The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [23]
Something scraped on the stone walls below him — a rasp of claws perhaps, or of scales.
Climbing to see if the spell caster was still there!
Collecting himself, Bremen stumbled back through the door and pushed it closed tightly behind him. His heart still beat wildly, and his face was coated in a sheen of sweat. Leave this place, a harsh voice whispered from somewhere beyond the door, from far down in the pit. Leave it now!
Hands shaking, Bremen resecured the locks and chains. Then he scurried back down the narrow stairs and through the empty passageways of the Keep to rejoin Caerid Lock.
Chapter Four
Bremen and Kinson Ravenlock spent the night in the forest some distance back from Paranor and the Druids.
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,