The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [90]
He thought suddenly of Mareth. She had the power to save these people. Her magic was powerful enough to incinerate the entire Troll raiding party before even one could blink. But Mareth was forbidden to use her magic, and without her magic she was as vulnerable as the Stors.
Across the way, one of the Trolls had begun to climb the steps onto the porch, his huge pike lowered menacingly. The Stors waited for him, white-robed sheep in the path of a wolf. Kinson gripped his sword tighter and moved to the front door, easing it carefully open. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it quickly.
He was ready to step out from the shadows of the doorway when a shriek arose from the midst of the beleaguered Stors.
Someone pushed through them from out of the building they warded, a shambling, half-clothed figure that tottered and nailed as if beset by a form of madness. Rags trailed from the figure, the bindings for wounds that now lay open and weeping. The creature’s face was ravaged by sores and lesions, the body made frail by a wasting disease that had left the bones taut against the mottled and withered skin.
The figure stumbled from the midst of the Stors to the edge of the porch, wailing in despair. The Trolls brought up their weapons guardedly, the foremost falling back a step in shock.
“Plague!” the ravaged creature howled, the word rising up in the silence, harsh and terrible. A swarm of insects rose off the creature’s back, buzzing madly. “Plague, plague everywhere! Flee! Flee!”
The creature swayed and dropped to its knees. Bits of flesh fell from it, and blood dripped from its open wounds onto me wooden steps, steaming in the cool night air. Kinson winced in horror. The disease was causing it quite literally to fall apart!
It was all too much for the Trolls. Soldiers to the core, they were brave in the face of enemies they could see, but as terrified of the invisible as the meekest shopkeeper. They fell back in disarray, trying not to show fear, but determined not to stay another moment in close proximity to the disaster that had collapsed on the steps before them. Their leader waved off the Stors and their village in a gesture of anxious defiance, and the entire patrol hurried back down the roadway in the direction of the Rabb and disappeared into the trees.
When they were gone, Kinson stepped into the light, sword lowering as the pulse of his body slowed and the heat of his blood cooled. He looked back at the Stors across the way, finding them clustered about the strange apparition, heedless of the disease that ravaged it. Forcing himself to ignore his own fear, he crossed to see if he could be of help.
On reaching them, he found Mareth standing in their midst.
“I broke my promise,” she said, her large dark eyes anxious, her smooth face troubled. “I’m sorry, but I could not stand by and see them harmed.”
“You used your magic,” he guessed, amazed.
“Just a little. Just that part that goes into the healing, the part I use as an empath. I can reverse it to make what is well appear sick.”
“Appear?”
“Well, mostly.” She hesitated. He could see the weariness now, the dark circles about her eyes, the lines of fading pain etched at the comers of her mouth. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her fingers were crooked and rigid. “You understand, Kinson. It was necessary.”
“And dangerous,” he added.
Her eyelids fluttered. She was on the verge of a real collapse. “I am all right now. I just need to sleep. Can you help me walk?”
He shook his head in dismay, picked her up without a word, and carried her back to her room.
The following day, the Northland army decamped and moved south. One day later, Bremen appeared. Mareth had recovered from the effects of her magic and looked strong