Hallsfoot's Battle (38 page)

She scrambled back from the struggling Elder
and Iffenia. She found herself helped to her feet by the nearest
Gathandrian women, stood swaying in the falling snow as the concern
of those around her clothed her.

Iffenia was still screaming. The breath from
her throat spun crimson into the chill white air. Her head was
turned aside from the Elder’s sightless face and Annyeke could not
blame her. His eyes seemed to be melting, red flames pouring over
his skin and over Iffenia’s body also. Annyeke cried out, trying to
take a step towards them, though she had no idea what she might do
to help, but those around her held her back, shielding their faces
from the sudden influx of burning heat.

Another scream, a burst of wild green fire
streaked with that terrible red, and everything in the immediate
vicinity fell silent. It was as if a barrier had been placed
between them and the larger world so that none could cross over the
boundary to reach them and neither could any of them escape into
whatever lay beyond. Even the snow vanished for the space of two
heartbeats.

Then the Gathandrian world, its pain and its
hopes, its battles and its dreams of peace one day, came floating
back, and Annyeke could see that where the First Elder and Iffenia
had been fighting, only one body remained. It was blackened and
ruined beyond anything she had seen before. The taste of bile once
more filled her mouth and she spat it out. The woman next to her
vomited into the snow and Annyeke held her shoulders, murmuring
sounds she hoped were soothing, although her words were blank.

When someone else was strong enough to take
over, Annyeke took a breath and walked toward the destroyed
corpse.

It took all her courage to do so. With each
step, she told herself she had no choice but to discover the truth.
She was Acting Elder and this was her responsibility. But, even
although she had understood the weight of the role she had taken
on, she had never imagined it would be so difficult.

Not like this.

She knelt down beside the body. Aware of the
demands that would meet her when she turned round—the
newly-commenced battle and the need to defend their land—she peered
down into the face of the dead Gathandrian.

It was the First Elder. The colours of his
mind tinged the surrounding air in shades of green and black before
bleeding into nothingness. In her mind, she intoned the traditional
prayer for the dead, feeling the echo of it in those accompanying
her.

Oh, great Spirit, do not judge what we cannot
change and see only the places where we have tried to be what we
should. May the spirit of this man rest in your one true
Spirit.

No time for anything else, though she knew
later there would be a reckoning for what had happened here.

She rose to her feet. “Come, then. Now we
must fight.”

As the group of them began to run towards the
park, clutching the tales they hoped would help them, Annyeke had
only one thought in her mind. If that was the First Elder, where
was Iffenia?

Simon

Once again, the scribe was cast into the
midst of a battle he had never sought and, once again, he found
himself unprepared for the fray. When he’d consented to follow the
executioner, he’d had no real choice. He’d wanted to live and, no
matter what Gelahn said, Simon knew that refusal meant nothing but
death. The thought had also flitted through his mind that if he
stayed close to his enemy then he might be in a position to
undermine him at some future point, something Ralph had said to him
once, a lifetime ago. It had been the hope of a soldier and Simon
was not a fighting man. He dropped to the ground and laid Ralph on
the soil as gently as he could. As the Gathandrian parkland
exploded round him into men and weapons, shouting and terror, he
saw the green fire from Ralph’s emeralds surround the
mind-executioner. Jagged determination drove him to do something,
although he didn’t quite know what. Simon reached towards the fire
and it snarled and spat at him so he fell back, almost knocking
over the snow-raven.

The bird opened his beak and let out a harsh
cry. It could be heard even over the rising noise of bones and
battle. The sound splintered through Simon’s head, leaving strange
trails of white and orange in its wake. The snow-raven opened his
wings and lunged upwards into snow-filled sky. The scribe leapt
after him, heart pounding, his pulse tightening in his throat. His
fingers met bright feather, but slid downwards as the bird
continued to rise.

“No,” he yelled upwards, snow spattering his
hair and stinging his eyes. “Don’t leave me.”

Too late. The raven was gone. The scribe was
left alone with one man he could not trust and who had tricked him
into doing what he did not wish to, another he could not bring to
consciousness, and an army of the dead he could barely bring
himself to look on. Not to mention the terrifying dogs, scrabbling
to their feet around him. He wondered whether he, too, might die
today and, then, how that might feel.

A wave of Gathandrian men pounded across the
grass towards them and he caught a glimpse of Johan and Talus at
the very front of the onslaught. Gods and stars, how would this day
end? The look in Johan’s eye, the sensations he could catch from
his friend and cousin, even at this distance and in such
circumstances, made him cry out in horror. Johan believed he had
betrayed them. The truth of this was like the blackest of night
against his face, a covering he could not claw through into the
light, if any light remained.

“Run!” he cried out to them both, as if his
feeble voice could lend wings to their feet when no escape was
possible. At the last second, Johan stood in front of his young
companion, but Simon had no hope that such an act was worth
doing.

Blood and bone and a deep abiding terror
surrounded the battlefield. Green fire roared in his ears, and the
bodies of the long-dead skeletons shone in the eerie light and
clattered like rock on rock with every movement. As Simon looked
on, Johan lifted a curved sword high into the air so that the last
of the dying green fire made it gleam, and brought it crashing down
on the bleak bones of the soldier nearest to him. The soldier
simply brushed the sword away as if it was nothing but a feather on
the wind and thrust the short knife he held into Johan’s side.

The scribe cried out as Johan fell to his
knees, blood oozing from the wound. The screams and shouts of
people fighting and dying around him tore into his understanding,
sent it spinning into a vacuum he could not seize hold of. For two
heartbeats, he thought his cousin was lost, but then Johan
staggered to his feet just as his undead enemy pulled back the
knife. Johan leapt towards his other side and landed on the
soldier’s left arm and the two of them fell grovelling to the snowy
earth. The scribe saw where he twisted round and scrabbled at the
soldier’s loose armour and then the two of them were rolling over
and over together across the parkland. He could see them no more.
At the same time, the clash and din of battle rose to an even
greater height. Blood splashed over the earth and a falling body
almost crushed his leg. He knew then it was the first of the
Gathandrians to die. But please, by the gods and stars, not Johan.
Not Johan.

Please, great Spirit, help us.

He turned towards Ralph, the need to find
safety for them both uppermost in his mind, but strong fingers
seized his shoulder, hauled him upwards, and spun him round. Just
before he found his balance again, Simon spun a mind-net round the
Lammas Lord. He didn’t know how effective that might be, but for
the sake of the past and, yes, his own illogical heart, he had to
try.

The man he stood facing was a very different
concept. But then again, perhaps not. The mind-executioner’s eyes
shone a deeper shade of black against the dusky afternoon light,
all but night now, and the scribe shivered.

No. Gelahn’s next words cut through Simon’s
thoughts and left scars where understanding should have lain. From
now on, you will stay with me. Always. Together we will win this
war and rule over the land. Everything will then be as it should
and the past will never have been at all.

The scribe gasped.

Gelahn smiled. But none of that matters, does
it? Now you have me. You are at last on the winning side.

Then he began to thrust his way through the
battling throngs, dragging Simon with him. Blood splashed onto the
scribe’s clothes and face as one of the skeleton soldiers plunged a
knife into the throat of a hapless Gathandrian. The iron taste in
his mouth made him gag, but there was no time for mercy. He
stumbled after the mind-executioner, panting hard and fighting to
keep upright in the throng.

From somewhere, he managed to speak, although
the words refused to stay in his head. “These…these people, Gelahn.
Th-they are not fighters. Please, don’t massacre them, I beg
you.”

He couldn’t see how, amidst the noise and
horror, the executioner could possibly have heard his useless
speech, but still the man dragging him forward stopped abruptly and
turned to face him. Gelahn’s eyes were as impenetrable as the sea
that had almost been the end of Simon. Around them, a net of
protection cut out the sound of war for a few moments, even though
the scribe could still see what was taking place. By the gods and
stars, he believed he could see it even if he shut his eyes.
Perhaps he would see it always.

Gelahn spoke into the strange silence and
this time his words were not simply those of the mind.

“These people imprisoned and tortured me,” he
said, “for long, long year-cycles that you, in your simplicity,
cannot even begin to imagine. Oh, yes, you will say it was their
leaders, not the people themselves. But in the mind of a
Gathandrian Elder, the voice and desires of the people are most
truly heard. Do you think they do not deserve punishment? All of
them? And revenge does not rest with a balanced measure but must
give back with interest where it was received. You see, my friend,
vengeance is the most pure thought that exists through all the
lands we know. It brings justice and clears the past of its wrongs.
When that is done, then, and only then, will mercy begin. For then
will I have the power to show it.”

Gelahn clicked his fingers and the world came
tumbling in again. The scribe’s heart beat wildly at what his
captor intended, and how he might fulfil his deadly dream. The
darkness seemed to close in around his mind, tear at his flesh. It
was impossible to deny it. What the mind-executioner wanted would
surely come to pass.

As Gelahn continued to drag the scribe
through the field, intent on some purpose he could not twist out of
him, Simon caught a glimpse of the great black cane with its silver
carving. The glint of it almost blinded him for a moment or two
before the snowfall came between them. At the same time, a current
of air swept over him and he glanced up to see the snow-raven as it
twisted in flight above. What was the bird doing?

He had to get the cane and use it against
Gelahn somehow. But how?

The executioner laughed and this time Simon
felt the full strength of his presence in his mind. Fire tracked
through his thoughts as they had the first time he’d met Gelahn,
the first time he’d succumbed to him. He gasped and tried to cry
out, but his throat was constricted and he could form no words, not
even a scream.

Gelahn pulled him closer. Now the scribe
could see the glints of crimson in the darkness of his eyes. It was
as if the Gathandrian was on fire from within, driven by a power
Simon couldn’t begin to comprehend.

Oh, yes, the executioner whispered in the
scribe’s weakened mind. I hear all you think and all you are.
Because you are mine and you can never break free from me.

Then where are we going? If all I am is
yours, then what harm can there be for me to know it?

Simon didn’t know where the courage to fling
those thoughts at his captor had come from, but then another flash
of silver from the mind-cane held him and he felt its warmth pierce
into his skin. The sudden small shaft of pain made him blink, but
then it was gone. Even so, he could feel something in his mind had
changed. He glanced at Gelahn but the executioner gave no sign of
having seen anything unusual, but the emeralds at his belt glowed a
deeper green for a moment or two before subsiding.

Then the mind-executioner spoke, out
loud.

“We must get to the Gathandrian Library,” he
said. “There all things will be made as one. There will all our
journeys end.”

Ralph

The last thing he remembers is an
explosion—in his courtyard. The mind-executioner has the emeralds
he longed to keep from his enemy and Ralph cannot fight back. How
that has galled him, not fighting back. But his mind is like water
and he cannot stand within it.

There is Simon, too. The scribe who reads him
better than he’s ever been read. Ralph tried once to tear him
apart, but he has not been destroyed. The Overlord does not know
whether that truth brings him grief or joy. Still, he remembers the
scribe and his touch upon Ralph’s arm as everything rushed away
from him. A circle of fire, dead men wearing the insignia of Lammas
soldiers, and the mind-cane in Gelahn’s hand tumble through his
thoughts for a moment.

Then, nothing.

No, not quite nothing. A sense in his
thoughts that everything he understood was vanishing and he was
being swept away into a world he knew nothing about. Now the world
is still again, but the air smells different. There is no longer
the scents of stone and earth, but something sharper. Cedars,
perhaps? And the clarity of snow. The noise is the same, however,
as it was just before the world tilted. The noise of war and the
beginning of war.