The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

Chapter One: The darkness
    FORTITUDE AND LUST

    Duncan Gelahn
    Everywhere in the mountain cave is dark. Even after the loss of the recent battle, Gelahn did not expect that he would be tumbled out of the world he had been hoping to conquer into this place of misery. In the end, his skills as mind-executioner had not proven enough and that sense of failure tastes like a greater darkness on his tongue. It is not a taste the mind-executioner is accustomed to.
    Now, his back is pressed solid against rock. It is not, of course, a dead rock, but a living, breathing entity. The mountain people are not so easily destroyed, although his dealings with them have ravaged their great structure to almost nothing. He has been prepared to sacrifice them for what he so much desires and he would do it again and again. Willingly. This they know. It is why they are waiting for him.
    Here, in the heart of their kingdom, he, too, waits. He leans against the curved rock. His feet are damp from the slippery black surface and the air smells as if a thunderstorm has just raged through. That may be true outside, but here in the mountain he is protected from all the elements.
    That has given him time to meditate. And how he has needed the time. Mind-skills are so easily lost and he must work hard to hold them. They are all he has but, still, the meditation has not gone well. Each time he closes his eyes he sees the face of Simon the Scribe standing framed by the glittering jagged city of Gathandria, holding the mind-cane in his hands and sending him to oblivion in the mountainside, in temporary exile far from his rightful home. The battle had been lost and he had known, in that instant, that his best hope was the dark embrace of the earth. It is where the most mysterious of his skills dwell, and where he can revive them again, because it is not in the mind-executioner’s heart for failure to be an end of his story. It is just a beginning. He has suffered too much for it to be anything else. How the Gathandrians will live to regret the choices they have made. This thought alone makes him smile, while around him the remains of the mountain groan.
    Behind that groan, a faint howling. Gelahn opens his eyes but does not need to see what he knows is there; his mind itself provides a necessary light. The mountain-dogs are stirring, their sleek and undulating bodies shifting in and out of the rock that forms this cave and is itself the life they cling to. He can sense the occasional flash of their crimson eyes and the faint aroma of raw flesh. Soon he will use them. All he needs is a plan. And the mind-cane the scribe has stolen.
    He rises and strolls towards the far end of the cave. The air feels cold even so deep within the rock. One or two of the dogs follow him like shadows and their presence gives him strength. When he reaches those beings he is holding captive, they do not flinch and he is glad to see it; the last of the mountain people do not show emotion easily. This makes them easier to manipulate. Even now, when their home has been all but destroyed in the recent mind-wars, they are as still and eternal as the stone from which they came.
    “It is not over yet,” he whispers. “I have you to do my will. The scribe only has the mind- cane and he is too weak and limited to comprehend the fullness of its power, let alone use it.”
    He cannot be sure, but did the stone he speaks to quiver? Something in the atmosphere between mind- executioner and rock has altered. He stretches forward, but the first of the mountain people stands erect, still. Its tall, thin figure smells of dust and snow. Winter will soon be upon them all. Gelahn allows his hand to run over the smooth surface of stone slowly. It feels cool to his touch. He knows the contact will cause his prisoner pain. This is why he takes his time. The development of fear in those he plans to use can only be a good thing. His long year-cycles of life have taught him that. Because while failure is the taste in the air for now, it will not always be so. This he promises himself.
    With or without the mind-cane, the next battle between Simon the Scribe and himself will be a fiercer, more physical one and he will be the victor.

    Annyeke
    The red-haired woman stared round her kitchen area and sighed. The wild cornflour whitened her hands as she formed the dough for bread on her one good work surface, and the sharp scent of it filled her mind with images of summer days picnicking in the great