The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

have gone,” Ralph pants when the man is done. “Help me there.”
    It is then he hears the screaming, and the howling of another wolf. He has been wrong and this new threat is surely the first one’s mate. His injuries be damned, Ralph begins to run.

    Jemelda

    She punched the wolf’s eye one more time, hardly believing the animal had even allowed her the chance to do it. Perhaps she might get away, she dared to think so. Then the wolf twisted away from her and sunk its teeth into her right arm. The pain snapped through her and she screamed. Even so, she became aware in the shadows of her vision that her people were running towards her, trying to help, putting themselves in danger.
    “Keep back, keep away!” she screamed but she didn’t know whether the words made any sense. She didn’t know whether she could be heard at all.
    The wolf released its hold upon her, rough paws scrabbling over her body, and went for her chest.
    It never got there, because something tall and heavy landed across her, making her cry out again. Whoever it was grabbed the animal by the neck and rolled away, landing heavily with the wolf onto the ground next to her. She gulped in pure air, the chill of it making her wince, and scrambled sideways, grabbing the beast by the tail and trying to ignore the shaft of pain in her arm as she did so.
    Just as she thought the wolf would never stop struggling and it might even overpower two people rather than simply one, she heard the shouts of the villagers louder than she had expected to hear them and she was dragged off her quarry. Jemelda blinked at the scene of near-devastation as a group of men and women, some her own and some of those who had refused to follow her, finished off the beast with rocks and branches. Soon it was nothing more than a bloodied mass of fur stretched across the ground and its eyes were lifeless.
    Panting she struggled up to a sitting position. Her unexpected source of help rose to his knees and she already knew by his cloak and the tilt of his chin it was Lord Tregannon who had saved her. Behind him, Thomas took a step back, clutching a rock he had used to destroy the wolf. She saw his fingers twist and by the way he glanced at her and then down at Tregannon she knew his intent.
    If her former Lord and master were dead, would the murderous scribe then be easier to kill? But her former master, whatever his faults, had saved her life. Without him, she would have had little chance, even with the power of the unknown Iffenia within her. She could not deny it. So for that reason alone Jemelda shook her head, and Thomas dropped the rock safely to the earth, although his brow darkened and she knew there would be answers to give the man. She rose to her feet as Tregannon’s men moved to surround her, pushing her people aside.
    It would not end like this, no matter the gods and stars. She would not allow it.
    “Do n’t touch me,” she said to them, her voice hoarse but the meaning entirely clear. “Or it will be the worse for you.”
    The men around her muttered and Thomas bent down to reclaim the rock he’d released only a few moments before. This time she let him do it.
    “Leave her be,” Tregannon said as he stood upright, swaying so one of his men rushed to his side to support him. His command still had enough power for the crowd around her to fall back. How she hated him for it.
    “You have no right to be here, Tregannon,” she spoke first, causing a ripple of surprise to flow through the people. Any conversation with the Overlords had to be started by them and those who came to them had to do nothing more strenuous than respond. Well, she had no patience with that, not any more. “You should be protecting your people and land, not destroying it. You should be joining with us, not pursuing us. Or perhaps that is what you have come to do, since you have saved me from the wolf? If that is so, I thank you for it, and rejoice in our combined efforts to drive the murderer out.”
    Tregannon took a step forward, his face pale, and he almost buckled in spite of leaning on the shoulder of one of his men. But somehow he kept his footing. He grimaced as he spoke.
    “Simon the Scribe is no murderer,” he said. “And if you are to accuse him, then you must also accuse me. Believe me, the pain of what I have done will live burning in my blood for the rest of the life, but Simon is not here to kill but to save us. If you join with us, Jemelda, with your people, then