluggishly, wheels and traces creaking, riders and drivers shouting roughly as they wrestled provisions and weapons into place. Tents billowed in the hot breeze amid the army’s protective mass. One, an impenetrable black, its ribs all edges and spines, stood alone at the exact center of the camp, a broad stretch of open ground encircling it like a moat. The Druid, the Borderman, and the girl stared down at it in silence.

“What is the Northland army doing here?” Kinson asked finally.

Bremen shook his head. “I’m not certain. It must have come out of the Anar, where we saw it last, so perhaps now it moves west...”

His voice died away, leaving the rest unsaid. If the army of the Warlock Lord was withdrawing from the Eastland, then the battle with the Dwarves was finished and would now in all likelihood be carried to the Elves. But what had become of Raybur and his army? What had become of Risca?

Kinson Ravenlock shook his head despairingly. Weeks had passed since the invasion of the Eastland. Much could have happened in that time. Standing with Urprox Screl’s sword strapped across his back, he wondered suddenly if they had come too late with the talisman to be of any use.

He reached down for the buckle to the strap that secured it, loosened the sword, and handed it to Bremen. “We have to find out what’s going on. I’m the logical one to do that.” He slipped off his own broadsword as well, leaving only a short sword and hunting knife. “I should be back by sunrise.”

Bremen nodded, not bothering to argue the point. He understood what the Borderman was saying. Either of them could go down there, but it was Bremen they could least afford to lose at this point. Now that they had the sword, the talisman the visions of Galaphile had promised, they must discover its use and its wielder. Bremen was the only one who could do that.

“I will go with you,” Mareth said suddenly, impulsively.

The Borderman smiled. It was an unexpected offer. He considered it a moment, then said to her, not unkindly, “Two make it twice as hard when you are sneaking about. Wait here with Bremen. Help keep watch for my return. Next time, you can go in my place.”

Then he tightened the belt that sheathed the remainder of his blades, moved several dozen paces to his right, and started down the bluff slope into the fading light.