Hallsfoot's Battle Page 23

  Hot breath threatens his legs and he knows the dogs will soon be upon him. He knows, also, how Simon must have felt when the executioner let loose these devils on the mountain and showed him no mercy. Ralph is barely over the bridge now. The village and the well are a lifetime away.

  Instinct drives him, just as the first of the dogs scrapes his flesh with its cruel teeth. His fingers scrabble in the jewel pouch, find an emerald. Seize it. He swings round, casts the emerald towards the dog. The jewel flies through the animal’s head—a shaft of green through the deepest black. The howling is instantly cut off, as if the hound’s tongue has inexplicably vanished. Ralph doesn’t wait to see what happens next. Clutching his cloak around him, feeling the reassurance of the remaining five emeralds in his hand, he sprints out over the field towards the trees and, beyond that, the village. The pain of his present wounds doesn’t matter any more; he is too afraid of the pain that might come.

  Behind him, the mountain dogs begin to howl again.

  Ralph is almost at the trees when they catch up with him once more. Taking the next emerald out of the pouch he flings it at the two dogs a little ahead of the others. This time they are wiser. One of them leaps up towards the orb of green fire, jaws closing round its small form. It vanishes into the dark.

  He screams out a denial, his voice nothing but a whisper compared to the wild howling that pursues him.

  But the emerald is not prepared to die so easily. Green flame explodes out of the fluid stone shape of the dog and the howl accelerates to a shriek, just as suddenly cut off as a river of colour flows from the animal.

  And already Ralph is running once more, the thought of the well and the safety it might bring. To him? To the jewels? He no longer knows any of the answers but thought of the well drives him onward. Branches tear at his skin and hair, but they’re slowing the dogs down, too, only the gods and stars know how. But he has known these woods since childhood, all their secret paths as clear to him as if they are the familiar rooms of the castle. And dogs such as these, he imagines, are not used to woods or forests; their terrain is the uncrowded spaces of the mountains. In truth, they are the mountain.

  Breath snagging in his throat, Ralph arrives at the far edge of the woods. From here, it is only a matter of minutes before he reaches the well. For the first time, the thought that he is leading the dogs towards people rather than away from them slides through his mind. But the well should be deserted. At this time of day, all the water will have been drawn and the people, what few are left, will either be in their homes or the fields. They will hear the dogs, they will hide, and perhaps Ralph is somehow doing the right thing this time.

  Besides, it is him the hounds are after. Once the pack has scented the wolf, it will neither rest nor turn aside to other quarry until the chosen prey is dispatched. They may kill him, but he must hide the rest of the emeralds. Jemelda will know where they are. The jewel he has left with her will guide her to them. She may even be able to interpret their power more effectively than Ralph when the time comes; she is the purer-hearted of them.

  It is imperative he lives as long as it takes him to get to the well.

  Even as he acknowledges that thought, a roar behind him catches Ralph unawares and the next moment he feels the jaws of death about his throat. He opens his mouth to cry out but no sound comes out. Skin rips and his hands, slippery now with blood, tear helplessly at his attacker.

  He will die here after all. He has failed.

  As Ralph falls to his knees, still scrabbling for release, his hand spills open and the four last emeralds drop to the earth. One of them brushes past the strange stone coat of the mountain dog attacking him. Green flames singe its body and a part of it melts away. The hound opens its mouth and howls. Blood streams from Ralph’s neck, but it’s not the lifeblood. It’s not spurting out as he has seen happen when his own dogs bring the field deer to its end.

  He drags himself to his feet. Grabbing the pouch, he snatches up as many of the fallen emeralds as he can find. Three of them have come to rest in a hollow near a cypress tree. The dog that attacked him is lying whimpering on the other side. He can see the fire of the emerald that touched it licking its destruction over the animal’s body. The dog is vanishing. First a flank and then the whole leg disappears completely and the dog’s howl rises, rises.

  The rest of the pack are still straining for Ralph. Dark saliva drips from their bared teeth and they glance at him and then at their dying leader, over and over again. He knows if he runs, they will make their choice for him. The fact Ralph has stopped has thrown their purpose out of kilter. But, surely, soon the scent of his blood will overcome that brief hesitation. Before this, he has always been the hunter and not the hunted. Now he knows how the wild stag feels. At least he’ll face them standing.

  But as he takes a breath, the pack have already made their decision. The nearest hound draws up his haunches and leaps. Not towards Ralph but towards their dying leader. In the next heartbeat, the rest of them are upon the beast. Stone slashes into stone, and darkness and crimson flies upwards. Green sparks, too, which must be the work of the jewel. The howling and the death cries of the doomed animal fill the air.

  As Ralph starts to run, or rather hobble, something hard lands on his face. Reaching up, he finds it is the fourth emerald and, still fleeing, he drops it with the others back into the pouch. He doesn’t know how it returned to him but there is no time to ponder such questions. It won’t be long before the dogs continue their hunt. Already, the sound behind him changes in tone, and soon he knows they will look for their next prey. In his head, Ralph can hear Jemelda’s words. She said there was safety in water. There is a safety of sorts, too, in the pouch of emeralds he carries. Perhaps both will combine to protect them.

  It is then that the skin of Ralph’s palm where it touches the jewel-pouch begins to grow hot. He continues to limp onwards, gasping for air, and when he glances down he sees that the emeralds are glowing—all of them. He can see them through the bag’s velvet. It is the same way they glowed before destroying the mountain dog. Are they going to kill him, too? Just as the village is almost in sight?

  But he misunderstands their purpose. Before Ralph can respond in any fashion, the heat from the jewels transfers itself to his body and he feels a surge of strength power through his blood. He starts to run, in truth this time and as if he has never been injured at all, with the beat of his heart pounding in his ears. Risking a glance behind him, when all reason tells him it will be foolish, Ralph sees the remaining dogs are starting their pursuit. This time they are as silent as the deep stone they come from and that terrifies him even more.

  He can glimpse the outskirts of the village now. The baker’s home, or what is left of it. No roof, only three walls and the remains of his working oven lying half in and half out of the entrance. Ralph’s heart quickens its irregular rhythm as he sees that, next to the well, two women are deep in conversation. They shouldn’t be there. It is long past the hour for water talk. But these days nothing is what it should be. His decisions have swept away their traditions along with their safety.

  When Ralph tries to shout a warning, his mouth makes no noise above a harsh whisper. They have to go, they have to. Once the dogs arrive, their hot breath all but snapping at his heels once more, there is no knowing what they will do, whom they will kill. Will the emeralds and the water protect all three of them? Ralph cannot guarantee it.

  Not caring what they will think, he somehow brings together the corners of his thoughts in the way Simon showed him, a thousand lifetimes ago. He imagines crimson and black, colours to induce terror. He takes that picture and he uses what little mind-power he has to cast it in the direction of the women.

  The nearest one spins round. Even at this distance, Ralph can see her eyes widen. Her hands go to her mouth and she begins to scream.

  Run, he says in his mind, but he does not know whether either of them can hear his pleading. Run. Hide.

  It is her companion, howe
ver, who takes the first action. She grabs the screaming woman and begins to race over the grass and weeds. They are heading for the baker’s house. Ralph does not know whether it will be enough, but it is something.

  As he reaches the well, the women stumble over the ramshackle stone of the ruined dwelling and disappear from sight beneath the walls and, as the dogs finally catch up with him, his hand grasps the sides of the well and he feels the hint of water on his flesh. The emeralds begin to sing, something Ralph has never heard before, and he collapses to the earth, beaten and exhausted.

  He expects to die. The hunt is over and the victim cornered. It is now that the final blow falls.

  Except it does not. The dogs cease their howling and the only sound left is the song of the emeralds. It pierces Ralph’s flesh and he drops the pouch containing them. The tune continues, but he could never repeat its notes. They are from a range impossible for the tongues of men; they are that particular shade of white in the leaves of winter-lilac before the coldest part of the year-cycle, a white that cannot be copied in paint or thread; they are the melody that wakes you at dawn when the summer season is at its height and which is half dream, half reality.

  The mountain dogs cower back, whimpering. The emeralds’ song becomes louder and green fire flares out from amongst them. It darts past Ralph’s face so he feels the heat from its depth scald his skin. The fire forms a circle on the other side of the well. It burns away the air around it and darkness fills the space within so he cannot see through to what he knows should lie beyond—the grass, the shattered houses of the poor and the path through the village. Is this the magic his ancestors promised? He does not know and cannot control what it may do.

  At the edge of his eye, Ralph catches a swift movement—dark against the morning light. When he swings round, the nearest of the dogs is already leaping towards him. It comes to him that he is tired of running and he does not want to die like a coward. So he faces the mountain beast full on and, arms stretched wide, tries to roar out his anger and frustration to the emptiness and desolation of the village he has helped to ruin. Of course, he has no voice and he is nothing but a fool. He can only hope Jemelda and the emeralds may somehow save his people.

  But what Ralph expects does not occur. His face is not torn, nor the flesh ripped from his bones by Gelahn’s star-forsaken hounds. The mountain dog leaps over his head and Ralph catches the scent of rock and death as he flies above him. The animal passes easily over the well mouth and plunges into the fire circle created by the emeralds, where he vanishes into the dark.

  The flames leap higher and Ralph only has time to gasp once before the remainder of the pack is following suit. One by one, the dogs disappear into the flames. Each time one of them is swallowed up into the strange green night, Ralph thinks he sees a glimpse of something—someone—that should not be there, but his mind recoils away from the image, cannot admit the chance of it.

  Finally, when all the mountain dogs have vanished, the circle’s voice softens until, with a sudden long drawn out hiss, the flames turn in on themselves and vanish. All he can hear now is the shallow whistle of his own breath, all he can feel is the warm blood on his skin. For the first time he realises he is thirsty almost to death. Perhaps the dogs did not need to finish him off at all. Perhaps he is already vanquished.

  The morning around him shimmers and he blinks to clear his vision. It doesn’t work. Trees bend and dance, and the sun falls and rises in the sky. When he tries to move, he has not strength enough to do it. A sound from his right. Whispering and footsteps. He turns his head a fraction and sees long dark hair, a glimpse of torn skirts, blood.

  Ralph’s last sight before the blackness takes hold of his body is a woman bending towards him, concern and terror in her eyes.

  Chapter Nine: Deceits and desires

  Duncan Gelahn

  In the vast expanse of blue and white, which is both the executioner’s childhood Gathandria and a place of emptiness where the Spirit has led them, the mountain dogs appear as if from nowhere, leaping through air into air from a mysterious circle of green fire. The Lost One cries out, but Duncan seizes him, stops him from running.

  “No,” he whispers. “Their blood is up. If you run, they will tear you apart.”

  It is true, not just a lie to keep him here. Each dog arrives snarling and howling, saliva and blood dripping from their jaws. They bring with them all the deepest colours of the night. It makes the fresh colours of green, blue and white around them fade into nothing. It takes over all the desires and deceits of the heart. Gelahn cherishes it.

  He senses Simon’s terror and smiles to himself; the mountain dogs are an unexpected bonus in the situation in which he now stands. He does not know how they have arrived here or who has sent them, but he knows he can use them if the Lost One proves too weak. The scribe has a deep seated fear of the dogs. The shoulder under his hand is trembling. Still, the half Gathandrian stays where he is, and Gelahn cannot help but admire that. For a wise coward, though one who does not fully know his own wisdom, Simon can act in surprising ways. He must make sure he never discounts that fact.

  “Do you trust me?” he asks.

  The Lost One makes no reply. He is beyond speech.

  Gelahn bends down, takes full hold of the mind-cane with his free hand, for the first time since he lost it. Once more that shock of recognition and the undercurrent of unspoken pain, the way the cane knows him and doesn’t know him. All the day-cycles he has held its black and silver perfection in his hand, he has fought to keep its power in balance with his own. Since first he stole it away from the elders’ prison, that day when he knew there would be a reckoning for what they had done to him there, he has understood that the mind-cane and he do not belong together. But that has never meant that alliances cannot be made. At the beginning, it fought him, but the wisdom he gained in year-cycles of long study and the patience he learned in the great Library’s cage have taught Gelahn well. Now, the mind-cane respects his choices. They understand each other.

  Although it truly belongs to Simon.

  Sweeping that thought out of his mind as irrelevant, the executioner curls his fingers around the cane and brings it down onto the head of the first hound just as it lunges upwards towards the Lost One’s neck. The dog falls to the earth, whimpering. Purple and orange fire leap from the cane’s silver carving and, at once, the remainder of the hounds skid to a halt, their stone paws scoring bloody lines through grass. The howling stops. At the same time, the circle of green that brought the pack to them collapses. No trace of it remains.

  The snow-raven spreads its feathers and takes to the air, circling around them. The bird makes no noise, only the waft of its wings lessens the strange silence. It is Simon who speaks first.

  “Wh-what are they doing here?” he says, his voice steadier than Gelahn has assumed it would be.

  For a beat or two of his heart, the mind-executioner does not know, although he keeps that weakness from his companion. He is aware with every part of his being that the Lost One will be able to sense him more clearly now, particularly as they are touching. He lets his hand drop from Simon’s shoulder. It is then that the answer comes to him; the mind-cane’s wisdom begins to settle more deeply within and gives him what he longs to know.

  He laughs, delight rising like a river in his gut. “The dogs are here to show us the way. Can you not see it?”

  Then, striding through the beaten animals and, in fact, barely acknowledging their presence, Gelahn reaches the place where the circle appeared and hunkers down, stretching his hand across the grass, fingers feeling for he knows not what, but he understands it is there. He can sense it. As he does so, the cane fizzes against his skin and he glances down to see a soft green glow surrounding its ebony shape. The same green as the circle.

  “So,” he whispers, as if the cane is able to answer him at all. Ah, but it can, it can, though not in words of the tongue. “So then, what do you know, and what are you not telling me?”

&nb
sp; “What have you found?” This from the Lost One, who has not yet gained the courage to cross through the dogs, although Gelahn senses he wishes to.

  The mind-executioner does not answer, yet. Instead, he brushes the cane slowly through the tallest of the grasses and smiles as the glow deepens. When that glow fires up into sparks, he pushes his fingers down into the earth so black soil spills over his hand. At this, he grimaces, but forces himself to continue. For another moment or two, he finds nothing. Then, just as he is about to curse himself and the deceitful cane for all kinds of betrayal, his fingers touch something hard and round hidden in the soil. It is so small he all but missed it.

  He grasps the unknown treasure and pulls it upward into the sun. What he sees is an emerald. And what value can such easy riches bring him? Almost nothing, except he can feel the mind-cane’s power surging through his blood, singing itself towards the jewel he holds in his fingers. At the same time, the emerald responds in kind to the song and its sparkle takes on a richer hue. Gelahn feels as if he is a bridge between worlds that have been apart for too long.

  Simon’s question remains. What is it? This jewel should not be in this place. It lies nowhere in his mind so he cannot have placed it here. It must have come through with the dogs. It must be part of the pathway that carried them from the Lammas Lands where he left them. But how, and for what purpose? And, more importantly, how can such magic be used to help him?

  Simon

  When the mind-executioner held up the small green jewel, the scribe knew at once what it was. His heart beat faster and he stepped forward, only for one of the mountain beasts, those dark tearers of flesh, to raise its head and snarl softly at him. He stopped at once, not that his customary cowardice mattered. He had one thought in his mind and one thought only. Ralph.

  The emerald belonged to the Lammas Lord, Simon was sure of it, not that he had seen it with his eyes, but he had sensed it often enough in Ralph’s mind when they were together. He had assumed there were more of them, however, not just one. Where were the others? And why should Ralph have let them go? The knowledge of them had been a private matter, something to do with the Lammas Lord’s family. When Simon had seen their image in his liege lord’s thoughts, it had been buried deep in an almost unused corner of his memories. The scribe had not disturbed it, but he knew Ralph held the mysterious emeralds in high regard. Something must have happened to him for one of them to be lost, and for the dogs to be here.