The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

loved. What had Gelahn done to her? A wave of crimson rose in her blood, filling them both up until Johan, still running, opened his mouth and cried out. Strange words flew from his lips in jagged shapes and patterns. He raced after them, eyes scanning left and right as he ran. She wanted to hold him still, but he would not look at her.
    For too many paces, the air and sky remained empty. Then, when he was as near to her as he had ever been, he stumbled to a halt, air slamming into his throat. The moment he stopped running, she saw his body begin to shake and the way he struggled for breath. Half bent over, he turned towards where she lay, a mere shimmer on the soft ground. She heard the words then, the words in his mind that he could not stop repeating. She heard them over and over again.
    Where is she? Where is the woman I love?
    The gold from the earth began to sing. The harmony of it raced through her bones and blood and skin, and Annyeke felt the echo of it rise up from her body into the air around. Surely, he would see where she was now. She could not go to him, this song was all she had. Nothing happened. Her golden song began to fade. She had so few notes left. She breathed the last of them out, knowing none remained beyond them:
    I am here.
    Johan turned towards her. She felt the shape of his chest pressed against her body as he took another breath, and the patterns that had spilled from her song flowed around and in front of him as he ran, until the final pattern formed an avenue of colour between the two of them.
    He fell to his knees next to her. When he touched her and his eyes opened truly, she saw what he saw reflected in his gaze. Not the woman he knew now. No, this Annyeke was younger, barely out of childhood but still with that red hair he’d come to love, so much, so very much.
    Beneath his gaze, the child-woman Annyeke stirred and he reached towards her. She shifted, finding at last that his closeness restored her ability to move, and opened her eyes. Before he could speak, she sat up and gripped his arm, pulling him closer. She understood what she must do.
    “My own emeralds,” she whispered. “You must take them, give them to the Lammas Lord. Now. ”
    “Your emeralds?” he stammered. “I don’t know what you mean. It is you I must save. That is why I am here.”
    “No.” Releasing him, she reached up to her face and, before Johan could cry out a warning or try to stop her, she had slipped her own fingers into her eyes and plucked them out. The pain of it coursed through her and, at the same time, the air around them both turned to night.
    Johan cried out and fell backwards to escape from the torrent of blood and brightness that flowed from her eyes. She plunged after him, scrabbling with crimson hands on the golden earth. She tried to calm the frantic beating of her heart, ease the taste of bile and terror in her throat, tried to make him understand. But he was at that place before her and his courage made her miss her breath.
    “What is it, Annyeke?” he said softly, but with still the lilt of fear in his voice. “Tell me what you want and I will do it.”
    Without sight, with blood scarring her skin, she felt like a steady river shattered by a storm that would not leave it. She took hold of Johan’s hand, opened his trembling palm and pressed what were once her eyes into his grasp, folding his fingers down to hold them there.
    Then she spoke again, “These are for Tregannon. He will understand. Now you must go.”
    “What can the Lammas Lord do with your eyes?” he asked her, his voice full of tears. “How can it help us? How can this help you? ”
    “Trust me. It will. Take them to him. ”
    Finally, he rose to his feet. “I can’t leave you, Annyeke. I won’t. I…I love you.”
    Annyeke nodded at the truth of it, even now and even here, opened her mouth and spoke again.
    “You understand it at last then, Johan Montfort,” she whispered. “I have always loved you, from the very beginning. Now, please, for the city and for the land you must go and do as I have said.”

    Simon
    The stories were all around him; he could sense their whispered messages folding into his skin. In the colours and smells of history, legend and more recent events, he found the hearts and minds of the people. The tales surged towards Gelahn, and the scribe knew in a moment as if he had known it all along that when the spirit of the Gathandrian Library came together with the emeralds, the