The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

break in it. A circle, she thought, it’s a circle. What was it doing? She slipped on the packed down snow that covered the streets. She couldn’t run fast enough, would never get there in time.
    Then her feet met something solid hidden in whiteness and she stumbled forward. A strong hand saved her from landing winded on the earth. When she looked round, it was Iffenia. Where had she come from? She saw a green and fiery light in the other Gathandrian woman’s eyes that had not been there before, as if the glow from the circle of fire could be found also in Iffenia’s face.
    “What is it?” Annyeke demanded, trying and failing to shake her arm free. “What have you done? It’s because of you that Gelahn is here, isn’t it? The battle has begun.”
    For a moment, the air between the two of them was silent, although the echoes of the explosion and small aftershocks still haunted Annyeke’s ears, and the cries and gasps of the crowd of women hemmed them in. Then Iffenia spoke, but the voice was not hers.
    “The battle is yours, Annyeke,” she whispered, her tone deep and edgy. “So you must never join it.”
    Then Iffenia pushed her fiercely onto the ground. Stories rolled away, landing in snow, their small centres breaking under the strain, words leaking into air. Annyeke cried out, more in frustration than fear, and struggled to push the sculptor away from her.
    Other hands reached out to pull them apart, but it was no use. Iffenia seemed possessed with a strength Annyeke and the other women had no way of fighting. Neither could she understand her attacker’s words, though they were ones she had used herself only recently. Why was the battle hers? It was Gelahn who fought them, and they were not the instigators of this war, either in the mind or in the body. No, the words were meaningless, but none of that mattered. She had to get free, she had to lead her would be army, with the tales she hoped would save them, to where the war had commenced. But more than anything, she had to know if Johan and Talus were safe. If they weren’t, she’d…by the truth of the gods and stars, she didn’t know what she would do, but someone would pay.
    And she could start now.
    With a sharp cry, Annyeke punched Iffenia in the eye with all the strength she could muster. There was no way on Gathandria she was going to be defeated by this elegant, silver haired woman, no matter who else might be holding her mind-power at the moment. Redheads were always stronger, everyone knew that.
    Iffenia gasped, but didn’t weaken. Annyeke found her fist pushed aside and held down, and at the same time Iffenia reached out towards her head.
    Whatever happens, she mustn’t touch me.
    Acting purely from instinct, Annyeke twisted her head towards the approaching fingers, opened her mouth and bit down on them hard.
    Iffenia screamed and this time the voice was her own. Seizing the opportunity, Annyeke scrambled out from underneath her body and tried to get to her feet. Willing hands from the crowd struggled to assist her efforts but, with a roar, Iffenia grabbed her legs and the two of them fell again.
    The battle must be yours, Annyeke. Fight it.
    These new words filled her mind, but she didn’t know where they came from. For an agonising heartbeat, she couldn’t even recognise who had placed them there, but then the realisation swept over her.
    The First Elder. But how?
    Even as she thought that question, a figure rose up from the snow, dark and bloodied against the pure whiteness and deep holes where eyes should have been. It must have been his body she’d stumbled over when first she fell. Now he was barely Gathandrian, simply a mass of dying flesh and pain. What had Iffenia done to him? Had he ever found shelter? Bile rose in her throat but she swallowed it down.
    It was then that, suddenly and shockingly, his story overwhelmed her and the First Elder’s voice was the only one she heard.
    *****
    I am at the Great Library. Both of us broken beyond repair. The darkness in front of my eyes is tearing into my mind and I can barely think. The world is out of kilter and what I had thought I was a part of does not exist. I cannot find Gathandria in my senses. The pain blocks out everything.
    I had so many things I want to tell Annyeke, but none of them have any meaning now. Everything has changed. The old stories are lost to us and, as she has commanded, we must sculpt new ones. I thought I could somehow, even in my disgraced state, help