The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

will not have to die.

    Annyeke
    Whatever happened, Talus must not be harmed. It was Annyeke’s first thought as, from what seemed like a thousand field-lengths away in her shattered body, she watched the mind-executioner—that demon —snatch her young charge from her side.
    Strength poured into her from the depths of the earth, from the wild patterns of her own blood. She stood. Somehow, she could see again, the gods and stars alone knew how. She sensed Johan at her side, his arm round her waist holding her upright, but her whole mind-attention was on Talus.
    Before she could do anything to stop him, the executioner drew something thin and bright from his belt and slashed once across Talus’ hair. Blood spurted upward and the boy slumped in Gelahn’s arms. Annyeke opened her mouth and screamed. She could feel the bones of her face pressing against her skin, a mirrored mockery of the undead soldiers of the battlefield, even now closing in on them. Her scream ended in a sob and she began to run, towards Gelahn.
    The next moment, something forced her to stop and she would have fallen, except for Johan ’s sudden shout and steadying hand. When she turned around, the Lost One stood behind her. He was more than simply Simon the Scribe now, though she could not understand how that could be. His flesh and face glowed green and he held the mind-cane before him like a sword. It was the emerald light that shone from it that had stopped her. He shook his head at her, stepping forward.

    Simon
    The time was now. He could sense it. The moment Ralph opened his fingers and dropped the emeralds into his waiting hand, the patterns inside him stopped their unstructured dance and slotted into place. At the same time, he could feel the heat of the Lammas Lord’s gaze as if it were the first time they’d ever looked at each other. Knowledge and pain, memory and grief, and something deeper, too.
    No matter. Everything then happened at once, as it always seemed to, he thought, in his encounters with the people of Gathandria. Gelahn snatched Talus from Annyeke’s side and split his young head open with his belt-knife. Annyeke’s answering scream, more rage than terror, pierced them all.
    Then the mind-executioner’s words, spoken to Annyeke, but meant, he knew, for him.
    Give me the emeralds you have made and the cane you have stolen, he said, and the boy will not have to die.
    “As you wish,” Simon spoke aloud, his words glancing like fire knives through the air. He sensed the dark lurch of Ralph’s confusion and the intake of breath from Johan. No matter. He strode forward, the mind-cane giving him the ability he needed. His thoughts were fizzing, as if an unseen fire of his own burned him from within. And he found he wasn’t afraid of the flames.
    There were harsher enemies and other shores of life to be afraid of, Duncan Gelahn, for one.
    When he reached Gelahn, the executioner smiled, but his eyes were wary. Simon thrust his free hand outward so Annyeke’s emeralds fell into the space between them. Green fire hissed and flared. The emeralds stolen by Gelahn sprang upwards from the executioner’s cloak, met their fellows in the air and roared into a circle of flame encompassing all three of them, the two men and the boy. Not just all three of them, but the intensity and colour of the Gathandrian stories, too. They pushed at his consciousness and his body, ideas and unspoken words beating like wings against his skin. Simon took a step back, had to fight against the urge to run. Where was his courage now? At the same time, the mind-cane touched Talus’ hair and the blood ceased its flow. The cane formed a link between Simon, the boy and Gelahn. Almost of its own accord, his other arm landed on the executioner’s shoulder so the scribe could feel the extraordinary power of his enemy’s skin under his fingers. All Simon could see was the green haze of heat and Duncan’s eyes.
    He knew Gelahn wanted to speak first and rejected that assumption, opening his mouth and allowing the words to frame the impasse between them.
    “ I will speak,” he said. “I will tell you a legend to end all legends and that tale will be mine and mine alone.”

    Annyeke
    She barely stood, half sagging, at Johan’s elbow. She could scarcely believe her eyes were her own again, though the memory of what she had done in the realm of dreams clung to her. With all her blood, she wanted to fight, and fight now, however bitter the end. But the