Roger Taylor - Dream Finder

The leader of the ghalers stepped forward and took Menedrion's hand. ‘You and I would have fought a more honourable war than this, Duke to be, had true cause arisen. When all this is concluded, we shall debate an honourable peace.'

'You and I might well, soldier,’ Menedrion replied. ‘But you have your Hanestra and your Council of Five…'

The Bethlarii looked at him resolutely.

'When all this is concluded, we shall debate an honourable peace,’ he said again, slowly and deliberately.

Ibris, standing to one side, smiled as he felt a will the equal of his own and knew that the words needed no qualification.

The ghaler spoke again. ‘But now we march for the north-east to relieve our cities and punish these invaders. That done, we shall send proper envoys to both Whendrak and Serenstad to discuss due reparation and the drawing up of a further treaty between us. The rule of the priests is over.'

'May the speed of your march ring down in legend, Bethlarii,’ Menedrion replied. ‘We go, too, though another way. Even now, I fear I may be losing my father's son and his finest warriors against this foe.'

When Menedrion and Feranc and the remainder of Ibris's regiment of bodyguards came to the farmhouse, however, it was to witness the stomach-turning horror of the cleansing of the battlefield.

The task had fallen to a reserve battalion from Viernce who had come in response to one of the many messengers that Ibris had sent following Antyr's revelation about Ivaroth.

The torn and mangled bodies of horses and men were being dragged across the churned earth to be thrown on to great bonfires. Birds and small animals were scurrying about the field and, despite the cold, clouds of flies were appearing. Those injured men abandoned by their fleeing companions and whose injuries could be treated, were duly tended, but many could only be given ease by the physicians’ long knives.

No count of Ivaroth's dead was made, though it numbered many hundreds. Of Arwain's force, some fifteen had died; six of the Mantynnai, nine Serens.

When the Bethlarii reached Navra and Endir, it was to find the cities abandoned by the tribesmen. They followed the trail of their reckless retreat for some way, but, exhausted from their own prodigious forced march across country, they made no attempt to pursue them into the mountains.

The tale of the return of the tribes to the plains is for another time.

Ivaroth's body was found on top of the hill, but there was no sign of the blind man.

'Where is he?’ Ibris asked Antyr, concerned that this terrible individual might return in avenging fury, but the Dream Finder just shook his head and said, ‘I don't know, sire. But he's gone from this world. And he's twice blinded now.'

Ciarll Feranc and the Mantynnai talked long to Haster and Jadric as they rode back from the battle, but that, too, is a tale for another time.

In Ibris's dominions, much was changed and much remained the same.

The massacre of Larnss’ reservists invoked shock and dismay throughout the land, while the stand of Arwain's force at Kirstfeorrd threatened to become legendary.

Antyr's role in the darker battle that had been fought that day was known only to a few, and even he laid no claim to understanding what he had truly done.

The Sened and the Gythrin-Dy talked and debated at endless length. The Guilds and the great trading houses protested at the disruption of the full voluntary mobilization, though none railed too loudly. The realization that their land could be threatened by powerful forces from beyond their borders did more to ease the more excessive internecine political squabbling and feuding than any amount of Ibris's urgings.

Even Nefron was strangely subdued, and erstwhile opponents of Ibris found they no longer had her covert support. Indeed, it was whispered that from the cold and bitter ashes of their long-spent passion, green shoots of friendship were appearing …

Arwain returned to his wife, while half-heartedly, Menedrion returned to his various conquests. Soon, however, he married a beautiful, sloe-eyed woman. A childhood companion who had been ever by him, watching, waiting, silently tending to his foolish needs until the time when he would more truly know both himself and her.

Ibris noted with some irony that it was his peace-loving son who had fought the terrible battles and his warrior son who had sealed the peace. He noted too that they were both the wiser now, and he was well pleased.

His other son, Goran, returned to his painting and architectural studies, having been placed by his father, for want of anything more suitable, in charge of the building of temporary barracks for the many volunteers and reservists gathered in by the mobilization. ‘You like studying buildings, don't you?’ Ibris had told him.

Pandra returned to his retirement, though not for long. Within a month of his return he was proving to be a considerable thorn in the side of the Council of the Guild of Dream Finders. Several members resigned-in protest at his lack of respect, they said-as did their Companions: cats, for the most part.

Haster and Jadric made to leave the land as quietly as they had arrived, but Ibris, beginning to understand them, intercepted them personally.

'What of your duty to your king?’ he said, appearing in front of them as they prepared to ride from the palace. ‘Aren't you to take the Mantynnai back for an accounting and judgement?'

Haster smiled at the ambush. ‘Our duty to our queen , and our people, Lord, is to seek out our erstwhile countrymen and let them know that an accounting is required of them. We know what your Mantynnai have done since they came here and we shall carry their accounting for them.'

'You have that authority, soldier?’ Ibris pressed.

Haster's smile widened. ‘I shall account for it,’ he replied.

Ibris nodded. ‘As you wish,’ he said. ‘But, your intentions notwithstanding, I must tell you that you may not now leave here.'

Haster's eyes narrowed slightly, but Ibris cast a glance upwards by way of explanation. Drifting lazily down from the dull grey sky were the black silhouettes of the first winter snowflakes.

'The mountains will be impassable, the seas bad. Stay with us until the spring,’ Ibris said.

Haster cast a reproachful eye at the snow, now beginning to fall more rapidly. ‘We have some skill in such travelling, Lord,’ he said. ‘And there are far worse who followed as the Mantynnai did. They were weak and foolish, and lured into evil as many of us could have been. They have long atoned. But there are others who did deeds for which they must be found and returned home for accounting and judgement, no matter where they hide, no matter how long it takes.'

Ibris frowned with concern at the grim resolution in the man's voice, but he persisted. ‘Nevertheless, stay with us until the spring,’ he said again. ‘Tell us about your people and their ways, and about your own terrible war that's cast its shadow this far. Bring your light to dispel it.'

Only Antyr seemed ill at ease. Politely declining the honours that Ibris would have thrust upon him, he returned to his own home and occupied himself with such matters as repairing the gutters and decorating, and oiling the screeching door. At Tarrian's urging-‘Don't be so blistering stupid, man!’-he did not decline Ibris's offer of a generous pension for life.

His new-found friends, however, visited him frequently and gossiped about palace affairs and occasionally tried to urge him to move into the greater comfort of the palace. But always he declined.

'I have to think,’ he said. ‘I have to understand what I saw, what I did. But I'm well,’ he would conclude with a sad smile.

Then to Haster and Jadric one day, he said, ‘I fear my ignorance. I feel I have a great … gift … but I've no measure of it. And struggle as I may, I become no wiser about it.’ He was silent for some time. His two listeners waited. ‘It burdens me fearfully. They said I was scarce an apprentice,’ he said, eventually. ‘I need to learn, but no one here can help me.'