The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

other strength, and there it will be most difficult for the murderer and his allies to find us, until we are ready for him.”
    She waited for a ripple of agreement, albeit reluctant, to flow through the small group and then she turned and began the journey, knowing in her heart the people would follow her. What other hope did they have?
    The path from the cave would lead them away from the village and round to the south-west, skirting the winter fields and the edge of the wood, but this would take longer. Something in her blood told her they needed to hurry. The jaggedness in her head drove her onwards. They would need the quicker way, though the depths of the trees, and the perils which lay there would have to be faced and overcome, by the gods and stars above. This, therefore, was the direction she took.
    “Wait!” It was one of the night-women who called her back. “We can’t go that way. It will be full of danger.”
    Jemelda nodded and stretched out her arms to her. “I understand, please believe me. But there is so much danger everywhere we look that a little more will be only as crumbs at a feast. Besides, Tregannon’s men and the murderous scribe will soon be seeking for us after last night and there will be more danger again. Yes, there are wolves in the woods, we have heard them often enough in the past when we slept safely in our beds. Those time-cycles have gone and, though there are wolves, we also have each other, and no wolf would attack a group of people. Provided we stay close, we will be safe enough. We do not have time to take the more secure route.”
    “But what about the unknown terrors in that part of the trees?” the woman persisted, and Jemelda shook her head.
    “Those are but legends,” she said softly, reaching out to take the woman’s cold hand in hers. “They have no truth in them. If they did, do you not think that whatever lies in the woods would have been roaming our land by now, with the real terrors and loss we have lived through?”
    The woman made no reply to this, and the rest were silent also, although some of the men shuffled their feet and glanced away. Jemelda herself wondered at her words. In the recent past, she had put good store by the legends and believed what many told her, but now her life was different and she could not be that woman again. She would never be so. Then something changed in the air and she understood the people had yielded to her.
    “Come,” she said softly. “Follow me, keep together and we will all be safe enough.”
    This time, she heard them follow and did not look back. Thus far had the power of what she had said brought them, and she was determined she would lose none of her people today, whatever they might face.
    As she walked, something puzzled at her mind, but she could not grasp it fully. It felt as if an unseen presence was nipping at her skin like a young puppy. She kept glancing around, half-expecting to glimpse a stranger alongside her on the path but there was nobody with them beyond those she already knew. Once, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a white flash in the undergrowth but when she looked fully there was nothing there. She was being foolish, and she had no time for fantasies. There was work to be done.
    Thomas stepped alongside her.
    “Did you see it, Jemelda?” he asked her. “The white streak tracking our every move.”
    “Yes,” she said, realising she should have paid more attention and focused more closely on the journey than the destination. Perhaps this was what leadership might be about, and for the first time she found herself feeling some sympathy for her former lord. Not enough though, not by many fields, oh no. “Yes, I saw it, but only a glimpse.”
    “It was like parchment,” Thomas said, eyes shadowed in the gloom. “Such as the murderer used to take for his stories, but nothing was written on it.”
    Jemelda shook her head. She could make no sense of what they had seen and therefore could not think on it. Still the jaggedness within leapt up in a flare of black and red, and she had to take several deep breaths to come to terms with the strange and rising sense of triumph.
    “No matter,” she said quickly. “If it does not harm us, there is no need to concern ourselves with it. In the end, it may even bring our purpose closer. Who knows?”
    Not waiting for any answer, she continued her journey with a greater confidence. Still, even though she had denied the power of the