Hallsfoot's Battle Read online

  Hallsfoot’s Battle

  By Anne Brooke

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: The darkness

  First Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Two: Decisions

  Second Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Three: A new companion

  Chapter Four: A kind of preparation

  The First Gathandrian Legend: Fortitude and Lust

  Third Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Five: Mind-training and war

  The Second Gathandrian Legend: Justice and Anger

  Fourth Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Six: The battle begins

  The Third Gathandrian Legend: Prudence and Sloth

  Fifth Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Seven: The fires of chaos

  Chapter Eight: Of manuscripts and men

  Sixth Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Nine: Deceits and desires

  Seventh Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Ten: The place of silence

  Eighth Lammas Lands Chronicle

  Chapter Eleven: The heat and sweat of battle

  The Fourth Gathandrian Legend: Temperance and Greed

  Chapter Twelve: The harshness of light

  Chapter Thirteen: Resolution

  Chapter Fourteen: The parting of the ways

  Hallsfoot's Battle is the second in the Gathandrian Trilogy fantasy novels. The first of the series is The Gifting. The final book in the trilogy, The Executioner’s Cane, will be published in Autumn 2013.

  The battle for survival has merely begun and the Mind Executioner's defeat is only temporary. Annyeke Hallsfoot, Acting Elder of Gathandria, must join forces with Simon the Scribe in a tenuous alliance to fight for their survival. However, Simon is distracted by his own personal demons and only fears the artefact, giving Annyeke no choice but to plot a desperate strategy to defeat the enemy.

  When the Mind Executioner kidnaps Simon and raises an army from the dead, all hope appears to be lost. Both Annyeke and Simon, with the help of the mysterious mind-cane and the magical snow-raven, are determined to stay alive and, if possible, to win.

  Hallsfoot’s Battle

  By Anne Brooke

  Published by Anne Brooke at Smashwords

  Copyright 2013 by Anne Brooke

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Anne Brooke at [email protected].

  Second edition

  July 2013

  With grateful thanks to Bluewood Publishing where this story was first published.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Chapter One: The darkness

  FORTITUDE AND LUST

  Duncan Gelahn

  Everywhere in the mountain cave is dark. Even after the loss of the recent battle, Gelahn did not expect that he would be tumbled out of the world he had been hoping to conquer into this place of misery. In the end, his skills as mind-executioner had not proven enough and that sense of failure tastes like a greater darkness on his tongue. It is not a taste the mind-executioner is accustomed to.

  Now, his back is pressed solid against rock. It is not, of course, a dead rock, but a living, breathing entity. The mountain people are not so easily destroyed, although his dealings with them have ravaged their great structure to almost nothing. He has been prepared to sacrifice them for what he so much desires and he would do it again and again. Willingly. This they know. It is why they are waiting for him.

  Here, in the heart of their kingdom, he, too, waits. He leans against the curved rock. His feet are damp from the slippery black surface and the air smells as if a thunderstorm has just raged through. That may be true outside, but here in the mountain he is protected from all the elements.

  That has given him time to meditate. And how he has needed the time. Mind-skills are so easily lost and he must work hard to hold them. They are all he has but, still, the meditation has not gone well. Each time he closes his eyes he sees the face of Simon the Scribe standing framed by the glittering jagged city of Gathandria, holding the mind-cane in his hands and sending him to oblivion in the mountainside, in temporary exile far from his rightful home. The battle had been lost and he had known, in that instant, that his best hope was the dark embrace of the earth. It is where the most mysterious of his skills dwell, and where he can revive them again, because it is not in the mind-executioner’s heart for failure to be an end of his story. It is just a beginning. He has suffered too much for it to be anything else. How the Gathandrians will live to regret the choices they have made. This thought alone makes him smile, while around him the remains of the mountain groan.

  Behind that groan, a faint howling. Gelahn opens his eyes but does not need to see what he knows is there; his mind itself provides a necessary light. The mountain-dogs are stirring, their sleek and undulating bodies shifting in and out of the rock that forms this cave and is itself the life they cling to. He can sense the occasional flash of their crimson eyes and the faint aroma of raw flesh. Soon he will use them. All he needs is a plan. And the mind-cane the scribe has stolen.

  He rises and strolls towards the far end of the cave. The air feels cold even so deep within the rock. One or two of the dogs follow him like shadows and their presence gives him strength. When he reaches those beings he is holding captive, they do not flinch and he is glad to see it; the last of the mountain people do not show emotion easily. This makes them easier to manipulate. Even now, when their home has been all but destroyed in the recent mind-wars, they are as still and eternal as the stone from which they came.

  “It is not over yet,” he whispers. “I have you to do my will. The scribe only has the mind-cane and he is too weak and limited to comprehend the fullness of its power, let alone use it.”

  He cannot be sure, but did the stone he speaks to quiver? Something in the atmosphere between mind-executioner and rock has altered. He stretches forward, but the first of the mountain people stands erect, still. Its tall, thin figure smells of dust and snow. Winter will soon be upon them all. Gelahn allows his hand to run over the smooth surface of stone slowly. It feels cool to his touch. He knows the contact will cause his prisoner pain. This is why he takes his time. The development of fear in those he plans to use can only be a good thing. His long year-cycles of life have taught him that. Because while failure is the taste in the air for now, it will not always be so. This he promises himself.

  With or without the mind-cane, the next battle between Simon the Scribe and himself will be a fiercer, more physical one and he will be the victor.

  Annyeke

  The red-haired woman stared round her kitchen area and sighed. The wild cornflour whitened her hands as she formed the dough for bread on her one good work surface, and the sharp scent of it filled her mind with ima
ges of summer days picnicking in the great Gathandrian Park and the laughter of children. All very pleasant, but this wasn’t how Annyeke Hallsfoot had hoped the day would begin. After the high excitement of the battle and Gelahn’s defeat two day-cycles ago, she’d thought the menfolk would be eager to face the task of building a new Gathandria. Their glorious, glittering city now lay in ruins, the bright towers nearly all smashed into fragments of glass and stone, the Great Library and the museums battered and open to the skies, the theatres and galleries gone, and the trees in the parklands stunted and fallen. Even the Place of Government was not how it had been. Yesterday, when she’d sneaked like an interloper into her former work area, she’d been sure there’d been a few more missing stones from the outside wall and the gash in the roof stretched far wider. Not only that, but the scribe, through compassion or foolishness, had allowed the mind-executioner to escape. Where was he now? In the desert lands? In the Kingdom of Air or hidden deep in the mountains with his murderous dogs? She could not tell, but one thing was certain; Gelahn would surely return to fight them again for the power and land he coveted. They needed to prepare for the battle they would have to face. This was what she thought the menfolk would be planning for.

  She’d thought wrong. The Elders had vanished, leaving her without any further word and in sole charge of the rebuilding programme and the war preparations. Her overseer in the Sub-Council of Meditation, Johan Montfort, had not spoken more than a few sentences to her since that particular announcement and, worst of all, the Lost One, Simon the Scribe, was asleep and useless in her living area. He’d been slumped there for the whole of those two day-cycles, muttering darkly at her whenever she tried to rouse him. To her mind, this wasn’t the action of a man supposedly sent to help them change their world. This was the action of a man in denial.

  The worst of it was the presence of the mind-cane. In her house. It seemed to be there simply because Simon was, but she didn’t think the scribe had any control of it at all. Gods and stars help them. If that was the case, no one else had even a whisper of hope in understanding it. For the last two mornings, its strange humming had woken her. When she’d drawn aside the curtain giving the scribe some privacy in her home, she’d seen its dark length with the silver carving on the top resting near Simon’s makeshift bed. It had been vibrating like a wild animal about to attack. Damn it, she wasn’t even sure what she meant by that, but it definitely felt like a living thing, not an object. A dangerous one, too. The thought of getting close to it made her shiver.

  “Annyeke?”

  She turned, wiping her hands free of the cornflour as best she could. Talus stood right next to her, his hair peaked up from his head like the distant, and now destroyed, mountains. He was seven summers old, and she’d all but adopted him during the final stages of what the people were already naming the Gathandrian Wars. She was even becoming used to being a mother. Almost. Though perhaps elder—much elder—sister was more closely akin to the truth of it.

  “You’re early,” she said with a smile she hoped might look sincere.

  “The bread smells nice.”

  “Ah, you’re hungry then.”

  When he nodded, she gestured at him to sit at the table and brought out the bread she’d made yesterday. He ate as if he hadn’t eaten in a moon-cycle. She couldn’t remember ever being that young.

  “Annyeke?” he said again, between mouthfuls.

  “Mmm?”

  “Why doesn’t the Lost One get up?”

  Annyeke sat opposite him. Her body felt weary, as if she’d been running for a long time and hadn’t stopped yet. She ran her hands through her hair, not caring about the remnants of the flour. She thought of all the things she could say and then decided, as usual, to tell the truth to her young charge. His courage deserved it.

  “I don’t really know,” she said. “It could be because he’s tired. And he has had a lot to go through to reach Gathandria. Or it could be because he’s scared about what will happen next and he doesn’t want to make the first step towards it, whatever that is. Or he might be worried about the mind-cane. The gods and stars know, we’re all worried about the mind-cane, or at least I am. It’s like having a hungry river-wolf at home.”

  At this, Talus grimaced. She knew he wasn’t a great friend of the river-wolves, though they were unlikely to cause anyone harm. She decided to aim for the more positive side of honesty. Was sensible lying what parenthood was about? “Really, it could be any one of these things, or perhaps all of them. It’s hard to say. But he’ll get up soon. And then we can plan properly how we’ll win this war so the mind-executioner won’t ever hurt any one again.”

  There followed a pause and she cursed herself for saying too much. Talus had lost his own family in the mind-wars. That was why he was here. Still, she could sense, without making much of an effort, the workings of his mind under his pain as he took in this information.

  Then the atmosphere of his thoughts lightened and he smiled, his eyes dancing at her. “You could ask Johan Montfort for help. He’ll know what to do.”

  Annyeke only wished this was true, and that she had the same confidence in the ability of the Gathandrian menfolk to help that Talus still held to. She knew in her mind that Johan, like the scribe, was exhausted. His long journey with Simon from the Lammas Lands had been fraught with difficulty, dogged as they’d been by the tricks and attacks of the mind-executioner. She suspected he hadn’t had much time for meditation on the way and he was paying for that neglect now. And on his return, he’d had to face the reality about the Elders’ treachery. How had they betrayed so many Gathandrians to their deaths simply in order to bring Simon back to them? The very fact that they had imprisoned the mind-executioner for so long and then let him go in order to bring destruction was beyond anyone’s grasp, though she still had to explain the full story to Johan. Gods and stars above, there was another task she was not looking forward to.

  And of course, Isabella, Johan’s beloved sister, was dead—a mystery to them all that she had betrayed them so. Annyeke blinked away tears and pretended to smile at Talus, though she did not think he was fooled.

  Perhaps it was best if she concentrated for a while on Simon. Though the situation did not look good in this particular hour-cycle, he might well turn out to be the easiest of her problems to deal with.

  Simon

  The scribe knew he was in Annyeke Hallsfoot’s one public room in the small house she owned near the Gathandrian parklands. She had curtained it off to provide a makeshift bedroom and to afford him a sense of privacy. The thick velvet of the pale green curtain certainly cut down on the noise of his landlady and her young charge going about their everyday business, but it did little to soften the sense of mind-activity, not only indoors, but outside in the city itself. It felt as if people were waiting. For him, Simon knew it but had no wish to enquire further into that thought.

  Annyeke had provided him with a bed made from blankets piled together, a set of manuscripts she thought he might like to read, a basin of water that she refreshed on a half-daily basis, and a change of clothes. The latter two items he assumed were to encourage him to get up and face what he had to. So far, they’d proved unsuccessful. Right now the scribe refused even to open his eyes. If he did so, he knew what he would see. Already he could hear its background hum, demanding attention, attention he didn’t want to give. For the last two night-cycles, he’d tried to hide the mind-cane where he wouldn’t see it, or be forced to deal with the thing. Each morning, when he’d opened his eyes to the sun, it had found him again.

  He didn’t want to touch it, even though it had saved them all in the battles with the mind-executioner, and it had been his hand that had wielded it, his eyes that had witnessed its gold and silver strength. He couldn’t comprehend its power and, if he faced the truth, he was afraid.

  Beyond all this, the fact he was in the mysterious city of Gathandria wasn’t giving him the comfort he’d anticipated. For so long, on the wild, dangerous and wonderfu
l journey he’d taken with Johan from the Lammas Lands, it had been like a mirage, something to aspire to, where all would be well and everything bad about himself, of which there was much, would be healed.

  But now, he was here and, as far as he could tell, any healing had failed to happen. Odd how he’d felt so brave at the height of the battle, or as brave as a coward could feel, but now he felt nothing. No, this wasn’t true either. He felt tired, hungry and thirsty. He also felt like a fool.

  The mind-cane’s humming grew louder. He’d left it in the far corner of the bedroom last night, but it was now lying on the floor near his bed. As he continued to glare at the object of his discontent, he became aware of smells and sounds. First, the scent of baking bread. Then the low murmur of Annyeke’s voice, interspersed with Talus’ higher-pitched tones. He swallowed. Not too long ago, the boy in his own care, Carthen, had died in the desert. It wasn’t something he liked to remember. As his mind eased into wakefulness, he didn’t have to strain his hearing to understand what his two house-companions were saying. Talus was confused, but eager and longing for a solution to whatever problem had just been presented to him. Annyeke was more circumspect. She certainly wasn’t happy. The waves from her thoughts hit him like a cold winter wind and he struggled not to gasp out loud. She was close to despair, but keeping that fact hidden with a veneer of wry humour. By the gods, that was something he understood.

  Simon cursed under his breath and glared at the cane. He wouldn’t have been able to fathom any of what he’d just thought without it. Damn the artefact. He didn’t want to share other people’s secrets. Before the mind-cane, he had only been able to know the thoughts of others if he was close enough to the person. And he had enough secrets of his own. Though now, of course, Johan knew most of them, too. Once more he wondered where Johan was. His erstwhile companion had vanished after his sister had been buried, and Simon hadn’t seen him since. Johan’s absence left an empty space in his blood and he didn’t relish the feeling.