The Sword of Shannara - Terry Brooks [272]
Jon Lin Sandor gave the order to dismount, and the Elven riders climbed down gratefully. His concern was not with the history of the past but with the immediate future. Worriedly, he stared at the heavy black wall descending from the Northland across the Plains of Streleheim, its hazy shadow drawing daily nearer to the borders of the Westland and the home of the Elves. His sharp eyes peered far into the eastern horizon where the darkness had already permeated into the forests surrounding the ancient fortress of Paranor. He shook his head bitterly and cursed the day he had permitted himself to leave the side of his King and oldest friend. He had grown to manhood with Eventine, and when his friend became King he had stayed with him as his personal counselor and self-appointed watchdog. Together they had prepared for the invasion of the armies of Brona, the Spirit Lord they had once believed destroyed in the Second War of the Races. The mysterious wanderer Allanon had warned the Elven people, and while some had scoffed in misconceived disdain, Eventine had known better. Allanon had never been wrong; his ability to see into the future was uncanny, but unerringly accurate.
The Elven people had followed Eventine’s advice and they had prepared for war, but the invasion did not come as expected. Then Paranor had fallen and with it the Sword of Shannara. Again Allanon had come to them, asking that they patrol the Plains of Streleheim above Paranor to guard against any attempt by the Gnomes holding the Druid fortress to move the Sword northward to the castle of the Warlock Lord. Again they had obeyed without question.
But the unexpected had happened, and it had happened while Jon Lin Sandor was away from the King. The Gnomes entrenched at Paranor had unexpectedly decided to break for the safety of the deep Northland, and three heavy patrols made a rush at the Elven lines. Eventine and Jon Lin had led separate commands to intercept two of these forces and would have destroyed the Gnomes easily had it not been for the planned intervention of a combined army of Gnomes and Trolls detached from the now advancing Northland army of the Warlock Lord. Jon Lin’s command was nearly annihilated, and he barely escaped with his life. He had been unable to reach Eventine, and the Elven King had disappeared with his entire patrol. Jon Lin Sandor had been searching for him for nearly three days.
“We will find him, Jon Lin. He is not an easy one to kill. He will find a way to survive.”
The grim Elf nodded with a barely perceptible shake of his close-cropped head, his darting eyes glancing quickly at the young face of the man standing next to him.
“It’s a strange thing, but I know he’s alive,” the other continued soberly. “I can’t really explain how I know — it’s just something I can sense.”
Breen Elessedil was Eventine’s younger brother; he was also the next King of the Westland Elves if his brother were dead. It was a position he was not yet ready for and quite honest did not want. Since Eventine’s disappearance he had done nothing to assume command of the languishing Elven armies or of the dismayed King’s Council, but had joined immediately in the search for his brother. As a result, the Elven government was in a state of near chaos, and what had only two weeks earlier been a people united against