The Gathandrian Trilogy 02 - Hallsfoots Battle

“Show me the jewel.”
    A heartbeat later, Gelahn placed the jewel into his hand. Simon felt its warmth and colour spread through his skin. Not in the way the cane did, but with gentleness. For a moment or two, he forgot to breathe and when he looked up again, he almost expected to see the Lammas Lord himself, not the executioner.
    “Ah, I see,” Gelahn said. “This belongs to Ralph. That is helpful, thank you. Still, it is amusing you cleave to him at your centre, even though he was willing to kill you for what he wanted more truly.”
    Cursing his own openness to this man, Simon felt fire rising on his skin. He closed his fingers around the green jewel and took a step back. “How is it you claim to know all about me and yet you have not been able to understand that fact until now? I cannot see you would have been holding back such knowledge to spare my humiliation.”
    “Perhaps you have only just recognised it yourself, Simon. And why would I humiliate someone who is working with me? Besides, when all is said, Lord Tregannon matters nothing to either of us. When Gathandria is safe, we will have power and friends enough to fulfil all our needs. And, believe me, the time of fulfilment is sooner than even I anticipated.”
    “Because of the dogs?” Simon asked and Gelahn nodded.
    “Yes. But not only them. Because of your bird and this jewel, also.”

    Annyeke
    She had spent well over an hour-cycle picking up what remains she could find of the great Library’s manuscripts, with the women following on behind her. She could feel the hum of their thoughts, a rainbow of colours. It seemed to mesh together in the icy air that held within it the certainty of snow. Not that this idea was easy work. Oh, no. Not that anything to do with Gathandria was easy work these day-cycles. When had it stopped being simple? Annyeke could no longer remember. So she carried on, bending down, letting her fingers guide her to where their story treasures lay hidden amongst the debris. Each time she found what she searched for, a flash of deepest green would fly between her hand and the damaged parchment. Heart beating fast, she would retrieve what she could and then add it to the three stacks she and the people were in the process of building up. This consisted of the ancient stories, then those of more recent origin and, finally, the stories some of the people had written in the last generation-cycle. Annyeke had intended initially to separate them into categories according to story contents, but something in her blood had refused to make so arbitrary a division. Life in Gathandria and its neighbours was made up of many parts and she was determined not to be the first elder, acting or otherwise, who declared that was not so. Once they had salvaged what they could, they could begin to create their own defences and methods of attack, using both the written tales and those living only in their minds, for the mind-executioner was not the sole Gathandrian who could face and manipulate the fighting of a battle.
    Still, she wished Johan were here. He’d started off following her lead but, in the end, the wild patterns of his thoughts had given her no option but to stop and let him go to the park land and his interrupted battle training where it was obvious he would rather be. He wanted to try something different, he’d told her, to work with the people to create weapons forged from the mind that also existed in the physical realm. She hoped he would be successful for all their sakes, although such a feat had never been achieved in many generation-cycles, but was the stuff only of legend. Nevertheless, she, like him, was determined to try everything possible while they still lived. No doubt, very soon they would need every iota of cunning and strength they could find. Talus had gone with him without even a backward glance, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to be angry at that. Gathandrian men were, in her experience, usually better suited to active pursuits than they were to the collation of their people’s stories.
    She must stop thinking about Johan. She had far more important things to do.
    Standing up, she shaded her eyes against the last rays of the sun and gazed at the clouds. There would be snow, and soon. The puzzle of it filled her mouth with purple. Would that fact work to their advantage or their disadvantage? Both they and the mind-executioner were used to the extremes of their country’s weather, but neither of them