The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [51]
Kinson exhaled in dismay and rushed after her. What was she doing? The monster closest to the girl hissed in warning, whirled, and came at her, bounding down the stairs as swift as thought, claws extended. Kinson cried out in anger. He was still too faraway!
Then Mareth simply exploded. There was a huge, booming cough, and the shock wave threw Kinson against the wall. He lost sight of Mareth, Bremen, and the creatures. Fire burst upward from where Mareth had been standing, a blue streak that burned white-hot. It ripped into the closest creature and tore it apart. Then it found the second, where it was closing on Bremen, and bore it away, a leaf upon the wind. The creature shrieked in dismay and was consumed. The fire raced on, burning along the stone walls and stairs, swallowing the air and turning it to smoke.
Kinson shielded his eyes and struggled to his feet. The fire disappeared, gone in an instant. Only the smoke remained, thick clouds of it filling the stairwell. Kinson charged up the steps and found Mareth collapsed on the landing. He lifted her, cradling her limp body. What had happened to her? What had she done? She was as light as a feather, her small features pale and streaked with soot, her short dark hair a damp helmet about her face. Her eyes were half-closed and staring. Through the slits, he could see they had turned white. He bent close. She didn’t seem to be breathing.
He couldn’t find a pulse.
Bremen appeared abruptly before him, materializing out of the haze, disheveled and wild-eyed. “Take her out of here!” he shouted.
“But I don’t think she’s ...” he tried to argue.
“Quick, Kinson!” Bremen cut him short. “Now, if you want to save her, get out of the Keep! Go!”
Kinson turned without a word and hastened down the stairs, Mareth in his arms, Bremen trailing in a ragged swirl of torn robes. Down through the Keep they stumbled, coughing and choking on the smoke, eyes tearing. Then Bremen heard something rumbling in the earth beneath. It was the sound of something waking, something huge and angry, something so vast it was unimaginable.
“Run!” Bremen cried once more, needlessly.
Together, the Borderman and the Druid fled through the smoky gloom of dead Paranor toward daylight and life.
The Search for the Black Elfstone
Chapter Eight
After leaving Bremen, Tay Trefenwyd proceeded west along the Mermidon through the mountains that formed the southern arm of the Dragon’s Teeth. Sunset arrived, and he camped for the night still within their shelter, then set out again at daybreak. The new day was clear and mild, last night’s winds having swept the land clean, the sun dazzling. The Elf worked his way down out of the foothills to the grasslands below the Streleheim and prepared to cross. Ahead, he could see the forests of the Westland, and beyond, their tips coated in white, the peaks of the Rock Spur. Arborion was another day’s walk, so he traveled at a leisurely pace, his thoughts occupied by all that had happened since Bremen’s arrival at Paranor.
Tay Trefenwyd had known Bremen for almost fifteen years, longer even than Risca. He had met him at Paranor, before his banishment, Tay newly arrived from Arborion, a Druid in training. Bremen had been old even then, but with a harder edge to his personality and a sharper tongue as well. Bremen in those days had been a firebrand burning with truths self-evident to him but incomprehensible to everyone else. The Druids at Paranor had dismissed him as being just this side of mad. Kahle Rese and one or two others valued his friendship and listened patiently to what he had to say, but the rest mostly looked for ways to avoid him.
Not Tay. From the first moment they met, Tay had been mesmerized. Here was someone who believed it was important — even necessary — to do more than talk about the problems of the Four Lands. It wasn’t sufficient simply to study and converse on issues; it was necessary to act