Hallsfoot's Battle (40 page)

Not turning round for fear of what Gelahn
might do, she straightened her shoulders and tried to make herself
taller. A thankless task.

“What have you done with the women?” she
asked him. “Those who came with me to this field of death? And what
have you done with Iffenia?”

The executioner smiled and gestured with his
hand so Annyeke saw he held small emeralds in his grip that made
the air around them a shifting green. “Some of your women are dead,
and some are not. Either way, it is no matter. It is as the Spirit
of us all decides. Iffenia is no longer here, but she will return
in a time and a time for you, after a fashion. Her hatred and
despair have been useful to me and it will not be forgotten. But
even if all are dead, they could not reach us now, for the end of
battle, the time talked of in all our legends, has begun.”

She heard someone groan. She thought it was
herself. A light touch on her arm and she glanced around to see the
Lost One. His eyes were wide and he was panting as if he’d been
running for a long, long time. Perhaps he had.

I’m sorry.

Annyeke didn’t know if he was sorry for what
was happening or what was to come, but she nodded, anyway. Tears
filled her eyes at the understanding that she had brought some of
her companions here only to die, but still she did not turn round.
She refused to ponder on what the executioner had said about
Iffenia. Although her heart was beating fast and she could not
glimpse a small fraction of what might come, she knew she had to
stand her ground, for what it was worth.

“You did not have to kill those who would not
have been a threat to you,” she whispered, the pain at the side of
her head where the mind-cane had hit her beginning to throb. “Your
quarrel is with the leaders of our city and, therefore, only with
me.”

Gelahn laughed. She didn’t like the
sound.

“Oh, yes,” he said, his tone cool and
mocking. “Our revered elders are so busy with their own regrets
that they put an untried girl in charge and expect her to be enough
to stop me, when I have planned this for years, dreamed up every
scenario in my head while enduring the tortures your people’s
leaders subjected me to. Did you think I wouldn’t have thought of
you? When I had all the time in the land to think of everything,
even the Lost One himself?”

With that, the mind-executioner flicked the
cane in Simon’s direction. A tongue of silver flame exploded in the
space between the two men, heading towards the scribe. Annyeke
cried out a warning but there was no need. The Lost One put up his
hands in an attempt to provide protection but the fire had already
stopped. It hovered next to his face, almost licking his skin but
not quite. Annyeke could see the sweat on his forehead, the way his
body shook.

Her eyes flickered back to Gelahn. Had he
meant to kill the scribe? What would he do now, and who would he
destroy? But, to her surprise, the executioner was smiling.

“Yes,” he said, talking as if only to
himself, but his words were clear to her, written in crimson across
the air and snow. “Yes, for now the threat can be made, but it
cannot be completed. The Spirit and the mind-cane are still
waiting. There is more to be done.”

His words shook Annyeke out of her
inactivity. Yes, there was more to be done. And before the
executioner did whatever it was he was going to do, she wanted to
make her mark also. Before she even knew such an act had been
decided, she launched herself towards Gelahn while he gazed at the
shifting white flame, and tumbled him to the ground. For one wild
moment, she felt his surprise flooding through her thoughts and
then a knife hit her mind again and she screamed, falling backwards
and scrabbling at her face to try to ease the pain.

Let her go. Please. She is not your enemy.
I-I beg you.

The words from the Lost One spun between
them, forming a net to keep the worst of the attack at bay and
giving her a ledge of thought to cling to before she was lost
entirely in the stormy seas. She clung to it as best she could,
cursing her own foolishness. This battle was not one of childish
gestures, it had to be fought from the depths and maturity of the
spirit.

The air around her mind grew still and she
could sense no familiarity there. Then, just as suddenly as it had
appeared, the pain vanished and she opened her eyes to find herself
lying sprawled on the ground looking up at Gelahn. The flame still
hovered and she could see that Simon had not moved, although he
leaned forward as if to spring to her defence, which he had already
done, indeed. Her fingers spasmed and she felt the warmth from the
stories she had held easing over her palms.

“The scribe is right,” the mind-executioner
said. “You are not the enemy I must fear most. You are nothing but
a witness to my glory. And there are others who must also witness
me. Look, they are already here and the preparation is almost
done.”

A sudden rush of wind and wings above her and
something heavy knocked her down, leaving her scrambling on the icy
earth and out of breath. For a moment, she had no idea what it was
and then the sense of his nearness washed over her.

Johan.

From instinct, Annyeke grabbed him, trying to
see if he was harmed. Her fingers felt the heat of blood on his
face and side, and her skin turned clammy and cold. Johan.

At his side, she saw a curved sword, as
bright as the midsummer cycle or a burning star in the darkest
night. It was there at his belt, powerful and deadly, but also not
there. A mind-sword, she thought. He succeeded in what he sought,
then, for Gathandria. This is how they had been fighting.

At the same time, at her side she heard the
Lost One’s indrawn breath and his mind’s cry. Ralph. The sound of
it filled her thoughts with a river of sparkling blue that just as
quickly vanished. However, she continued to feel the shakiness of
the scribe’s mind in hers. Gelahn’s laughter punctuated her
defences and she staggered to her feet as the sound of flapping
wings, a faint tremor above the continuing noise of war, drifted
away. The snow-raven must have brought both men from the heart of
the battle to here. She needed to know why but, whatever happened,
she was determined to face it standing. A moment later and she felt
Johan’s frame slip next to hers. A glimpse sideways showed her the
jagged gash on his face, the blood already congealing. He was
breathing hard and holding his side. She couldn’t see where the
Lost One or the Lammas Lord were, and didn’t dare look. She wanted
to keep her eyes on Gelahn who watched them, head slightly cocked
towards the battlefield as if listening to a sound or a voice only
he could hear. Her heart skipped a beat. He gripped the mind-cane,
twisting it in his hands and then he stretched his arms wide and
laughed. It was then that her body, her mind, all that she was
tumbled headlong into the dark.

Duncan Gelahn

He stretches his arms out wide as the
mind-cane bucks and begins to sing. In his gaze and in the net of
his thoughts, he can see the four companions the great bird has
brought to him. First, the Lammas Lord. He is no threat to him.
Indeed, the Lammasser’s mind is barely discernible. The only power
he has is his ancient connection to the emeralds, but Gelahn
possesses them and knows their strength. Secondly, Johan Montfort,
his face scarred from the fighting, his body and will on the brink
of collapse. The mind-executioner senses his anger and also his
weakness. He sees how these two men are here, part of the final
victory he will win only because of the people who love them most.
Simon the Scribe, the Lost One. The bringer of power. He will use
that power well and then the scribe’s meaning will be lost. The
Lost One and the Lammas Lord can die together. And Annyeke
Hallsfoot with her courage and her foolishness. She is the one
about whom Gelahn knows least. Her mind is shadowy to him,
something he cannot quite grasp. A gift she has that he cannot
overpower? No, the Spirit has told him failure is impossible, so
the red-haired woman is no threat to him.

These promises and this knowledge flood
through his head as his arms stretch wide. He opens the palm of his
hand where the emeralds sit and allow them to form the circle of
green. For he knows it will take them to the place where all things
will be decided, to where, indeed, all things and all stories that
cling to them began. The heart of the great Library of Gathandria,
the place where the Spirit dwells most in the land.

Annyeke

At the very last moment before the circle of
green enfolded them into its sparkling light, Annyeke heard a sharp
cry and felt the curve of small fingers in her palm. Talus. She had
no idea how he’d managed to get through the sweat and press of
battle to reach them, but she knew whatever danger he might have
faced there could not be one iota as terrible as what the
mind-executioner had in mind.

She tried to fling him away from her, outside
the spinning green, but he clung on, and in any case it was already
too late. The six of them—Gelahn, the Lost One, Ralph, Johan, Talus
and herself—were flung upwards into the air as the circle began to
spark and roar, and the sound of a mighty wind filled Annyeke’s
ears.

Then she was spun round until she no longer
knew the direction of the sky or earth, and the greenness flooded
through her mind and skin. All she could do was clutch at Talus and
hope this wild journey was soon over.

Annyeke landed with a thud on something hard
and cold. As she opened her eyes, she saw the green circle had
vanished and the snow which had been falling for hour-cycles had
now turned to sleet. Somehow, on this day when everything was
changing so fast, and only for the worst, that fact did not
surprise her.

Neither did it surprise her that they had
landed in the centre of the ruined Library. She saw the broken
shelves, the shattered stories half obliterated in the snow, felt
the emptiness where the spirit of the books should be. Struggling
to her feet, she brushed back her hair with one hand and shoved
Talus behind her with the other. Her heart raced. The
mind-executioner was already standing. His face was as calm as if
he’d gone through nothing more strenuous than a summer stroll in
the park land. The cane was quivering, glowing silver and a deeper
shade of black, in his grasp.

As she opened her mouth to speak, though only
the good Spirit knew what she might want to say, Gelahn raised the
cane and a spear of silver light flashed from its carved top
through her flesh, blood and thoughts.

Annyeke screamed as all the sensations of
pain and terror she had ever known ripped through her
consciousness. Then she felt nothing.

Simon

The scribe opened his eyes just in time to
see Annyeke fall, silver sparks leaping from her skin and hair. He
saw Talus beside her, reaching out, and snatched the boy, holding
him back as the fire from the cane hissed and sang. The effort made
him sink to his knees, and the sound of the mind-executioner’s
laughter filled his head. All the hopes he’d had somehow to find
the chink, the vulnerable point of the mind-executioner’s plan, and
to turn his victory around on itself, vanished away, if they had
ever been there. He should not have pretended to agree to Gelahn’s
requests. As he had already acknowledged, he’d been a fool to think
he could ever trick a Gathandrian so versed in the art of deceit
and the legends’ mysteries.

Panting hard, he turned to face his enemy,
and knew in an instant his mind was as open to Gelahn as a
cloudless day. The executioner laughed.

“No,” he said. “I am not your enemy, Simon
Hartstongue, for all your wishing it so. Not yet at least.”

While he spoke, Simon heard someone groan
and, a moment later, Johan staggered to his feet, taking several
faltering steps towards Annyeke who continued to lie across the
Library’s broken stone slabs without moving. Gelahn took no notice
as Johan fell onto the ground beside her, leaning forward and
whispering her name as his hands stroked the hair from her
face.

Trying to ignore them both and to turn his
thoughts aside from the silence that lay behind him where Ralph’s
mind should have been, the scribe continued to stare straight at
Gelahn. He couldn’t stop the shaking of his body, though, and
cursed once more his own weakness.

“You don’t have to harm her,” he whispered.
“Why do you need to when the power and victory in this bloodied war
are so obviously yours?”

From the corner of his vision, he saw Johan
gather the still motionless Annyeke in his arms and press her
against his chest, moaning. Talus gave a low cry and tried to pull
away, but Simon held on. Gelahn grimaced and swung towards Johan
and Annyeke, lifting the cane upwards. The green glow from the
Tregannon jewels flowed over it.

The scribe almost ceased to breathe. Whatever
the mind-executioner did next, he knew from somewhere deep inside
him that Annyeke couldn’t survive it. No. Not another death. He
would not—could not—allow it.

He stretched out his hand even as the cane
flashed emerald and silver in the dying afternoon light. Without
warning, his thoughts seemed to leap to meet its brightness even
though he still remained kneeling on the rough broken flooring. He
sensed rather than heard Ralph’s sudden awakening, a lurch in the
channels of his mind where the connection of memory was stored. For
a heartbeat or two he was flying. In his own mind, not in the
reality of the city’s destruction, in the vast rivers and plains of
thought, he was caught between silver and green and black and the
colours danced and fused within him. Music flared from his blood
and the notes were more than honey in his mouth.

When he breathed again, he was back in the
Library, facing destruction and the curse of the endless death, but
something had changed.