Hallsfoot's Battle

by Anne Brooke

  She could not tell where her memories were. This scene should be filled with shapes and patterns of her past, her worries, her joys, but she could not grasp them or turn towards the man she loved. What had Gelahn done to her? A wave of crimson rose in her blood, filling them both up until Johan, still running, opened his mouth and cried out. Strange words flew from his lips in jagged shapes and patterns. He raced after them, eyes scanning left and right as he ran. She wanted to hold him still, but he would not look at her.

  For too many paces, the air and sky remained empty. Then, when he was as near to her as he had ever been, he stumbled to a halt, air slamming into his throat. The moment he stopped running, she saw his body begin to shake and the way he struggled for breath. Half bent over, he turned towards where she lay, a mere shimmer on the soft ground. She heard the words then, the words in his mind that he could not stop repeating. She heard them over and over again.

  Where is she? Where is the woman I love?

  The gold from the earth began to sing. The harmony of it raced through her bones and blood and skin, and Annyeke felt the echo of it rise up from her body into the air around. Surely, he would see where she was now. She could not go to him, this song was all she had. Nothing happened. Her golden song began to fade. She had so few notes left. She breathed the last of them out, knowing none remained beyond them:

  I am here.

  Johan turned towards her. She felt the shape of his chest pressed against her body as he took another breath, and the patterns that had spilled from her song flowed around and in front of him as he ran, until the final pattern formed an avenue of colour between the two of them.

  He fell to his knees next to her. When he touched her and his eyes opened truly, she saw what he saw reflected in his gaze. Not the woman he knew now. No, this Annyeke was younger, barely out of childhood but still with that red hair he’d come to love, so much, so very much.

  Beneath his gaze, the child-woman Annyeke stirred and he reached towards her. She shifted, finding at last that his closeness restored her ability to move, and opened her eyes. Before he could speak, she sat up and gripped his arm, pulling him closer. She understood what she must do.

  “My own emeralds,” she whispered. “You must take them, give them to the Lammas Lord. Now.”

  “Your emeralds?” he stammered. “I don’t know what you mean. It is you I must save. That is why I am here.”

  “No.” Releasing him, she reached up to her face and, before Johan could cry out a warning or try to stop her, she had slipped her own fingers into her eyes and plucked them out. The pain of it coursed through her and, at the same time, the air around them both turned to night.

  Johan cried out and fell backwards to escape from the torrent of blood and brightness that flowed from her eyes. She plunged after him, scrabbling with crimson hands on the golden earth. She tried to calm the frantic beating of her heart, ease the taste of bile and terror in her throat, tried to make him understand. But he was at that place before her and his courage made her miss her breath.

  “What is it, Annyeke?” he said softly, but with still the lilt of fear in his voice. “Tell me what you want and I will do it.”

  Without sight, with blood scarring her skin, she felt like a steady river shattered by a storm that would not leave it. She took hold of Johan’s hand, opened his trembling palm and pressed what were once her eyes into his grasp, folding his fingers down to hold them there.

  Then she spoke again, “These are for Tregannon. He will understand. Now you must go.”

  “What can the Lammas Lord do with your eyes?” he asked her, his voice full of tears. “How can it help us? How can this help you?”

  “Trust me. It will. Take them to him.”

  Finally, he rose to his feet. “I can’t leave you, Annyeke. I won’t. I…I love you.”

  Annyeke nodded at the truth of it, even now and even here, opened her mouth and spoke again.

  “You understand it at last then, Johan Montfort,” she whispered. “I have always loved you, from the very beginning. Now, please, for the city and for the land you must go and do as I have said.”

  Simon

  The stories were all around him; he could sense their whispered messages folding into his skin. In the colours and smells of history, legend and more recent events, he found the hearts and minds of the people. The tales surged towards Gelahn, and the scribe knew in a moment as if he had known it all along that when the spirit of the Gathandrian Library came together with the emeralds, the mind-cane and its executioner, then the power Duncan had longed for would most truly be his.

  He should have seen it before. The destruction of the Library released the power of the stories, that same power the Gathandrians used to connect with each other, to defend themselves and to live. Gelahn knew that power and he could use it against them. But why hadn’t he simply done this when he’d escaped? The question flitted through the scribe’s mind, but he knew as he stared at the mind-cane what the answers might be. It had something to do with the Tregannon emeralds and the gift of travel they possessed. Gelahn had not then had them and, besides, somehow the cane’s best power existed only in his own presence. He, then, Simon Hartstongue of the White Lands, was the catalyst for what was to come. The only one who could make things different.

  Then he would stop it. The epitaph of destruction was not one he wanted carved on his bones forever.

  He took a step forward just as he noticed the noise of the battle had ceased and that all he could hear was the growing rattle of bones. The dead soldiers. They were closing in. He could not tell what would happen now, what terrors they might bring and how the executioner would use them. Unable to help himself, Simon cried out even as he forced his body towards the wild-eyed Gelahn.

  Wait.

  The word reverberated through his mind, its accents as familiar to him as his own blood. Swinging round, he saw Ralph swaying in the snow, barely able to stand. His eyes were as dark as winter and his face scored with grief. Around him, the patterns and shapes of all the stories in the city flowed, but he did not seem to pay them any heed.

  The Lammas Lord tried to walk, but had no strength. He fell down, scrabbling on whiteness, both arms stretched out as if begging for help. His eyes were fixed on something Simon couldn’t see, something behind him. Even as he made to help the fallen man, a green light flashed from a point the scribe couldn’t see, and darted towards Ralph.

  Before the scribe could even think to cry out a warning, Ralph had grasped the light which flowed through him like water. Simon could feel the further shattering of the Lammas Lord’s thoughts as they splintered outwards. He turned to see where the danger had come from. Annyeke sat upright in Johan’s arms. Her eyes were bloodied, but her hand remained outstretched, pointing towards Ralph. As he gazed, a second flash of green rolled from her fingers into Johan’s waiting grasp where it burnt and spat on his flesh. With a cry, Johan flung the sparkling flame towards the Lammas Lord. Simon gasped and stepped forward, determined to stop this strange chaos if he could. He was brought to a halt by Ralph’s command.

  Stop.

  It was directed at him, Simon knew, not at Johan or Annyeke. He ducked as the green fire darted over his head. Ralph caught it expertly and once more emerald light spread over his hand and arm.

  Simon, come to me.

  Without question, the scribe obeyed, losing his grip on Talus as he did so. The boy ran to Annyeke, dropped by her side and began to weep. By the gods and stars, the scribe should have learned Tregannon was not to be trusted, but his body—no, his blood—paid no heed to the logic of his thought and he found himself a mere breath away from this man who haunted him so.

  “What should I do?”

  Take the emeralds.

  Despite the lunacy of what he was being asked, Simon reached out so the jewels dropped into his hand. The next moment, the fire Ralph held flowed into and through his own body. Everything stopped, or, rather, everything moved on but he was caught in a circle fr
om which there was no escaping. He shut his eyes. Ralph held him in his arms and he felt the other man’s warmth against him. It was as nothing compared to the heat of the emerald fire. This was not the circle through which they had travelled, but something utterly different, a sensation he could not name. Flame and legend, truth and history and dreaming. The scribe felt as if his very flesh was being changed into something greater than he could ever have imagined. It was as if he was being made one with the stories and the dreams, with the longing and the hope.

  He knew then that what the Gathandrians said about him was true. He could not understand how it had happened or why, but he knew. He opened his eyes and spoke the words that had been hidden from him for so long.

  “I am he,” he whispered to everyone and to himself most of all. “I am the Lost One.”

  Ralph

  The moment the scribe speaks the words, his eyes shining a strange green at Ralph as if he can see all that the Overlord is and all he has hidden, the mind-cane in the executioner’s hand dances into the air and falls into Simon’s grasp like a bird returning to the falconer.

  Ralph holds the scribe in his arms. He finds he has the strength to do so, though he doesn’t know how. No time to question it. This is the first time he’s touched Simon since he laced the rope round the scribe’s neck in the Place of Hanging at the castle, as himself, that is, and not with the mind-executioner’s voice in his mouth, his enemy’s thoughts in his head. The sheer fact of the scribe’s skin plunges Ralph’s blood into unaccountable heat and Simon’s gaze locks with his. Ralph thinks it’s the first time he’s looked at the man, really looked at him, since…since he doesn’t know when. Something in the scribe has changed. He can see it as clearly as if this were daylight and they were back in the quiet of his castle rooms. There are a thousand words on Ralph’s tongue that he wants to say, but he understands none of them will be welcome. It is not the time.

  Use the emeralds, Ralph says, mind to mind with no words wasted. May they bring you the power you need.

  Simon nods, as the Gathandrian stories swirl and dance around them, streaming towards the now ecstatic Gelahn. He steps back from Ralph, turns away.

  Duncan Gelahn

  The mind-cane is gone. He sees the green flash travel between the Hallsfoot woman and the Lammas Lord, knows what Ralph will do with it, and he is too far away to stop him, even with the original Tregannon emeralds still in his grasp.

  He has come too far to lose now. Surely the great Spirit will not allow it. Here, in the Library he has destroyed in order for the stories contained in the walls to be more truly his, he must be the master of the lands. It is written, it is spoken. It must be so. The stories dance around him, touching his mouth and mind with their colours and shapes and song.

  Nonetheless, the Lammas emeralds seep out from under his authority. He can feel their pull towards the fresh jewels Annyeke has created. Some of the essence of their power must have been leeched from him during their encounters. He did not feel it vanish. She must have more to her than he suspected, enough to form new jewels from the shadows of his.

  Gelahn doesn’t like the turn in the flow. Even as Ralph passes the newborn gifts to the Lost One, the two of them standing so close in the freezing snow that they could be one man, one mind, Gelahn’s thoughts have leapt to a thousand possibilities for victory. Of which, one is the nearest and most enticing. The boy crouches at Annyeke’s side. The two Gathandrians do not look at the executioner. The transference of the new emeralds has taken all Annyeke’s strength, and Johan’s mind is on her alone. Love, Gelahn thinks, is indeed a devil he can use.

  Before the Lost One has turned away from the Lammas Lord, his hand glowing a deep green from the magic he holds, Gelahn launches himself across the small space between them, stories clinging like fireflies to his torn cloak, and snatches the boy away. Even as he does so, he feels the cane’s power growing through its contact with the scribe. From his belt, he draws his knife.

  The child cries out, but Gelahn pulls him closer, bringing the knife up and slashing through his hair with it. At once, blood pulsates outwards from where the dagger has pierced skin. The boy falls silent.

  A scream fills the air. It is louder by far than the approaching soldiers of the dead who are responding to the Library’s victory call. Bone on bone and the harsh clang of metal. Hallsfoot stands, one arm steadying herself against Montfort’s shoulder. Her face is the face of a skull and her eyes as black as night.

  Her scream ends in a sudden sob and she takes one step towards him. The mind-executioner does not know where that strength comes from, for she has surely suffered enough for death to take her, yet she still lives. He grips her young charge tighter and raises the knife once more.

  At once, she stops. He sees her body shake.

  Through the soft enticement of legends, the last of them crowding around him, Gelahn speaks, with his mind only. They do not need to say the words aloud.

  Give me the emeralds you have made and the cane you have stolen, he says, and the boy will not have to die.

  Annyeke

  Whatever happened, Talus must not be harmed. It was Annyeke’s first thought as, from what seemed like a thousand field-lengths away in her shattered body, she watched the mind-executioner—that demon—snatch her young charge from her side.

  Strength poured into her from the depths of the earth, from the wild patterns of her own blood. She stood. Somehow, she could see again, the gods and stars alone knew how. She sensed Johan at her side, his arm round her waist holding her upright, but her whole mind-attention was on Talus.

  Before she could do anything to stop him, the executioner drew something thin and bright from his belt and slashed once across Talus’ hair. Blood spurted upward and the boy slumped in Gelahn’s arms. Annyeke opened her mouth and screamed. She could feel the bones of her face pressing against her skin, a mirrored mockery of the undead soldiers of the battlefield, even now closing in on them. Her scream ended in a sob and she began to run, towards Gelahn.

  The next moment, something forced her to stop and she would have fallen, except for Johan’s sudden shout and steadying hand. When she turned around, the Lost One stood behind her. He was more than simply Simon the Scribe now, though she could not understand how that could be. His flesh and face glowed green and he held the mind-cane before him like a sword. It was the emerald light that shone from it that had stopped her. He shook his head at her, stepping forward.

  Simon

  The time was now. He could sense it. The moment Ralph opened his fingers and dropped the emeralds into his waiting hand, the patterns inside him stopped their unstructured dance and slotted into place. At the same time, he could feel the heat of the Lammas Lord’s gaze as if it were the first time they’d ever looked at each other. Knowledge and pain, memory and grief, and something deeper, too.

  No matter. Everything then happened at once, as it always seemed to, he thought, in his encounters with the people of Gathandria. Gelahn snatched Talus from Annyeke’s side and split his young head open with his belt-knife. Annyeke’s answering scream, more rage than terror, pierced them all.

  Then the mind-executioner’s words, spoken to Annyeke, but meant, he knew, for him.

  Give me the emeralds you have made and the cane you have stolen, he said, and the boy will not have to die.

  “As you wish,” Simon spoke aloud, his words glancing like fire knives through the air. He sensed the dark lurch of Ralph’s confusion and the intake of breath from Johan. No matter. He strode forward, the mind-cane giving him the ability he needed. His thoughts were fizzing, as if an unseen fire of his own burned him from within. And he found he wasn’t afraid of the flames.

  There were harsher enemies and other shores of life to be afraid of, Duncan Gelahn, for one.

  When he reached Gelahn, the executioner smiled, but his eyes were wary. Simon thrust his free hand outward so Annyeke’s emeralds fell into the space between them. Green fire hissed and flared. The emeralds stolen
by Gelahn sprang upwards from the executioner’s cloak, met their fellows in the air and roared into a circle of flame encompassing all three of them, the two men and the boy. Not just all three of them, but the intensity and colour of the Gathandrian stories, too. They pushed at his consciousness and his body, ideas and unspoken words beating like wings against his skin. Simon took a step back, had to fight against the urge to run. Where was his courage now? At the same time, the mind-cane touched Talus’ hair and the blood ceased its flow. The cane formed a link between Simon, the boy and Gelahn. Almost of its own accord, his other arm landed on the executioner’s shoulder so the scribe could feel the extraordinary power of his enemy’s skin under his fingers. All Simon could see was the green haze of heat and Duncan’s eyes.

  He knew Gelahn wanted to speak first and rejected that assumption, opening his mouth and allowing the words to frame the impasse between them.

  “I will speak,” he said. “I will tell you a legend to end all legends and that tale will be mine and mine alone.”