Hallsfoot's Battle (27 page)

In the silence after her outpouring, Ralph
finds his breath no longer comes easily to his throat. Some of the
anger in Jemelda’s eyes fades, though most remains. As she steps
away, he coughs, wipes his hand over his face and finds an
unexpected truth on his tongue.

“I’m sorry,” he says and means it. “I have
been wrong about many things. I don’t know if I can ever put it
right, but I want to try.”

Jemelda swallows, then lays the wooden
utensil down. Another long pause during which even the old man, her
husband, is still.

Then she nods. “Yes, I see you do. It is good
to find not all of your mother’s blood has been crushed from within
you.”

Ralph blinks. She speaks as if she knew his
mother, but that is impossible. At the same time, the old man
shuffles his feet on the flooring. Jemelda and Ralph turn to him as
if they are one. He is holding a beaker of water towards the
Overlord. Slowly, Ralph takes it. While he sips, the cook’s husband
stares at his feet.

“My name is Frankel,” he says.

The water tastes like honey in Ralph’s mouth.
It seems a long time since his thirst of any kind has come as near
as this to being quenched.

“Thank you,” he says, as formal as if he is
at a private dinner with one of his neighbouring Overlords. “May
the peace of all the gods and stars be with you, Frankel.”

Jemelda harrumphs, but she is smiling. Ralph
can see how her passions rise and fall like the making of bread,
but he thinks there is rightness in her, more so than there is in
himself.

“So then, Overlord,” she says. “What more has
happened that you come to us in this way?”

Ralph tells her as succinctly as he can.
While he talks, she tends to his wounds, bathing them in water and
laying an ointment he does not recognise on the worst of them. Its
scent is sharp, overpowering and it stings like the worst of the
wolf-nettles, but her touch is unexpectedly gentle. The two
servants already know of the mind-executioner’s arrival and have
heard the howling of the dogs in Ralph’s home. But they do not know
that Gelahn has vanished and the dogs are without a master. Neither
do they know of the emeralds, the strange powers they are said to
have. When he’s finished speaking, Jemelda stretches out her
hand.

“Show them to me,” she says.

Ralph takes the pouch from his belt but does
not let the emeralds go just yet. He simply stares at her. After a
few moments, she sighs and shakes her head, muttering something
about the Tregannons he chooses not to hear.

“Very well, then. If you please, sir, show
them to me.”

Against her gnarled brown skin, the emeralds
glow more brightly. She glances up at Ralph, eyes wide.

“They feel warm,” she says.

“Sometimes, yes. I don’t know why.”

“You think they have mystical powers? That
they can help us against the mind-executioner?”

“That is what family legends say. All my
father told me was that strength would come from them to the
pure-hearted when the time was right. That was all his father had
told him, and all the fathers before them. If we survive this and
if there is a future, perhaps I will one day tell my own son,
too.”

Jemelda laughs. “Did not the murderous scribe
spoil you for that, my good Lord?”

At the mention of Simon, Ralph springs to his
feet and paces away as best as he can until he reaches the other
side of the kitchen. He has to duck to keep clear of the low
ceiling. Once there, he finds he must steady himself on the
work-area again. It is sticky with spices.

“That doesn’t matter. All that is finished
and we must face the challenges set before us now. Whatever may
have taken place with Hartstongue, he has nothing to do with what
is happening here.”

“Doesn’t he?” the cook spits the words out as
if they are knives. “I thought he had everything to do with what is
happening here, and with you, whether you admit it or not.
And…”

“Jemelda.” Frankel’s quiet interruption and
the tone of admonishment in his voice stops the rising argument
threatening to erupt around them. Ralph is glad of it. He has no
wish to discuss Simon with his servants, nor anyone else for that
matter.

The cook subsides, but Ralph can sense the
crimson edge of all her unsaid words. They peck at his mind like
wild birds and he cannot shake them away. One thing he is sure of,
he could answer none of her questions about the scribe as he
himself cannot fathom it.

Without another word, Jemelda drops the
emeralds, one by one, into their pouch. With each small clatter, a
spark of green rises and melts into the air, leaving no trace.

“There are none pure-hearted in these lands,”
she whispers, “so what good can they do us?”

“I don’t know, but we will never know unless
we hide them from Gelahn.”

Frankel gasps and even Jemelda takes a step
back. The name of the mind-executioner is not usually spoken aloud
so easily, but Ralph finds he no longer cares what punishments may
be inflicted on him for the crime. Jemelda is the first to
recover.

“You think he will come back?” she asks.

“Yes, for the soldiers. My army has trained
well over the last year-cycle and Gelahn’s assault on Gathandria
will be based on physical attack rather than another mind-war.
After all, Simon now has the mind-cane.”

The memory of how Simon had used the cane on
the shores of Gathandria, the last sight Ralph had of him, sweeps
over him and, for a moment, he is unable to speak. Frankel looks as
if he might step forward, perhaps even offer help, but Jemelda
takes hold of her husband’s arm. May the gods and stars help him,
but Ralph cannot give in to this now. He wipes his mouth with the
back of his hand, tries to pull what little dignity he has around
him. No one can rely on a love-sick leader, especially one as
shamed and without hope as he is.

So he continues. “The scribe has the
mind-cane, and Gelahn needs our expertise. Even though much of the
army is dispersed now, or dead, I still have enough men he can call
on.”

“Where will they go, however? Who will they
fight?” This is from Frankel. It is the longest speech Ralph has
heard him say and the Overlord turns fully to him to reply, in
acknowledgement of that fact.

“He wishes to go to Gathandria. There he will
fight the Council of Elders and the scribe. They have no expertise
in hand-to-hand battles. Gelahn’s plan is sound. It is… I believe
it is what I would do in his circumstances. I would attack while
the enemy is weakest, before they have prepared a defence.”

“How will they get there?” Jemelda asks with
a snort. “If our enemy no longer has the power he is used to, the
journey will be long and many will die. Besides, no one in these
lands has travelled to Gathandria and returned, not for many
generation-cycles.”

“I have,” Ralph replies, and gives them time
to remember that fact.

Jemelda looks down at the floor. He knows
what she is thinking. And look what good that did us. But when she
speaks, she merely returns to the dilemma.

“Do you think you can hide your precious
emeralds here, then? Do you wish to bring all the wrath of the
cursed mountain dogs upon us, my noble Lord?”

“No.” Ralph takes the small number of steps
necessary to reach her—reach them both. Sweeping aside all his
ingrained habits, he grips her shoulders. “You are right. I do not
mean to bring any further injury upon any in my lands. I will not
do so. The problem I see, is mine and mine alone.”

With that Ralph lets her go. He catches the
glimmer of her untrammelled surprise in his mind. Turns to
depart.

It’s only when his fingers are on the
curtain, ready to push it aside and enter the morning, that Frankel
speaks.

“Please,” he says. “My wife and I both know
the problem rests with us all. But where can such jewels be hidden
where no enemy will find them?”

“I don’t know,” Ralph admits. “But I hoped
you might somehow have more secure hiding places than the castle.
There is no telling how long the emeralds can maintain the power to
hide themselves from Gelahn. If their magic dissipates, then I
would rather they do not lie so easily within his grasp.”

Jemelda hesitates and her reluctance to speak
drifts between them like a dark cloud. Beneath it Ralph glimpses
all the ways those beneath the Tregannons have kept their secrets
over the generation-cycles.

He swallows. There is more hidden in those
they brush against than can ever be told in all their stories. “We
don’t have much time, Jemelda. Don’t you think the matters of
tradition we cling to might be set aside for a while?”

A long silence. He can hear the faint chirrup
of the birds outside, and the smell of yeast that he noticed when
he first entered the kitchen-area becomes more pungent.

Frankel coughs, but it is his wife who
replies. “Perhaps. There is a hiding-place, my Lord, that you have
sometimes passed by but do not know. At the well in the village,
where you first encountered the scribe, there is a gap in the stone
at the bottom, near the dead baker’s house. In the past, the
villagers used to leave their messages to each other in a place
where the soldiers would neither find them nor betray us. We do so
no longer. We once had a life lived under the surface of Lammas, a
life you and your kind have known nothing about until now. There
was something in the power of the water that kept prying eyes away.
The emeralds may be safer there than anywhere else. So. I have told
you.”

The cook is crying as she draws to a close.
Frankel hugs her to him and murmurs soothing words. She takes her
apron and wipes her eyes with it. Ralph does not know what to say
and brushes his own hand upward over his face, trying to make sense
of the way things have been amongst the people he is supposed to
protect. Secrets and shadows. Has it always been like this?

“Thank you,” he whispers at last. “Please
believe me when I say that, if it lies in my power, I will not
break your trust. By all the gods and stars we know.”

Jemelda takes a long breath and looks at
Ralph at last. She blinks and he can see the remaining glitter in
her eyes, the tears as yet unfallen.

She lifts her head higher. “So all men say.
But the truth will come after.”

She may have been going to say more, tease
out further promises from him that Ralph does not know how to give
beyond what he has already spoken on oath, but there is a sound
like the roaring of a mighty wind outside and, a heartbeat later,
the boy Apolyon bursts in. In spite of his leg, he is running and
there is blood on his face.

The cook gasps, reaches forward to take him
in her arms, but the lad is already talking, each word spilling
over its companions in order to be free. But what he says brings no
freedom.

“The dogs, the cruel d-dogs,” he stammers.
“They are out of the castle, they are in the yard.”

It is then that the wind becomes a howling.
It is then that the terror starts.

Chapter Seven:
The fires of chaos

Annyeke

Don’t go any nearer, Annyeke. It’s too
dangerous.

As Johan continued to hold Talus in his arms,
Annyeke stared at the scene in front of her. His words filled her
head, but she pushed them aside. She had to. Great flames consumed
the Library, reaching up into the sky like mighty fingers tearing
at the very fabric of the world. She could hear the Library’s
keening in her thoughts, a sound like a dying animal. Without the
books they held so dear, Gathandria would be only a fragile memory
of what it should be. Without their stories, they would be all but
lost to silence.

Simon. She’d allowed Simon to come here, into
this pit of fire. How could he survive such horror? She had to find
him. She couldn’t leave him there.

As Johan’s fingers grabbed at her arm,
Annyeke leapt into the burning torrent. He screamed out words she
couldn’t hear and a blast of flame drove him and Talus from her.
She could no longer see them. Before the spikes of fear rising in
her thoughts for her friends could overwhelm her, she landed with a
thump on the searing heat of the Library floor. She gasped,
scrabbling to get up before the fire could melt her flesh and her
mind.

Then one word. Wait.

She didn’t recognise the voice, but it was
full of all the voices she’d known from the past. Not real voices,
but voices of legend and the stories her people told to make them
grow—beneath it all, the voice of the Library.

Because of that, and that alone, Annyeke held
her ground.

The fire licked over the shelves and
manuscripts surged towards her but didn’t quite reach where she
stood. She couldn’t catch her breath, grasping at the corners of
her thoughts before her terror left her defenceless.

What shall I do? The question spilled from
her mind unbidden and the flame around her burst upwards with a
roar. She covered her ears, knowing the gesture was hopeless, and
felt the burning heat of her own skin. I’ll die here.

No. You will live. Find the Lost One.

The Library’s great voice was weaker now and
she could barely hear it at all, even in her mind.

Where is he? That is why I am here.

I do not know, the Library replied. He has
gone.

Where? Annyeke was back on her knees. The
small sanctuary around her strained at the edges, flame pummelling
its invisible barrier. It couldn’t last long.

With the Nameless One.

For two heartbeats, she didn’t understand
what the Library meant. Then she glanced up, shielding her eyes
from the overwhelming heat, and saw that the nearest segment of
fire had reached the most ancient of the manuscripts stored here,
the ones that spoke of the ancient enemy, he who had no name.

It must be the mind-executioner. He had been
in the Library, he had taken Simon. How had he got there without
any of them knowing? Had something drawn him here and, if so, what,
or who? As she screamed, her small area of protection exploded and
the fire swept in. At the same time, something silver and solid
black pierced her mind. She had no idea what it might signify as,
with a terrible sound somewhere between a roar and a groan, the
great Library of Gathandria finally collapsed. Stones flew
outwards, sparking with fire, and the shelves tumbled down around
her. Annyeke understood then that she was going to die. Still, she
did not.