Hallsfoot's Battle (43 page)

Duncan

He tries to reject the words the Lost One is
saying, but they are like daggers in the flesh of his mind and
hailstones on the body. The stories swirl and dance around them,
all the colours of their mysteries an impossible pattern he can no
longer find a way through to victory. The cane tears at his skin
and the emeralds burn his eyes.

He wants to scream out a denial but what
comes from his mouth is merely a whisper and the Lost One blinks it
away. Duncan has never imagined his enemy, half Gathandrian and
half Lammasser, can fight like this. He has never imagined Simon of
the White Lands could one day be as adamant as himself, as harsh as
stone, as bleak as winter.

He has never imagined that whatever happens
next might not be ultimately in his gifting.

Annyeke

In spite of her attempt to stop him, Johan
flung himself once more at the green fire shielding them from where
Gelahn, Simon and Talus had been standing only a few moments ago.
Her heart beat fast and her skin burned. Her words had not been
enough for him. Surely, if they survived this day, then they would
have much to learn about each other, much to offer in trust as well
as love. A moment later, Johan was sprawled on the snow half a room
length away from the strange circle.

Before she could reach him again, Tregannon
was there. He laid a trembling hand on Johan’s shoulder. Once at
their side, she could see both men’s faces were pale, their eyes
haunted. No time for words. Whatever was happening to Talus and
Simon, Annyeke had to know about it. Now. Her mind spun outwards,
met Johan’s as they both tried to make contact with the scribe and
her young charge, but she could sense nothing. The emeralds must
stop anything from getting through except the floating stories.
They streamed towards the green flames and melted through them as
if responding to a hidden call. Johan scrambled to his feet and
attempted to breach the barrier a third time where the thickest
glut of stories flowed, their greens, reds and browns blending into
gold. For a moment or two, it looked as if he might succeed. His
fingers and then his whole hand sank through with the darkest of
the tales, but then he fell to the ground once more. When she
looked down, she saw the flesh of his left hand was on fire.

The heat behind her eyes pounded an uneasy
rhythm into her head as she grabbed his hand, skin blackening with
the emeralds’ flame, and covered it with the snow. In her mind, she
could feel the hiss and spit of his gasp, but in the body he merely
grimaced and bent more closely to the earth.

She had to save Talus. Simon, too, both for
his role and for who he was. But Talus first and foremost. Her duty
as Gathandria’s Acting Elder be damned to the stars. Some things
were more important than that.

It was then that it came to her, dancing
tales, falling snow, and the memories of the bird. How deeds must
be done quickly if they were done at all.

Before Johan could object, Annyeke reached
down and pulled his freshly formed mind-sword, scarred from the
recent battle, from his belt. Her thoughts raced to link with it,
and him, trying to gain the extra mind-strength she needed, as she
darted towards the glowing deadly circle. It was the only act she
could think of. She would do it, whether or not it destroyed
her.

Simon

In the midst of the fire, the Lost One, the
scribe, continued to carve his tale into the air’s emptiness,
sensing even then the need to fight against the stories gathering
to the mind-executioner, and to fight them hard.

So these two boys grew into men. One took the
way of moderation and one took the way of greed. Neither was truly
happy. A blue river watered and weakened the mind of the one, and a
dark prison strengthened and subsumed the soul of the other. One
chose peace and the other chose war. Opposites, so my story tells
us, but sometimes opposites can be destined to meet.

The tales around Gelahn roared a song Simon
could barely comprehend. In the executioner’s wild grin, the Lost
One could see his enemy still battled against him, but he braced
himself and allowed his words to flow. At the same time, something
piercing and white captured the corner of his vision. The green
fire surrounding them shifted and groaned. In one particular place,
a silver flash not from the mind-cane pierced its way through, but
he could not tell what it was. And he had no remaining energy to
counteract it.

He opened his mind, channelled his own
song.

And when those opposites do meet, they find
another difference between them. The Gathandrian who has, albeit by
default and cowardice, pursued the path of temperance as best he
can, has friends he did not look for. Whereas the Gathandrian in
thrall to greed for power only has slaves or those he bends to his
will by force or temptation.

Which, then, do you think will hit the mark
more closely?

For the fact of the matter is this, Greed can
never understand or take into itself the truth of Temperance, but
Temperance can, on occasion, grasp what is strongest in Greed and
use it for the good, as long as it remains good. This I do so now.
This is our legend, this is our story. We will live and die by
it.

Using all the strength he could muster, the
scribe gave an almighty shove to his opponent, praying to all the
gods Talus would not be harmed. The mind-executioner fell to the
earth, bringing Simon with him. Talus fell on the other side,
Gelahn still clutching him. The scribe couldn’t sense if the boy
was conscious, felt his heart beat faster, breath catching in his
throat at the absence.

At the same time, a mighty roar rang out
across the singing air and the fire circle split into two. Without
having to ask or look, the Lost One knew the red-haired woman was
there. Behind her came his cousin and the Lammas Lord.

He scrambled to hold Gelahn down as the
executioner spat his fury into the stories’ colour and dance, while
his mind continued searching, searching, searching for the boy’s
life. An emerald heat flowed from somewhere deep within him,
tearing at his enemy’s skin, while the mind-cane carved lines of
blood and pain into Gelahn’s flesh. It came to Simon that he did
not know how long he could hold him down, or how this would
end.

Annyeke

She was surprised when the barrier of strange
fire began to yield at the first cut. She ignored Johan’s shout
from behind her and the flurry of nameless emotions from the Lammas
Lord and kept on slashing at the flames. She could feel the heat of
them singeing her hair, but it didn’t matter. In the mind-world,
she’d just given her eyes to the Lammasser for Simon’s sake, for
the city. But for Talus, she would give it all if she had to.

Just as she felt Johan’s hand on her back and
the pull of Tregannon’s clutch at her skirts, the fire split from
top to bottom, like a mantle being torn in two. She and her
companions tumbled into a world of singing stories, battle and
terror. But all she could see was Talus and the blood on his face
from the executioner’s knife.

Everything happened at once and she had no
room for hesitation or doubt. Indeed, she wished for none. Holding
Johan’s sword, Annyeke leapt onward through the open wall of fire
and sprang towards the two fallen men.

Talus.

As she landed, Gelahn gave a cry of triumph
and his eyes caught hers. Even as the Lost One fought to hold him
down, emerald fire sweeping from his flesh into the executioner’s
body and the mind-cane carving blood and unimaginable darkness into
his skin, Annyeke saw the limp body in the executioner’s grasp, the
way Talus’ head drooped at an impossible angle. The stillness of
his mind, the emptiness.

At the sight of him, there was no question in
her mind as to what she would do.

Duncan Gelahn

The Spirit pours out his blood and he cannot
take it back again. Eyes pound with impossible heat and the
treacherous mind-cane tears a path into him through which
everything he has ever lived, loved or wanted is scattered to the
five winds. The precious stories have not been strong enough to
hold him safe, to fulfil the Spirit’s desire, his desire.

It will not end like this. It cannot.

The circle of fire has ripped open and before
his eyes he sees Annyeke Hallsfoot. Darkness rises from his depths
and he wonders if she will be the very last thing he sees at
all.

His knife is, somehow, still on the young
boy’s throat. Gelahn opens his mouth and laughs at her, at all who
stand with her. Then his knife cuts deep into the child, piercing
skin and sending a final rush of blood into the singing air. It is
done. He will not leave without giving back some of the misery he
has endured, though never enough, never enough. Never enough.

Annyeke

She sensed the very moment when Talus’ life
was ended. She could feel the throb of loss in her mind.

What happened after, she never knew the flow
of it, simply scenes painted in snow and emerald fire. Scenes she
could never regret.

The feel of the mind-sword in her hand.
Johan’s cry of shock. And the power he gave her. The Lost One’s
eyes, a look full of knowledge. Acceptance, too. The glitter of the
sword, the way it felt in her hand as she swung it upwards. The
sudden silence as all the stories came to an end. The way even the
mind-cane waited.

My battle, she thought. My war.

Then the long arc of the sword downwards. The
mind-executioner flinging his bloodied arms outwards. Still
laughing, as if death were to be welcomed, and all the time he had
only been longing for its mastery over him. The edge of the blade
sliced through flesh and bone as if it were nothing but water. His
head, teeth set in a rictus of smiling, rolled gently away.

Then the silence truly began.

Chapter Twelve: The harshness of light

Simon

The green circle of fire vanished. The Lost
One could feel its power returning home to the emeralds scattered
around Gelahn. The mind-cane, too, ceased its dance in his hands
and fell to the earth. He could hear nothing, the only sensation
the sight of the mind-executioner’s bloodied head. Around him, no
noise. The battle no longer pierced his ears and the undead
soldiers stood stock still a mere hall’s length from them. Even the
mountain dogs were quiet although he thought he could glimpse them
slinking around and through the bony legs of Gelahn’s deadly
troops. What Annyeke had done tore through everything he understood
but, even so, it did not seem wrong. Some things had to be, come
what may. He wondered if he would have been able to do such an act.
Knew then he could not.

“Please, please…”

Annyeke’s voice, trembling on the brink of
tears, cut through his wonderment and he dropped down to his knees
next to her. She held the dead boy in her arms, cradling him as if
he might somehow come back to life in the warmth of her embrace.
Johan hunkered down a little to one side, his hand on her shoulder,
the warmth between them flaring out like a beacon or the morning
sun.

It was lighter now, Simon noticed. Had a
whole night passed while they were fighting this deadly war? How
had the time escaped him so quickly?

Ralph was crouched on all fours on the
ground, his body shaking. The fact of him flowed through the
scribe’s mind and he could feel the currents of relief and despair
battling for supremacy in the Lammas Lord. He had no notion which
of them would be the victor. Neither had he the time to discover
it, now.

“Please…?” Annyeke said again.

The Lost One took her into his arms. Talus’
young blood smeared them both and its iron scent filled the
air.

“What can I do?” he asked her.

She pulled away from him, the light of
decision glowing in her eyes. You can make Talus live again, Lost
One, if you want to…

Simon sprang to his feet, backed several
steps away from her. Her words filled his thoughts like an
accusation. No. I cannot do that. I failed before when… when…

The memory of Carthen’s death on his journey
here haunted him. He had been responsible for that boy and had
failed in his duty then. Now, another boy was dead. Not his charge
this time, no, but important to a woman he cared for. He should try
to bring him back, for Annyeke’s sake, but the anticipation of
failure held his feet rooted to the earth. He could neither move
forward nor back.

“You have to try, Simon,” Johan whispered.
“We cannot leave the end of this war like this. There is grief
enough, I know it, and a reckoning to be had by us all, but please,
will you help him?”

The Lost One did not know. His thoughts felt
as if they had been crushed under a great weight and his body
likewise. He was not strong enough to attempt this, his energies
gone. How could he bring hope, life even, when he had so little of
either?

A wave of longing not his own broke over him,
and his eyes were pulled to where Ralph sat defeated and strangely
slight. This time, the Lammas Lord stared directly at him, his eyes
as dark as the memory of death.

You, Simon Hartstongue of the White Lands, he
said, the mind-words passing only between the two of them, you can
do anything you wish to.

Without knowing that was what was in his
mind, the Lost One bent down, seized the cane from the earth where
it slumbered and was at Talus’ side in a heartbeat.

Give him to me.

Annyeke didn’t even hesitate. The dead child
slid from her arms into his. Simon could feel nothing from the boy.
Not a spark, not a glimmer of life. He didn’t know if he could do
this, but something in Ralph’s words had challenged him. Made him
think it might even be true. In this one moment, now.