Blood of the Red

Chapter 25 - Ingold

Chapter 25 – Ingold

The chunk of flint sat easily in Ingold's hand. The winter sun struck gleams from its dark facets.

"There's blood on this, and hair. Black hair," he said.

"Not the child's then." Gartus joined him.

"No." Ingold's face was set, his eyes on the horizon.

"They didn't take Dain just to knock his brains out in the middle of nowhere," Gartus said.

A loud report sounded. Ingold opened his fist and the stone fell to the ground in two halves.

"They wanted the key." He spoke with soft deliberation, shaping each word, paring away any emotion. "They'll stay close to the door now."

Gartus stared back over the hills they'd toiled through. "From here the Arkasians must have seen the flames and lightning from the ambush, or the smoke at least. They wouldn't have waited long."

The two men moved on, their pace little short of a run. The night's snow covered the tracks that had steered Ingold to the boulder field. Only instinct remained to lead them now.

"There's an obelisk to the west. A good meeting point..." Gartus took the lead.

Sweat soaked Ingold's back, gluing him to his jerkin. His pack lay discarded at the ambush site. It had troubled his sliced shoulder and they could make more speed unburdened. A light shift served to cover Gartus's massive torso. He ran with his arms bare; with such fires banked inside, no chill could touch him.

The black finger of stone drew them from a distance. Ingold reached it first. He halted before the monument and looked back for Gartus. Sweat trickled over his ribs. He was panting like a dog and the wound in his side was a deep well of pain. He wiped his brow and shook away the drops. The single stone rose twelve foot from the plains, dwarfing even Gartus with its bulk. The black basalt from which it had been hewn could not be quarried within the land of Conault. Runes clustered thickly on the northern face. Wind and rain had tried for centuries to erase their message, but the unknown script persisted, deeply graven.

"You can't come with me," Ingold said.

"Try to stop me."

Ingold softened, "You're hardly unobtrusive, my friend. Before you reached the walls of Parsus City half the king's army would be arrayed to meet you."

"Maybe I could defeat half of the king's army," Gartus growled.

"And the other half? And the Blood Guard? And the Red Priests?"

"I swore to protect the boy. My protection lasted a day..."

Heat poured from him. The snow shrank back, uncovering dark rock in a circle around the giant. Gartus raised his open hands and the air about them shimmered with the heat. "I won't wait here. Not while you face my enemy."

Ingold put a hand to Gartus's arm, then snatched it back, pressing scorched fingertips to his side. "Patience, Gartus. I'll get you the chance you want, just hold that temper ... until we need it.

"I have the inkling of a plan, but we've got to make haste."

Ingold led the way. The Blood burned within him. He could feel it where the Arkasians' swords had cut him, knitting the flesh once more, purging any infection. The fire fed on his anger, and his anger filled him. Ingold ran on, oblivious to the world about him. His senses found the path, whilst his mind gnawed on the bones of memory. Like a tongue returning time and again to a sore tooth, he was drawn back. Once before such rage had sustained him. He remembered the smell of the smoke and he was there again. Stannith Hall burned again behind him. Blood Guards pressed him to the fore. Captain Yekrin, his pretty face with its ugly white troll-scar, and two others. Yekrin's sword pierced his chest. It slid between his ribs and cold iron sliced his lung. He fell to his knees, his gaze held by the blade that transfixed him. Another sword hewed him from the side, it chopped into him like an axe to a tree. The first sword ripped from his chest, releasing him, letting him fall. He coughed up a crimson fountain. In his mind's eye Ingold watched himself pitch forward. He watched the dagger, blunted from its night's work, dragged across his throat.

On All Hallows morning he had lain with the dead. Sprawled before the smouldering ruins of Stanith Hall, lying stiff in his own blood, black with smoke. There had been no pain. Ingold had sunk towards his death through a darkness lit by fantasy. He danced still, beneath a painted sky, Karalynn in his arms. The music had played; laughter and wine flowed. But there ... a sour note, and there another. A discordant melody intruded, its theme violent, sudden, jarring. Karalynn! His arms were empty. Karalynn! It had taken all the effort in the world, every ounce of strength, to lift the eyelid not glued shut with gore. A single green-gold eye had rolled in its socket, seeking focus.

Nothing had remained to label the corpses within the hall. Twisted amongst the fallen rafters, no features distinguished them, save size, to mark a child from the rest. His single eye marked Karalynn only as a charred remnant, crouched in the corner where he bade her stay.

"Wait. I'll deal with this." He had sounded so calm. So confident. So worthy of trust.

In a heart even then promising its last beat, anger ignited. The dead man's lip had curled. Sooty hands balled into fists.

A distant shout pulled Ingold from the past. He was sprinting, running so fast the ground blurred beneath him. He took the brook before him in a single stride and skidded to a halt. Behind him, in the distance, Gartus struggled to catch up. Far ahead the spires of Parsus City punctuated the skyline.