The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [183]
Would he know when he met the man?
He felt adrift with his uncertainty. So much depended on this weapon, and yet it had been left to him alone to decide on the manner of its use.
To him alone, because that was the burden he had assumed and the pact he had made.
The night wore on, and he reached the juncture of the river where it branched south through the Runne. The wind blew out of the southwest and carried on its back the smell of death. Bremen drew up short as the stench filled his nostrils. There was killing below the Mermidon, and it was massive. He debated his course of action, then walked on to a narrows in the river’s bend and crossed. Below lay Varfleet, the Southland settlement from which Kinson had been recruited five years earlier. The stench rose from there.
He reached the town while morning was still several hours away, the night a silent, dark shroud. The smell sharpened as he neared, and he knew at once what had happened. Smoke rose, lazy swirls of gray ribbon in the moonlight. Red embers glowed. Timbers jutted from the earth like spears. Varfleet had been burned to the ground, and all of its people killed or driven off. Thousands of them. The old man shook his head hopelessly as he entered the silent, empty streets. Buildings were razed and looted. People and animals lay dead at every turn, sprawled in grotesque, careless heaps amid the rubble. He walked through the devastation and wondered at its savagery. He stepped over the body of an old man, eyes open and staring sightlessly. A rat eased from beneath the corpse and scurried away.
He reached the center of the village and stopped. It did not appear as if there had been much of a battle; there were few spent weapons to be found. Many of the dead looked as if they had been caught sleeping. How many of Kinson’s family and friends lay among them? He shook his head sadly. The attack was two days old, he guessed. The Northland army had come out of the Eastland and moved west above the Rainbow Lake on its way to do battle with the Elves. It was Varfleet’s misfortune that it lay in the invaders’ path.
All of the Southland villages between here and the Streleheim would suffer a similar fate, he thought in despair. A great emptiness welled up inside him. The words that would describe what he was feeling seemed so inadequate.
He gathered his dark robes about him, hitched the sword higher on his back, and walked from the village, trying not to look at the carnage. He was almost clear when he sensed movement. Another man would have missed it completely, but he was a Druid. He did not see with his eyes, but with his mind.
Someone was alive in the debris, hiding.
He veered left, proceeding carefully, his magic already summoned in a protective web. He did not feel threatened, but he knew enough to be careful in any event. He worked his way through a series of ruined homes to a collapsed shed. There, just within a sagging entry, a figure crouched.
Bremen drew to a halt. It was a boy of no more than twelve, his clothing torn and soiled, his face and hands covered in ash and grime. He pressed back into the shadows as if wishing the earth itself might cover him up. There was a knife in one hand, held protectively before him. His hair was lank and dark, cut shoulderlength and hanging loose about his narrow face.
“Come out, boy,” the old man said softly. “It’s all right.”
The boy did not move an inch.
“There is no one here but you and me. Whoever did this is gone. Come out, now.”
The boy stayed where he was.
Bremen looked off into the distance, distracted by the sudden flash of a falling star. He took a deep breath. He could not afford to linger and could do nothing for the boy in any event. He was wasting his time.
“I’m leaving now,” he said wearily. “You should do the same. These people are all dead. Travel to one of the villages farther south and ask for help there. Good luck to you.”
He turned and walked away. So many would be left homeless and shattered