by Roger Taylor
Perhaps together they might indeed…
And yet they were none of them fighters. And fight-ers would be needed, surely?
‘Somehow, we’ll have to get help from over the hill,’ he said.
Marna showed no surprise. In fact, the manner in which she nodded her agreement indicated that he had merely stated the obvious. ‘I’ll do that,’ she said casually.
The guilt he had felt about Jeorg’s fate returned tenfold to Gryss on the instant, and, abruptly, he found himself having to explain to Harlen about the disap-pearance – or death or worse – of his only daughter.
Before he could protest, however, Marna was con-tinuing. ‘We’ll have to talk to Farnor,’ she was saying. ‘He’s the one nearest the heart of all this, and what he thinks will be important. Apart from getting the real King’s men here, we’ll need to convince everyone about what’s happening, and I…’
Gryss had recovered from his trip into the future. ‘Whoa,’ he said firmly, holding up his hand. ‘You’re going nowhere, miss,’ he said, very much elder to younger. ‘The journey to the capital would’ve been hard enough for Jeorg, if he’d been lucky enough to avoid getting captured. It’d be far too hazardous for you.’
Marna’s looks darkened. ‘You weren’t much older than me when you went,’ she said. ‘And I’ve coped on my own out in the hills before now.’
Unusually, Gryss held his ground against her. ‘No!’ he insisted, realizing the danger of becoming involved in a debate with this wilful and shrewd young woman.
Marna faltered a little at this unexpected resistance. Gryss moved in. ‘I know you, Marna Harlenkint. I want your old-fashioned promise or die that you’ll not do anything foolish like perhaps deciding to go to the capital on your own.’ Scarcely were the words out of his mouth however, than he frowned at the levity he had allowed to intrude into his manner. He became serious, pleading almost. ‘We’ll have enough to worry about if we’re right in what we’re thinking, Marna, and we must be able to trust one another completely. You understand what I mean? Just think about the pain that’s been caused already by Jeorg’s venture. And there’ll be more when I tell his wife or if he’s more badly hurt than I think. And that journey was considered long and carefully.’
Marna’s scowl faded. ‘I do understand,’ she said. ‘But…’
‘But nothing, Marna,’ Gryss said, gently. ‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with in Rannick and those men and we can’t afford any act of foolishness antagonizing them.’
He stopped speaking and cocked his head on one side as if he had heard an unexpected sound. His movement echoed one Marna had just made. Both of them frowned with concentration. In the silence, a strange mewling sound rose to prominence until it pervaded the whole room. The old dog, which had been lying asleep between them, awoke and let out a quizzical whine.
‘What…?’
Gryss did not finish. The mewling suddenly in-creased in intensity and pitch, and climaxed in an unearthly and unceasing shriek. The dog barked shrilly in alarm and, without standing, wriggled backwards until it was under Gryss’s chair.
Marna leapt up, her face white and fearful. Gryss rose more slowly but with no less alarm as the awful din echoed around the room until it seemed to come from every possible direction.
Then Gryss identified the sound. ‘It’s Jeorg,’ he said, and was out of the door before Marna had time to realize fully what he had said.
As Gryss entered the dimly lit bedroom where Jeorg lay, it seemed to him for a moment that his images of Rannick’s power had been made solid and that the room was alive with battling demons. He hesitated in the doorway, a primitive fear crawling over his skin and robbing him of movement. Then his vision cleared, and he saw a lamp hanging by the bed swinging violently. At its behest, wild shadows were leaping frantically about the room, now skimming from wall to wall, now wall to beamed ceiling, as if performing some mocking dance at the fate of their shaper on the bed. For there Jeorg lay twisting and turning from side to side, his arms alternately flailing in the air and beating the bed. His eyes were wild and desperate, and his mouth was gaping wide.
Gryss stared at the terrible frenzy helplessly for a moment, then moved quickly to the side of the bed. As he reached out to still the swaying lamp, the shadow of his hand grew to fill the room with an ominous darkness then, abruptly, it was light again and the shadows were quiet and ordinary. Marna, pale faced still, moved nervously behind Gryss.
‘He’s choking,’ she said.
Beating his way through the frantic arms, Gryss seized Jeorg’s head and peered urgently into his mouth. Marna, unbidden, snatched up the lamp, lifted its dimming cowl and held it high so that it shone brightly on Jeorg’s anguished face.
The shadows fled.
Gryss nodded gratefully and, struggling to restrain his thrashing charge, continued his examination. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t see anything in his throat, and he couldn’t make that amount of noise if his airpipe was blocked.’
Jeorg began to claw at him, and the scream degener-ated into a dreadful gasping.
‘He’s choking,’ Marna insisted.
Impulsively, Gryss wrapped his arms about his friend and held him tight. ‘You’re safe, Jeorg,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s all over. It’s Gryss. You’re in my cottage. You’re safe. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here.’
The gasping eased a little, as did the frantic strug-gling, but did not cease completely. Gryss began to rock him to and fro, as if he were a child who had awakened from a nightmare, all the time whispering gently to him, ‘It’s over, Jeorg. It’s over…’ On and on.
Gradually, Jeorg’s breathing quietened until it be-came simply that of an exhausted man. Eventually, Gryss released him and laid him back.
‘Is he all right?’ Marna whispered, but Gryss held up his hand for silence. He was breathing heavily himself, and his face was flushed with effort, but he did not take his eyes from Jeorg.
Then, he nodded slowly. ‘I think so,’ he said, bend-ing over Jeorg and looking intently at him. ‘Jeorg,’ he said. ‘It’s Gryss. Can you hear me?’
Jeorg swallowed several times and, for a moment, it seemed that he was about to begin screaming again. Gryss laid a hand on his chest. ‘Gently,’ he said. ‘Don’t distress yourself. You’re safe now. There’s no hurry.’
The comment seemed to galvanize Jeorg however, as he became immediately agitated. His hand reached out to grab Gryss’s arm.
‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Hurry. There is a hurry. We mustn’t wait. We must…’ He gritted his teeth as his physical weakness mastered the intention of his will.
‘Gently,’ Gryss said again. ‘There’s nothing any of us can do right now, it’s the middle of the night. Please try to relax and talk more slowly.’
Jeorg’s eyelids began to close and his face contorted with the effort of keeping them open.
Gryss spoke softly over his shoulder to Marna. ‘I don’t know why he’s awake,’ he said. ‘I gave him enough sleeping draught to take him through to tomorrow afternoon. He must want to tell us something desper-ately.’
Jeorg’s hand on his arm drew him back.
‘Rannick,’ he mumbled.
‘Rannick beat you?’ Gryss suggested.
Jeorg shook his head painfully. ‘He stopped them,’ he said, with a further agonizing effort. Gryss was pleasantly surprised by this, but only momentarily; there was no hint of gratitude in Jeorg’s voice.
He started to gasp again, his hands reaching out as if he were trying to hold captive all the air they could encompass.
Gryss managed to quieten him. ‘Tell me slowly,’ he said. ‘What did Rannick do to make you like this if he stopped them beating you?’
Jeorg’s hand clawed at his chest, and he drew a long, painful, breath. ‘He… stopped me breathing,’ he managed.
Gryss frowned and lifted a careful hand to examine Jeorg’s neck. There was no sign of any bruising. He looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. �
��What do you mean, he stopped you breathing? Did he try to strangle you? Or suffocate you?’
Jeorg shook his head, a grimace of impatience creas-ing his battered features. ‘He stopped me breathing,’ he repeated weakly. ‘He… took my breath… the air in my chest… and stopped it.’ He slumped back on the pillow.
‘What did he do?’ Gryss persisted, bewildered.
Jeorg managed to raise himself on to his elbows. ‘He looked at me,’ he said. ‘Just looked at me. And I couldn’t breathe.’ His face became fearful. ‘And when I thought my chest was going to burst, he nodded.’ Jeorg’s eyes widened as the intensity of the event returned to parade its every detail before him. ‘Just a slight nod,’ he whispered, mimicking the movement with a nervous twitch of his head. ‘And I could breathe again. And he did it again… and again.’ Gryss reached out to him, concerned that he would slip once again into a choking fit, but Jeorg waved him aside. ‘I don’t know how many times he did it. Then he tore the breath out of me. I could feel him inside me, moving, working.’ His face contorted with pain and fear, but there was rage there also, and it was the rage that dominated in his words. ‘And they all laughed. They stood around and laughed. They’d already beaten me till…’
His voice faded away as, quite suddenly, his eyes closed. Slowly, he sank back on to his pillow once again.
Marna clutched Gryss’s arm in alarm.
‘It’s all right,’ Gryss said. ‘He’s asleep. It’s the sleep-ing draught catching up with him. I don’t think he’ll wake again tonight. Not now he’s got most of that out of his system.’
He stood up and carefully rearranged Jeorg’s pillow and sheets, then he took the lamp from Marna and replaced its dimming cowl. As he hung it back on its hook by the bed he motioned Marna out of the room.
Returning to the room at the back of the cottage, he slumped down heavily into his chair. Marna sat opposite him. Her face was full of questions, but she asked none of them.
‘It is Rannick then,’ Gryss said, after a long silence. ‘There was no doubt about it that time, was there? No misheard whispers. No delirious rambling.’
There was a quality in Gryss’s voice that made Marna want to turn away. She felt tiny and helpless as the enormity of events became increasingly clear to her. What was she but a pathetic husk of inadequacy? She could not face grown men with their formidable strength, and their swords and their willingness to use them. Nor could she face Rannick with his unbelievable and seemingly diabolical powers; powers that raised a battering wind to protect the castle yet which could be used subtly to torment a helpless, beaten man. What was she against all this?
And even Gryss had been downed and beaten by what was happening. For all her life he had been a man who knew the answers to her questions, a man who saw through her with an eye keener than her father’s but whom she could twist to her own ends almost as if he were a mere child. She had not realized before what support she had drawn from him in the past. But now she did, for the support was gone.
Her loneliness was a grim revelation.
She felt as she imagined Jeorg must have felt when Rannick stopped him breathing. She felt the walls and ceiling of the cottage closing in on her, crushing, menacing…
She had to get away.
A thunderous banging crashed into her waking nightmare, making her start violently. She leapt to her feet, drawing in a raucous, terrified breath, seeing in her mind Rannick and Nilsson and his men circling the cottage, their horses stamping in the darkness and their intent focused on her just as it had been focused on Jeorg.
Her mouth dried and her legs began to shake. She turned to Gryss.
The banging continued.
And someone was shouting.
Licking his lips, Gryss half walked and half ran down the hallway.
Reaching the door, he threw it open.
An inarticulate cry greeted him and a figure blun-dered forward, seizing Gryss in a desperate grip.
Gryss took in the hair, wildly awry, the mud-spattered clothes, the wild, lost eyes and the deathly pale face of the third member of his conspiracy against the invaders of the valley: Farnor Yarrance.
Chapter 29
As they made their way through the village, Nilsson’s men remained silent and in close formation. The only sign of interest in their surroundings they had shown had been the ironic salutes that some of them had given to Gryss and the others, as they had stood, bewildered and uncertain, supporting the unconscious Jeorg, while the troop passed by.
Even after they had left the village some way behind, the men maintained their silence and their close formation. Then Nilsson raised his face so that the rain fell directly into it, and let out a low, rumbling laugh.
The sound was a comparative rarity, but it was fa-miliar enough to be recognized and it ran down the column gathering momentum as it went. Soon the troop was a loose, straggling band of men shouting, laughing and jeering.
One rider, the hood of his cape pulled well forward, pushed his horse through the mass to join Nilsson at the front. Nilsson turned to look at him and some of the laughter faded from his face.
‘A good trip, Lord?’ he asked.
Rannick threw back his hood and ran a hand through his unkempt black hair. There was laughter in his face, too, but there was no humour in it. Not that there was much humour in the laughter that rippled to and fro along the column. It was coarse and raucous and dedicated to the amusement derived from watching the sufferings of others.
‘A beginning, Captain,’ Rannick replied. ‘A begin-ning. I will confess that it was… interesting… to watch your men ply their trade. Stimulating, even.’
Nilsson smiled, knowingly. ‘The men were becoming restive, Lord,’ he said. ‘They needed the exercise and it was only a matter of time before they took it in the village here. Something which would have presented quite a few difficulties for us in the future.’
No sooner had he spoken the words than he cursed himself for a fool. He braced himself for Rannick’s response.
It began with a sneer. ‘I’ve told you before, Captain, you concern yourself too much about these people. I know them. A little… exercise… as you choose to call it would avoid difficulties with them in the future, rather than cause them.’
Nilsson bowed in acknowledgement, but offered no argument. It had been careless of him to touch on the subject of how to treat the local people, and he hoped now that his silence would allow it to fade away. It was sufficient that he had had his own way so far in keeping Rannick from inflicting some horror on them to satisfy whatever malice it was he had towards them.
Fortunately, Rannick chose not to pursue the mat-ter, though Nilsson sensed that it was rankling his new Lord and would surface again eventually. He sensed, too, that if it did so then almost certainly he would have to cease his opposition if he wished to survive.
Rannick looked at him directly, and his sneer turned into a malevolent smile. ‘I noticed that you too enjoyed the exercise, Captain,’ he said.
Nilsson inclined his head. Except for what you did to that villager who followed us, he thought, though this time he managed to remain silent. In that instance he had not had his own way. He would have preferred to let the men have their fun with him and then seen him safely dispatched. It would have been scarcely necessary even to hide the body, so deserted and little-travelled was the region. But Rannick had wanted exercise of his own and, that done, he had ordered that the man be returned to the village by way of an example to others. There had been no debate about it.
It seemed to Nilsson at the time to be a major error, but nothing would have possessed him to even hint at disagreeing with his Lord when he saw the look on his face as he worked his fearful way with the choking villager.
He shrugged his concerns aside. If the worst came to the worst as a result, then so be it. He and his men had dealt with worse problems than rebellious villagers in their time. He smiled to himself. It had been a good trip. They had not had one such for a long time. And ap
art from putting heart back into the men, it had also provided them with considerable extra supplies.
Faintly, from the edges of his thoughts like the sound of a distant ocean, came the strains of the grim chorus of the maimed and dying that had risen in the wake of his passing over the years. It was a little louder now, but he paid it no heed. It would fade, and though it was ever there, rumbling to the surface in his quieter moments, he rarely heard it and he never listened to it.
Yet that cry for retribution in its harmony was not easily dismissed. Suddenly a chill ran through him. It was not unfamiliar, but there was nothing he could do about it. Somewhere back there they would be following. They would never stop. Never. They would pursue him and his men wherever they went; no boundary, natural or man-made, could offer protection against them, nor the arm of any king or prince. Not even time would give any protection for they would come to his very deathbed to demand an accounting. And there would be no faltering in their resolution; that, he knew; that, they all knew. That much had been known since the first blow had been struck early that misty morning so long ago.
He shivered and, scarcely realizing what he was doing, glanced over his shoulder. Accidentally catching the eye of Dessane, he forced himself to grin and then passed the act off as a casual inspection of his men.
There had always been the possibility of turning and facing the pursuers and of putting them to the sword, given a chance. But apart from the inherent danger in such a step, to do so would merely be to declare their whereabouts, and there would be others to follow in their wake; always there would be others.
He wiped the rain from his face and turned forward again. Just reaction, he thought. It always happened after a good raid. Perhaps, ironically, it was worse this time because their circumstances were so much improved following the arrival of Rannick. Now, he reminded himself, they were aided by the power. His fear of the past was, in reality, little more than a habit. Rannick may not have the awesome talents of the Lord that he had once followed, but Nilsson could see for himself that his skills were growing, and even now no ordinary man could hope to prevail against him.