The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [184]
He shook his head. He walked for a hundred yards and then suddenly stopped. When he turned, there was the boy, his back against a wall, the knife in his hand, watching.
Bremen hesitated. “Are you hungry?”
He reached into his pack and pulled out the last of his bread The boy’s head craned forward, and his face came into the light His eyes glittered when he saw the bread.
His eyes...
Bremen felt his throat tighten sharply. He knew this boy! It was the boy he had seen in Galaphile’s fourth vision! The eyes betrayed him, eyes so intense, so penetrating that they seemed strip away the skin. Just a boy, an orphan of this carnage, yet the was something so profound, so riveting about him...
“What is your name?” Bremen asked the boy softly.
The boy did not answer. He did not move. Bremen hesitate then started toward him. Instantly the boy drew back into the shadows. The old man stopped, set down the bread, turned, and walked away.
Fifty yards farther on, he stopped again. The boy was following, watching him closely, gnawing on the confiscated bread as he advanced.
Bremen asked him a dozen questions, but the boy would not talk to him. When Bremen tried to approach, the boy quickly backed away. When the Druid tried to persuade the boy to comi closer, he was ignored.
Finally the old man turned and walked on. He did not know what to do about the boy. He did not want the boy to come with him, but Galaphile’s vision suggested there was a link of somesort between the two. Perhaps if he was patient he would discover what it was. As the sun rose, he turned north again and recrossed the Mermidon. Following the line of the Dragon’s Teeth, he walked on until sunset. When he made camp, there was the boy, sitting just beyond the clearing in which he had chosen to settle, back in the shadow of the trees, watching. Bremen had no food, but he put out a cup of ale. He slept until midnight, then woke to continue his journey. The boy was waiting. When he began walking, the boy followed.
So it continued for three days. At the end of the third day, the boy came into the camp to sit with him and share a meal of root and berries. When he woke the next morning, the boy was sleeping next to him. Together, they rose and walked west. That night as they reached the edge of the Plains of Streleheim and prepared to cross, the boy spoke his first words.
His name, he told the old man, was Allanon.
The Battle For The Rhenn
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was late afternoon, and the light was gray and misty in the study of the Ballindarroch summerhouse, where Jerle Shannara stood looking down at the maps spread out on the table before him. Outside, the rain continued to fall. It felt as if it had been raining for weeks, although the Elven King knew well enough that it hadn’t and that the feeling was generated mostly by his present state of mind. It just seemed as if every time he took a moment to consider the weather, it was raining again. And today’s rain was stronger than usual, driven by a west wind that whipped the branches of the trees and scattered leaves like scraps of old paper.
He looked up from his perusal of the maps and sighed. He could take some consolation in the fact that the weather was making it more difficult for the Warlock Lord to maneuver his army than it was for Jerle to maneuver his. Of the two, the Warlock Lord’s was the more unwieldy — a vast, sprawling, sluggish beast burdened by baggage and siege machines. It could advance a distance of maybe twenty miles a day in the best of weather. It had reached the Streleheim three days earlier and had only just completed its crossing of the Mermidon. That meant that it was at least another two days from the Rhenn. The Elves, on the other hand, were already in place. Alerted by their scouts, they had known of the Northland army’s advance for more than a week, so they had been given plenty of time to prepare. Once the presence of the Northlanders was detected, it was easy enough to guess which approach they would choose in attacking