The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

already been eaten. He noticed the colours Annyeke had chosen for her surroundings—green and yellow—the same as he’d lived with in his sleeping area for the past two nights.
    It was then that he became aware of the atmosphere of calm around him, in spite of the mind-cane quivering at the edge of his vision. This feeling seemed to emanate instead from the stone walls around him. It gave him a sense of hope. When he glanced up, he saw she was smiling.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Gathandrian houses take on the mind-sets of those who live in them. I only wish I were that calm now. Forgive me. I didn’t mean to pry into your thoughts, but they were so clear.”
    The scribe wondered what the atmosphere of the place where he had lived back in Lammas might be. Cowardly and confused, no doubt. Little wonder she could read him so well.
    “No matter,” he said. “Johan does the same. Perhaps I’m an open scroll to all Gathandrians.”
    The mention of Johan’s name brought a slight blush to Annyeke’s face. A ripple of something from her mind drifted through his and, as if she’d suddenly shouted it, how things were with her became clear. Simon knew how love felt, and he reached out and patted her arm even as she was replying.
    “Even so,” she said, recovering her mental poise. “Even so, I should be more courteous. I’m not used to visitors, you see. And recently there’s been rather too much to think about, even for a woman.”
    The words were meant in jest, but Simon still nodded. He’d heard what the disgraced elders had said at Isabella Montfort’s burial, had an inkling of the kind of responsibility they’d given to Annyeke before they, like Johan, had vanished. It seemed beyond any one person’s capabilities. Now he could sense their presence in his companion’s mind, the facts of them almost overshadowing her, if such a thing were possible. Greatest of them all was the First Elder, the Day-Guardian of the Wine Lands, a man whom past sins and regrets had all but shattered. He had departed from the city to the distant place of healing where the cypress trees grew in abundance in order to try to save Gathandria with prayer. That much Simon could see, although he could not understand it. He had taken the remaining four elders with him, men skilled in glass-making, the carving of chairs, the nurture of gardens and parks, and one who knew the harmony of words and silence. They had gone together in order to meditate, leaving Annyeke alone. He did not envy her task.
    “What are you going to do?” he asked.
    Annyeke leaned back on her stool and brushed her hand through her hair. The gesture caused some strands to escape from her plait and she frowned. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what the elders meant, if I’m honest. Of course, we need to work together as a people, try to rebuild our strength and face Gelahn when he attacks us again. But if you ask me how in the gods’ names we’re going to do that, then I really don’t know. The elders left me no clues. But that doesn’t mean I won’t die trying, if I have to. ”
    Watching the determination flicker over her face and feeling the bright echo of it in his mind, Simon thought perhaps the elders had known exactly what they were doing. It also surprised him that she would dare to mention the mind-executioner’s name. Hadn’t Johan warned him against doing so, since it apparently gave their enemy an entry to the mind and a chance to ravage them? It was obvious things in Gathandria were changing but, without any personal sense of the land’s history, the scribe had no understanding of how much, or how dangerous those changes might become. But, right now, there were more urgent issues to face.
    “I hope we won’t have to die,” he said. “I’m a scribe, not a soldier. I was hoping things might be easier once I was here in your lands, but I can see, already, that’s unlikely.”
    If Simon had expected the frisson of distaste he was accustomed to from Johan when he expressed something less than enthusiasm for an act of bravery, his expectations were not fulfilled.
    Annyeke laughed.
    She stretched forward, gripped his shoulder and opened her mouth to speak as the door to the outside world was pushed open and someone who wasn’t Talus stepped onto the threshold.
    Johan.

First Lammas Lands Chronicle
    Ralph
    The castle of the Tregannons is no longer his home. He does not even need the gifting of a Sensitive to know this. Ralph’s few