The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [194]
But Tay was gone, so the voice and the strength that we;e needed must come from someone else.
There was Allanon to think about, too. From time to time he old man glanced at the boy. His young companion was still reticent, but he was no longer refusing to speak. Preia Starle was in part responsible for this. The boy was taken with her and listened to her advice. After a time, he began to open up. All of his family had been killed in the Northland raid, he had revealed. He had escaped because he had been elsewhere when the attack had commenced, and he had hidden as it swept by him. He had seen a great many atrocities committed, but he would not speak of the particulars. Bremen did not press him. It was enough that the boy had survived.
But there was still Galaphile’s vision to consider, and that was a matter less easily dismissed. What did it mean — himselt standing with the boy at the edge of the Hadeshorn in the presence of Galaphile’s shade, the bright, effervescent forms of the spirits of the dead swirling above the rolling waters, the air dark and filled with cries, and the boy’s strange eyes fixed on him, staring. Staring at what? The Druid could not decide. And what was the boy doing there in the first place — there, in the Valley of Shale, at the waters of the Hadeshorn, at a summoning of the dead, where no human was allowed, where only he dared walk?
The vision haunted him. Oddly, he was afraid for Allanon. He was protective of him. He found himself drawn to the boy in a way he could not quite explain. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact of their aloneness. Neither had a family, a people, or a hone Neither really belonged anywhere. In each there was a separateness that was undeniable, and it was as much a state of mind, it was a fact of life and just as unalterable. That Bremen was a Druid set him apart in ways he could not change, even if he wished. But the boy was just as distanced — in part by the insight he clearly possessed into other people’s thinking, a gift that few appreciated — and in part by an extraordinary perception that bordered on prescience. Those strange eyes mirrored his keen mind and intellect, but they hid his other gifts. He looked at you as if he could see right through you, and the look was not deceiving. Allanon s ability to reveal you was frightening.
What was Bremen to do with this boy? What was he to make ot him? It was a day for dilemmas and unanswered questions, and the old man bore the burden of their nagging weight in stoic silence as he rode east. The resolution of both, he supposed, would come soon enough.
When they arrived at the Valley of Rhenn, Jerle Shannara left the others and with Preia rode out to survey the defenses and to let the Elven Hunters know that he had arrived. He was greeted warmly everywhere, and he smiled and waved and told his men that everything was going well and that they would have a surprise or two for the Northlanders before long.
Then he rode down through the valley to have a look at the enemy camp. He took a guide this rime, for the valley floor was already dotted with traps, many of them new, and he did not want to stumble into one by mistake. Preia stayed with him, the queen as familiar a sight to the soldiers by now as the king. Neither of them spoke as they followed the guide’s lead over grassy hillocks, down broad rises, across a stretch of burned-out flats, and up onto a promontory in the cliffs that warded the right flank to where he could see out across the whole of the valley. A small encampment of scouts and runners was in place, keeping watch. He greeted them, then walked to the bluff edge for a look.
Before him stretched the seething mass of the Northland