The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

first entered the kitchen-area becomes more pungent.
    Frankel coughs, but it is his wife who replies. “Perhaps. There is a hiding-place, my Lord, that you have sometimes passed by but do not know. At the well in the village, where you first encountered the scribe, there is a gap in the stone at the bottom, near the dead baker’s house. In the past, the villagers used to leave their messages to each other in a place where the soldiers would neither find them nor betray us. We do so no longer. We once had a life lived under the surface of Lammas, a life you and your kind have known nothing about until now. There was something in the power of the water that kept prying eyes away. The emeralds may be safer there than anywhere else. So. I have told you.”
    The cook is crying as she draws to a close. Frankel hugs her to him and murmurs soothing words. She takes her apron and wipes her eyes with it. Ralph does not know what to say and brushes his own hand upward over his face, trying to make sense of the way things have been amongst the people he is supposed to protect. Secrets and shadows. Has it always been like this?
    “Thank you,” he whispers at last. “Please believe me when I say that, if it lies in my power, I will not break your trust. By all the gods and stars we know.”
    Jemelda takes a long breath and looks at Ralph at last. She blinks and he can see the remaining glitter in her eyes, the tears as yet unfallen.
    She lifts her head higher. “So all men say. But the truth will come after.”
    She may have been going to say more, tease out further promises from him that Ralph does not know how to give beyond what he has already spoken on oath, but there is a sound like the roaring of a mighty wind outside and, a heartbeat later, the boy Apolyon bursts in. In spite of his leg, he is running and there is blood on his face.
    The cook gasps, reaches forward to take him in her arms, but the lad is already talking, each word spilling over its companions in order to be free. But what he says brings no freedom.
    “The dogs, the cruel d-dogs,” he stammers. “They are out of the castle, they are in the yard.”
    It is then that the wind becomes a howling. It is then that the terror starts.

Chapter Seven: The fires of chaos

    Annyeke
    Don’t go any nearer, Annyeke. It’s too dangerous.
    As Johan continued to hold Talus in his arms, Annyeke stared at the scene in front of her. His words filled her head, but she pushed them aside. She had to. Great flames consumed the Library, reaching up into the sky like mighty fingers tearing at the very fabric of the world. She could hear the Library’s keening in her thoughts, a sound like a dying animal. Without the books they held so dear, Gathandria would be only a fragile memory of what it should be. Without their stories, they would be all but lost to silence.
    Simon. She’d allowed Simon to come here, into this pit of fire. How could he survive such horror? She had to find him. She couldn’t leave him there.
    As Johan’s fingers grabbed at her arm , Annyeke leapt into the burning torrent. He screamed out words she couldn’t hear and a blast of flame drove him and Talus from her. She could no longer see them. Before the spikes of fear rising in her thoughts for her friends could overwhelm her, she landed with a thump on the searing heat of the Library floor. She gasped, scrabbling to get up before the fire could melt her flesh and her mind.
    Then one word. Wait.
    She didn’t recognise the voice, but it was full of all the voices she’d known from the past. Not real voices, but voices of legend and the stories her people told to make them grow—beneath it all, the voice of the Library.
    Because of that, and that alone, Annyeke held her ground.
    The fire licked over the shelves and manuscripts surged towards her but didn’t quite reach where she stood. She couldn’t catch her breath, grasping at the corners of her thoughts before her terror left her defenceless.
    What shall I do? The question spilled from her mind unbidden and the flame around her burst upwards with a roar. She covered her ears, knowing the gesture was hopeless, and felt the burning heat of her own skin. I ’ ll die here.
    No. You will live. Find the Lost One.
    The Library’s great voice was weaker now and she could barely hear it at all, even in her mind.
    Where is he? That is why I am here.
    I do not know , the Library replied. He has gone.
    Where? Annyeke was back on her knees. The small