Stone Rising (33 page)

             
The man called out, loud and clear, that all the outlaws might hear him.

             
“Men of Sherwood,” the man began. “Traitors to the rightful ruler of England. Hear now, the Shiriff’s merciful offer. Lay down your arms, come out, and you can expect a fair trial before the people of Nottingham. And your women and children shall be spared…” John spat on the ground in distaste at such blatant lies, as the man continued. “But continue to resist and know this; we will burn every last tree to the ground until you have nowhere left to hide. Choose wisely.”

             
John could feel every eye on him, the burden of leadership his now.

             
It was the old veteran, Nial, that approached him, slowly, his grey hair and lined face showing a compassion and a fierce pride, despite the circumstances.

             
“What would you have us do, John?” he enquired. “Name it and we shall do it.”

             
A chorus of nods and murmurs of approval from all about as John thought.

             
“There is only one thing we can do,” he proclaimed, his voice low, sorrowful. “We must flee, once more, before the wrath of our foes. We must return to the village as quickly as we can, gather up our women, our children and what few belongings we can and fly from the forest. Put miles between ourselves and those that hound us.”

             
The mood was sombre, but no-one objected. It was the only way, they all knew. To stay and fight would be to die. And they knew better than to trust the words of the Shiriff’s men.

             
That voice called out once more, strident, insistent.

             
“Well, outlaws? What say you to this kind and merciful offer?”

             
A whistle, a shriek of parting air from above as a small black shadow flitted high overhead, faster than the eye could follow. It soared from the forest towards the distant host. Then the faint thud of meaty impact. The man atop the horse opened his eyes wide in astonishment, looking down at his chest.

             
A fletched arrow stuck out from his heart, feathered flights ruffling in the stormy breeze.

             
His mouth opened and closed several times, but no sound came out. Then, eyes glazing over, he fell sideways off his steed, to hit the ground a lifeless corpse. A gasp of shock, from both the Shiriff’s men and the outlaws, then John turned, tracing the path of the arrow back behind them to the woods.

             
There, standing high atop a fallen tree, a figure holding a bow by his side, a quiver of arrows at his back. His leather hood was up, to shelter his face from the rain. His eyes were everyman, yet his bearing noble. He held himself with a pride, yet also a strength that spoke of suffering recently mastered. His face was youthful, but this was no boy, but a man.

             
“Why so glum, my men?” Loxley enquired, his amused voice calling out through the trees. “I tell you, take heart; for today is not the end of our battles, but merely the beginning.” He laughed at the gawping stares of his incredulous comrades, raising his bow once more and selecting an arrow from the quiver at his back.

             
With narrowed eyes and a wry smile upon his lips, Loxley took aim, loosing his missile. The arrow soared, flitting across the battlefield, covering a distance no bowman could ever hope to attain. It hit its mark, smashing into the neck of a torchbearer standing next to a catapult. He fell, screaming, torch flying from his hand to land, with a crash, amidst the bottles of oil beside the war-machine.

             
With a great whoomph of smoke and flame, the siege engine was engulfed in flames.

             
The enemy army scattered in fear and confusion, even as the outlaws cheered at the sight.

             
Loxley’s voice called out once more, even as he jumped down from the fallen tree and strode through the ranks of his men, placing an encouraging hand upon shoulders, flashing that disarming smile.

             
“I tell you again, my friends; take heart, be merry. For there will come a time when the common man no longer suffers beneath the cruelty of his masters. When there will be freedom and justice for all.” He came to Will and John, the pair taken aback by the strength of his movements, the colour in his face, the assuredness in his tone. “It will be a long process,” he told them with a nod, then he turned, facing outward to the milling and uncertain hordes on the field before them.

             
His keen eyes caught the distant shape of Gisborne atop his steed, the cruel, scarred man bellowing orders as he tried to keep his rabble from scattering to the winds before these new events.

             
Loxley smiled.

             
“And it’s a process that starts with us.” He took another arrow, nocking it with care as he raised his bow and took aim in one smooth motion. “Right here, right now.”

             
He let fly.

Chapter Fourteen:

The host moved through the night. Pitchforks, torches, hammers, scythes; anything to hand that could be used in their hunt. For the villagers had seen the sorcery unleashed in their midst.

And now, at the behest of the Malleus man, they would not suffer the witches to live.

Vincenzo smiled. The witches had made it too easy; in the hours he’d been kept imprisoned by bars of streaming sunlight, he’d had plenty of time to plan his course of action. As he’d held back the villagers outside from investigating the inn, by sheer force of will, Vincenzo had smiled at his luck. So, his small troupe of Malleus men had been slaughtered by that powerful young sorceress? So what? Her outburst, her brazen display of witchery had been all he’d needed to whip the rabble up into a frenzy.

How many times had this same scenario replayed over the years? Granted, most of the time there had been no real magicks at work; merely the suggestion, the rumour. But occasionally, very occasionally, real powers had been witnessed, real workers of magic to be persecuted. And that only made the job easier. The rumour mill, the gossip merchants, the village leaders, all lending themselves, out of fear, to his cause.

This would be easy, he thought to himself, as he strode through the night, the rabble of villagers at his beck, cheering themselves on, the slight trembling beneath their words revealing to his refined senses their undercurrent of fear. So moral, the red-headed sorceress had thought herself to be. Her talk of innocence. He laughed to himself, quietly. Let’s see how long her preconceptions of innocence last when she and her troupe find themselves faced with the angry crowd at his command.

Would they kill the ‘innocent’ sheep? Would they slaughter the fearful peasants for their own survival?

It would be interesting to find out.

He took a deep breath in through his nose, breathing in the subtle yet unmistakable tang of sorcery that trailed through the trees from their quarry. Yes, they were going in the right direction, he nodded to himself. Again, he mused over how different the magicks felt that were woven about his prey; how strong, how adept they felt. In all his wonderings across this world, Vincenzo had come across few lands where magicks were welcomed, where practitioners were given leave to hone and refine their craft. Here, in the old world, for example, such power was largely confined to secretive and cunning creatures such as he; the persecutions of l’eglise making sure that any mortals that dared try their hand did so in the dead of night under threat of merciless trial and execution.

Yet in other countries he had  visited, lands where the Vatican held little sway, primitive cultures still embraced the old ways of magic. In the far east, he had witnessed, first-hand, monks summoning forces that let them bend metal, harden their bodies to withstand punishment from fire and sword. En Afrique, he had seen men bedeck themselves with war paints, calling upon the strength of ancestors to aid them in the hunt.

And, in the New World, he had seen tribal shamans summon forth the rains for the harvest, call fire from the very wood itself and beckon the beasts of the plains to their side with no more than a thought. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more like that shamanic magic of the far west this new sorcery felt. Only stronger, fresher, more alive; borne of necessity, rather than kept alive out of tradition.

No, this wouldn’t do, he thought, one thin lip rising in distaste. Blatant magicks could not be allowed to exist. Witch-hunting was all well and good whilst it was he that guided it, he that steered the righteous zeal where he wished it to go. But too much power, spread across too many, might cause a crusade of persecution; the paranoia of man leading everyone to become suspect.

Even those at the top.

No, this night, the witches would die. And if they resisted? If they hew down the rabble of baying men at his back? Well… they’d have learned a valuable lesson about this supposed ‘innocence.’

***

Arris stared out into the night, straining his eyes to pierce the darkness, to catch the faintest glimpse of burning torch or flicker of movement in the gloom. Yet nothing. Even from his high vantage point, standing in this balcony high atop the side of the windmill, the great blades slowly whooshing past as they were stirred by the breeze, he could see nothing.

             
And it was infuriating.

             
Back home, back at the Retreat, Arris had trained as a tracker. And he’d been
good
at it. The spirits of water had moved at his command, showing him the hidden paths, the truths of all things. His blue eyes had seen clearly the world about them, as the spirits of water had rippled about every footprint, every half-hidden trail in the forest, rendering them all as clear as day.

             
Even other truths, the truths of words, thoughts and deeds, had been there to see; the spirits of water cared not what manner of truth they uncovered.

             
But here, now, he may as well have been blind.

             
It was frustrating. Since the moment they’d entered this land, he’d felt cut off. Weak. Incomplete. The spirits had been all about, just as always; in fact, this land, if anything, seemed even more bustling, vibrant and alive with the spirits than even his homeland of before. Yet the creatures of the invisible world had been reluctant to come near, wary, shying away from his mental urgings. Yet at least they’d been there, to see, to hear. Familiar.

             
Now they were gone entirely, keeping far, far away from the troupe. And their absence was painful.

             
He knew why they were suspicious; the shamans were out of place, out of time. That Gwenna had managed to convince them to aid at all in the healing of Pol was amazing. Sure, throughout their travels she’d been able to convince minor spirits to aid in small healings; each time drained and suffering at the strain it had taken on her energy. But such a mighty work, healing a mortal wound as a soul hung on the edge of death; without the circle of power, the shamans sharing the burden of the spirits’ toll, Gwenna would likely have died that night.

             
Which made Virginie’s feat all the more impressive.

             
How the gift had so suddenly and powerfully blossomed within the girl, at so opportune a time, Arris could not even begin to fathom. Yet blossom it had. He recalled how she had called upon the Earth Tap, wrenching the iron bars from their prison with but a tug of her slender arms. He remembered the feeling of cackling hunger as the spirits of flame had lent her their power, scorching swords and hurling forth balls of flame.

             
How long must the girl have been filled with their power, to track them down and to release them? All through that night she must have been using their power, tracking her friends, moving at speed through the woods.

             
Skills that should have taken years of teaching to learn, called upon as if by instinct.

             
Skills that should have left her dead, as the spirits fled, each taking with them their due till nothing remained.

             
Yet she lived. Even now, within the building behind him, the girl lay on her bed in the small side-room. Asleep. But alive. Again, he couldn’t fathom it; by all rights she should be dead, now. But she wasn’t. Something had caused her to live, despite the powers upon which she’d called. Was it destiny? Was it provenance?

             
Was it… Stone?

             
The struggle of their last weeks here – weeks? Or had it been months? – weighed heavily upon him. The promise of their lord, that he would find them and bring them back to him, no matter where they found themselves, had all but faded in his mind. Yet now, he remembered. He remembered the blazing figure that had soared overhead in their darkest moments. Remembered the infinite power that had radiated out. Remembered the calm reassurance of those booming, unearthly words.