Nilsson went forward to take hold of him.
‘No!’
Rannick’s face was so contorted with rage that it was barely recognizable as human. Nilsson abandoned Garren and moved to one side with no pretence at either dignity or courage. He noted, but scarcely registered the fact, that Katrin had disappeared.
Rannick lifted his hand to the stricken Garren. ‘You are the second person to defy my will these past two days,’ he hissed. ‘You have to understand, all of you, what such defiance will mean.’
Garren looked at him, screwing up his eyes in an attempt to bring his tormentor into focus. He staggered forward, his arms nursing his chest. ‘You lunatic, Rannick,’ he gasped, painfully. ‘I think you’ve broken my ribs. I’m already having to do Farnor’s work. How the devil am I supposed…?’
‘Your ribs, you pathetic sod-turner!’ Rannick shrieked. ‘Your ribs!’ He turned to Nilsson, who stood very still. ‘You see?’ he shouted. ‘I told you. They don’t understand. They have to learn. And there’s only one way they can do that.’
‘As you will, Lord,’ Nilsson said, though he knew that his words did not reach into the whirling mael-strom of ancient bitterness and hatred that had festered and rotted in Rannick’s heart, any more than Rannick’s declamation to him had been intended for his illumina-tion. It had simply been a step in some obscene, self-imposed ritual that Rannick apparently found necessary before he could bring the encounter to its inevitable conclusion.
Nilsson realized that he had not had his own way after all. Rannick was intent upon asserting his will in all matters, and in the treatment of the locals he had not been deferring to experienced counsel, he had merely been waiting for an opportunity.
Talk about the old days. Saddre’s words came back to taunt him.
He had no time to ponder them, however, as Ran-nick had now gathered such resources as he needed.
A violent, gusting wind suddenly sprang up. It blus-tered angrily around the farmyard, scattering great gouts of rainwater and further unsettling the riders and their mounts. Nilsson staggered under its force and reached for his horse’s bridle, both to quieten it and to steady himself.
But it seemed to him that the wind was merely inci-dental to what was happening. Or a precursor to something.
‘Learn! Learn! Learn!’ Rannick’s scream rose to become one with the increasingly furious wind. Any semblance of discipline left the watchers and the yard became a frenzy of panic-stricken horses and men.
Battered by the wind and by the hatred pouring from his new Lord, Nilsson clung to his mount, grimly determined to stand his ground come what may.
He had a fleeting impression of Garren’s face, alarm beginning to replace bewilderment, then, although nothing could be seen, a dreadful blow struck him, sending him crashing back into the farmhouse wall. So fierce was the impact that Nilsson heard Garren’s breath leave him and his bones breaking even above the din of the wind and the uproar of the struggling men and horses.
Talk about the old days. Yes, this was the way it had been.
Rannick was motionless, though to Nilsson it seemed that he was the swirling focus of the chaos that was filling the farmyard. He was aware of another blow striking Garren. And another. The farmer slammed repeatedly into the wall like a child’s doll, his limbs jerking lifelessly.
It was like watching a man being trampled under an invisible cavalry charge.
Nilsson was indifferent to Garren’s fate, but there was a demented quality in Rannick’s wilful destruction of his body that sickened him.
He’s dead, Rannick! he screamed inwardly. You’ve made your point. You can let him be now.
But he was powerless. This was a time when all he could do was watch. He was bound to this man who was filling his vision with his frenzy.
But another agent intervened to prevent Rannick reaching whatever conclusion he was intending. An image of wild, purposeful eyes, flying hair and a screaming mouth came into Nilsson’s distorted focus.
And a knife! Glinting, keen-edged, even in the dull light that pervaded the yard.
Its very sharpness cut through the unreality that was binding him.
The wife!
He swore.
A reflex brought his arm out and his mind watched his hand closing about the sleeve of her dress. He felt its fresh, soft texture.
Without a flicker of hesitation, Katrin yielded her gripped arm to him totally and in so doing remained free to move. Spinning round, she slashed the knife across her would-be captor twice. Again, old reflexes saved him as he released his grip and arched himself backwards away from the blade. He felt it cutting through his cape and jacket and drawing a thin, ice-hot line across his stomach. Only a shallow cut but a very sharp knife, he registered.
A survivor of innumerable close-quarter encounters, he knew instantly that, reflexes or no, he was a dead man. He was off-balance and shaken by surprise, while she was so solid in her purpose, so well positioned and so fast. He felt his leaden limbs striving to gain control of themselves while at the same time he found himself waiting for the stroke that she would make next and against which he could not begin to defend himself; the one that he had waited for all his life; the one that would spring open his entrails and lay him in this cold, sodden yard. He fancied already that he could feel the wet stones on his cheeks and the cool rain dripping into his gasping mouth. He was strangely calm.
But Katrin was no trained warrior with a catalogue of subtle fighting techniques and skilled slayings at her back. She was simply a woman who had read the signs foretelling the death of her husband and who had responded knowing that he had not her vision. She had little conscious thought about what she was doing. Her whole self knew only that she must strike directly at the source of the danger with all the speed she could rouse. Nothing could be allowed to stand in her way: not her own frailty; not this hulking foreigner.
Thus as Nilsson staggered back he was forgotten, and Katrin returned to the heart of her intent.
‘Lord!’
The urgency in Nilsson’s distant cry penetrated Rannick’s frenzy just as Katrin appeared before him. He glimpsed the upraised knife and her eyes pinioned him. Somehow, a miserable village labourer again, he managed to raise an arm as the knife came down.
Garren’s body, freed from its torment, slithered to the ground.
Rannick felt the blow of the knife, but no rending pain; Farnor’s edges were too sharp to allow such. But he felt a scream of fury and terror at this invasion rising within him.
Katrin did not note what damage she had done. It was irrelevant. He was still there, still conscious, still breathing, still able to hurt her man. She raised the knife again…
Rannick mimicked her movement, raising his own arm helpless for all his power against this primordial justice and fury.
Then it was gone.
Nilsson had recovered and launched himself at Katrin.
His powerful grip closed around the hand that held the knife. Katrin made no sound, nor again did she fight him. Instead she slithered and slipped within his grasp, her focus ever on Rannick. Twice Nilsson swung the great fist of his free hand at her, but both times she was gone when the blow should have landed. Briefly they pirouetted in a grotesque dance, then Katrin twisted the wrong way and died with the merest flicker of pain on the blade that her son had so diligently sharpened.
Nilsson felt the life leave her. It was no new sensa-tion to him, but he hesitated for a moment, holding her like a bewildered lover, then he lowered her to the ground with peculiar gentleness, at the same time withdrawing the knife. A mysterious twinge of regret rose within him for this warrior who had bested then spared him. But it passed, although in its wake came a spasm of rage that he could not have begun to explain. Furiously, he hurled the knife away from him. It thudded into the stout wooden frame of the farmhouse door. A fine spray of blood left the blade and stained the painted timber.