One group, a million differences, and she perhaps the most different of all. She knew what they said about her behind her back, of course. Every negative thought within their brains crackled out upon waves of empathy to the receivers in her own mind. Chief among these was, as ever, distrust and fear. They, like all other non-Dhracus, believed she was too perfect, ‘the ultimate being’. But in truth, all Dolen Catscaul cared about was how best to get on with her friends.
Needless to say, she knew the real reason why the Dhracus were so shunned by other races; that singular, undeniable fact, that terrible secret of her kind, that underlay every single mean little thought, opinion, or negative reaction of the non-Dhracus, and gave shape to all their –
What the Frigg was that? ‘EGGLEDAWC!’ she cried as her brain was engulfed in terror and blood, and her stomach lurched with a leaden weight of nausea. Instantly the entire camp leapt to its feet as the Dhracus’s screech split the air.
During the first few seconds that followed, many things happened at once. The wind-tossed bracken appeared to sprout several howling warriors that charged down upon the camp with cries that stopped the heart. In his shock Brecca the Stone Hauger stumbled and knocked over the kettle, sending a hissing plume of steam right into the faces of his three companions. An arrow thudded into Klijjver’s huge pauldron, throwing him staggering back with its force. Weapons were snatched up, orders were bellowed. The enemy warriors leapt into the camp, and another arrow struck Klijjver, this time directly on his iron cap, snapping the giant’s head back and sending him sprawling upon his back.
Then, during the next few seconds, other things followed. Khurghan’s double-bladed haladie spun through the air towards the tallest attacker, struck his bastard-sword with a steely ringing that echoed around the valley, and showered orange sparks down upon his black hood before wheeling around in an erratic arc and returning to the gloved hand of its wielder. Hlessi meanwhile tripped over his net in his haste to flee from the largest warrior. Cerddu-Sungnir threw down his crossbow in frustration and stood his ground with his battle-axe. By now, Dolen had both her knives out, and was still screaming relentlessly.
Then Eorcenwold planted his feet firmly on the ground and brought up his blunderbuss. ‘THAT’S ENOUGH!’ he roared, and everything went silent, as quickly and as suddenly as it had started.
Finwald hesitated, as next did Wodeman. Then all was still. Nobody moved. Not a word was uttered. Even the conjured-up wind lost its force and died; the voices within it echoed off into the distance with a final sputtering cackle, and, as it went, so the unnatural closeness and humidity descended in full upon the land. Nibulus, once again, found himself staring down the bore of Eorcenwold’s blunderbuss.
His eyes bulged madly in his meaty face, glaring in hatred at the thief before him. As sweat poured down his neck under the increasing heat, he cursed vehemently at another stand-off. Again, again, it had all gone wrong. The Dhracus woman’s warning call had robbed him of the element of surprise; the thieves’ panic had been cut through by their leader’s voice, and they now held their ground. Bolldhe, for some reason, was still holding onto his prisoner; and the natural reluctance and tardiness of the non-warriors in the band of Aescals had helped lose them the initiative. They had once again failed him.
Damn the day I ever brought them! he cursed to himself. Why couldn’t I have had a company of real soldiers? Men I could order! Pel’s Balls, even this ragged band of brigands obey their lord with instant obedience! What wouldn’t I do for a voice like that . . .
‘Right,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Decision now. Fight or run?’
He glanced around him for a second. Cerddu-Sungnir had gone back to furiously re-loading his crossbow; Hlessi had regained his net and was moving forward slowly, growling horribly; Cuthwulf and Alledryc had taken up positions on either side of their brother.
Then the twang of Kuthy’s bow could be heard from the top of the hill behind him. But by the time the sound reached them all, the arrow had already been casually deflected by Dolen’s lefthander parrying dagger as she slowly advanced upon Bolldhe.
Finally, a deep wheezing noise could be heard, like a bison coughing in the chill of early morning. Klijjver hauled his metal-shod bulk unsteadily to his feet, blinked dumbly, then noticed the two arrows embedded in his shoulder-plate and helm. He took hold of them firmly and yanked them free. There was no trace of blood. He then came on with maul and bhuj in hand, and his comrades laughed evilly.
Again, Nibulus deliberated: fight or run? He had not quite decided which one it might be, but at least he now knew it was not going to be fight. Paulus and Wodeman drew closer to the Peladane, waiting for his signal. Nibulus opened his mouth to give the order, but unexpectedly it was Finwald’s voice that cut through the silence:
‘The sword!’ he cried. ‘Give us the sword you stole! Give it to us, and we will trouble you no more.’
The thieves muttered together in incomprehension, then Bolldhe’s voice came down from the slope. Still holding onto the frozen form of his captive, he translated Finwald’s words into the thieves’ own cant. His voice, however, sounded strange – croaking weakly, tremulously, almost as though on the point of hysteria.
Only the Dhracus was close enough to hear what he said. Without even a split-second’s vacillation she sprang away from Bolldhe, wove through the thieves in a blur and, before anyone could stop her, had snatched the flamberge from a pile of baggage lying at the base of the knoll. Oswiu roared in fury and lunged after her, but Flametongue was back in the hands of a very startled Finwald before she could be halted.
‘Zikih oi’dhnap, Egeildehwc-kiewha!’ she demanded, now striding back towards Bolldhe with both knives in her hands. Finwald, meanwhile, sprinted back up the slope without so much as a backwards glance. Oswiu started to leap after him but, at a word from Eorcenwold, Cuthwulf barred his way with his poison voulge. The two brothers glared at each other, but made no further move.
Nibulus very swiftly appraised the situation, then wordlessly bade Paulus and Wodeman to back off alongside him.
Dolen, meanwhile, had approached Bolldhe and stopped just a few yards from him. Her face was like murder: an inhuman, alabaster mask of iron will and domination, her eyes fixing Bolldhe’s like a snake’s. He was still holding Eggledawc before him like a shield, the dirk held to his throat. Eggledawc kept absolutely rigid, not daring to move even his eyes.
‘Egeildehwc-kiewha!’ she repeated her order, and a red halo began to glow around her black irises like a poker thrust into a fire, or an eclipsed supernova. Bolldhe appeared transfixed, unable to release his prisoner to her. Choking amid shuddering breaths, he kept staring with insane fear at the Dhracus, as though she were the Angel of his Death.
But despite his terror (which was only in part due to the fear-effect of Dolen’s magical misericord) Bolldhe was himself once again, no longer that child.
Suddenly the mask of Dolen’s menace melted into an expression of utter puzzlement. She cocked her head to one side, and was still. Her breathing faltered. One trembling white hand reached tentatively forward. Then her whole mind went forth with it and entered Eggledawc’s.
Searching. Feeling.
Nothing.
There was no mind. Eggledawc had left her. Her dear human swain was . . .
‘. . . dead . . .’
The word whispered through her slightly parted lips like a sigh from the crypt.
Now the wind, a real wind this time, began to blow. Bolldhe stared glassily at the Dhracus before him. The redness had faded from her eyes, and they were now as black as coffin-nails. Her hair writhed out from under her legionnaire’s cap, danced wildly in the waxing wind, shadow-black against the dark-grey stormclouds that were piling up and rolling in from the South with unnatural speed.
Bolldhe made a strange gurgling noise in his throat and backed away. As he did so, the body of Eggledawc slipped from his grasp and landed in a kneeling position before Dolen, his eyes staring vacantly through
her. His throat was covered in blood, and the blade that had slashed it now lay next to him, abandoned. The engram in Bolldhe’s mind had now faded. Under its thrall, through a red mist he had staggered, and now that it had dissipated he saw with disbelieving eyes that he had finally stepped over that terrible threshold.
The skies turned as dark as twilight, and thunder rolled throughout Eotunlandt. Behind clouds huge and black, like the sails of a pirate ship, lightning flashed. They could taste it in the air. The wind, still building up, as yet held back its full fury.
By now the other thieves at the bottom of the hill had worked out what had happened. Amid screams of rage and injustice they surged forward. To Bolldhe’s stricken mind, it was a vision of hell itself, as a thousand rawgrs with glowing eyes, sabre-toothed jaws and butcher’s blades flowing with blood now screamed towards him. The clash of metal upon metal heralded the onset of Chaos, as Nibulus and his men launched themselves into battle.
Then one voice rose above all others: ‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!’ Only the Tyvenborgers fully understood it, but even to the Aescals the meaning was plain. Into the fray the stocky figure of Eorcenwold strode. His blunderbuss forsaken, he now whipped out his morning star and flailed it above his head, ceasing for the moment all hostilities. All eyes were upon him.
‘This is too much!’ he cried in cant. ‘I demand a life for a life. Yon cut-throat must die!’
His stubby, outstretched finger pointed directly at Bolldhe, who, before he could gather his wits together, found himself in the middle of a ring of screaming, spitting bandits. Outside this circle, both Nibulus and Wodeman were bellowing in protest, but neither was making any move to save Bolldhe. Kuthy could just be seen, a small silhouette at the top of the hill, his bow hanging at his side; Finwald was long gone: and Appa did not even know what was happening. Bolldhe was utterly alone amidst this screaming mob. Facing him was the Dhracus.
He leapt for the bloodied dirk that lay upon the trampled bracken where he had dropped it, and snatched it up in his trembling red right hand. There he crouched, readying himself, facing the avenging angel before him. And then, as if in a dream, all else drew back from his sight, and all sound faded into the background, save for the gathering wind that flailed the tops of the bracken and fluttered the neck-cover of Dolen’s cap.
Then his soul fell into her eyes. Oh god, he thought as he stared into their solemn depths, what have I done to her?
Such aching sorrow there was in those eyes, such wounding, such loss – too much to be contained within her head alone. Perhaps it was due to her psychic ability, or perhaps because that fair head had simply not been built to hold such hurt, but it seemed to be overflowing, pouring out, wave upon wave, until all those around her were as stricken as she was. All there could sense the vision that was playing over and over in her mind: a vision of her and Eggledawc thundering on horseback over high, purple-hazed moorland, smiling a bright, eternal smile at each other as they rode, a cold scatter of rain in their faces. Together they had found a perfect happiness in this hostile, miserable world – something beautiful and unique.
But now that had been so cruelly ripped out and destroyed, and her special love curdled and broiled into a poisonous rage. Like a black viper, it uncurled its coils within her soul, poised ready to unleash its venom.
Then she sprang, and there upon the heath of Eotunlandt, amid the screaming wind of the approaching storm and the vengeful howls of the Tyvenborgers, Bolldhe and Dolen Catscaul did battle. It was a fight like no other that had been seen in that land before, one to tear the hearts of Bolldhe’s company or slake the blood-thirst of the thieves. Blow after blow after blow hammered down upon Bolldhe in the seething heat of Dolen’s ire. Tears of blood poured from her eyes, streaking her stark white face into a deathly mask of infernal hatred. Grey lips peeled back from her gritted teeth, and with every blow she screamed, driving Bolldhe further and further to the ground.
It was no equal fight. The speed and dexterity of her race could not be matched by even the greatest warrior of mankind in Lindormyn – and Bolldhe was not even a warrior. Even without her anguish she could have slain him with but one stroke. But consuming love turned to hate had poisoned her, and the cruelty that was the reputation of her kind spewed forth. She was playing with Bolldhe as a cat does with a mouse. With her parrying knife she smote him, each stroke placed with absolute precision to extract the maximum pain whilst administering the minimum injury, and with her misericord held aloft she poured surge after surge of hellish nightmare into his brain.
How long he would endure she did not know, but she meant to prolong it, and watch him die in shock and unspeakable, screaming agony.
Suddenly, a terrible sound pierced through the din of yelling voices and the swelling tempest. It was a shrill, whistling screech, like an animal or bird in its death throes. All – the Dhracus included – looked up in alarm towards the top of the slope whence it came.
There, Kuthy could be seen, blowing hard on his flute and gesticulating maniacally. He then cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted as loud as he could. At first nobody could hear anything more than a pathetic bleating. But during the sudden lull in the fighting, the storm also abated slightly. In this brief pause his voice could just be heard – and with it a message that froze them to the soul:
‘The Giants are coming! The Giants!’
Though his message was delivered in Aescalandian, the word ‘Jotun’ was universally understood. As one, every head snapped around to look in the same direction Kuthy was pointing. Then all eyes widened and all hearts stopped dead. Sure enough, many miles to the South but rapidly approaching, the towering shapes of no less than ten Giants could be seen. All courage that any there might have possessed now vanished utterly.
All except Bolldhe. For him, the exact opposite happened. Up until now his whole being had been focused upon the terrible misericord brandished before his eyes, that stiletto-straight blade that filled his mind with a dread he had never imagined possible. He alone had heard nothing of Kuthy’s warning. But now, in those few seconds of hesitation as the misericord-wielder glanced southwards, the fear-effect wavered. Suddenly freed from its spell, Bolldhe, still lying on his back, lashed out with his feet in desperation. One boot swept round and knocked the Dhracus’s legs from under her. She cried out in surprise and, as she fell, Bolldhe brought the pommel of his dirk smashing up into the side of her head. With a grunt, she collapsed, both her daggers still clasped tight, one in each hand.
But if any of her group had noticed her fall, it made no difference to them. As little thought was spared their fallen comrade as was given to the pile of baggage dumped at the base of the knoll. No one even thought to try to hide. Just like the last time a Giant had appeared, mindless panic possessed them all; it was every man for himself.
Unlike last time, however, when the Giant was already upon them, now there was an obvious clear direction in which to flee: northwards. And this they did with a single-minded determination. Bolldhe’s companions, too.
Now the full fury of the storm broke over them and, wailing, they ran to the hills with eyes full of dread. Rain lashed down from the heavens to blind them, and it seemed a satanic choir of harpies screeched amidst the elemental madness of the tempest to confound their senses.
Still reeling with physical agony, unbearable guilt and mental aftershock, Bolldhe was not as quick to react as the others. Now he too had been abandoned by his companions. As the leviathans thundered ever closer, bringing with them the chaos of the accompanying storm, all he could do was stand there panting, and staring down at the pair of pathetic crumpled bodies at his feet.
Eggledawc’s eyes, still glazed in fear and pain, stared up at nothing, the blood from his ripped throat now washed by the rain over his skin. Next to him lay Dolen. Her face was drawn tight with an inner agony that Bolldhe could only guess at. Hurt beyond belief by Bolldhe’s unforgivable act of murder, abandoned by her own companions and now totally unable to save herself from cert
ain death.
A wave of utter despair swept over Bolldhe, and he pitched forward, almost retching in nausea. What had he just done?
But almost as soon as it descended upon him, Bolldhe’s despair was thrust aside by a sudden fierce resolve: she would not die. Bolldhe swore it: if any were to fall this day, it would be him. But not before he had saved the woman.
Though not knowing exactly why he did so, he laid Eggledawc’s war-hammer reverentially upon the dead man’s chest (much in the way Peladanes’ bodies were graced with their swords as they lay on the funeral pyre), and tenderly closed his eyelids. Then he snatched up the limp form of the Dhracus – man, she was light! – and ran off almost blindly through the driving rain, through the wet bracken that slapped at his thighs, and up to the summit of the slope.
At the crest, blinking back the stinging rain, he stared down beyond to where he had earlier left Zhang in the care of the priest. Above the howling tempest and the ever-increasing thunder of the approaching Giants, he called out: ‘Zhang! Appa!’ But he could see nothing of them through the rain. In rage, he screamed at the top of his voice. Passion filled him. Through her sodden clothes, Bolldhe became aware of feeling something of the warmth and softness of Dolen’s body in his arms. His heart almost broke in pain of love for this total stranger, not even a human . . .
All pain and guilt put aside for the moment, he allowed his soul to soar at the thought of what he was doing, this, his atonement. With that, he let the full power of the storm surge into his wounded heart and pour through his veins.
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