by John Gwynne
Their voices faded, a silence settling upon them all, spreading across the weapons-field.
Before them upon the dais stood a black-arched doorway, as tall and wide as two giants. On the far side of the dais the weapons-field rolled up to a stone wall, but Riv looked through the doorway and saw something . . . else. At first it looked like mist swirling sluggishly, a veil, but there were glimpses of what lay beyond. Of purple skies and white-tipped mountains.
Meical stepped onto the dais, walked until he stood before the doorway. The Ben-Elim that were gathered to the side of the dais followed him. Three hundred and twelve of them. Most of the Ben-Elim who had survived the Battle of the Banished Lands, though not all.
Meical turned and looked at Byrne.
‘It is time for us to leave the Banished Lands,’ he said. ‘We have caused enough harm.’
‘You will always be a friend of the Order of the Bright Star,’ Byrne said to him.
Meical smiled, the scars on his face crinkling. ‘I thank you for that. I was a friend to Corban, in the end, so it means much to me, to be a friend to this Order. It is his legacy, and he would have been proud to know you, proud of your courage.’
Byrne dipped her head to him.
Meical looked at them all, eyes coming to rest on Riv.
‘It has been my deepest honour to know you,’ he said, ‘and to call you friend.’ He bowed to Riv, and she smiled at him, suddenly realized that she was going to miss him.
Meical beat his wings, rose into the air, then turned and flew through the mist-shrouded door. There was a turbulence of wings as the other Ben-Elim left the ground. They spiralled up, then went through the door in a storm of wings.
Tendrils of mist curled from the doorway.
They all stood there for long moments, staring at the fading shapes. Then Byrne reached beneath a fur upon her lap and drew out a book. There were two sigils upon it, a black tear and the eyes and fangs of a wolven. Byrne’s finger traced the sigils, and then she opened the book, looking upon a page of writing in a thin, spidery hand.
‘Cabhraíonn cumhacht na cruinne liom. Gaoth, tine, uisce agus talamh,’ Byrne read from the book, her voice loud, echoing across the field.
Earth power, help me. Wind, fire, water and earth, Riv translated in her mind, even as her voice and of all who stood those alongside her called out the same words of power.
‘Faigh na cinn scoite, créatúir an bhiotáille. Aingil bhán, aingil dorcha, aingeal dílis agus tite,’ Byrne continued.
Find the winged ones, the creatures of spirit. White wing, dark wing, faithful and fallen angels. Riv and the others echoed Byrne’s words.
‘Faigh iad agus ceangail iad, agus tabhair chugam iad,’ Byrne finished.
‘Find them and bind them, and bring them to me,’ Riv breathed aloud, then repeated the words in the old tongue. ‘Faigh iad agus ceangail iad, agus tabhair chugam iad.’
The last words echoed, slowly faded, a silence settling. A tingling in Riv’s blood as a gentle breeze caressed her face, grew quickly stronger, tugging at her braids. Between Byrne and the black portal the air shifted, shimmered. Air swirled, growing faster, wilder, became a wild spinning force, flecked with flame and water. It roared, spiralling into a tight whirlwind, and then exploded outwards, breaking into myriad strands, hurtling out over Riv’s head in all directions, like a thousand ropes of air and flame cast into the sky.
Riv looked at Byrne, but she was sitting with her head bowed, staring at the book. Turning, Riv looked into the sky, saw the tendrils of air had fractured in all directions, streaming through the sky, further and faster than Riv could see.
It seemed that only moments had passed when Riv saw the first speck in the sky. A black dot, growing swiftly larger. A trail of air and flame was returning, a Kadoshim bound within it. The Kadoshim was dragged kicking and screaming through the sky, faster than Riv could fly, over the walls and fields of Dun Seren, the rope of air and flame contracting, hauling the Kadoshim towards them, closer, closer, until the Kadoshim was held bound before them, wings and arms snared tight to its body. It looked at Byrne, hissed and screeched at her as it writhed and bucked, but it could not break its ethereal bonds.
Byrne just stared coldly at it.
More dots in the sky, a dozen, then a score, soon over a hundred. This time Ben-Elim were amongst them, shouting their outrage, their white wings bound, all of them dragged struggling, shrieking, screaming to hover upon the dais before Byrne and the others. Hundreds of them bound, bunched and jostling together.
Riv searched the sky, saw that all of the tendrils had returned.
‘You do not belong here,’ Byrne said.
‘What outrage is this?’ a Ben-Elim screeched at Byrne. ‘How dare you bind us? We are the Ben-Elim, the firstborn of Elyon.’
‘You are not welcome here,’ Byrne continued, ignoring the Ben-Elim.
Yells and cries of shock and indignation, threats and insults spat at Byrne.
‘Caith amach iad, isteach sa neamhní,’ Byrne cried out.
‘Cast them out, into the void,’ Riv breathed, and then raised her voice with the others.
‘Caith amach iad, isteach sa neamhní,’ they called out, like a thunderclap.
Ben-Elim and Kadoshim were dragged into the portal, hurled through it, hundreds of voices wailing, deafening at first, but fading as they passed through, disappearing.
Silence settled.
Cullen looked at Riv.
‘Well, that was thirsty work. Don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink,’ he whispered.
She looked at him.
‘A drink with friends sounds good,’ Riv said.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO
DREM
Drem walked along with Cullen, Riv and Jost. Rab flapped above them.
‘Well, that was something,’ Cullen said.
‘Aye, and good riddance to them,’ Riv muttered.
They left the weapons-field and turned right, passing along a wide street, children playing, dogs running and yapping. The children fell silent as they passed them, whispering and pointing at Riv, Drem and Cullen. Riv noticed, frowned.
‘You’re famous,’ Cullen said, nudging Riv with his elbow.
‘They’re pointing at you, too,’ Riv said, ‘and Drem. Why?’
‘You three have a reputation here,’ Jost said. ‘The God-Killers, they call you. And Balur and Meical. It’s not fair, really,’ he continued. ‘While the rest of us were getting trampled by draigs and bitten by slavering Revenants, you lot managed to sneak off and steal all the glory.’ He jumped out of Riv’s range, laughing, before she could say anything, or punch him.
Riv scowled at Jost instead.
‘Nothing wrong in that,’ Cullen said. ‘We are the God-Killers. Well, I did most of the hard work, but you two helped, in the end.’
Drem shook his head, smiling.
He was reminded, every day, how good it was to be amongst friends.
A trio of wains rumbled past them, loaded with slabs of stone for the new building. A team of workers followed the wains, amongst them a handful of men and women, squat and broad, thick-muscled, with wings of leathery skin. Half-breed Kadoshim. Drem saw Riv watching them as they walked by. He was still getting used to seeing them in ordinary, daily life.
After the battle a few score of the Kadoshim’s half-breed offspring had surrendered. The surviving Ben-Elim had been about to execute them all, but Meical had stepped in. Said that they were as much the victims of the Kadoshim as anyone else. Bred and raised, brainwashed, for a single purpose. The survivors of the battle had met and discussed what to do, eventually offering amnesty to the half-breeds. They were to swear oaths of loyalty to the Order, or they would remain in captivity until the door to the Otherworld was opened, and then they would be exiled there.
All had sworn oaths to Byrne.
Since then they had been kept under a watchful eye, but now, six moons after the battle, Byrne was allowing them to rejoin
the world.
A risk, knowing their bloodlines, but they are people, too, and have their own choices to make. Riv is not like her father, so there is hope for these half-breeds, too.
They reached the gateway to the bears’ paddock and turned into it, passed through the flagstoned courtyard. Drem saw darker patches on the stone, a reminder of the blood spilt by bears when the Revenants attacked.
Blood always leaves a stain.
The paddock gate creaked as Drem opened it. Riv beat her wings and had already flown over the fence. Cullen climbed over it, at the spot that Keld had been repairing, the day Friend had let Drem upon his back. Cullen always climbed the fence at that same spot, now. Maybe he thought of Keld every time he did it. Of the huntsman’s half-smile, his mouth full of nails.
Cullen reached into his cloak and pulled out a leather water bottle and a pouch that he emptied on the ground, a pile of small leather cups falling on the grass.
‘Always be prepared,’ he said, handing out the cups to them all. Then he unstoppered the bottle and poured for them all.
Drem sniffed it. It wasn’t water. A sweet, oaky aroma, potent, making his eyes water.
‘Careful,’ Cullen said, ‘don’t sniff too hard, it might singe the hairs from your nostrils.’
‘Usque,’ Jost said. ‘And it’s not even high-sun. This day is getting better all the time.’
Cullen just smiled and took a sip from his cup.
They all sat in a circle, talking, listening, laughing. Rab flapped down amongst them, shuffling close to Cullen. Drem took a sip from his cup and coughed. Cullen and Jost laughed the hardest. Only Riv was silent. Drem regarded her over his cup. He was worried about her, knew that her grief was a constant shadow on her heart. The loss of her mother and then Bleda, so close together. It would never go, he knew that, memories of his da circling his head, and Sig and Keld. Their ghosts were always with him, brought back when he least expected them, by a smell, or a turn of phrase, a sound. He didn’t want them to go – the grief was a sign of his love and respect for them. But he knew it was a sharp knife-edge. There had been a point when his grief could have led him down a different path, suffocated him. It was his oath that had seen him through those darkest times, the feeling that he must keep his promise to his da. And then, after that, it was friendship and love that had seen him through.
Riv has that about her. I hope that it will be enough for her, as it was for me.
A tremor in the ground and Friend and Hammer joined them, as Drem had known they would.
Friend nudged Drem, sniffing him, and Drem scratched the bear’s muzzle, felt the ridges and troughs of scar tissue. Drem had a hemp bag slung over his shoulder. He opened it and pulled out a big clay jar, stolen from the hospice, and two bowls, unstoppered the jar and poured honey into both bowls.
Friend and Hammer lapped the honey noisily.
A whisper of movement and Fen loped towards them, across the courtyard, leaping the paddock fence and joining them. The wolven-hound padded around them all, then turned in a circle at Drem’s feet and curled down beside him.
Fen was always absent for part of each morning when they were at Dun Seren. He stayed at Drem’s side most of each day, walked Drem to his chamber and slept at the foot of Drem’s bed. But each morning he was gone. The first time, Drem had been worried and searched for the wolven-hound. He’d found him in the field of cairns, lying beside Keld’s cairn.
Drem reached out and scratched the wolven-hound’s neck.
He looked around at them all, and sighed, a soft warmth spreading through him.
We have come through so much. Seen so much death and tragedy. He closed his eyes, picturing his father, hearing his voice, felt that acute sense of loss. Then opened his eyes, seeing his friends gathered close. People he had stood beside, who had shed their blood for him, made that choice to live or die together. To stand or fall together. His brothers and sisters in arms. He smiled, loving them.
‘So, what are we going to do with ourselves, now those shifty, troublemaking Ben-Elim and Kadoshim have been thrown out of the Banished Lands?’ Cullen said.
‘We will guard the gate,’ Jost said.
‘Aye,’ Drem agreed. ‘Balur and his kin will build their new keep around the gate, and together we will all guard it.’
Cullen nodded thoughtfully, sipping from his cup. ‘I’m worried,’ he said. ‘I fear I’m in danger of becoming bored.’
‘Kadoshim are not the only darkness in this world,’ Drem said. ‘Keld told me that, and he’s not wrong. There is a darkness in the hearts of men, the potential within us all. Fritha proved that. And there are her creations to hunt. They are spreading through the Desolation, breeding. We shall fight the darkness.’ He looked at them. ‘What else can we do?’
They all nodded, sobered by that thought.
‘Might give me something to do.’ Cullen smiled.
‘Love, loyalty and friendship shall be my guiding light,’ Drem breathed, words from the oath they had all sworn. You are my friends, the people I love. His eyes came to rest upon Riv. ‘What do you think?’ he said to her.
‘About what?’ Riv said.
‘The way forward?’ Drem elaborated.
Riv regarded him, her eyes dark and deep. A silence stretched, Drem thinking she would not answer. Then she drew in a long, ragged breath.
‘A wise woman said this to me once,’ she said. ‘There is much in life that is beyond our control, events that sweep us up and along, actions that wrap us tight in their consequences.’ She paused, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘Stop raging about the things you cannot change. Just be true to yourself and do what you can do. Love those worth loving, and to the Otherworld with the rest of it. That is all any of us can do.’ Her voice cracked with those last words. A deep breath. ‘I confess, I can struggle with that. I want to right all the wrongs. And it is hard to let go of . . . the past. I don’t want to let go. But I do want to protect the victory we have won. To make their sacrifice worthwhile.’ She looked at them all, mouth hovering between snarl and smile. ‘To me, that is a task worth doing,’ then she shrugged, and Drem felt a glimmer of hope for her.
‘A toast,’ Cullen said, filling their cups and holding his high. He looked at Riv. ‘To Aphra and Bleda.’ Then he looked to Drem. ‘To Olin. To Sig, and Keld. To love and friendship, and bonds that cannot be broken. To you all, the greatest of friends.’ He looked around at them all. ‘To truth and courage.’
‘Friends. Truth and courage,’ Rab squawked.
‘To truth and courage,’ Drem said, the others echoing Cullen, and then they drank.
A TIME OF COURAGE
JOHN GWYNNE studied and lectured at Brighton University. He’s been in a rock ‘n’ roll band, playing the double bass, travelled the USA and lived in Canada for a time. He is married with four children and lives in Eastbourne, running a small family business rejuvenating vintage furniture. His debut novel, Malice, won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Debut.
BY JOHN GWYNNE
The Faithful and the Fallen
MALICE
VALOUR
RUIN
WRATH
Of Blood and Bone
A TIME OF DREAD
A TIME OF BLOOD
A TIME OF COURAGE
First published 2020 by Macmillan
This electronic edition first published in the UK 2020 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5098-1304-9
Copyright © John Gwynne 2020
Jacket illustration by Paul Young
The right of John Gwynne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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