The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

trembling.
    “Wh-What’s wrong?” Simon stuttered. “What’s happened?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. But…”
    She remembered the land, its harmony, the way she and all Gathandrian children learned their legends, how they learned to be themselves. And then she understood the way to communicate their truths to this man.
    “That’s it.”
    “What? What is it, Annyeke?”
    “The song of the land,” she sprang to her feet and hurried round the table to grasp his arm. He stared up at her, the frown easing away. “That’s how your training will commence, and how you will learn about the Spirit. It’s how we all learn when we’re young. There’s no reason not to use those same methods with you now. Gathandria has a harmony of its own, something ancient born before any of the land itself. It’s what was lost during the wars with Gelahn, but when you and…and Johan started your journey here, the harmony began to return, our plants and flowers, too. But very, very slowly. Even now there is another leaf on the lemon tree in my garden, and small signs of others, but no more. So there is hope. Perhaps that’s where we have to start.”
    However, as she spoke the words, Annyeke felt the impossibility of what she was trying to convey. Was she right? Or was it simply desperate optimism overcoming practicality? It might well be beyond the scribe to learn something which took the whole of a Gathandrian childhood to learn. How could she…?
    The snow-raven stretched its wings and flew towards them. A heartbeat’s panic before he landed on the table, his right wing brushing against Annyeke’s face. She shivered. The bird gazed at her, opened its beak and spoke forth a single crisp note that somehow brightened the day.
    She squared her shoulders. Yes , she thought, I’m right. This is how it must be.
    Taking her chair, she drew it up to sit next to Simon. He blinked at her and she saw his lips tighten. She reached out towards his forehead and he flinched.
    “You’re going to join your thoughts with my mind, aren’t you?” he said.
    Her turn to blink now. “It’ll be easier that way, Simon. You’ll see more clearly what I’m trying to tell you.”
    He sighed. “Yes, I know. It’s what Johan says, and I suppose it’s what I know, too, in my heart. Believe me, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t know you as well as I came to know Johan before our minds touched. I understand I’ve heard a story in your way before—told one, too—but sometimes I wonder if things would be simpler if I could just hear the words out loud. I’m a scribe by trade, not just a mind-dweller. When you speak, I can hear the words in my blood, too, almost as if I’d written them myself.”
    She brought her hand back to her side and watched the tension fade from the scribe’s face. She thought about what he had said for a few moments. No more time than it took for two strangers to establish a viable mind-link together. Joining one Gathandrian’s thoughts to another’s was a simple act here, one nobody questioned. It was part of their heritage—as easy as eating or drinking, and as enjoyable, too. It was a way of explaining things at a deeper level. But perhaps other people, other lands did not think like that? She herself had never travelled beyond the city. Perhaps, then, her understanding, like Simon’s, was limited, but in another way.
    “All right,” she said. “I’ll only use words. I’ll tell you the first Gathandrian legend out loud, although the song cannot be replicated outside the mind. It is beyond the voice, certainly beyond my voice. If you agree to that, of course, and if you’re ready for it by then?”
    Unexpectedly, he smiled. “You’re very different from Johan.”
    “Oh?” Annyeke shook her head, trying to keep up with this sudden change of direction. “In what way?”
    “He would have persuaded me to do it, in the most courteous manner, of course. Convinced me his way was the only way. It’s nice to see another side to Gathandrians. Perhaps my White Lands blood isn’t entirely bad, after all.”
    Trying not to smile at her companion’s astute assessment of the man she loved, Annyeke only dared a brief response.
    “Perhaps it is not,” she said. Then, “the first Gathandrian legend and song is a tale of fortitude and lust. It is this:
    *****
    “Many generational cycles ago,” Annyeke said, “all the lands were dark. There was no Gathandria, no Lammas Lands, nor