David Gemmell – Rigante 4 – Stormrider

She built up the fire and sat quietly. Hang-lip was always a cruel beast, and yet this action of his had baffled the clansmen. Not so the Wyrd. The beast was possessed. Somehow the enemy had managed to control him. Perhaps it was Hang-lip’s twisted nature which allowed them access. Whatever the method their target was the child, Feargol. He had the Gift. The Wyrd had tried to explain this to Finbarr, but the clansman had angrily turned her away. ‘You’ll not fill my son’s head with these ancient stupidities,’ he had told her.

‘Can you not see he is frightened, Finbarr? He is hearing voices. They are threatening him. I can help.’

‘He is daydreaming. All children fear what they do not understand.’

‘Not only children, Finbarr.’

‘You stay away from my boy!’

She should have pushed him harder, she thought. Instead she had merely walked away from the cabin. The Wyrd sat now, feeling the ache in her bones. ‘ You are getting old and frail,’ she said aloud.

‘You’ll never be old, Dweller,’ said Rayster, using the name she had acquired here in the north. He moved alongside her and stretched out his hands to the fire. ‘You look now just the same as when I first saw you. And I was a toddler then.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ she told him. ‘You were a babe, four days old. You were tiny, and yet braw. You should have been dead, but there was spirit in you. Mountain spirit. You gladdened my heart then, clansman. You do so now.’ Rayster gave a crooked grin that was wondrously infectious. The Wyrd smiled back at him, and they sat in comfortable silence, listening to the crackling of the fire. The three other clansmen moved in, but they did not sit close to the woman they knew as the Dweller by the Lake. She was a witch, and she could – so they believed – read minds and hearts. They kept their distance. This amused the Wyrd, for she knew them all well, and there was little in their lives that could shame them. They were brave, caring men, and good clansmen. Korrin Talis drank a little too much and became maudlin, and Potter Highstone crept away to an earth maiden once in a while, but they were small sins. She glanced at the youngest, Fada Talis. He was full of guilt, for his family were waiting for him to find a girl to marry, while in his heart he dreamt only of Rayster. Small sins – if sins at all. Yet sadly it was never the sin itself but only the weight men placed on it that counted.

‘We’ve set the grave fires, Rayster,’ said young Fada Talis. ‘How long should we wait?’

‘It’ll be tough digging whenever,’ said Rayster. ‘But we’ll wait an hour for the fires to soften the ground. Keep an eye on them, and keep them fed.’

‘I will.’

‘Did you see the deaths, Dweller?’ asked Korrin Talis. In his mid-twenties he was losing his hair, which had receded at the temples giving him a sharp widow’s peak above his brow.

‘Aye,’ she answered him. ‘Finbarr and Ural put up a brave fight. They died swiftly.’

‘Rayster tells us that Kaelin has the youngest,’ he said.

‘Yes, the boy is with Ravenheart. The bear is hunting them.’

‘Why did you not say?’ shouted Rayster, pushing himself to his feet. ‘We must go and help him.’

‘Sit down, man!’ snapped the Wyrd. ‘Do you think if that was a possibility I’d have dawdled here?’

‘Will they escape it then?’ he asked.

‘No. It will come for them. Kaelin Ring will fight it. I cannot predict the outcome.’

‘He’s a bonny fighter,’ said Potter Highstone. The oldest of the clansmen, Potter was powerfully built, and nicknamed Badger by his friends, after the heavy black and silver beard he sported. ‘I’d wager my money on Ravenheart,’ he said. ‘Especially if he’s carrying those Emburleys. Fine guns, by heaven.’

‘I don’t know,’ muttered Korrin Talis. ‘I’ve seen Hang-lip. Take a damned cannon to bring him down.’

‘Where are they now?’ Rayster asked the Wyrd. ‘Can you see them?’

‘No, I cannot see them, clansman. Yet I know where they are.