The First King of Shannara

“It might help if you tried the words on me.”


He nodded, looking past the beauty of her face and the intelligence mirrored in her clear ginger eyes to the warmth and caring that resided in her heart. He felt different about her these days. The distance he had always kept between them was gone. They were bound together so inextricably that he felt certain that whatever happened to one, happened to the other even though it were death itself.

“Give me a little time,” he told her gently. “Then we will talk.”

She reached for his hand and held it momentarily. “I love you,” she said.

So it was that the afternoon found them coming up on the Rhenn, and still he did not speak of what was troubling him ana still she waited for him to do so. The day was bright and warm, the air sweet with the smell of still damp grasses and leaves, the forest about them lush with the infusion of the rains of the past fev, weeks. The clouds had moved on finally, but the ground remained soft, and the rutted trail swampy where the Elves had traveled east over its worn track. Reports had been coming in all day from where the bulk of the army had settled its defense at the head of the valley. The Northland army continued to approach, coming slowly across the Streleheim from both north and south, unit, arriving at varying rates of speed depending on size and mobility, foot and horse and pack. The army of the Warlock Lord was huge and growing. Already it filled the plains at the mouth of the valley for as far as the eye could see. The Elves were outnumbered by at least four to one and the odds would increase as more units arrived. The reports were delivered by messengers in flat, even tones, carefully kept devoid of emotion, but Jerle Shannara was trained to decipher what was hidden in the small nuances of pause and inflection, and he could detect the beginnings of fear.

He would have to do something to put a stop to it, he knew. He would have to do something quickly.

The realities of the situation were grim. Riders had been sent east to the Dwarves to beg their assistance, but the paths out were closed off by Northland patrols, and it would be days before a rider could work his way around them. In the meantime, the Elves were on their own. There was no one who would come to their aid The Trolls were a subjugated people, their armies in thrall to the Warlock Lord. The Gnomes were disorganized in the best of times and had no love of the Elves in any event. Men had withdrawn into their separate city-states and lacked any sort of cohesive fighting force. The Dwarves were all that remained, if they survived. There was still no word on whether Raybur and his army had escaped the Northland invasion.

So there was good reason to be afraid, Jerle Shannara thought as they rode up from the forests at the west entrance to the Elven King, companions and advisors, and three companies of fighting men. There was good reason — but in this case reason must not be allowed to prevail.

What, he pondered, could he do to overcome it?