The First King of Shannara

They found a grove of spruce that provided reasonable concealment, wary even here of the winged hunters that prowled the night skies. They ate their dinner cold, a little bread, cheese, and spring apples washed down with ale, and talked over the day’s events. Bremen revealed the results of his attempts to address the Druid Council and reported his conversations with those he had spoken to within the Keep. Kinson confined himself to sober nods and muttered grunts of disappointment and had the presence of mind and good manners not to tell the older man, when advised of his failure to convince Athabasca, that he had told him so.

They slept then, worn from the long trek down out of the Streleheim and the many nights spent sleepless before. They took turns keeping watch, not trusting even the close presence of the Druids to keep them safe. Neither really believed he would be safe anywhere for some time to come. The Warlock Lord moved where he wished these days, and his hunters were his eyes in every comer of the Four Lands. Bremen, standing watch first, thought he sensed something at one point, a presence that nudged at his warning instincts from somewhere close at hand. It was midnight, he was nearing the end of his duty and beginning to think of sleep, and he almost missed it. But nothing showed itself, and the prickly feeling that ran the length of his spine faded almost as quickly as it had come.

Bremen’s sleep was deep and dreamless, but he was awake before sunrise and thinking of what he must do next in his efforts to combat the threat of the Warlock Lord when Kinson appeared out of the shadows on cat’s feet and knelt next to him.

“There is a girl here to see you,” he said.

Bremen nodded wordlessly and rose to a sitting position. The night was fading into paler shades of gray, and the sky east was faintly silver along the edge of the horizon. The forest about them felt empty and abandoned, a vast dark labyrinth of shaggy boughs and canopied limbs that enclosed and sealed like a tomb.

“Who is she?” the old man asked.

Kinson shook his head. “She didn’t give her name. She appears to be one of the Druids. She wears their robe and insignia.”

“Well, well,” Bremen mused, rising now to his feet. His muscles ached and his joints felt stiff and unwieldy.

“She offered to wait, but I knew you would be awake already.”

Bremen yawned. “I grow too predictable for my own good. A girl, you say? Not many women, let alone girls, serve with the Druids.”

“I didn’t think they did either. In any case, she seems to offer no threat, and she is quite intent on speaking with you.”

Kinson sounded indifferent to the outcome of the matter, meaning that he thought it was probably a waste of time. Bremen straightened his rumpled robes. They could do with a washing.

For that matter, so could he. “Did you see anything of the winged hunters on your watch?”

Kinson shook his head. “But I felt their presence. They prowl these forests, make no mistake. Will you speak with her?”

Bremen looked at him. “The girl? Of course. Where is she?”

Kinson led him from the shelter of the spruce to a small clearing less than fifty feet away. The girl stood there, a dark and silent presence. She wasn’t very big, rather short and slightly built, wrapped in her robes, the hood pulled up to conceal her face. She didn’t move as he came into view, but stood there waiting for him to approach first.

Bremen slowed. It interested him that she had found them so easily. They had deliberately camped well back in the trees to make it difficult for anyone to discover them while they slept. Yet this girl had done so — at night and without the benefit of any light but that of stars and moon where it penetrated the heavy canopy of limbs. She was either a very good Tracker or she had the use of magic.

“Let me speak with her alone,” he told Kinson.

He crossed the clearing to where she stood, limping slightly as his joints attempted to unlimber. She lowered the hood now so that he could see her. She was very young, but not a girl as Kinson had thought. She had close-cut black hair and enormous dark eyes.

Her features were delicate and her face smooth and guileless. She was indeed dressed in Druid robes, and she wore the raised hand and burning torch of the Eilt Drain sewn on her breast.

“My name is Mareth,” she told him as he came up to her, and she held out her hand.

Bremen took it in his own. Her hand was small, but her grip was strong and the skin of her palm hardened by work. “Mareth,” he greeted.

She took back her hand. Her gaze was steady and held his own, her voice low and compelling. “I am a Druid apprentice, not yet accepted into the order, but allowed to study in the Keep. I came here ten months ago as a Healer. I came from several years of study in the Silver River country, then two years in Storlock. I began my study of healing when I was thirteen. My family lives in the Southland, below Leah.”

Bremen nodded. If she had been allowed to study healing at Storlock, she must have talent. “What do you wish of me, Mareth?” he asked her gently.

The dark eyes blinked. “I want to come with you.”