A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  It sniffed, a wet snorting, its one good arm hovering in the air, its hind legs scrabbling, bunching under its torso.

  ‘Get out of there, you idiot,’ Byrne called down to Cullen furiously, ‘until we have this room lit.’

  ‘It’s as weak as a newborn,’ Cullen assured her, eyes fixed on the creature at his feet. The thing looked up at Cullen, then, in a shocking burst of speed, it erupted towards him, hind legs propelling it forwards. Its one good arm wrapped around Cullen’s leg and it sank its tusks into his calf.

  Cullen screamed, shock and pain mingled, and he hacked down at the thing. His blade bit, but not as deep as Drem had expected; the thick folds of skin on the creature snared Cullen’s sword. Blood welled.

  Byrne was shouting orders as Drem leaped down after his friend. It had not been a conscious decision. His seax and small axe were in his fists, gleaming red and gold in the flickering torchlight as he broke into a run.

  Sounds came from the darkness: snorting, scrabbling noises.

  Drem heard Byrne’s voice, followed by Balur One-Eye’s battle roar and the ground trembled as the giant jumped into the pit after him. Drem was close to Cullen now and raised his axe as he ran.

  Something slammed into Drem’s side, sending him flying through the air. He hit the ground hard, air punched from his lungs, and tumbled with something heavy on him, another Feral – solid, all muscle, coiled strength and a frenzied, ravenous hunger. The sharp stench of urine and blood filled his senses. He struck at it, felt his axe bite, then lost his grip on it as they rolled. He had a glimpse of tusks and rowed teeth, of snapping jaws and fetid breath. Still rolling, he stabbed with his seax, which did better than his axe. He felt the blade pierce the thick hide and sink deep, felt blood well over the hilt, over his glove and soak into his linen undershirt. With a high-pitched squeal, the creature pulled away. Drem yanked on his seax but it grated on bone, was snagged somehow, and the blade was ripped out of his hand.

  Drem crashed into one of the cadavers. It exploded, covering him with stinking strips of skin and gnawed bone. He scrambled to his feet, breath heaving, a hot pain radiating from his ribs where the thing had connected with him. There were rents in his mail, rings hanging. In his peripheral vision he glimpsed Cullen still hacking at the creature trying to eat his leg, many more of the beasts attacking a handful of Byrne’s honour guard who had joined them in the pit, and Balur One-Eye swinging his hammer.

  Drem realized he was standing a dozen paces from the boar-thing that had attacked him, with no weapons in his hands.

  Then it was coming at him again.

  Stumbling away, he reached for his father’s sword, sheathed at his hip, had a moment to wish he had a boar spear with a cross-bar, probably the best way to kill one of these things and keep it from goring him with its tusks. His draw turned into an upward cut, the blade’s tip shearing through the beast’s lower jaw, cutting through one tusk and up, through its cheek and on, carving through its brain and exploding from its skull in a spray of teeth and blood, brain matter and fragments of skull. The Feral’s charge powered it on a dozen paces before its body realized it was dead and it crashed to the ground, skidding to a halt.

  Drem had half a heartbeat to stare at the dead Feral before another one crashed into his legs, hurling him into the air. This one was bigger. Its momentum carried it on beneath him as Drem slammed into the ground behind it, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder as he started to rise. The beast skidded, already turning, its feet scrambling for purchase on the bones and carcasses scattering the cavern floor.

  It came at him again, snorting and squealing, tusks gleaming. Drem desperately tried to lever himself upright with his sword, knowing he was too slow.

  Two snarling wolven-hounds collided with the onrushing creature, knocking it off course, and it stumbled past Drem. Fen and Ralla, their jaws wide and biting, ripping chunks out of the Feral.

  It came to a halt, twisting and spinning shockingly fast, its head catching Fen, hurling the wolven-hound into the air. Ralla snarled and threw herself onto the creature. Drem was on his feet now, rushing forwards, sword raised, and then Keld was there, sword and axe a blur, blood in the air.

  The creature screamed, gurgled, legs spasming as it collapsed.

  Keld wrenched his axe from the dead beast’s skull.

  ‘LASAIR!’ Byrne’s voice yelled behind Drem, and he turned to see her in the pit with them. Her sword was covered in blood, Ferals lying dead about her, and Utul was close by, chopping, slicing and stabbing at a trio of attackers. Byrne raised her hands and pointed towards an unlit torch upon the pit wall. It sparked into life, almost immediately followed by the one next to it, and then all of the torches in the chamber were bursting into flame, a wildfire chain reaction rippling around the huge cavern, light flaring bright.

  The pit was revealed in its entirety: a broad stinking hole scattered with half-decomposed remains and hunger-mad creatures. One of the Ferals that appeared dead still moved, just raising its head where it lay, too emaciated and debilitated to move. Others had clearly been feeding on the weakest and were still strong.

  Ethlinn was in the pit, standing close to Balur, stabbing with her spear. A handful of Byrne’s honour guard were hacking at the frenzied creatures. Balur One-Eye’s hammer swung in a deadly rhythm, his new longsword strapped across his back.

  This is hammer-work, little grace to it, or needed.

  Bones were smashed to kindling.

  And then it was all over.

  A Feral’s squeal quietened to a weak rattle and then a final sigh. Cullen kicked and shook himself free of the creature that had clung to him, dead now, Cullen’s sword red to the hilt. He surveyed the room, his eyes coming to rest on Byrne, who was scowling at him, and he gave a shame-faced shrug.

  ‘See, I said I’d put it out of its misery,’ he said.

  Only the sound of warriors breathing hard, and then Balur’s rumbling laughter.

  ‘What is this place, anyway?’ Cullen muttered, looking around.

  ‘It looks like Fritha’s breeding chamber,’ Drem said, his toe nudging a pile of gnawed bones. They were small – a cub, or a bairn.

  Or both, combined.

  ‘Aye,’ Byrne agreed, a look of sorrow on her face.

  ‘Why were they not with Fritha, at the battle in the Desolation?’ Cullen murmured.

  ‘Perhaps these weak, deformed ones remained behind,’ Ethlinn said, ‘and they bred.’

  Drem nodded; he thought that made sense, though he placed a hand on his throbbing ribs.

  Not that weak.

  ‘This Fritha has unleashed a new evil upon the world,’ Ethlinn said to herself, as she crouched and rested a hand upon one of the dead Ferals. ‘I can feel the earth power in it, twisted and tainted.’ She sighed. ‘These poor creatures. What has this Fritha done?’

  Drem hadn’t thought of that, Fritha’s creations unleashed upon the world, breeding and mutating, adapting. The Banished Lands were dangerous enough, without Fritha’s new terrors stalking it.

  Fritha has much to answer for.

  There was the slap of feet, echoing louder down the chamber. They all turned, weapons ready, as a figure emerged from the tunnel entrance and looked down into the pit.

  It was Shar, a Jehar warrior and Utul’s captain. Her long dark hair was plastered to her head with sweat and she was breathing hard.

  ‘We’ve found something,’ she said.

  Drem stood on the shore of Starstone Lake, its slate-grey water glistening in the summer sun. To the south beyond the lake there was a smudge of green-topped hills, and to the east Drem heard the faint sound of gulls, a reminder of how close they were to the Grinding Sea. Decades ago, a canal had been dug by the first inhabitants of Kergard, leagues long, joining what had once been this huge crater to the sea. And then the waters had flooded in, filling the crater and turning it into a lake. That had been the beginning of the Desolation becoming habitable once more.

  Since then more and more people h
ad crept into the north, fleeing the strict rule of the Ben-Elim, or just wanting a more solitary life. Drem and his da had been part of that movement. Kergard had been a thriving town when they had come north, and had grown with every passing year.

  Kergard is thriving no more. It is an empty, desolate place now.

  Drem had passed through the town the day before. Part of it had burned down, gaping holes in the stockade wall, buildings – including Hildith’s mead-hall – little more than ash-filled foundations. But much of the town stood as Drem remembered it. Just empty. Like a dead, soulless corpse.

  A number of piers and jetties jutted out over the lake’s water and the ground showed signs of a lot of movement. The shore was rutted with wide wheel tracks, the evidence of many boots lay all along this stretch of land. Abandoned cranes on the piers creaked in the breeze.

  But this was not what Drem was staring at, alongside Byrne, Ethlinn and the others. They were standing before a boatshed, one of many along the lakeshore. Within it was a large timber scaffolding frame, discarded tools and offcuts of timber, empty barrels lined along one wall. Keld approached one and looked in.

  ‘Pitch pine,’ he muttered, then looked at Byrne. ‘Caulking for a ship’s hull.’

  ‘Now we know why Gulla was not with Fritha, or to be found anywhere in the Desolation,’ Balur One-Eye rumbled. ‘He’s sailed away, with a warband far larger than the one we fought.’

  ‘Where is the sneaky bastard, then?’ Cullen said. His calf was bandaged and he’d walked from the mine with a limp.

  Drem turned, looking out across the lake, towards the wide canal that led to the Grinding Sea. He remembered a dark night, watching as ships rowed towards one of the piers, Kadoshim flying in the sky above them. He remembered what those ships carried.

  Asroth’s hand, cut from him in the Great Hall of Drassil.

  He looked to Byrne.

  ‘There is a reason that Kol and his Ben-Elim have not joined us,’ Byrne said, arriving at the same conclusion as Drem. ‘Fritha was a lure, to keep us in the north, and out of Gulla’s way.’

  She looked at them all with a sombre gaze.

  ‘Gulla has attacked Drassil.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RIV

  Riv slowed to a standstill and hovered for a moment, taking in the scene before her. The weapons-field of Drassil was a battleground. Fear snatched her breath away; she had told Aphra to come here, had arranged to meet her here because the eastern gate was only a few hundred paces from the weapons-field. She’d assumed the bulk of the fighting would have been between the main gate to the west and Drassil’s hall, further north. Her eyes frantically scanned the field.

  Where is she?

  Meical drew up alongside her.

  Bodies littered the ground, dead or dying, a mixture of White-Wings, Cheren and acolytes.

  The drum of hooves drew Riv’s eyes to the centre of the field, where Cheren riders, hundreds of them, were encircling a block of White-Wings. Riv glimpsed a familiar face behind a rectangular shield and her heart lurched in her chest.

  Aphra.

  Riv had hoped the Cheren would have held their position at Drassil’s main gate, but somehow a large body of them had made their way here, deep into the fortress.

  The Cheren were constant motion, circling in a steady canter around the warriors on foot, losing a hail of arrows at them. Most of those thudded into the rectangular shields of the White-Wings’ shield wall, but Riv heard screams, saw gaps appear in the wall as arrows found cracks in their defence.

  Elsewhere, Riv saw other knots of White-Wings, outnumbered and surrounded by shaven-haired acolytes of the Kadoshim.

  A glance around her showed the skies were relatively clear; the Ben-Elim and Kadoshim’s aerial battle was happening elsewhere, over the southern and western regions of the fortress. With a pulse of her wings Riv flew higher. She flicked open the leather strap that held her Sirak bow in its case, gifted to her by Bleda. She snatched a handful of arrows from her quiver and began shooting at the Cheren riders.

  She took no time to aim, just loosed arrow after arrow at the Cheren. They were riding in tight order, almost a solid wall around the White-Wings, so that it would have been hard for even Riv’s poor marksmanship to miss. She saw a horse jolt and rear, throwing its rider, another Cheren swaying with an arrow sprouting from their shoulder, another fall as blood spurted from their throat.

  A beating of wings beside Riv.

  ‘I thought escape was the plan, that we had no time to fight,’ Meical said.

  ‘I cannot leave them,’ Riv grunted.

  ‘Explain,’ Meical snapped, as he gazed around the field.

  ‘My mother leads those White-Wings,’ Riv grated, nodding down towards the encircled shield wall.

  Meical stared at the fighting warriors. ‘Tell me who to kill,’ he said.

  ‘The riders are our enemy, allied to the Kadoshim, and those with the shaven heads, they are Kadoshim acolytes, fanatics sworn to the Kadoshim’s service.’

  Meical dipped his head, and then his wings were beating and he was speeding towards the Cheren riders, his sword held out straight before him.

  Warriors amongst the Cheren realized they were under attack, some heads turning in her direction, seeing Meical speeding towards them.

  Riv recognized one of the Cheren: a woman, shaven-haired apart from a dark warrior braid, sharp, proud eyes and intelligent features, features that Riv hated. Hot rage swept through her.

  Jin.

  Once-betrothed to Bleda, and now the new Queen of the Cheren since Bleda had cut her father’s throat. Jin had been due to wed Bleda. She had clearly loved him in her way, but now that love had transformed into a white-hot hatred, for both Bleda and Riv, because Jin had seen them together in a moonlit glade.

  Riv saw the Queen of the Cheren shift her weight in her saddle, bow arm turning towards Meical. Riv knew how deadly Jin was with a bow.

  Without thinking, Riv loosed her whole handful of arrows at Jin, reached into her quiver to snatch more. The first arrow flew over Jin’s head, the second slammed into her mount’s neck, the third into Jin’s thigh.

  As her mount staggered, the arrow Jin had aimed at Meical flew wide. She snarled at the pain, gripping the arrow in her thigh and snapping its shaft. Her eyes searched the sky and met Riv’s.

  Jin’s face shifted into a cold smile, a mutual hatred pulsing between them. Riv could see Jin shouting orders to her warriors, and half a dozen Cheren around her shifted in their saddles, their bows snapping towards Riv.

  Uh-oh.

  Cheren archers could take the eye from a hawk in flight.

  I’m dead.

  Then Meical slammed into the line of riders.

  Cheren flew from their saddles with the impact, horses neighing and stumbling, breaking the Cheren line and flow. Meical’s wings beat, pulling him back, his longsword swinging in wide circles. Blood sprayed. Riv saw a head sail through the air, droplets of blood tracing a bloody arc.

  Riv drew her wings in tight and dropped like a stone to the ground, restrapping her bow into its case. The air whistled past her cheek as another arrow flew above her head, then her wings were out and she was rushing to the ground, a pulse and shift of balance sending her skimming above the bodies of the fallen.

  Jin was still upon her horse, shouting orders. Some of her warriors were replacing their bows in their cases and drawing swords to fight Meical, others further out moving to take aim at Riv.

  She reached out a hand, snatched up a shield from a dead White-Wing and held it in front of her as she hurtled towards the Cheren, felt the drum of arrows thumping into the wood, one arrowhead bursting through, cutting the leather and linen of her glove to pierce flesh.

  The pain just made Riv angrier.

  More arrows punched into her shield, splinters of wood spraying in her face as she drew closer, the force of the arrows’ impact greater, and then she was amongst them, smashing the shield boss into a face, drawing one of her shor
t-swords and slashing, blood spurting. Horses neighed and reared, the Cheren struggling to control their mounts. There was a glimpse of white feathers as Meical swirled amongst them, leaving death in his wake. Riv hacked her way to him, and together they fought amongst the Cheren, guarding each other’s back.

  A battle roar made her look up. The sound of bodies crashing together, and the White-Wings were there, charging in perfect formation, a wall of shields carving into the Cheren.

  ‘RIV!’ a voice screamed, Aphra, and Riv veered towards her mother, with Meical following. The weight of the shield on Riv’s arm was like lead, but her rage carried her on, stabbing, spitting and snarling, and Cheren died before her.

  And then Aphra was in front of her, dark hair close-cropped in the White-Wing style. Blood sheeted from a cut across her forehead, but her eyes were sharp and focused. They shared a fierce smile, Riv glimpsing her friends Vald and Jost in the shield wall that was reforming around Aphra.

  Aphra bellowed a command and the shield wall took a step deeper amongst the Cheren riders, forcing a wedge, pressing their advantage as they stabbed with short-swords, carving bloody ruin. Horses screamed; one close to Riv reared and toppled, pinning its rider beneath it. The shield wall strode over them, swords stabbing down into the trapped warrior under their feet.

  The Cheren circle broke apart. Shouted commands filtered through the roar and din of battle, and Riv saw the Cheren attempting to withdraw.

  They need space for their bows to tell.

  Aphra bellowed orders, trying to keep the Cheren engaged, to keep the shield wall amongst them.

  Riv yelled wordlessly, leaping into the gap that was forming, dropping her splintered shield and dragging a Cheren warrior from her saddle, trying to maintain a link with their enemy, to foul their withdrawal and reformation. She punched her sword through a shirt of mail into the woman’s belly, twisted her blade as she ripped it free, throwing the warrior to the ground. But the Cheren were too good to be snared like this and, in heartbeats, a space was opening, widening. The Cheren were cantering away, their line reforming, swords slipping back into scabbards, bows emerging from their saddle-cases.