Hallsfoot's Battle (35 page)

When they enter the courtyard of his home, it
is deserted. The snow makes the cobbles slippery and Ralph almost
falls. Simon makes a slight move towards him, but the gesture is as
soon cut off. Ralph is panting hard, barely able to draw breath,
and he is not certain how long he can remain upright. With all his
being, he longs for the warmth of the castle hall, somewhere to
sit.

But that chance does not come for the wanting
of it.

The mind-executioner swings round and surveys
them. With one hand, he is clutching the bag of emeralds whilst the
cane of power and death hovers in his other. And, somehow, Ralph
knows what he intends the heartbeat before he acts. The Overlord
cries out just as Gelahn flings the emeralds up into the wintry
air. The next moment, his enemy sweeps the cane in an arc across
the jewels and bright green fire leaps out into the night.

The blast of it knocks Ralph off his feet and
a great wind slams him into the bare stone of the castle walls. A
sharp cry pierces his mind and he knows the same fate has befallen
the scribe. He tries to fight against the strange storm that has
driven him here, but he cannot. It is impossible to kneel or stand.
But the feebleness of Ralph’s efforts has meant that he can see
into the courtyard, he can witness what powers Gelahn has conjured
from the air. He has nothing left to fight the executioner with,
but still he wants to know.

He needs to know when the end comes.

Simon

He did not see the sudden storm coming. His
head had been too full of recent events to pay any heed to what was
happening immediately around him—the journey through the emeralds’
tunnel, the unexpected return to the Lammas Lands, the threat and
seducing power of Gelahn, and the lies the executioner has told
him. But, beyond all these, in unaccountable measure, the fact and
presence of Ralph had completely unnerved him.

In the Lammas Lord’s courtyard, he stood
trembling as Gelahn stopped his frenetic pace at last. Standing a
little away from him, Ralph was barely managing to keep upright. He
could not tell what Gelahn intended; the Gathandrian seemed
impenetrable in his certainty. What was the truth behind the
emeralds Ralph had been carrying? Were they another ancient
artefact like the mind-cane, or were they even more powerful than
that? He could feel something pressing in his head, almost as
strongly as he could feel the iciness of the day infiltrating his
skin or the way the pebbles pushed against his feet. But he
couldn’t get to it. Whatever knowledge he had and wherever it came
from, he couldn’t access it, and neither could Gelahn. One of these
was a curse, the other a blessing. How the gods and stars were
playing with them now, he thought.

He had no time to ponder these questions.

Gelahn swirled round. The falling snow cut
across his frame. Simon did not see the movement or what must have
taken place, but green flames sprang upwards that could only come
from Ralph’s emeralds. A dark, slim shape swept through their
flight. The mind-cane.

At that very moment, a roaring filled his
thoughts and something hard and unforgiving hit him in the back.
When he opened his eyes, he saw he was lying against one of the
walls of the castle and gasping for breath. Ralph was further
along, panting and struggling to sit up, to no avail.

The wild wind was rising. With it came noise
and chaos. Simon turned to stare back at the courtyard. The
mind-executioner stood, arms raised as if conjuring the stars and
gods to come to him. In the eerie light, he hardly seemed real. A
great arc of green patterns shifting and changing with every
heartbeat surrounded him. It was like a cage holding the
executioner, or a place of safety where nobody could ever defeat
him again. His right hand held onto the cane, which was gleaming
silver all the way down the length of it. The scribe had never seen
that before. It made his fists clench and his throat constrict. He
tried to scramble backwards, but the wall behind him prevented any
hope of escape. His hand touched something warm and soft. For a
moment, he had no idea what it was. Some type of weapon to tear him
apart at last? Another enemy not yet encountered? Then realisation
came rushing in.

Acting from an instinct that leapt up inside
him, he buried both hands in the snow-raven’s feathers and hugged
the great bird to himself. At once, a blue river flowed between
them, small but visible against the white of the bird and the white
of the snow still falling, even in the midst of such strangeness.
The river began to circle both bird and man, reminding Simon of the
mind-link that had saved Johan and himself from the executioner’s
desert attack. He hoped that whatever the contact with the
snow-raven had produced, the result would be the same now.

Because the fire and the storm were one. The
scribe could see Gelahn in the centre of it, his hands still
outstretched towards the fearsome sky. The roars and cries that
filled the air sounded more like men and women now, in pain beyond
imagining. He wished he could cut out the sound, but it was not
simply in the air—it was in his thoughts.

Was this war always to be fought in both body
and mind? Green tongues of flame shaped like accusing fingers
flashed across the courtyard. They darted up to the
mind-executioner, but the cane he held kept them at bay. They
recoiled, springing around him as if to seek out something else to
burn, something else to destroy. Simon could see shapes in the air,
of people and strange beasts he couldn’t comprehend. The people
were stretched out as if their bodies were suffering torments from
which they could never be free, their faces etched with a shifting,
dancing agony.

He wanted to look away. He could not.

The emerald fire slashed angrily against the
fragile blue river, like a knife finding at last the kill.

Ralph, he thought. Ralph.

He could barely sense the Lammas Lord,
Ralph’s mind nothing but a whisper on the edge of his
consciousness. Another beat of his heart told him he’d had enough
of waiting. As the wild storm continued and the flashing light
continued to dance around the mind-executioner, Simon crawled a
slow way over to the trembling Lammasser. The bird and the blue
river came with him and the emerald fire did not overcome their
defences.

The moment he touched Ralph, the river flowed
around his motionless figure also. The scribe could see cuts and
bruises on the Lammas Lord’s body and face from where the fire had
attacked him, but he seemed to be breathing. And the mind-whisper
was still there.

They had to escape, Simon realised. Somehow
they would have to find refuge from the terrors Gelahn was
summoning, or they would not survive this, with or without the
snow-raven’s power. And, besides, who could tell how long that and
the river would last? Without its protection, they would be
lost.

The scribe took a breath, weighed up the
possible success of half dragging half carrying Ralph into the
relative safety of the castle. Slim at the best, but by the gods
and stars, he had to try.

But just as he’d taken another breath and
started to scramble to his feet, hauling Ralph with him, Simon
realised everything had become silent. The storm vanished as
suddenly as it had begun. At the same time, instead of being empty
the courtyard was filled with people. For another second or so, the
scribe didn’t understand who they were, then realisation kicked in.
Ralph’s army. These were Ralph’s soldiers. The uniform they wore
and the scattered helmets told him more clearly than if anyone had
spoken the truth aloud. How had they got here? Had the mind-cane
and Gelahn called them through the storm? Simon could think of no
other explanation.

Something about them niggled at his skin.
They were silent. None of the men before him spoke, and they all
faced Gelahn. Without wanting to, the scribe took an involuntary
step backwards, still clinging to Ralph and the snow-raven. At
once, the blue river vanished and the bird flapped its wings once,
twice, coming to land a few hand-breadths away from him.

The noise of this cut the silence like the
howl of a wolf might break the stillness of an autumn night. The
nearest soldier turned towards Simon.

The scribe couldn’t help himself. He cried
out, bringing his hand to his mouth to try and deaden the
release.

The soldier whose eyes he stared into was not
alive, not in any sense Simon understood. The eyes were simply
hollowed-out bone where an eye should be. Dried blood spattered
strange patterns around the jaw and cheek bone whilst bare teeth
grinned wildly at him. The scribe’s gaze skittered sideways from
this vision of horror and found the same story in the other
soldiers also.

He fell to his knees, felt his skin burning
whilst the snow-raven’s warning cry pierced all thought. Even as he
realised the army of dead men was parting to let the executioner
pass, Gelahn stood towering over him. The scribe did not know what
to do, or how to react. It wasn’t necessary, because the
mind-executioner simply smiled.

“You see,” he said, as if finishing a
conversation that had been interrupted and that they had both been
pursuing. “You see, I have an army now. Today the last battle truly
begins.”

Chapter Eleven: The heat and sweat of
battle

Duncan Gelahn

This is the best he has hoped for. Suddenly,
everything he has ever wanted is here. All things have led to this
moment. Through the aching year-cycles of waiting and waiting for
what was always rightfully his, the Spirit of Gathandria is finally
answering his prayers. He has put everything in place and the gods
and stars of all things are acknowledging his faithfulness. The
Lost One is with him, and he has the strange emeralds, the bird and
the mind-cane. The land itself will soon be his.

In the courtyard of Tregannon’s fortified
home, the cane had spoken to him, its voice blending with the song
of the emeralds and the colours hidden in the scribe. The way
forward had been simple. Tregannon’s army were already there for
the calling. They had been there all the time he’d needed them, but
he had been too blind to see it or, rather, the right conjunction
of time and place had not occurred until they arrived at the
castle. Gelahn’s possession of the cane in their ancestral home
must have enabled the emeralds to take on all the power they were
heir to. Only then had the executioner understood how he could call
the army into being and how he could command them without
boundaries or dissent.

He had had no time to convey this to the
scribe. Enraptured by the glory of the moment, Gelahn had raised
the mind-cane high in one hand, flung the precious emeralds in the
air and focused his thoughts on the victory to come.

It was then that his army had gathered,
spinning their darkness and half life into existence at his
command. Bone and skull and armour combined. The perfect killing
machine, for what could be more unstoppable than an army of the
dead? He had laughed aloud at the realisation, not caring about the
scribe’s terror or the bird’s protection of his two companions. No
matter. Both would do his bidding now. He had no need for more
mind-games with Simon Hartstongue. Neither was Lord Tregannon any
kind of a threat with his destroyed thoughts and his weakened
body.

Everything around Gelahn had glittered and
everything was suffused with the emeralds’ light, focused as it was
through the mind-cane’s strength. He had known then what he was
destined to do.

So he strides through the army of the dead,
back to where Simon is trembling. The scribe shrinks away at his
approach, his lips opening and closing, but no sound comes from
them. Indeed, Gelahn is gratified to see the scribe sink to his
knees, pulling the half conscious Lammas Lord down with him. There
is always time for fear, whether in an ally or a slave.

He reaches forward and grasps Simon’s arm,
hauling him upward.

“The time is now,” he says, seeing the
incomprehension in the other man’s face. “While the power and the
means to take it is here, we will travel to the land destined as
mine.”

With one sweep of the arm holding the cane,
the emerald circle flows towards and across them all. Gelahn
focuses his mind on the once fertile lands of Gathandria. Oh, how
he will heal them. He will bring them in their poverty under the
gentle shadow of his wings, give them the life they need, the life
they can only get from his power. As for the scribe? Once the wells
of the wisdom the poor fool cannot see have been fully drained,
Gelahn will have no more use for him. The mind-cane will then be
utterly his, and the executioner can live and rule those under him
in perfect freedom.

Even as these truths fill his thoughts, they
are once more in the circle’s passageway, the executioner, the
scribe, Tregannon, the snow-raven, the dogs and, most important of
all, the great army he has summoned. This time, the journey is a
smooth one and as Gelahn lands with his feet planted on soil, arm
holding the mind-cane still raised, he understands where it is that
his desires have brought him.

The Gathandrian park with the weak and
threadbare army of the Gathandrian men gathered before him ripe for
the conquering.

As he brings the cane down to his side, the
massacre that will lead to peace at last has its way.

Annyeke

The winter cold was settling in and, without
the great Library’s bulk, the winds from the south had nothing to
stop them. Annyeke shivered as she rose to her feet, still thinking
of the silence that had, for a short while, been so delightfully
hers. Bringing herself back to the present, she allowed her command
to cease the stories’ collection to flow from her thoughts and out
to her companions.