DAVID A. GEMMEL. SWORD IN THE STORM

‘Yes,’ grunted the man.

‘Good. Then I shall bid you farewell.’ Tossing the knife into the man’s lap he walked away. Conn followed him.

‘He called you Stone man. Are you from that city?’

‘Yes. My name is Valanus. What is your interest in Stone?’

‘My friend and I are travelling there. I am eager to learn about it.’

‘It is a great city, boy. The centre of the world. Now, I think I had better get this cut seen to.’ He paused. ‘So tell me, to whom do I owe my life?’

‘I am Connavar.’

‘Gath? Ostro? What?’

‘Rigante.’

‘Ah yes, the tribes across the water. I have heard of them. A proud people, it is said. You worship trees or some such.’

‘We do not worship trees,’ Conn told him, as they walked towards the hall. ‘We worship the gods of air and water, and the spirits of the land.’

‘There is only one god, Connavar. And He is in Stone.’ Valanus paused at the doorway to the hall. ‘So tell me, Connavar, why did you save my life?’

‘Why would I not?’ countered Conn. Valanus gave a weary smile.

‘My head hurts too much to debate the point. I am in your debt, Rigante.’

With that he turned away from Conn and moved into the hall.

Garshon was a short, slope-shouldered man, close to sixty years of age. Bald and one-eyed, he wore a strip of red cloth over his blinded left eye. Gold bands adorned his muscular upper arms, and gaudy rings shone on every finger. His single eye was a pale, merciless blue, and it either stared, or glared. There were no halfway measures with Garshon. There never had been. Not since that terrible day in the Doca Forest forty-four years ago, when they had burned out his right eye.

He had been hunting rabbits when the lord and his lady rode by. The young Garshon had been stunned by the beauty of the lord’s wife, and had failed to dip his head. Instead he had gazed upon her. She said later, as the retainers tied him down and prepared a fire, that he had winked at her.

Garshon had suffered on that day, and for several months after. The pain had been awful. But it had released in him a terrible ambition, that burned just as bright as the heated dagger blade that had destroyed his eye.

Revenge took him six years four months and eight days. Gathering together a small gang of outlaws he raided through Doca lands, gathering wealth and amassing power, hiring more mercenaries and killers, until at last he besieged the lord’s town. When it fell he had the lord dragged naked into the town square. There Garshon castrated him, then hanged him. The lady he flung from a high cliff, and watched with relish as her body was crushed against the rocks below. Her children he sold into slavery.

The other lords formed an alliance that all but destroyed his army. Garshon had escaped, and fled to the west with three ponies and a chest of gold, coming at last to the then small port of Goriasa.

Thirty-eight years later he controlled the city and its trade routes, his power absolute, his influence extraordinary. Tribal kings and princes looked to him for advice and patronage; a word from Garshon could influence events six hundred miles away. And yet he was not satisfied.

Truth to tell he had never been satisfied. On the day he killed the lord he had dragged his lady to the clifftop. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she cried.

‘Look at my eye, you cow. How can you ask?’

She had stared at him, blankly, totally uncomprehending. He knew in that moment that she had no recollection of ruining his life. As she fell screaming to her death Garshon felt only emptiness. There was no joy in the revenge.

There had been no real joy since. He should have kept her alive, forced her to remember, to know that her punishment was a matter of justice, and not merely vengeance. Then, perhaps, he would have tasted the sweetness of her death.

‘You seem lost in thought,’ said Banouin. Garshon took a deep breath, and returned his concentration to the little merchant. He actually liked the man, which was rare.