Graynelore by Stephen Moore

the very heights of the sky.
    All around us, near and far, men stayed their arms; the fighting was instantly done with.
    I let go the hilt of my sword, without a care, let it run freely back upon its scabbard.
    The toning of the iron bells was an obvious signal. There were to be no more killings made this day. For it bore all the notes of surrender, and a defeat accepted. Perhaps even the death of a Headman.

Chapter Seven
The Unspoken Voice
    When the Elfwych woman turned her back on me and walked away, heading towards The Rise, and Staward Peel, I did nothing more than follow after her.
    I walked a-foot. Dandelion came trailing behind me, her ears pricked but without complaint. If there was any danger remaining, it was far enough away now and of little enough concern to ignore.
    The toning of the iron bells accompanied us.
    ‘You have another name, Elfwych?’ I called out to her, raising my voice to be heard.
    For the briefest moment she faltered in her step, as if caught, surprised to find me still there. ‘Use your eyes and look about you, Wishard,’ she said. ‘Upon Graynelore people die for their names.’ There was a slow drawl to her speech that told me her head was still befuddled by the blows I had struck. Though it had not blunted her tongue; the way she spoke dared me to make an argument. It was a mute point.
    ‘Aye, well, listen to the bells…There has been enough of death,’ I said, honestly enough. ‘What do you say to an equal trade instead…a name for a name?’
    ‘Ha! Does that not depend upon the goods offered being of an equal value, and the trader not simply a common thief?’
    ‘Are you a thief then, Elfwych?’ I was goading her.
    ‘And is my name safe with you, Wishard?’
    ‘Rogrig…’ I corrected her. If I did not answer her question (I did not wish to lie). It seemed she did not want one.
    ‘I am called Norda,’ she said, without inference.
    It was my turn to falter in my step. I turned my head aside, certain I could not easily conceal my reaction to her revelation. I knew the name, of course. Who upon the West or South March of Graynelore did not? This woman was Norda Elfwych, the elder daughter of Stain Elfwych, Headman of his grayne. It was she that Old-man Wishard had set his eye upon (aye, and his lust). She was the prize we were fighting for this day.
    Suddenly the iron bells stopped their toning. One by one, they were quickly stilled. Their message was delivered.
    The silence they left behind them lay thick and heavy upon the air. No natural sound was willing to intrude upon it. It seemed the world had taken a deep breath, and now held it, waiting upon an outcome.
    We continued to walk on together, if always at a safe distance from each other; still wary enemies and adversaries, and neither of us quite willing to take our hands away from our concealed weapons. (No fighting man – or woman – wears but one.) Though I carried my sword sheathed.
    ‘I did not ask you for an escort home, Rogrig Wishard,’ she said, at last, determined to break the uneasy silence between us.
    ‘I did not offer you one, Norda Elfwych,’ I returned.
    ‘Am I to be your prisoner then…is that it? Or perhaps you are to be mine?’ She tried to laugh, only to falter as she stumbled again.
    This time I did not move to help her – though she was not expecting me to – I was being deliberately cautious of her now. She shook her head as if to clear her befuddlement, put a finger to her ear as if to stop the ringing. There was blood. Her pain was more than obvious. Certainly, she must have endured more serious injury – she was a fighter, and by reputation more than equal to many a man – only the last strike of my sword had knocked her cold. That had, obviously, annoyed her. I could read it in her face each time she glanced my way. She was, after all, the daughter of a Headman, and a privileged member of her grayne. (A grayne that, no doubt, felt it had a rightful claim to the title of