He was sweating heavily by the end of the first mile, and by the second he felt his legs trembling with the effort of carrying the unconscious woman. Sigarni had made no sound throughout and Fell paused by a stream, lowering her to the ground. Her colour was not good, and her pulse was faint and erratic. Carefully he examined her, opening her torn shirt. There were bloody teeth-marks on her breast, and a range of purple bruises on her rib-cage and shoulders. But no deep wounds. She is in shock, he thought. It is vital to keep her warm; to find somewhere he could nurse her. Gently he stroked her bruised face. 'You are safe, my love,' he said, softly. 'Hold on for me.' She did not stir as Fell wrapped the crimson cloak around her, then lifted her to his shoulders. Almost two hours had passed already since the fight above the town, and there were still four miles to go. Fell took a deep breath and struggled on, trying not to think of his aching muscles, the burning in his calves and thighs.

For three more painful hours Fell carried Sigarni through the forest. In all that time she made no sound.

At last they arrived at the Alwen Falls.

There was no sign of the wizard.

In a shallow cave, a little way back from the pool, Fell built a fire. Removing his own sheepskin cloak he covered Sigarni with it and, holding her hand, talked to her as she slept. 'Well,' he said, squeezing her limp fingers, 'this is a sorry mess and no mistake. We're wolves' heads now, my love. I wish I knew why. Why were they chasing you? Who wounded you? Ah well, I expect you'll tell me in your own good time. Shame about the bow, though. Best I ever had. But I couldn't carry it, hold you and guide the horse at the same time.' Leaning forward, he stroked her brow. 'You are the most beautiful woman, Sigarni. I never saw the like. Was that what caused your pain? Did some Outland noble desire you so badly he felt compelled to take you by force? Was it the red-bearded man whose throat you slashed to red

97.

ribbons?' Releasing her hand, he fed wood to the fire and rose, walking to the cave-mouth. What now, he wondered? Where will we go?

He had relatives among the Wingoras and the Farlain, but with a price on his head he would only endanger them by seeking their aid. No, Fell, he told himself, you are a man alone now, friendless and hunted. You have killed an Outlander and they will hunt you to your dying day. A roll of thunder boomed across the sky and lightning forked across the heavens. Fell shivered and watched as the rain hammered down on the surface of the pool, falling in sheets, thick and impenetrable. Stepping back from the cave-mouth, he returned to the fire and the sleeping Sigarni.

'We will cross the sea, my love,' he said, 'and I'll do what I should have done.

We'll marry and build a home in distant mountains.'

'No, you won't,' said Taliesen from the cave-mouth. Fell smiled and swung to see the old man, his feather cloak dripping water, his wispy hair plastered to his skull. In his hands he carried a long staff, wrapped in sacking cloth.

That's a more pleasing entrance,' said the forester. ''Now I believe you are flesh and blood.' Taliesen removed his cloak and draped it over a rock. Squatting by the fire, he held out his ancient hands to the flames.

'You did well, boy,' he said. 'You have evaded the first hunters. But they will send more, canny men, skilled in tracking. And with them will be a Finder, a seeker of souls, a reader of thoughts. If you survive this, which is doubtful at best, they will send the night-stalkers, creatures from the pit.'

'No, no,' said Fell, 'seek not to cheer me, old man, with your boundless optimism.

I am a grown man, tell it to me straight.'

Taliesen hawked and spat. 'I have no time for your humour. We must protect her, Fell. Her importance cannot be overstated. You must go from here to her cabin.

Gather her weapons and some spare clothes; give them to the dwarf. Tell him, and the others there, what has occurred. Then you must find the hunters and lead them deep into the mountains.'

Fell took a deep breath, fighting for calm. It didn't work. 'Find the hunters? Lead them? What say you I just attack the Citadel town single-handed and raze it to the ground? Or perhaps I could borrow your feather cloak and fly south, invading the Outland cities and

98.

slaying the King? Are you insane, old man? What do you expect me to do against thirty soldiers?'

'Whatever you can.' The old man looked into Fell's eyes, his expression as cold as ice on flint. 'You are dispensable, Fell,' said Taliesen. 'Your death will matter only to you. You can be replaced. Everything can be replaced, save Sigarni. You understand? You must earn her time, time to recover, time to learn. She is the leader your people have yearned for. Only she has the power to win freedom for the clans.'

'They'll never follow a woman! That much I know.'

Taliesen shook his head. 'They followed the Witch Queen four hundred years ago.

They crossed the Gateways and died for her. They stood firm against the enemy, though they were outnumbered and faced slaughter. They will follow her, Fell.'

'The Witch Queen was a sorceress. Sigarni is merely a woman.'

'How blind you are,' said the old man, 'and rich indeed is your male conceit. This woman was dragged to a cell and raped, sodomized and beaten senseless by four men. Like animals they fell upon her ...'

'I don't want to hear this!' roared Fell, half rising.

'But you shall!' stormed the wizard. 'They struck her with their fists, and they bit her. They cut her buttocks with their sharp knives, and forced her to unspeakable acts. Then they left her upon the floor of the cell, to lie on the cold stone floor in a pool of her own vomit and blood. Aye, well might you look shocked, for this was men at play, Fell. She lay there and after an hour or so a new guard came into the cell. He too wanted his piece of her flesh. She killed him, Fell. Then she hunted down the others. One she slew upon the dungeon stair. Two she killed outside a tavern. And the last? You saw him, in his fine red cloak of wool. Him she tore the throat from. Just a woman? By all the Gods of the Nine Worlds, boy, in her tortured condition she killed six strong men!'

Fell said nothing, and transferred his gaze to the sleeping woman. 'Aye, she's a Highlander,' he said, with pride. 'But even that will not make men follow her.'

'We will see,' said Taliesen. 'Now go to her cabin before the hunters reach it. Send the dwarf with weapons and clothes.'

'You will stay with her?'

'Indeed I will.'

Fell rose and swung his quiver over his shoulder, then gazed down

99.

at the unconscious Sigarni. 'I will keep her warm,' said Taliesen. 'Oh, and I retrieved your bow.' Lifting what Fell had believed to be a staff covered in sacking, Taliesen passed the weapon to the surprised forester.

'You even kept it dry. My thanks to you, wizard. I feel a whole man again.'

Taliesen ignored him and turned to the sleeping Sigarni, taking her long, slim hand into his own.

Swirling his cloak around his shoulders, Fell stepped out into the rain-drenched night.

Sigarni stood silently by the grey cave wall and listened as Fell and the old man spoke. She could hear their words, see their faces, and even -though she knew not how - feel their emotions. Fell was frightened and yet trying to maintain an air of male confidence. The old man -Taliesen? - was tired, yet filled with a barely suppressed excitement. And lying by the fire, looking so sad and used, she could see herself, wrapped in the rapist's red cloak, her face bruised and swollen. I am dying, she thought. My spirit has left my body and now only the Void awaits.

There was no panic in her, no fear, only a sadness built of dreams never to be realized.

Fell took his bow from the old man and walked from the cave. Sigarni tried to call out to him but he did not hear her. No one could hear her, save maybe the dead.

But she was wrong. As soon as Fell walked out into the rain the old man looked up at her, his button-bright eyes focusing on her face. 'Well, now we can talk,' he said. 'How are you feeling?'

Sigarni was both surprised and confused. The old man was holding the hand of her body, yet looking directly into the eyes of her spirit. It was disconcerting.

'I feel... nothing,' she said. 'Is this what death is like?'

He gave a dry chuckle, like the whispering of the wind across dead leaves. 'You are talking to a man who has fought back death for many centuries. I do not even wish to speculate on what death is like. Do you remember the waking of your spirit?'

'Yes, someone called me, but when I opened my eyes he was not here. How is this happening, old one?'

'I fear the answer may be too complicated for an untutored

100.

Highlander to understand. Essentially your body has been so brutalized that your mind has reeled from thoughts of it. You have entered a dream state which has freed your . .. soul, if you will. Now you feel no pain, no shame, no guilt. And while we talk your body is healing. I have, through my skill, increased the speed of the process. Even so, when you do return to the prison of flesh you will feel - shall we say - considerable discomfort.'

'Do I know you?' asked Sigarni.

'Do you think that you do?' he countered.

'I can remember being held close to your chest. You have a small mole under the chin; I know this. And in looking at you I can see another man, enormously tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a buckskin shirt with a red wing-spread hawk silhouette upon the breast.'

Taliesen nodded. 'Childhood memories. Yes, you know me, child. The other man was Caswallon. One day, if God is kind, you will meet him again.'

'You both saved me from the demons - out there by the pool. Gwalchmai told me.

Who are you, Taliesen? Why have you helped me?'

'I am merely a man - a great man, mind! And my reasons for helping you are utterly selfish. But now is not the time to speak of things past. The days of magick and power are upon us, Sigarni, the days of blood and death are coming.'

'I want no part in them,' she said.

'You have little choice in the matter. And you will feel differently when you wake.

In spirit form you are free of much more than merely the flesh. The human body has many weapons. Rage, which increases muscle power; fear, which can hone the mind wonderfully; love, which binds with ties of iron; and hate, which can move mountains. There are many more. But in astral form you are connected only tenuously to these emotions. It was rage and the need for revenge which saved your life, which drove you on to wear the Red. That rage is still there, Sigarni, a fire that needs no kindling, an eternal blaze that will light the road to greatness. But it rests in the flesh, awaiting your return.'

'You were correct, old one. I do not understand all you say. How do I return to my flesh?'

'Not yet. First go from the cave. Walk to the pool.'

She shook her head. 'There is a ghost there.'

101.

'Yes,' he said. 'Call him.'

Sigarni was on the point of refusing when Taliesen lifted his hand and pointed to the fire. The flames leapt up to form a sheer bright wall some four feet high.

Then, at the centre, a small spot of colourless light appeared, opening to become a pale glistening circle. It glowed snow-white, then gently became the blue of a summer sky. Sigarni watched spellbound as the blue faded and she found herself staring through the now transparent circle into her own cabin. She was there, talking with Gwalchmai. The conversation whispered into her mind.

'Who was the ghost?' asked the image of Sigarni. 'Go and ask him, woman. Call for him.'She shivered and looked away. 'I can't.'

Gwalch chuckled. 'There is nothing you cannot do, Sigarni. Nothing.' 'Oh, come on, Gwalch, are we not friends? Why won't you help me?' 'I am helping you. I am giving you good advice. You don't remember the night of the Slaughter. You will, when the time is right. I helped take the memory from you when I found you by the pool. Madness had come upon you, girl. You were sitting in a puddle of your own urine. Your eyes were blank, and you were slack-jawed. I had a friend with me; his name was Taliesen. It was he-and another- who slew the Slaughterers.

Taliesen told me we were going to lock away the memory and bring you back to the world of the living. We did exactly that. The door will open one day, when you are strong enough to turn the key. That's what he told me.'

Now the circle shrank to a dot and the flames of the fire returned to normal. 'Am I strong enough to turn the key?' she asked Taliesen.

'Go to the pool and find out,' he advised. 'Call for him!'

Sigarni stood silently for a moment, then moved past the old man and out into the night. The rain was still hammering down, but she could not feel it nor, strangely, could she hear it. Water tumbled over the falls in spectacular silence, ferocious winds tore silently at the trees and their leaf-laden branches, lightning flared in the sky, but the voice of the accompanying thunder could not be heard.

The huntress moved to the poolside. 'I am here!' she called. There was no answer, no stirring upon the water. Merely silence.

'Call to him by name,' came the voice of Taliesen in her mind.

And she knew, and in knowing wondered how such an obvious realization should have escaped her so long. 'Ironhand!' she called. 'It is I, Sigarni. Ironhand!'

702.

The waters bubbled and rose like a fountain, the spray forming an arched Gateway lit by an eldritch light. A giant of a man appeared in the Gateway, his silver beard in twin braids, his hair tied back at the nape of his neck. He wore silver-bright armour and carried a long, leaf-bladed broadsword that glistened as if it had been carved from moonlight. He raised the sword in greeting, and then sheathed it at his side and spoke, his voice rich and resonant. 'Come to me, Sigarni,' he said. 'Walk with me awhile.'

'You spoke to me in Citadel town,' she said. 'You urged me to flee.'

'Yes.'

'And you fought for me when I was a child. You slew the last Hollow-tooth.'

'That also.'

'Why?'

'For love, Sigarni. For a love that will not accept death. Will you walk with me awhile?'

'I will,' she said, tears brimming.

And she stepped forward to walk upon the water.

6.