The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

from him, also. Gelahn is still here, he would not leave without taking the wretched dogs with him, and he is using Ralph’s own so-called cunning to taunt him.
    Ralph scrambles upright, still cursing under his breath, and launches himself through the hall towards the ancient oak staircase and the bedrooms above. His breath comes in short gasps and he almost stumbles over the last of his own dogs. No time to stop. It is quicker this way than if he uses the passage’s outside entrance. He needs to see Gelahn now before he takes his vengeance on any of the people, if that is his plan. Ralph needs to try to explain, though he has no excuses.
    The executioner will see the emeralds. He will know how to mine them in full and any advantage Ralph has will be gone. How his father would cast Ralph out now if he could see what his son has done. All the Tregannons’ power and hope vanished in a tenth of the time his father took to build it. He was right about Ralph all along.
    At the door to the room Gelahn has taken, Ralph finally remembers the mountain dogs. Their howling wraps round him, snapping at his flesh. Gods and stars. But he cannot retrace his steps. He must see the mind-executioner and understand the shape of the landscape he must meet. To wait for Gelahn to reveal himself would be impossible.
    He might even be inside Ralph’s room now. He has no way of telling.
    Swinging round, he slams his fists on the wall and lets loose another guttural curse in his mother’s tongue. For a moment, the sound of his voice almost holds back the baying of the dogs. In that moment, and not caring what may come from his actions, Ralph opens the door and plunges inside.
    The darkness swallows him up. It nearly makes him stop, too, but he has sense enough not to do so. The mountain dogs are causing the darkness. They must be. It’s moving and he can see vague shapes appearing and disappearing within it. Red eyes, the flash of bare teeth, the husky tendrils of their breath, and always, always, the noise of them. Not simply the overpowering sound of pack dogs that makes the ear tingle when they’re on the hunt, but something meaner and more insistent, a baying that plunders the mind.
    He doesn’t know what to do now he’s here, and he wonders why he ever thought he could do this. His face is wet and his fists are clenched, but he’s still moving, across the room, towards the secret door. Now is not a good time to think about whether he can fit through the gap to the passageway quickly enough, or whether or not the emeralds are still there. It will be a strong magic, indeed, if they are. Already, he senses that Gelahn is not here or, if he is, he’s not showing himself—mocking Ralph’s attempts to confront him, no doubt, and watching his defeat with pleasure.
    The dogs are onto him now. They’ve caught the scent. He can see more glimpses of teeth and twenty-strong pairs of crimson eyes. Perhaps more. The nature of their howling changes, it’s more purposeful, they have a victim, by all the gods.
    If he dies, what will become of his people?
    He lunges at the wall just as the nearest mountain dog rips into his already injured leg. Blood spurts hot from his skin and he can’t help his scream. The first dog’s action is a signal for the others and they tear into him, cruel jaws fastening on arms, hair, body, whatever they can find. They’ll kill him here. He cannot defeat them.
    Please, please , his thoughts beg for mercy but there is no one to heed the plea. And, already, the dogs are beyond his body into his mind. In his last thought before the terror takes hold, Ralph understands to the full how Simon must have felt when he was fighting for his life on the mountain.
    Then all thought is obliterated as a torrent of blackness sweeps across him. Not just blackness though, but one interspersed with crimson and orange and silver, slashing at his mind like knives. Someone is whimpering. Ralph thinks it’s himself. All the aspects of his life he has held dear for so long—the position he has in the Lammas Lands, his family line, the riches, the responsibilities—are torn from his grasp and vanish in a howl of pure pain. In real hand-to-hand battle, he could fight this, but here he cannot. Here there is no time or ebb and flow of violence, but it all occurs at once and without respite. Ralph cannot tell how long the mountain dogs rip apart his thoughts with their cruel teeth and howling but, at some point, only the gods and