The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

purpose other than honour howls and jumps towards him. Its eyes flash red against the snow and he raises both fists, prepared to do battle as best he can.
    Just as the creature of moving stone bares its teeth ready to sink them into his neck, something bright and glittering interposes itself between them. A sword, a weapon Ralph has longed for. It proves useless in destroying the mountain dog, but it twists the animal in flight so it lands with a grunt at his side. The soldier wielding the sword steps forward, raises the weapon again. Ralph is about to call out a warning to this liege-man of his, but it is then that he sees the skeleton fingers and the fleshless grin beneath the helmet.
    This army Gelahn has raised is not one of the living, but of the dead. May all the gods and stars have mercy upon them. Those who have perished in the Lammas Lands have been called again to fight and there must surely be no victory that is not theirs. Ralph’s dead have come to reckon with him once more and there is no sin of his so deep it cannot be brought into the light.
    No matter. Right now, the dog is the enemy. In battle, tides turn and turn again so quickly, and one must fight to win and make what brief allegiances one can. So Ralph watches, panting, as the undead soldier brings the sword down on the animal for a second time. The dog leaps sideways and the blow falls uselessly on the earth. The remainder of the pack howl their anger into the bitter cold air, but none of them makes an attempt to attack. The soldier turns his skull towards Ralph just as the animal recovers itself and leaps towards the dead man.
    Keeping his sightless gaze upon his Overlord, the skeleton catches the animal in his bony hands and tears it apart as simply as if it is nothing but the morning bread delivered by the maidservants. Bone has defeated rock, and the dead that walk again overcome the mountain life.
    While Ralph watches, still speechless amidst the din and screams, the soldier executes a clumsy bow and marches back into the fray. The dogs make no further move to harm him, although their eyes continue to glint crimson. An enemy of his has been slaughtered, but the battle against those with whom he has no real quarrel continues, and he does not know how to bring it to an end.
    Still, he must try.
    Behind the dogs, Ralph sees a small outcrop of rock. It will be a good vantage point to assess how near the Gathandrians are to defeat for he cannot see how the battle can be won. Neither can he see how anything after will turn to the good, should the mind-executioner get his heart’s desire. He stumbles to the rocks. It’s astonishing how weak he is. It’s as if a part of his mind has disappeared entirely and the usual connections between thought and limbs are no longer to be found.
    The dogs snarl at him as he passes, but he doesn’t slow his pace. Under his hands, the rocks feel hot in spite of the snow. The land is burning up. Perhaps it is dying. Another issue he does not have the knowledge to solve. Best then to stick to what he knows, the ability to read a battlefield, to understand which way the victory is turning and where its weaknesses might be. This is the one talent he has that his father never tore down. It is truly time to use it to the utmost.
    As Ralph crouches on the rock, keeping an eye out for stray or deliberate weapons, he takes what is left of his mind and sifts out the noise and the pain, all the colours of orange, red and black. They have to go before he can see what he must. It takes longer than usual, and he wonders if this is what Gelahn has done to him, but at last he sees it, the field of war laid out before him like a game of strange logic. The Gathandrians are losing, that much is obvious. They are not a fighting people but the weapons they wield surprise him. Ralph thought that, even in a physical battle with deadly enemies such as this one, they would use only their minds, and perhaps their fists, to try to hold back the tide. Instead, they carry swords that sparkle, lengths of wood that do not shatter against the skeleton enemy although neither do they overcome them, bricks, stone and strange metal shapes that burn and glow like small fires in the midst of destruction. A moment later, he sees these objects do not come from the land, though they mimic the forms that can be found throughout their countries. No, they are made by the thoughts of these people, whose power must be greater than he had imagined.
    It is