The Gathandrian Trilogy 03 - The Executioners Cane

give back the heat to our skin and the sky.

    As she began the song, the villagers around her grew quiet to pay their respects to those gods people rarely worshipped in these times, and perhaps also to better hear the words as Jemelda kept her voice low, nothing but a chanted whisper. At the last two lines however, Thomas’ gruff voice joined hers and doubled the blessing. It was fitting because blacksmiths were used to fire. It was their livelihood. Finally she had done as much as she thought was necessary and she laid her hand on Thomas’ shoulder.
    “Make the fire a good one,” she said.
    He made no answer but she thought he might have nodded. Her grip on him tightened for a moment before she let him go and he turned to take the fire-sticks from his belt. She saw him run his hand over them as if communicating in some way with the treated wood, and then she caught the flash of white teeth as he smiled. She thought it might be the first time she’d seen him smile since she’d found him again in the woods.
    The blacksmith spat on his hands and wiped them over the sticks. Then he took the final drop of fire-oil Jemelda had saved for him and brushed it over the wood also. She heard his muttered prayers as he rubbed the fire-sticks together. For a moment or two, she wondered if it would work, but of course it always did. The sparks came quickly and a tiny arrow of flame fell onto the field where it licked its way into a tongue of fire and began to spread along the trail of ashes and wood they had laid for it. Jemelda watched in wonder as the flames progressed. She had only ever used fire herself for baking or keeping warm but to see it used here as an act of destruction made her heart beat faster and her throat tighten. She didn’t know whether that was fear or elation, perhaps both.
    It didn’t take long for the ground and the soil beneath it to begin to burn. In her mind’s vision, Jemelda could almost see the corn seeds and the seeds of spare herbs scattered at the edges of the field turn to nothing but ashes and dust. The fire-oil knew how to sink deep into the earth and destroy everything it met, especially with the power of the prayers Thomas had muttered and the song she had sung.
    As the fire reached its height, the cook swung away and beckoned for her people to follow. The murderer would be dead by the winter-cycle end and that, by all the strange darkness that danced and rolled within her, was her solemn promise.

Seventh Gathandrian Interlude

    Annyeke

    She forced herself to stay alert, knowing she must not lose consciousness with the pain of the fire in her mind. The elders were rigid with the same pain; she knew it because of the echo, or rather the blast of it in her thoughts. The people were the same, and in those people the two she cared for most: Johan and Talus.
    As she whispered her husband’s name, she became aware of the grip of his hand on her shoulder where somehow in the midst of the chaos he had found his way to her.
    Thank the gods, she cried out in her mind and felt the mirror-sense of the words in his own. Then, as the horror deepened: Talus?
    With me, Annyeke, Talus is with me.
    At once she wrapped the net of her thoughts, sparse though it was in the heat and fire, around the boy’s mind and found Johan’s mind-net already there. The flames around Talus subsided and she caught the thought-sense of his cry which, under the circumstances, was stronger than she’d hoped. The elders and she had been the centre of the strange attack and, as a child, her charge had been lucky. She hoped the grown Gathandrians could, joined as they were, take care of themselves.
    Was this the work of Iffenia? If it was, then the Book of Blood had certainly helped her. In the middle of the crimson heat, Annyeke saw a flash of emerald. The Lammas jewels. For a heartbeat or two she wondered if someone could be travelling to them through the wild green passageway the emeralds were able to create, but she felt neither movement nor the punch of the borderline between their two countries. No, the green she saw was steadier and more contained. She needed to find out what it was and quickly.
    I can protect Talus for a while, Annyeke. You must discover it.
    She nodded her thanks at him, then making sure the net around the boy maintained its strength, she reached deep within her thoughts for the Lammas mark. It slipped through her fingers like launderer’s soap and she muttered a soft curse she hoped her