The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [5]
Kinson looked off into the distance. “They are foolish to ignore you, but ignore you they will, Bremen. They have lost all touch with reality behind their sheltering walls. They have not ventured out into the world for so long that they no longer are able to take a true measure of things. They have lost their identity. They have forgotten their purpose.”
“Hush, now.” Bremen placed a firm hand on the tall man’s shoulder. “There is no point in repeating to ourselves what we already know. We will do what we can and then be on our way.”
He squeezed gently. “I am very tired. Would you keep watch for a few hours while I sleep? We can leave after that.”
The Borderman nodded. “I’ll keep watch.”
The old man rose and moved deeper into the shadows beneath the wide-boughed tree, where he settled down comfortably within his robes on a soft patch of grass. Within minutes he was asleep, his breathing deep and regular. Kinson stared down at him. Even then, his eyes were not quite closed. From behind narrow slits, there was a glimmer of light.
Like a cat, thought Kinson, looking away quickly. Like a dangerous cat.
Time passed, and the night lengthened. Midnight came and went. The moon dropped below the horizon, and the stars spun in vast, kaleidoscopic patterns across the black. Silence lay heavy and absolute over the Streleheim, and on the emptiness of the plains nothing moved. Even within the trees where Kinson Ravenlock kept watch, there was only the sound of the old man’s breathing.
The Borderman glanced down at his companion. Bremen, as much an outcast as himself, alone in his beliefs, exiled for truths that only he could accept.
They were alike in that regard, he thought. He was reminded of their first meeting. The old man had come to him at an inn in Varfleet, seeking his services. Kinson Ravenlock had been a scout. Tracker, explorer, and adventurer for the better part of twenty years, since the time he was fifteen. He had been raised in Callahorn, a part of its frontier life, a member of one of a handful of families who had remained in the Borderlands when everyone else had gone much farther south, distancing themselves from their past. After the conclusion of the First War of the Races, when the Druids had partitioned the Four Lands and left Paranor at the crux, Man had determined to leave a buffer between itself and the other Races. So while the Southland reached as far north as the Dragon’s Teeth, Man had abandoned almost everything above the Rainbow Lake. Only a few Southland families had stayed on, believing that this was their home, finding themselves unwilling to move to the more populated areas of their assigned land. The Ravenlocks had been one of these.
So Kinson had grown up as a Borderman, living on the edge of civilization, but as comfortable with Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Trolls as with Men. He had traveled their lands and learned their customs. He had mastered their tongues. He was a student of history, and he had heard it told from enough different points of view that he thought he had gleaned the most important of the truths that it had to offer. Bremen was a student of history as well, and right from the beginning they had shared some common beliefs. One of these was that the Races could succeed in their efforts to maintain peace only by strengthening their ties to one another, not by distancing themselves. A second was that the greatest obstacle to their success in doing so was the Warlock Lord.
Even then, even five years earlier, the rumors were already being passed around. There was something evil living in the Skull Kingdom, a collection of beasts and creatures like nothing ever seen before. There were reports of flying things, winged monsters scouring the land by night in search of mortal victims.