A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  Battle erupted, warriors of the Order cutting down the incomers with their rune-marked blades, more Revenants pouring through the open windows. Halden threw himself at a Revenant standing upon the long table, chopped into its ankle with his sword, severing its foot. The Revenant swayed and fell, Halden’s sword hacking into its neck. Another Revenant leaped upon Halden’s back; Reng stabbed it with a spear.

  A huge thump against the keep’s doorway, an explosion of dust.

  Drem stabbed a Revenant through the belly as it leaped upon him, the creature hurtling into Drem, its momentum sending them both tumbling to the ground. Drem kicked and rolled, extricated himself from the dead weight, climbed back to his feet.

  Another crash, the doors rattling in their hinges. The bar creaked, fissures opening.

  Friend grabbed a Revenant in his jaws, shook his head and body pieces flew in different directions.

  Another blow against the door, fracture lines crackling through it, the bar bending, a series of snapping sounds.

  Winged shapes swept through the open windows, half-breeds and Kadoshim, flying up into the eaves of the hall, hovering. Spears flung, warriors of the Order falling.

  Keld punched a Revenant in the face with his shield boss, sent it staggering, Fen and Ralla leaping forwards, jaws clamping on its arms, dragging it down, Keld stepping forwards, stabbing it in the face, an eruption of blue fire.

  A deafening crash, the doors exploded inwards, shards of splintered timber flying through the air, one impaling a warrior of the Order, hurling her into a wall.

  For a frozen moment, all stared at the shattered doorway, a beam of light flooding in, then gone as bodies filled the entrance. Revenants poured into the room, mouths wide, jaws snapping, talons reaching. Kadoshim and half-breeds flew above them.

  Death comes for us all, Drem thought. But we’ll take some of you with us.

  He slashed a Revenant across the face, saw it fall in a spray of teeth, a horizontal chop of his axe into another’s throat, blue fire sizzling, ripped the blade free as the Revenant collapsed. Pushed back by the press of bodies. Friend roared, lashed out, eviscerating three Revenants with one swipe of his razored paws.

  Then Drem saw the Revenant captain. In life he had been an acolyte, hair shaven short. His lower jaw was covered, thick with blood. He exploded into the room, ducked a warrior’s sword-swing, ripped the shield from her arm and leaped in close, jaws opening wide, clamping on her throat. They fell to the ground, the Revenant’s head shaking, blood spurting. The warrior’s feet drummed on the ground.

  ‘KELD!’ Drem yelled, pointing at the captain. Keld nodded, the two of them cutting a way forwards, Fen and Ralla following Keld, Friend with Drem.

  The churning of air above Drem. He instinctively ducked, a spear stabbing where his face had been. He turned and looked up – Gulla’s half-breed daughter was glaring down at him.

  ‘My name is Morn,’ she snarled. ‘It is good to know the name of your killer.’ Her spear stabbed again, Drem twisting, steel scraping on his shoulder, links of his mail coat tearing.

  Drem chopped with his axe, splintered the spear shaft. Morn flung it at him and he batted it away. She drew her sword.

  Friend roared, swiped at her, Morn’s wings beating, moving her, but claws raked a wing, sending her spinning. She screamed as she fell, and more half-breeds swooped from the sky, jabbing spears at Friend. A red gash opened along one cheek, mail tearing on his flank. Drem grabbed the net at his belt, swung it overhead and released, lead weights spreading, wrapping around one half-breed, crushing his wings together and he plummeted from the air, crashed to the stone floor. Friend stamped on him, blood and bone erupting.

  There were half-breeds and Kadoshim all around now, the air a turbulence of wings, stabbing at Friend, forcing him back, away from Drem.

  More wings behind Drem, an impact in his back, throwing him to the ground. He fell and rolled, looked up into Gulla’s face. Gulla had a longsword in his fist and swung at Drem’s head. Drem lashed out with his seax, rolled at the same time, a clang of steel and sparks flew. He swayed right, a vertical cut from Gulla’s sword missing him by a finger’s width. Pushing to his feet, he slashed at Gulla with his seax.

  Gulla roared, parried Drem’s seax and beat his wings, swept close, a boot kicking Drem in the chest, sending him tumbling. Stamped on Drem’s forearm, pinning his axe. Drem stared up at Gulla, saw his sword rise.

  A piercing scream, echoing through the room. Something in the air changed, Revenants pausing, looking.

  Gulla and Drem looked, too.

  Keld was standing before the Revenant captain, his sword in the creature’s chest. It was screaming. Blue fire crackled like lightning through its torso, and then Keld was ripping his blade free, the Revenant collapsing at his feet.

  All around the room Revenants sighed and dropped to the ground.

  ‘Rald,’ Gulla snarled, shock and hatred leaking from him.

  ‘WHO’S NEXT?!’ Keld bellowed, glaring about the room.

  Gulla took a step towards Keld.

  Drem slashed desperately at Gulla with his seax, a blue line opening up along his thigh. Gulla screamed and stumbled, his face filled with shock.

  ‘That’s three of your Seven dead,’ Drem grunted as he scrambled to his feet, swept up his axe. ‘Him, Ulf, Arvid.’ He leaped after Gulla, another slash of his seax catching the Kadoshim across the forearm, mail links tearing, rage and fear washing the Kadoshim’s face.

  ‘Soon it will be you. We can hurt you, we can kill you,’ Drem yelled, brandishing his seax and axe.

  Gulla snarled and beat his wings, rocking Drem backwards, and swung his sword. Drem parried with both his weapons, the power in the blow sending him stumbling. A roar shook the room as Friend lumbered between Drem and Gulla, teeth bared. Gulla looked at the white bear, opened his mouth and screamed his rage, wings beating, and he rose into the air, shouting commands to his Kadoshim who swept towards Drem and the bear. Gulla flew towards Keld.

  ‘No,’ Drem breathed, then screamed Keld’s name, the huntsman turning, seeing Gulla flying at him. He grinned, set his feet with shield and sword.

  Drem started to run, swerving around Friend and ducking beneath the slice of a Kadoshim sword. Revenants leaped at him.

  How are there Revenants still standing? Rald is dead. The hall was thick with dead Revenants, but a few were still standing.

  They are Gulla’s Revenants.

  A roar from the white bear. Drem turned back to see a Kadoshim hovering in the air, stabbing his sword at Friend’s eyes. Drem sheathed his seax and swept up a spear, hefted it once, finding its balance, and threw. It flew straight as an arrow, pierced the Kadoshim in the waist, sinking deep, angling up. The Kadoshim shrieked and dropped from the sky like a stone. Friend finished him off as Drem started running again towards Keld.

  Gulla was close now, wings beating hard. The huntsman was perfectly still, in a half-crouch, shield and sword ready, eyes fixed on Gulla.

  Then something crashed into Keld’s back, throwing him forwards, onto his knees, his shield spinning from his grip.

  Morn. She stood behind him, a long, black knife in her hand, and stabbed down. The blade punched through Keld’s mail, pierced deep into his back.

  Keld screamed.

  Fen and Ralla leaped at Morn, jaws clamping on her face and arm, the three of them tumbling backwards. Drem saw the black knife in Morn’s fist, bloody to the hilt. They disappeared from view. A wolven-hound yelped, whined.

  Drem was sprinting now, axe back in his fist. A Revenant in front of him. He shouldered into it, his seax slashing its throat open, ran on as it spun and fell.

  Keld was pushing himself upright, sword still in his hand. Blood speckled his lips.

  Behind him Drem saw Fen flying through the air, thrown into a wall.

  Gulla landed in front of Keld, the huntsman swung his sword. The blow was weak, Gulla sweeping it away, a backswing chopping into Keld’s arm, his sword clattering onto stone.
Gulla reached down, grabbed a fistful of Keld’s mail and heaved him up, into the air, feet dangling.

  Drem, almost sobbing, skidded to a halt, hefted his axe and threw it.

  Keld’s hand was at his belt, trying to find the hilt of his knife.

  Gulla’s jaws opened unnaturally wide, rows of razored teeth bristling, and bit down onto Keld’s throat. Dark blood spurted.

  Drem’s axe spun through the air, sinking with a wet slap into Gulla’s back. He screeched, dropped Keld, tried to reach the axe, couldn’t. A beat of his wings and he was rising, twisting into the air, snarling, Keld’s blood thick on his chin. Dripping.

  Drem was close now, saw Keld on the ground. The huntsman was moving, though weakly, hands clamped around his throat, blood leaking between his fingers. A figure rose behind him: Morn, her face a bloody mask, mail coat rent and tattered. She had a new spear in her fist, eyes fixed on Drem.

  Drem ran at her, a cold rage filling him.

  Morn hefted the spear, pulled her arm back, aiming at him.

  An arrow punched into her, high in the chest, spinning her.

  Drem ran on, dimly aware of Kadoshim and half-breeds dropping from the sky, crashing to the ground, arrows sprouting from them, Revenants falling around him, blue flame crackling around arrow wounds.

  Drem saw it all in blurred half-images, his eyes fixed on Keld. He dropped onto his knees, skidded to Keld’s side, lifted the warrior’s head and shoulders, cradling him on his lap.

  ‘Hold on,’ Drem said.

  Keld looked up at him, tried to say something, blood bubbling from his mouth, choking.

  Beyond Keld, Morn was on the ground, slowly rising, an arrow protruding from high in her chest, blood running down. At her feet lay a tangle of red fur, the wolven-hound Ralla, lifeless eyes staring.

  Morn stood.

  Arrows slapped onto stone around her, one punching through her wing.

  A Kadoshim fell from the sky, crunched onto stone, an arrow in his throat. Drem looked up, saw a winged figure at a window, Faelan, with a bow in his hand. Other half-breed Ben-Elim were swooping into the room, all loosing arrows while in flight.

  A horn blew, high and otherworldly. Morn looked up, more arrows flitting at her, one skimming off her mail-coated arm. She looked at Drem, then up at the half-breed Ben-Elim. Back at Drem.

  ‘ARGH!’ she screeched. ‘Soon,’ she snarled at Drem, and leaped into the air.

  Keld’s body started to twitch.

  ‘No,’ Drem said, part order, part denial.

  Keld’s eyes fluttered.

  A whine, scratching on stone and Drem glanced right, saw Fen stumbling towards them. The wolven-hound was bleeding, swaying. He collapsed at Keld’s side, lay his big head on the huntsman, whined.

  Keld stared at Drem, an intensity in his eyes.

  ‘Look . . . after . . .’ Keld breathed, bubbles of blood forming on his lips.

  Drem wiped them away.

  ‘Please, Keld, no. Not you. I can’t lose you, too,’ Drem whispered, tears blurring his eyes.

  ‘Look . . . after Cullen, and my babies,’ Keld whispered, his breath a rattle. ‘This’ll go . . . hard on them.’

  ‘You’ll look after them yourself,’ Drem said.

  Keld’s hand fell from his throat, scraped on the ground.

  Drem buried his face in Keld’s chest and sobbed.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  JIN

  Jin picked her way amongst the dead, crows rising in a squawking, protesting mass from their feast.

  The sun was not long risen, tall shadows stretching across the gully. Jin had ridden hard upon realizing she had been tricked yet again. But by the time she and Tark had led her warband out of their own ravine and back to the valley, darkness had settled and the sounds of distant battle had long since fallen silent. She had made the frustratingly difficult decision to make camp for the night and to rise before first light.

  By that time Jin’s other captains had all returned to the valley, only Medek and his warriors were missing. As the sun had crested the peaks, Jin and Tark had led their reunited warband into the gully Medek had taken.

  And now she had found him.

  Or at least, she thought it was him. His skull had been caved in, most of his face missing, the rest pulped.

  ‘What happened?’ Gerel muttered, shifting another Cheren corpse with his boot.

  They had found the battleground quickly enough. The ravine was thick with the dead. Men, women, horses, all lying still and twisted, most with empty, red-staring sockets where their eyes had been, taken by the crows. Tark had set his scouts to searching the area; so far, no survivors had been found.

  ‘There are Sirak here,’ Cheren said, crouching beside a dead warrior in a grey deel. She was lying on the ground, legs twisted unnaturally beneath her, two Cheren arrows protruding from her chest.

  ‘Aye, there are,’ Jin said.

  ‘But not enough,’ Tark grunted, dropping Medek’s bow upon his corpse and moving on, picking his way through the corpse field.

  ‘Find Bleda,’ Jin said. ‘Check every body.’

  ‘Aye, if he is here, I will find him.’ Tark nodded, but Jin knew the huntsman did not expect to find Bleda’s body. Because she didn’t, either.

  He is making a fool of me.

  Jin sipped from a water bottle in the shade of a boulder, the sun hot in the gully. Gerel stood close by, a dozen of her honour guard about her. Everyone else was working at the task before them.

  Bodies were being piled, Cheren and Sirak, weapons and war gear stripped from the dead, anything valuable. There were things here that Jin did not understand.

  ‘Report,’ she said, as Tark approached her.

  ‘Five hundred Cheren dead. Eighty Sirak.’

  That staggered Jin for a moment. The dead had been so tangled and intertwined that it had been impossible to tell numbers or Clan.

  How has this happened?

  ‘And Bleda? Where is he?’

  ‘Bleda is not amongst the dead,’ Tark said. There were others with him, a handful of his best scouts, and Jin’s captains, Hulan, Jargal, Vachir and Essen, all of them lords of large families within the Cheren.

  ‘Where is he then?’ Jin asked, trying to keep her voice even and calm, suppressing the rage that was churning within her, a pressure building in her chest.

  ‘I do not know,’ Tark said, a frown knitting his brows. ‘Perhaps over those rocks.’ He gestured to a tumble of boulders that blocked the gully. ‘Though I can see no tracks that way. He would have had to go on foot, no way for horses to get through.’

  Jin drew in a long breath.

  ‘Tark, what happened here?’

  The scout looked at her, confusion, uncertainty in his eyes.

  ‘All right,’ Jin said. ‘Tell me what you do know.’

  ‘There was clearly a fierce battle fought,’ he said. ‘A charge from both sides; you can see where the lines met.’ He pointed to the gully, to a point where the corpses of warriors and horses had been piled thickest, the stony ground still dark with their blood.

  ‘But battle spread all along this part of the gully. And then, there were more Cheren dead there.’ He pointed again. ‘As if they were attacked on the flank.’

  ‘An ambush?’ Jin said. She shrugged. ‘Bleda is proving to be cunning.’

  ‘Aye, that he is,’ Tark replied. ‘And yes, it looks like a flanking attack, but where from? There is no cover to hide such a force.’ He looked at the cliffs and boulders whose shade they were standing in. ‘And then there are the wounds. Only on our Cheren.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jin said.

  ‘They are . . . unnatural,’ Tark said. ‘There are many Sirak arrows amongst the dead, sword and spear wounds. But there are others as well. Men and women crushed. Dismembered. Wounds too big for Sirak sword or spear.’

  Jin just looked at Tark. ‘It is strange,’ she admitted. ‘How, then, do you explain these things? Who gave these wounds and death blows to my people?’r />
  ‘I do not know,’ Tark said.

  You are saying that a lot. Too much, for my liking.

  ‘Giants?’ Jin said. She had seen old Balur One-Eye training in the weapons-field at Drassil. He could have made wounds like this, with his war-hammer.

  ‘Giants do not live in Arcona,’ Tark grunted.

  ‘The Night-Walkers,’ a voice muttered, Vachir, one of Jin’s captains.

  ‘What?’ Jin said.

  Vachir looked away. He was an older warrior, grey streaks in his warrior braid, and wore a fine coat of mail, edged with leather and gold wire.

  ‘Creatures of campfire tales,’ Tark said, with a frown. ‘Mountain-dwellers, cave-lurkers that come out in the dead of night and steal our goats and children.’

  ‘Monsters,’ Vachir said.

  ‘Huh.’ Jin snorted. ‘I believe in monsters, but only the ones I can see.’

  ‘Believe or not,’ Vachir said, looking at a huge gaping wound in a dead Cheren warrior’s chest, ‘the dead tell no lies.’

  ‘And where are the horses? Our horses,’ Jin said. ‘Five hundred Cheren rode into this ravine. Their bodies are here, but I only see a hundred or so dead horses. Where are the rest? The way ahead is blocked by rockfall, and we came up the gully this morning. Where are they, Tark?’

  He opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Do not say I don’t know,’ Jin snapped. ‘You swore to me that you would guide me, that you would lead me to Bleda. That is what I do, you said to me. So, find him.’

  Tark looked at her, then looked away.

  ‘Where are my horses, Tark?’

  ‘Lining a monster’s belly?’ Vachir said, quietly, but loud enough for Jin to hear.

  ‘And where did this monster gut and skin our horses, quarter them, cook them?’ Jin snapped.

  Vachir shrugged. ‘You lead us, you tell me,’ he said, a twist of his lips. He looked at her then. ‘Or can you not? We have followed you; sixty leagues from the Cheren Heartland, been tricked, lost a warband of our kin.’ He gestured to the piled dead. Then he hawked and spat.