The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

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