The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

it. For now, we see the chaos his presence has brought amongst us here today. The Library is gone but the stories are not. We must grieve, but we must also hope. For our tales lie here around us, in the scattered scraps of parchment and manuscript the flames have not burnt away. They lie also in our memories and in our minds. Let us then use our stories to draw out the mind-executioner. Let us tell them to ourselves, to each other, and to our land and let Gelahn hear all our words, so he cannot deny the power of them. For why should we wait for a time that someone else will choose when we have the gift of making our own choice? Indeed, when we have finished with the tales that we know, let us start with those we hold within ourselves, the stories known only to our private minds. For it is in connection that we grow stronger, it is in our stories that we are most truly ourselves.
    There was more she wanted to say. But she knew the words would flow through the minds of the people of the city and there needed to be space and time enough for them to respond. So she waited.
    In the silence, she felt the touch of Johan’s hand on her shoulder and smiled her thanks at this small comfort. For Annyeke knew what she asked of the people was more than had ever been asked of them in all the generation-cycles of their history that had come before, more, indeed, than she had asked them to give her in her first words to them as Acting Elder. She was asking them to bring trouble to the land when for all their lives they had been lovers of peace, and when they were not ready for it. But when would they ever be prepared for what was to come? The truth of it pierced her as the sun pierces the morning mist at the time of the wine harvest. Perhaps all they could do was choose the timing. And, by the gods and stars and her own ingenuity, such as it was, she would do her utmost to ensure that was enough, or die trying.
    Even as these thoughts entered her blood, she could sense the gathering of the people’s response, more quickly than she had anticipated. At first, it was a slight trickle and then each answer gathered up another and another and another, singing their small streams into a mighty flood, greater and more powerful, and with such a depth of colour, green and yellow and blue, than she could ever have imagined.
    Annyeke opened her arms wide to receive the offering of the people, although the physical form of it was as light and insubstantial as a prayer. In her mind, however, its weight was vast.
    One thing then she knew—the act would have to be performed with temperance and with a steady heart, for the answer, in the end, was yes .

Sixth Lammas Lands Chronicle
    Ralph
    The howling of the dogs comes ever nearer. The kitchen-area is filled with dread. He can sense the dark shifting colours of it emanating from the cook, her husband and the boy—black, purple, brown.
    Ralph pushes the boy towards Jemelda and at the same time reaches for the pouch of emeralds she still holds.
    “Look after Apolyon,” he snaps out the words like small knives, and drops one of the precious jewels back into her palm. “This emerald will help protect you.”
    “My lord, where are you going? You can’t…”
    He pays her no heed. Already he’s pulling the curtain aside and half stumbling into the courtyard, ignoring the pain in his leg and still clutching the emeralds, hoping they might save him as he tries to draw the executioner’s dogs away, not knowing if they will. The icy air bites his skin and, pointlessly, he understands that today the snows will start for certain. The battle will be all the more bitter because of it.
    The dark howling of the dogs assaults all Ralph’s senses—not just his ears, but his mind also. He does not know if he can contain the noise. It brings with it madness and a strange self-destructive path he does not want to choose. And without warning, just when he thinks he can bear it no more, the wild barking rises to another level and he sees the first of them appear around the corner of the castle.
    The lead hound’s black shape ripples as it runs towards him, as if its very form is bleeding into the air or arriving from another element. Its teeth are bared and its red eyes are a fiery contrast to the dark. Ralph knows it has scented him. He does the only thing he can think of. He runs—away from the kitchen-area and towards the village. He sees the well in his mind and he flees to it.
    Impossible to get there.