A Time of Blood, page 29
“We are different,” Utul said. “We are better.” He smiled at Cullen.
“You’ll have to prove that on the weapons-field when we get back,” Cullen told him.
“It will be my pleasure.” Utul grinned.
“And mine,” Shar said, though with less humour.
“Utul and his crew are different,” Alcyon grated. “You have good eyes to notice, little Drem.”
Little! Lad! Why do these warriors in the Order keep calling me these names?
“How so?” Drem asked.
“They are descended from Gar and the Jehar, and they take their lineage very seriously,” Alcyon said, not breaking time in the rasp and grind of his whetstone.
“The Jehar?” Drem asked.
“You’ve not heard of the Jehar?” Shar said, eyes widening.
“No.”
Shar tutted.
“The Jehar were the guardians of the Bright Star, of Corban,” Alcyon said. “Gar watched over Corban from when he was a bairn, protected him and taught him his swordcraft, and much more besides.” Alcyon paused in his axe-sharpening, eyes distant.
“You knew them?” Drem breathed.
“I did,” Alcyon said. “They were both great men.”
“So, what were the Jehar, exactly?” Drem asked.
“The greatest of warriors,” Shar said flatly. “Swordcraft, horsecraft, there was no one to equal them.”
Alcyon grunted and shrugged. “Give or take a warrior or two,” he rumbled.
Shar snapped her eyes on the giant.
“Veradis. Maquin, Coralen,” Alcyon said, holding Shar’s gaze.
Utul shrugged. “Two or three, then,” he allowed.
“The Jehar came from the east,” Tain joined their conversation. “They lived in a fabled fortress called Telassar, the white-walled. It was there that they trained for many generations, dedicating their lives in preparation for the coming of the Bright Star.”
“And they tested their swordcraft on the Shekam,” Shar added.
“The Shekam?” Drem asked.
“A giant Clan from the east,” Tain explained. “They rode draigs into battle, like the Jotun ride bears.”
“Draigs!” Drem hissed, sharing a look with Cullen. “We met one of those in the Bonefells.” He shook his head. “I cannot imagine how it would feel to face a charge of them in battle.”
“I can,” Alcyon said, a smile twitching his moustache.
“You faced them?” Cullen asked, leaning forwards now.
“Aye. I stood in the shield wall with Veradis.” Alcyon nodded. “We faced their charge.”
“What was it like?” Cullen asked eagerly.
He looks as if he wishes he was there!
Alcyon gazed down at his axe, took in a deep breath and sighed. “Not something I would choose to do again.”
I am not surprised by that, Drem thought, remembering the bone-shaking roar of the draig in the Bonefells. And that was just one. A charge of many would be unspeakable.
“Not much chance of that,” Tain said. “The Shekam were wiped out.”
“No, not wiped out,” Alcyon breathed. “Defeated, routed. But there were survivors. I watched them ride away on their draigs.”
“I did not know that,” Tain said. “It should go in the histories.”
“It is not a part of my life that I wish to recall,” Alcyon grated. “They were… dark days.”
“Does Mother know?”
Mother?
“Is Tain your son?” Drem asked Alcyon in his usual forthright way.
Alcyon nodded, smiled, ruffled Tain’s already-scruffy black hair. Something about the action was endearing and made Drem miss his da for a sharp heartbeat all over again.
“Does Mother know?” Tain asked again.
“Raina knows.” Alcyon shrugged. “Though it would not affect her. She is in the wilds of Arcona, not Tarbesh.”
“Tarbesh is a lot closer to Arcona than we are,” Tain said.
“Why is your mother in Arcona?” Drem asked.
“On a fool’s errand.” Alcyon growled, looking back to his axe.
“She is searching for survivors of our old Clan, the Kurgan,” Tain said. “She has been gone many years, now.”
“Too many,” Alcyon muttered.
“You could have gone,” Tain said quietly. “Should have gone.”
Alcyon stared at his son, a dark look.
Wings flapped from above; Rab was descending to them.
“Any news?” Cullen asked the white crow.
“Too dark,” Rab squawked.
“Flick?” Tain asked.
Rab shook his head mournfully, then tucked his beak under a wing.
Abruptly, Stepor sat up and looked around at them all, then up at the moon. “Time for Keld to have a nap, I’m thinking,” he said. He stood and clicked his tongue, his wolven-hounds’ ears pricking.
“With me,” he said, and Grack and Ralla followed him into the night.
Screams in the distance, growing louder.
“Faster, faster,” Rab squawked at them as he winged low, then rose into the sky again, leading them onwards. Drem was riding up a shallow slope alongside Cullen and Keld, Stepor a little ahead of them. Utul and Shar rode wide on the right wing, and Alcyon and Tain were running at a startling pace on the left.
A riderless horse burst over the ridge of the slope they were climbing, white-eyed and sweat-stained. It galloped down towards them, veering just in time. Drem saw bloodied claw marks staining the animal’s haunch.
Stepor reached the ridge, Grack and Ralla either side of him, and reined in. Within heartbeats Drem, Keld and Cullen were alongside, all of them pausing to take in the scene before them. On either side Utul and Alcyon crested the ridge a heartbeat behind them.
A shallow slope ran away from them, down onto an open plain. Figures moved, Drem instantly recognizing the unnatural gait of thick-muscled, long-limbed Ferals. They were circling and charging a handful of wains that were gathered in a loose half-circle, one of them overturned, one wheel slowly spinning. Figures were amongst the carts, some running, some standing, fighting. Terrible screams rang out, and Drem saw a woman burst from her cover, running hard for a slope.
A Feral appeared on the overturned wain, crouched for a moment, muscles bunching, then it leaped. It hit the ground a dozen paces behind the woman, a heartbeat later was slamming into her, both of them going down, the woman screaming, limbs flailing. The Feral’s jaws opened unnaturally wide and bit down onto her face, more screams, higher in pitch, then a wet gurgling.
“Plan, boss?” Stepor said to Keld.
“Kill the bastards,” Keld growled and kicked his mount into a canter. Drem followed, the three of them hurtling down the slope, the three wolven-hounds ahead, growling and snarling.
Drem was on the plain in a dozen heartbeats, reaching a full gallop in a dozen more.
A flicker of movement in Drem’s peripheral vision—Utul and Shar pulling ahead of them.
A handful of Ferals bounded to meet them, their jaws and claws dripping red. They saw Utul and Shar, howled and threw themselves at the two warriors.
Drem saw Utul draw his curved sword, heard him shout something.
“LASAIR,” and then Utul’s sword burst into flame.
“TRUTH AND COURAGE,” Utul and Shar yelled as they rode at the Ferals. Utul sliced an arm from the first Feral, the stump going up in flames, the stench of burned fur and flesh sharp in the air, and then Drem was too close, dragging on his reins for his mount to turn. He pulled a hand-axe from his belt, hefted it, felt his weight shift in his saddle.
I’m not used to fighting on horseback.
Keld, Cullen and Stepor rode through the line of wains a few moments ahead of him, Fen leaping and snarling.
Drem made a snap decision, leaping from his saddle, hitting the ground in a stumbling run, drawing his seax with his other hand.
Within the wains all was chaos: men, women, children, all screaming, running, Ferals killing indiscriminately, small groups of survivors fighting back.
Glimpses of Keld, Stepor and Cullen working together, the three wolven-hounds throwing themselves at Feral beasts, savage snarling.
Drem ran towards them.
A Feral looked up from feasting, jaws crimson. Drem took half of its face off with his axe, heard it yowling as he skidded to a halt, turning and stabbing with his seax. It slashed long claws at him even as its legs gave way beneath it. The claws raked Drem’s chest, slicing through leather and wool, opening red lines. Drem yelled as his axe rose and fell again and again as the Feral slumped, gnashing its teeth as it died.
He stood there, breathing hard, saw the Feral had torn open a young boy. He looked away.
There was a bellow to his left as Alcyon and Tain burst through the wains, Alcyon swinging his two axes and Tain stabbing with a long spear. A Feral’s head spun through the air, its body running on. Tain skewered another beast with his spear, pinning it to the ground. It began to climb its way along the spear shaft towards Tain, then Alcyon’s axe crunched into its head, an explosion of fur, bone and brain.
More screaming drew Drem’s eyes. A horse—Utul’s mount—was rearing, lashing out and crunching into a Feral’s chest, bones snapping. Beside Utul, Shar was laying about her with her sword. A Feral’s arm flew lazily through the air.
More Ferals slammed into Utul’s horse, blood spurting, the horse neighing, screaming, toppling over.
Drem ran, as if in slow motion, as he saw the horse roll, pinning Utul’s leg, a Feral’s swipe opening the horse’s belly, intestines spilling. Another Feral moving towards Utul. Shar was trying to reach him, but there were two Ferals leaping at her.
The Feral stood over Utul, a foot stamping on his sword arm, pinning it, jaws opening wide.
Drem crashed into the creature, both of them tumbling to the ground, rolling. Foul breath washed over him as teeth snapped a hair’s breadth from his face. He raised his knee high, managed to lever the creature away and stab with his seax, deep into its waist.
The Feral roared, teeth snapping frenziedly. Drem twisted his blade, felt blood sluice over his hand, his grip slipping. He pushed, scrambled in the dirt, managed to slide away from the beast, rolled, came to one knee and hurled his hand-axe.
It crunched into the Feral’s face. The beast collapsed backwards, spasming, then was finally still.
Drem staggered to his feet and wrenched his seax and axe free from the corpse.
Utul was still pinned; Shar reached him at the same time as Drem. He pushed and heaved at Utul’s dead horse and Shar dragged Utul free.
“My thanks,” Utul said to Drem. He looked down at his mount and bent to lay his palm on the dead animal’s side, Drem seeing tears blur the warrior’s eyes.
“They shall pay for that,” Utul snarled. He swept up his sword, which was no longer flaming, and looked around.
Cullen was still mounted, laying about with his sword, Keld and Stepor fighting side by side close by.
Drem and the two Jehar ran to support the group, Utul limping but still bellowing a war-cry.
Drem chopped his axe into the spine of a Feral rolling with Fen and ripped it free. He slashed claws that were swiping at his face, swayed away from snapping teeth and stabbed his seax up into the jaw of a Feral, felt his blade cut through the soft tissue of its mouth, on, up into its brain. He kicked the dead beast away.
Then the two giants were there.
Drem was chopping into the chest of a fallen Feral, axe and seax windmilling, hacking and stabbing, blood and fragments of bone spraying. Blood in his face, clouding his vision, but he kept on stabbing. Something grabbed his shoulder, shook him. He snarled as he turned, raising his blades.
“It’s over, laddie,” Alcyon said, Drem freezing, staring. He looked about, saw Alcyon was right. He glimpsed a Feral bounding away, but everywhere else the deformed creatures were still and twisted in death.
Drem looked at the ring of people they had aided. Tough men and women, the type Drem was familiar with from the Desolation, weathered and hard. All were bloodied, wide-eyed and breathing hard.
An old woman stepped out of the ring, grey hair matted, her face stained with blood and soot, clothes tattered and torn. She had a knife in one hand, a small axe in the other, like him.
“Drem, Drem, is that you?” she called out, eyes fixing on him.
“Hildith?” Drem said, taking a step towards her.
“Of course it’s me,” she said, brushing back strands of her matted hair and smudging soot around her face.
“We should have believed you,” she told him grimly. “When you came to the Assembly and warned us about the mine. You told us Olin was murdered.” She bowed her head. “Kergard is destroyed, they rolled through it like a plague.” She looked up, mouth an angry, thin line. “They burned down my mead-hall.”
“You’re safe now,” Drem said, helping Hildith stand as she swayed and half fell onto him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
FRITHA
Fritha stepped into the cave mouth, Gulla at her side, Gunil behind them. It was wide and high enough for Gunil to walk comfortably without stooping.
On either side iron bars reflected torchlight, cages housing more of Fritha’s Ferals. Some she could tell were obedient to her, by the way they whined and snuffled as she walked by, but others threw themselves into the bars, snapping and snarling and grasping with long talons or ruined hands.
They are not so tame.
They walked deeper into the tunnels that bored far beneath the ground, proof of their search for remnants of the starstone. They had found none, and yet fate had seen fit to give Fritha the Starstone Sword, ready-forged! It was a sign that she was following the right path, that if there was any such thing as a power looking down upon them, it was looking after her.
Torches set into the rock walls sent shadows dancing, and as they descended further Fritha saw pockets of people, huddled close together, still as statues.
Revenants.
Some were Gulla’s brood, others were Ulf’s.
Even though Fritha had played a part in creating them, she felt a sense of unease at the sight of them, eyes dark holes, skin stretched too tight across their bodies, revealing every line of muscle and tendon.
And then they were walking into a circular chamber, the path leading both ways, curling around a pit, roughly as deep as two giants.
Fritha leaned over and saw the floor of the pit was seething, a mass of furred limbs, of tooth and claw.
“You are to be commended, Priestess,” Gulla said. “Your breeding programme has worked.”
Fritha smiled, feeling a deep warmth for her creations. Hundreds of Ferals, if not thousands, roamed the pit, an abundance of sizes, from cub-like bairns to full-grown adults. She had hoped that they would breed, had worked words of power into her newest creations, enhancing and accelerating their reproductive and growth systems, but she had never dared to imagine that it would work this well. A stench emanated from the pit, of fur and sweat, of blood and urine and excrement, but Fritha did not care. Here and there on the pit floor there were twisted carcasses, some little more than bones picked clean, but others were fresher, were distinguishable as various manifestations of her Ferals. She shrugged, sad to see some casualties, but it was for the survival of the strongest and the most robust. There was no room for the weak and feeble in her new order.
“There are a lot of them,” Gunil commented.
For once his declaration of the obvious did not annoy Fritha.
She smiled at Gulla and Gunil.
“Give me the Sword,” Gulla said to Fritha.
They were standing in Gulla’s chambers, another cave that burrowed far into the ground, though this one was not so deep or so crowded as the labyrinth Fritha had housed her Ferals within. Gulla’s chamber was luxuriant, furs and silks draping his bed and chairs. There was also a bolthole in this tunnel, a wisp of air filtering down from Gulla’s escape route if the Ben-Elim or Order of the Bright Star discovered this lair.
They are too late now.
Fritha rested a hand protectively on the hilt of the Starstone Sword. She did not want to give it up. It was her right. She had discovered it, schemed to steal it from Olin and Drem. It was she who had taken the risks and earned it.
But more than that, she needed it.
“It is mine,” Fritha said, daring to speak against Gulla, though his eyes bored into her. “I was chosen for the task by the Covens.” She remembered that fateful day, six years ago, standing within the ruins of a giant fortress, the Kadoshim gathered together for the first time since the Battle of Varan’s Fall. More than five hundred Kadoshim had cast their lot.
“They voted for me,” she repeated. “I was given the greatest honour as a symbol of the Kadoshim’s commitment to a new world, and to mankind. A covenant to build this world together, not like the Ben-Elim, as dictators, but you and your kin in harmony with mankind.”
“Nothing has changed,” Gulla said. “You were chosen. You still are. But you have failed in your set task, allowed the Order to discover our existence and whereabouts. That cannot be overlooked. You must prove that our faith in you is warranted. Prove that you are worthy.”
This was what Fritha had feared: the possibility that all that she longed for and had fought so hard for would be taken from her.
I must accept his judgement. He is high captain, greatest amongst the Kadoshim until Asroth is awoken.
Fritha bowed her head, felt Gulla reach out a hand, long-taloned fingers caressing her shaven scalp.
“But this is not a punishment. I am setting you a new task. Accomplish it and you will still have the greatest honour. But you must fulfil your task first,” he growled. “If you fail it, you will be dead.”
“What is this task, then?” Fritha asked.
“To destroy the Order of the Bright Star.”
“But we were to leave together, I must be at the great battle.”
“Now Dun Seren knows we are here they will send their scouts out, their damned crows and their sharp eyes. If the mine is still and silent and the land is empty, then the Order of the Bright Star will not march north.”
