A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  ‘You abandoned us. Left us for dead,’ Arn said.

  ‘I am sorry, Arn.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I had to be here, to set Asroth free, or all would have been for nothing. If I had not come, then Gulla alone would have set Asroth free. A representative of humankind had to do it, to be involved, for our future.’ She blew out a long breath. ‘I sent Morn to find you.’

  ‘You did not send me,’ Morn growled. She was standing a few paces behind Arn, beneath a wall torch. Her arms were folded, her features in shadow. ‘I am not your slave, to do your bidding.’

  ‘No, that is not what I meant,’ Fritha said hurriedly. ‘I asked you to search for Elise and Arn. I pleaded with you.’

  ‘Yes, that is more like the truth of it, and now my father is angry with me,’ Morn said.

  Fritha stroked the white scar on her arm, testament of her blood-oath with Morn. Remembered their words together, two outcasts seeking vengeance, and finding strength in each other.

  You are a good ally to have. If you will be true to me, your loyalty not divided.

  ‘It is a sadness that Gulla does not see your qualities,’ she said. ‘You are strong, courageous. A skilled and fierce warrior.’ Though Morn remained silent, Fritha noted the ripple that went through the half-breed’s wings, the shift in the set of her shoulders.

  You are not used to compliments.

  And you like them.

  ‘And to prove my gratitude, and my friendship, I have something for you.’ She looked to Elise and Arn. ‘Something for all of you.’

  Fritha leaned forwards in her chair and pulled loose a cord that bound the linen bundle at her feet, opened it up. She raised a hand-axe, the shaft veined wood, the blade bearded iron. The metal was dark. It did not gleam in the torchlight.

  ‘For you, Arn,’ she said, offering it to the old warrior.

  He stepped forwards hesitantly.

  ‘Is that . . .?’ he trailed off.

  ‘The blade is starstone metal, forged from the same metal that once made the Seven Treasures. It is priceless beyond measure. And deadly.’ She held it out to Arn. ‘Take it,’ she said.

  Arn reached out tentatively, his fingers wrapping around the wooden haft.

  ‘The wood is cut from Drassil’s great tree.’

  ‘I, I do not know what to say,’ Arn said.

  ‘Say thank you, and that you forgive me,’ Fritha said.

  Arn cut the air with the axe, a soft hiss.

  ‘Thank you. I forgive you. A thousand times, I forgive you.’ He smiled.

  Fritha dipped her head to him, then reached into the bundle again. She lifted up a scabbarded knife, the hilt bound with leather, silver wire threading around it.

  ‘For you,’ she said to Morn.

  The half-breed strode to her, no hesitancy in her step, and took the knife. The blade was long and narrow, black as night. A small cross-guard. Morn held it up, ran her thumb along its edge, watched as a pearl of blood appeared. She looked at Fritha, their eyes locking for long moments.

  ‘Better vengeance than grief,’ Fritha whispered, repeating the words Morn had said to her. It seemed like a long time ago, back in the starstone mine.

  ‘Better vengeance than grief,’ Morn echoed, then sheathed the knife. She gave a curt nod of her head, her teeth showing in a smile, and Fritha knew then that Morn’s loyalty was hers.

  She reached down one last time and lifted a spear. The shaft was long, dark wood, the spear blade crow-black, shaped like a leaf, the belly of it curved, so that it would not snag in meat and bone. A weapon made for killing.

  ‘For you, my Elise,’ Fritha said, holding the spear out in the palms of both her hands.

  Elise looked at it, a gentle hiss escaping her lips, and then she slithered forwards, scales rasping on stone. Elise took the spear, hefted it, testing its weight and balance. Then she was slicing it through the air, reversing her grip from overhand to underhand, switching to double-handed, the air rushing with each stroke.

  ‘It issss beautiful,’ Elise said.

  ‘Not as beautiful as you, my perfect creation,’ Fritha said quietly.

  Elise smiled at her, fangs bared. Fritha felt a warm glow in her belly.

  I have her back. Her and Arn, and now Morn. And Wrath, of course. Her draig was in Drassil’s great chamber, curled before the stairwell that led to this room. He had grumbled that he could not fit up the stairs when Fritha had climbed them, but Fritha knew this needed to be a private conversation, and that Wrath’s presence at the foot of the stairs would ensure that no one came within earshot.

  And my Ferals, though few of them are left. They will breed.

  But it is something. A place to start.

  ‘How have you done this?’ Arn asked her, still staring at the axe blade, turning it in his hand.

  ‘I am Asroth’s queen,’ she said, then smiled, knowing how fragile that position was. ‘I have made myself useful to him. Forged his hand and gauntlet, and made him weapons from the starstone. He is well pleased and wished to reward me. He gave me a portion of starstone.’

  ‘And you made these for ussss, when you could have made anything for yourself?’ Elise said.

  ‘In truth, I am not that selfless. I did make myself a little something.’ Fritha patted a short-sword hanging in a scabbard at her hip, like the swords she was trained with in the White-Wings. ‘But there was metal to spare.’ She shrugged. ‘I could have made myself more, but . . . you are important to me. I wanted to show you that, with more than words.’

  She stopped, drew in a deep breath.

  ‘There is something that I would tell you. And something that I would ask.’

  Fritha looked at them all in turn.

  ‘You must swear to secrecy. If you breathe of this to another soul, it would . . . endanger me.’

  Another silence, only the crackle of torches on the wall.

  ‘Tell ussss,’ Elise said. Arn and Morn nodded.

  ‘Asroth’s seed is in my belly. His child grows within me.’

  Their eyes grew wide, a sharp intake of breath from Morn. Elise’s tail rattled.

  ‘I would have you swear to protect my baby. She will be the future of the Banished Lands. But there are factions within Asroth’s court that would not be best pleased with this news. Factions that would see my child as a threat. And soon we will march to war; dangerous times lie ahead for us.’

  ‘She?’ Arn said.

  Fritha stroked her belly.

  ‘Yes. She.’ Even now Fritha could feel the warmth of her child, a presence deep within.

  ‘Will you do it?’ Fritha asked, a tremor in her voice.

  ‘Yessss,’ Elise said.

  ‘Aye.’ No hesitation from Arn.

  Morn looked at Fritha. ‘I thought there was something different about you,’ Morn said. ‘Now I see it. You have hope, again, where you had none. It has made you scared.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fritha admitted. ‘Will you swear to me?’

  ‘I will,’ Morn grunted.

  Fritha drew her new short-sword, the blade black as night. ‘Then let us make a new scar, and bind ourselves, one to the other.’ She drew the blade across her palm, blood welling, and looked at them, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.

  Elise, Arn and Morn each put their starstone blades to their hands and drew blood.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  DREM

  Drem stood with his friends.

  Byrne was before them. She had a large, flint-grey stone in her hands, and she turned and placed it upon a cairn.

  They were standing in a field of cairns, a part of Dun Seren that Drem had not seen before, to the north-east of the keep, the river Vold a black smear beyond stone walls. Hundreds of people filled the field around Drem. Thousands. Warriors of the Order and their families, Queen Nara with Elgin, Madoc and her people. Riv, Meical and the handful of the Ben-Elim who had survived the battle were close by, and Drem also saw that Faelan and a few score half-breeds from the caverns beneath Dun Seren were the
re. They looked uncomfortable in the open space, the sky cloudless and blue above them, a beautiful summer’s day.

  ‘Your sacrifice was not in vain, and it will be remembered,’ Byrne said, her voice loud in the silence. ‘We will never forget.’

  The crowd echoed her words, Drem adding his voice to theirs.

  ‘We will never forget.’

  There were one hundred and twelve new cairns; Drem knew exactly how many, for he had helped raise them, rocks brought up in wains from the river below. It had been a sobering deed, seeing linen-wrapped bodies slowly disappearing as the rocks were piled around them. Most of them were warriors of the Order, those who had fought with rune-marked blades, but some were Ben-Elim, and half-breed Ben-Elim, and some from Nara’s warriors.

  People from across the Banished Lands, torn to pieces by a horde of blood-mad Revenants. Drem pinched his nose, the strangeness and injustice of it filling him with a deep melancholy.

  They stood in silence a long while, Drem lost in his thoughts, the wound in his leg starting to ache and throb. Cullen’s hand upon his shoulder brought him back to himself. He saw that only a few were left, the crowds around him melting away, back to the work of repairing and healing.

  And preparing.

  Half a ten-night had passed since the Battle of Dun Seren, as it was starting to be called, and almost with the rising of the sun that same day Kill had gathered a team and taken them to the forges. The fires had been blazing night and day since then, the sound of hammers a constant ringing as rune-marked blades were forged.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ Cullen said.

  Why does he insist on calling me ‘lad’, when I am older than him?

  They walked through the field of cairns together, Drem looking at the inscriptions on stones as they passed them. To his right Drem saw movement, the flicker of wings deep amongst the cairns. He tapped Cullen and pointed.

  It was a Ben-Elim, on his knees before a cairn.

  Drem and Cullen threaded through the cairns, approaching the Ben-Elim. He was talking, head bowed.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Drem heard the Ben-Elim say. He must have heard their footsteps, for abruptly he froze, his head snapping round to look at them.

  It was Meical, and tears were streaming from his eyes.

  He stood quickly, a beat of his wings and he was airborne, rising higher into the blue. In heartbeats he was just a smudge in the sky, blurred by the sun.

  Drem shared a look with Cullen. There were two cairns closer together than the others.

  ‘Why would Meical be kneeling before a cairn?’ Drem asked. ‘And whose cairn is it?’ He found the stone at the foot of one of the cairns.

  ‘I know,’ Cullen said.

  Drem leaned closer to read the inscription on a flat stone at the foot of the cairn.

  ‘Here lies Corban, the Bright Star, our captain, our friend.’

  He was silent a moment, feeling the weight of history behind those words.

  Our friend.

  ‘He was a hero,’ Drem said. ‘We have all heard the tales.’

  ‘Aye, he was,’ Cullen said, unusually solemn.

  ‘But out of all that could have been said about him, the word friend is on his cairn. He was a man. Like us.’

  We are just people, all of us the same. Flawed, fragile, stubborn, angry, happy. And life treats no one differently. We are born, and we live, and then we die. It’s what we do while we are here that counts. And if we can be called friend, then we are lucky indeed.

  That thought rocked Drem. He shook his head and stared at the cairn. It was the same as all the others, the stones weathered, moss-grown, flowers poking out of gaps. He shifted, looked at the other cairn. It lay across the foot of Corban’s cairn, and Drem moved so that he could read its stone.

  ‘Here lies Storm, friend of Corban, protector of her pack. Faithful unto death.’

  Drem blew out a long breath. ‘Corban’s pet wolven?’

  ‘She was never his pet,’ Cullen said.

  Friend of Corban. Those words echoed in Drem’s mind. Friend.

  So much of what we are and do is shaped by that. Our friendships. Those we love, those we choose to stand beside.

  ‘There’s a story that goes with that inscription,’ Cullen said. ‘Corban died here, an old man, in his sleep. He was placed within his cairn, his sword upon his chest. Afterwards a feast was held in Corban’s memory. Storm, the wolven, did not want to leave the cairn, but Coralen, Corban’s wife, coaxed Storm to go with her. Well, later that night, during the feast of remembrance, Storm started to growl. Then she howled and went running off. Coralen and all of the Order went after her, and she led them back to Corban’s graveside. Kadoshim were here, attempting to desecrate the cairn, and Corban’s body.’

  Cullen paused, emotion twisting his mouth, putting a tremor in his voice.

  Drem sucked a breath in. After the life that Corban had led, standing against the Kadoshim and their evil, that was the most unbearable act. It looked as if Cullen agreed with him, the young warrior’s face pale, his mouth a thin line.

  ‘Because of Storm they were interrupted before they could carry out their plan, but they did take Corban’s sword.’

  Drem’s fingers brushed the hilt of his own father’s sword, hanging back at his hip again.

  I am glad to have this, something that was a part of you, my dear father, Drem thought.

  ‘The next morning,’ Cullen continued, ‘Coralen dressed for war and rode out of Dun Seren, with Storm at her side. She never came back.’

  ‘But Storm did,’ Drem said, looking at the huge cairn.

  ‘Aye. Ten moons later. She loped into the fortress, the story goes, ignored everyone, and made her way to Corban’s cairn. When she got here she lay down at his feet, and refused to leave his side ever again. She lived a while longer, I’m not sure how long, days, a moon? But she never left Corban’s side again.’

  ‘Faithful unto death,’ Drem said.

  ‘Aye, just so.’ Cullen nodded.

  The stable yard was busy. Warriors of the Order and a score of giants were repairing splintered doors and frames. Drem saw Keld working on the post-and-rail fence before the bear-paddocks. Fen and Ralla were close by, lying in some shade beneath a hawthorn tree.

  The huntsman’s face was cut and bruised, stitch lines along the whole of his cheek, temple and across the side of his head where Revenant talons had sliced a huge flap of skin.

  ‘Ach, but you’re not getting any prettier,’ Cullen said as they stopped before Keld.

  ‘Don’t think I’ll lose any sleep over that,’ Keld grunted. ‘Hold this,’ he said, pointing at a wooden rail.

  Drem lifted it, held it in position, bracing it with his knee while Keld nailed it in place. He looked into the paddock, eyes searching.

  ‘He’ll be along anytime now,’ Keld said with a wink.

  Just then a huge shape lumbered into view, the white bear appearing from behind a stand of trees. Hammer followed behind him.

  After the battle in the caverns beneath the fortress, Drem had hurried back to the enclosure, hoping that the white bear was still alive. Alcyon the giant had been tending them both, cleaning wounds and preparing for stitching. Hammer, although at more risk than the white bear and closer to death, had been easier to stitch, because she was verging on unconscious. But the white bear had taken none too well to Alcyon stabbing him with a sharp needle. It had taken a lot of honey to get the white bear’s wounds stitched.

  Drem felt a jolt of happiness at the sight of him.

  He saved me in the skirmish on the plain, and carried me all the way home.

  Heavy footsteps, and Alcyon strode up to them. He had a huge saddle slung across one shoulder and a big bundle of leather tack in one arm, a hemp sack in the other. He looked at Drem and the others.

  ‘Time to see if Hammer is up to a saddle on her back.’

  Her wounds had been so bad that Drem was amazed that the giant bear was even up and walking.

  But I have s
een her fight a giant bear and a draig and survive. She is a strong one. But what else should I expect? She was Sig’s companion for countless years.

  The white bear and Hammer were close now, and Drem climbed the rail that Keld had just nailed, earning him a tsk and a dark look from the huntsman.

  Cullen followed him over.

  ‘Just testing your work,’ he said, with a flashed smile at Keld.

  Alcyon went the long way around, using the gate.

  Drem walked up to the white bear, who stopped and lowered his head, rubbing his muzzle into Drem’s chest. It nearly knocked Drem to the ground, but he set his feet and leaned into the bear, scratching one of its ears. His other hand stroked the bear’s neck and chest, his huge shoulder, checking that wounds were healing well, flesh knitting, scabs thick and starting to peel away.

  ‘You are a survivor, my friend,’ he whispered. The bear rumbled quietly in agreement.

  Alcyon reached them and put the saddle and tack on the grass, then dropped the hemp sack with a thud.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Drem asked the giant.

  ‘That’s Hammer’s coat of mail. If she’s going into battle, she’ll need to be wearing it.’ He looked up at the bear looming over him.

  ‘Well, Hammer, how do you feel about having a giant on your back?’

  The female bear regarded Alcyon a moment with her small dark eyes, and then she dipped her head and one shoulder. It was the way that the giant bears of Dun Seren gave permission for a rider to climb upon their back.

  ‘They are not pets, or dumb animals broken to service,’ Keld had told Drem when he’d seen it the first time. ‘This is a partnership. A bond of friendship and loyalty between rider and bear. These bears are as intelligent as you or I. They know what they are doing, and choose it willingly.’

  ‘Ah, well thank you, great bear, you do me much honour,’ Alcyon said, patting Hammer’s shoulder and stooping to lift the saddle. ‘Some help?’ he said to Drem, who grabbed one side of the saddle and grunted with the weight of it. Together they heaved it up onto Hammer’s back, let her shake a little so that it shifted into place.