The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

for long.
    “No, I need more but I don’t know what it is,” he said, the truth leaping from his tongue before he could fashion it.
    She cursed softly, then her eyes brightened. “What about yourself? Your own story will surely complete our defence.”
    “Yes, of course, thank you.” It was obvious now Annyeke had spoken and he blessed the gods and stars for her. He needed her wisdom. But when he concentrated on the shape and warmth of the cane in his palm and burrowed deep within himself for his own essence, it was not entirely what he had expected. A long moment of his own uncertainty and then something leapt out, framed green against the dark: acceptance .
    Simon smiled wryly. It made sense to him, but in the same heartbeat, he still understood it wasn’t enough. The story he had been chosen to create was missing the element that would make it sing and overpower any enemy raised against them.
    Just as he opened his mouth to say this to Annyeke and the people, the window shattered and the door was flung wide, bringing the emptiness in to them all.

Chapter Sixteen: The Power of Death

    Ralph

    The journey lasts only a heartbeat and it lasts forever. As the emeralds take them into the green void, Ralph feels as if his bones and blood are being sucked out of his skin. He cries out and his cries are blended into the screams and wild shouts of the soldiers and prisoners, the men and women he has tricked into this returning.
    He cannot see how they can survive it. Perhaps only the power of Simon’s mind-cane gives protection to this strange journey and that is as far from him as the earth from the sky. Still the emeralds belong to him and he’ll be damned if he lets them defeat him. As the air rushes from his throat, Ralph twists himself closer to the nearest sparkling jewel, still just visible in the rough and tumble of the dark, and tries to grasp it. He misses, grimaces at his failure and makes one last effort to hold the jewel in flight. Something heavy bumps into him and he catches a glimpse of the blacksmith’s face before the man is pulled away out of sight. But the encounter has helped him and when Ralph tries for the jewel again, it touches the end of his fingers and the next moment is in his palm with all the ease of a hawk returning to the glove.
    He feels the heat against his skin and can breathe again. Now he has the emerald, he does not know how to use it. He is a soldier not a magic-worker but he’ll have to do something.
    “Bring us safe to our journey’s end and let it be soon!” he shouts, foolishly, at an object that has neither ears nor sense.
    The stars alone know what happens next, but Ralph lands with a thump on rough soil, the breath leaving his body only seconds after he has regained it. At the same time, he hears the cries and groans of others landing around him. He struggles to his feet, recognises at once they are back home, in the village, as he prayed them to be. He is breathing hard, and reaches out to catch the remaining emeralds as they fall. The pain in his leg and from the recent attack by the wolf all but fell him again but he swallows down bile and glances round for his men, and Jemelda’s people. Because whatever happens now, it will happen here and with them all.
    He has hardly had time to wonder when Simon will come when his mind tells him the scribe is already here, in the night-woman’s dwelling. Neither is he alone. More than that, above and around the dwelling, a white mist hovers. He doesn’t know what it is but it makes him feel cold, as if the emptiness of the world has come down to haunt them.
    “Get up,” he shouts at the people around him, but his voice is no more than a whisper so he tries again. “Get up! We must find shelter.”
    His command echoes round the village street, and the men and women obey it as best they can. They pick themselves off the ground, both soldiers and rebels alike, and begin to half-run half-stumble towards the huts. He doesn’t know how much shelter they’ll find there but he prays to the gods it will be some. At the same time he grabs the man nearest to him and propels them both towards the night-woman’s house where the mist is thickest. His instincts tell him he has no time to see to the prisoners; here in the village they are somehow at war and he needs to regroup. The prisoners can wait. Now he must face the enemy, find out who, or rather what, he is fighting. And, by the stars, even if the enemy is insubstantial,