Blood of the Red

Chapter 23 - Ingold

Chaptert 23 – Ingold

Morning threatened with a grey light behind the ridges. The wind blew raw, laden with tiny crystals of ice. Ingold screwed his face up against it. Beside him Gartus stood, like a piece of the mountain.

"You should have woken Dain. He told me you left without goodbyes before," Gartus said.

Ingold's grip tightened on his staff. "I won't see him again . . . We both know that Gartus. It's best this way."

Gartus shook his head slowly. "Karalynn is dead. Throwing your life away is pointless. Dain needs you."

Ingold fixed his gaze on the notch that marked his pass through the heights. "You know, until I found the boy I'd thought of nothing but revenge for all these years. A week in his company and ... he's like the Spring. It's poison to me. Revenge has kept me from madness. I ... I can't give it up."

"Karalynn would not have wanted it."

"Karalynn died in flames," Ingold's voice caught. "My heart still burns. I have to go. There's a door I have to pass through. Any life I have is on the other side."

Gartus lifted up a heavy hand. "Go in peace, Ingold. Find what you seek, and live to sing the tale."

As he crested the shoulder of the mountain, Ingold turned. Gartus was still watching. Ingold raised his hand then pressed on, the big man soon lost from sight.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For three days Ingold negotiated the high passes of the Matteracks. Since morning he had been descending. In the muscles at the back of his thighs he still felt the unending slope, down into the foothills. He would not spare himself. Now amongst the gullies he practically ran, his pack bouncing on his shoulders. The snow fell silently around him, large soft flakes, each a solitary wonder, the first scouts of hosts massed in the leaden skies above.

At the top of a large boulder Ingold stopped. Sweat trickled slowly down his ribs, his breath steamed before him. The hills were silent. Ahead in a gully a single tree, leafless and bent by the wind, reached like a gnarled hand. Twenty yards below him water ran, a thin gurgle from the peaks, not yet frozen. He stood, breathing hard, suddenly aware of his solitude. One small dot of warmth. The sky wide above him and a wilderness of rock all about.

Ingold took his staff at the middle and with his other hand drew the dagger from the sheath at his hip. It was a brutal-looking knife, ten inches of notched iron, honed to shave with. He glanced back at the mountains then scanned the folded land before him. The ambushers detached themselves from the rock. They rose one after the other, the grey cloaks draped about their shoulders parting as their longswords emerged. Flashes of blue leather armour showed beneath.

Twelve of them stood close to hand. Nine more rose on a ridge to the east, longbows ready. Two of the twelve bore iron rods in place of swords. They were dark haired men, alike in features. The taller of the two called out,

"Give us the key and you may go."

Ingold smiled. "One does not often meet the men of Arkas in Conault. Do Arkasians have nothing better to do these days than to rob travelers in foreign lands?"

The Arkasian held out his hand, "The key." Tiny streamers of electricity arced between his outstretched fingers.

"And Marluk has sent two Blood Guard to take it from me? I am honoured!"

Ingold leapt from his boulder. He hit the ground running. As the archers set arrow to string he vanished into the gully. Out of the archers' sight he watched the Arkasian swordsmen follow, careful on the treacherous slope.

I'm going to die here, Ingold acknowledged as the first of them reached him. He lashed out with his staff, so fast the man's sword didn't so much as twitch. Bone and wood splintered, blood and teeth splattered the next Arkasian. He came on, blade swinging. I'm going to die in the middle of nowhere, killed by strangers. Ingold hammered his dagger into the man's throat, hilt-deep. Several inches of the blade burst from the back of his neck.

The soldiers came in a mass now, leaping over their fallen comrades. Ingold smacked a bearded man in the face with the stump of his staff. The force spun his head, far too far, vertebrae shattered with sharp reports. Fierce cold agony sliced into Ingold's shoulder. In the confusion of the melee he couldn't see whose sword had hit him. He lashed out with a roar, his dagger tearing through hardened leather. The man before him left the ground, Ingold's strength spinning him into the air.

The men of Arkas backed away, leaving five of their number as corpses on the stone. Ingold only remembered killing four. They watched him like wolves around their prey. Blood pumped from the cut in his shoulder, but looking down Ingold saw a deeper wound, a gory hole just beneath his ribs. They were waiting for him to die.

The scene swam before him. He saw Karalynn's face, sweet and sad. Ingold felt sorry about the boy. A good kid.

"In my youth..." he smiled and spat blood, "I served in the personal guard of King Attlus."

A flame lit behind Ingold's eyes and the dagger in his crimson fist burst into flame.

Two warriors threw themselves at him, one swinging high, one low. Heavy swords sheared through the air, brutal pieces of iron, fit to sever limbs. I'm a poet not a butcher... the thought drifted through Ingold's fogging brain as the men's bodies hit the ground. His fist had broken the bones of one man's face, his dagger sizzled in the heart of the other. He drew his sword, there was space to swing it now.

Lightning hit Ingold in the chest. It leapt from the iron rods of the Blood Guard. The force flung him behind the boulder from which he had first jumped. He lay there twitching, his clothes smoking.

I'm going to die here. I should have stayed with Dain. Gartus was right ... big ugly ape.

With supreme effort Ingold levered himself up. He expected to see the two Blood Guard, sparking with the power of the Blood of the Blue. Instead a wall of heat hit him. Fire spilled into the gully, a blanket of flame racing over the stone. The thin drifts of snow went up in steam, the running waters leapt and boiled. A hulking shape hoved into view over the ridge, wreathed in flame. Arrows hissed towards it, kindling in the air. One swordsman charged and met a sledgehammer. The blow lifted him, his broken body igniting as it flew.

Lighting spat from the iron rods of the Blood Guard, their eyes sparked with the power of the Blue. An inferno met their thunderbolts and consumed them. A firestorm rose around the burning giant, flame vomited from his hammer. Swordsmen became torches. All was screaming and dying, and the stench of roasted meat. Ingold's strength failed him and he slumped into oblivion.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Wake up!"

Another stinging slap.

"Wake up damn you."

"Ow!" Ingold lifted a hand to his cheek. Pain flared in his shoulder and side. "Ouch!! Dammit."

He unglued his eyes and found his vision full of Gartus's face. The giant sported an elaborate scar, its intricate geometry covering half his face from cheekbone to brow. A lightning burn.

"W... what...?" it was the best Ingold could manage given the circumstances.

"The bastards took Dain. They drew me off. We've got to find him."

"Dain?" Ingold tried to focus, "He's back at the cave ... with you."

"Marluk's men came there – a day after you left. Two large bands of them. One band drew me off, the others stole Dain. I've been chasing you since then! Where will they take him?"

"Caught by the same trick twice," Ingold muttered. "Big but stupid..." Consciousness eluded him once more.