The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

something about the stories, the past and present combined, the tales they tell to ease the time away—legend and dream, words and the mind. Still, he has never seen the power of tale-telling change the world they live in as clearly as this. It is, however, no match for the undead army Gelahn has raised from Ralph’s people. His eye scans bloodied limbs, wounded flesh, the terrified eyes of dying men, and women, too. By the god and stars above, there are even children here. It is Ralph who has helped this to happen and the deaths of all these poor ones lie heavy on his shoulders.
    As he turns away, a cry he will not voice lying trapped in his mouth, another sweep of movement draws his attention again, a darker blackness against the blood and bone and destruction. A man in a cloak strides through the confusion and uproar as if he is simply walking across a field. A glimmer of green surrounds him, and Ralph recognises the colour of his emeralds at once. The mind-executioner. And with him is Simon. They are leaving the battlefield. Somewhere more deadly and vital to Gelahn’s mission—Simon’s, too, perhaps, though Ralph cannot believe it—entices them and he does not know what will happen to any of them if they get there.
    Denial floods his thoughts as if it has been waiting for that moment to be heard. At the same time, too far away for it to be anything other than Ralph’s own blood and wishing, he thinks that Simon flinches and half-turns towards him before the executioner’s unstoppable purpose pulls the scribe forward again.
    No . He must follow them. At the same time, on the far edge of the battle arena, at the place where the parkland and trees give way to shattered buildings and rubble, a vast group of women appears. Leading them is the red-haired woman Ralph saw the first time he came here. His heart skitters in his chest and his throat turns dry. They are running towards the fighting when in all reason they should be running away. Around them, and hovering in their arms, slide glimpses of words and meaning, shifting and repatterning themselves constantly with every movement. More stories, more tales to add to the ones the men and women already fighting have turned into weapons. Will they prove to be the Gathandrians’ salvation or will they, however explosive, prove as nothing against the all-conquering army?
    He has no way of telling. Gelahn is almost upon the women. Simon, too. The mind-executioner raises the great cane and fire spits from its carving. The red-haired woman stops running and stretches out her hands as if to defend her would-be army. From his right Ralph hears a great cry that pierces the fragile mind-silence he has structured. It’s somewhere between a shout and a moan and, when he glances at its origin, Ralph sees a tall, dark-haired man straining towards where the woman stands. Something about him is familiar but it slips away from the Overlord’s memory and cannot be found. The tall man is at least a field’s length away from the woman and it is impossible for him to see her. He does not have the vantage point that Ralph does but, somehow, he senses her presence and, in his glance, the Overlord catch a hint of the colours that once flowed between the scribe and himself.
    While Ralph stares at him, a skeleton hand rises up to one side. A knife lies in the bony fingers and is swept down at the man’s face. Blood gushes out and he hears the tall man’s scream echoing in his head. The sound of it galvanises the Overlord into action. Slipping down, almost falling, from the rock, Ralph begins to run towards him. Out of all the dying here, it is this man more than any, more perhaps than Simon in this pure moment of time, that Ralph wants to save. He has no idea why.
    He reaches the soldiers and, with a loud shout, tries to clamber through to where he last saw the so familiar stranger. At the same time, something hooks itself into the torn fragments of Ralph’s cloak and the ground disappears from under him.

    Annyeke
    She had never heard anything like this noise, the noise of battle, either in the flesh or in the mind. She could barely comprehend the skittered thumping of her own heart. A wave of blood and pain and terror filled the park area, the trees, the grass, the earth itself. Screams and cries and the crashing of mind-weapons. It was like the centre of a storm, one she could not escape. She jerked to a halt, spreading her arms wide as if to protect those women she’d