No Gateway to Heaven – well, not for his body anyway. Just a lonely death, slain by lesser men. Such is the fate of kings, she thought.
A light breeze touched her body and she shivered. ‘Are you still here, Ironhand?’ she asked aloud. ‘Does your spirit haunt this place?’
‘Only when the moon is full,’ came a voice. Sigarni sprang to her feet and turned to see a tall man standing by the willow. He was leaning on a staff of oak, and smiling. Lady had ignored him and was still lying by the poolside, head on her paws. Sigarni reached down to where her clothes lay and drew her dagger from its sheath. ‘Oh, you’ll not need that, lady. I am no despoiler of women. I am merely a traveller who stopped for a drink of cool mountain water. My name is Loran.’ Leaning his staff against the tree he moved past her and knelt at the water’s edge, pausing to stroke Lady’s flanks before he drank.
‘She doesn’t… usually … like strangers,’ said Sigarni lamely.
‘I have a way with animals.’ He glanced up at her and gave a boyish grin. ‘Perhaps you would feel more comfortable dressed.’ He was a handsome man, slender and beardless, his hair corn-yellow, his eyes dark blue.
Sigarni decided that she liked his smile. ‘Perhaps you would feel more comfortable undressed,’ she said, her composure returning.
‘Are you Loda people always so forward?’ he asked her amiably.
Returning the knife to its sheath, she sat down. Lady stood and padded to her side. ‘What clan are you?’ she asked.
Tallides,’ he told her.
‘Are all Pallides men so bashful?’
He laughed, the sound rich and merry. ‘No. But we’re a gentle folk
who need to be treated with care and patience. How far is it to Cilfallen?’ He stood and moved to a fallen tree, brushing away the loose dirt before seating himself.
Sigarni reached for her leggings and climbed into them. ‘Half a day,’ she told him, ‘due south.’ Her upper body was still damp and the white woollen shirt clung to her breasts. Belting on her dagger, she sat down once more. ‘Why would a Pallides man be this far south?’ she enquired.
‘I am seeking Tovi Long-arm. I have a message from the Hunt Lord. Do you have a name, woman?”
‘Yes.’
‘Might I enquire what it is?’
‘Sigarni.’
‘Are you angry with me, Sigarni?’ the words were softly spoken. She looked into his eyes and saw no hint of humour there. Yes, I am angry, she thought. Asmidir called me a whore, Fell left without a word of thanks or goodbye, and now this stranger had spurned her body. Of course I’m bloody angry!
‘No,’ she lied. He leaned back and stretched his arm along the tree trunk. Sigarni swept the dagger from the sheath, flipped the blade, then sent the weapon slashing through the air. It slammed into the trunk no more than two inches from his hand. Loran glanced down to see that the blade had cut cleanly through the head of a viper, the rest of its body was thrashing in its death throes. He drew back his hand.
‘You are an impressive woman, Sigarni,’ he said, reaching out and pulling clear the weapon. With one stroke he decapitated the snake, then cleaned the blade on the grass before returning it hilt first to the silver-haired huntress.
‘I’ll walk with you a-ways,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want a Pallides man to get lost in the forest.’
‘Impressive and blessed with kindness.’
Together they walked from the falls and up the main trail. The trees were thicker here, the leaves already beginning to turn to the burnished gold of autumn. ‘Do you usually talk to ghosts?’ asked Loran, as they walked.
‘Ghosts?’ she queried.
‘Ironhand. You were talking to him when I arrived? Was that the magic pool where he crossed over?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you believe the legend?’
‘Why should I not?’ she countered. ‘No-one ever found a body, did they?’
He shrugged. ‘He never came back either. But his life does make a wonderful story. The last great King before Gandarin. It is said he killed seven of the men sent to murder him. No mean feat for a wounded man.’ Loran laughed. ‘Maybe they were all stronger and tougher two hundred years ago. That’s what my grandfather told me, anyway. Days when men were men, he used to say. And he assured me that Ironhand was seven feet tall and his battle-axe weighed sixty pounds. I used to sit in my grandfather’s kitchen and listen to the tallest stories, of dragons and witches, and heroes who stood a head and shoulders above other men. Anyone under six feet tall in those days was dubbed a dwarf, he told me. I believed it all. Never was a more gullible child.’