A Time of Dread

by John Gwynne

  ‘Courtesy would have been to ask leave to cross my borders,’ Nara said. ‘Before you crossed them.’

  Sig stopped a smile from splitting her face.

  ‘We have made the Banished Lands safe, conquered the Kadoshim horde,’ Kushiel said. ‘All before you were born, I know, but still, I would hope that would count for something, that the passage of time had not dulled our sacrifice for you and your people.’

  Be polite, Sig thought, seeing the anger rise in Nara. Much as I feel the same, this is not the time for a falling-out with the Ben-Elim. Nothing would make the Kadoshim happier.

  ‘Ardain is aware of all that the Ben-Elim have done for us,’ Nara said flatly.

  Well done, lassie.

  ‘I will have a room prepared,’ Nara continued, ‘food and drink, where I can show you the proper courtesy you deserve. Where we can talk in more comfort. Come, follow me.’

  ‘My thanks. First, one other thing, though. I came here for another reason, also. Israfil has sent me to many places, to many lords throughout the Land of the Faithful with the same request. And finally to you, our ally in Ardain. I would save it for a more private meeting, but . . .’ Kushiel’s eyes flickered back to Sig and those gathered behind him. ‘I do not think it should wait.’

  ‘And what is this reason?’ Nara asked.

  ‘Times are dangerous, the Kadoshim treacherous, and as these beacons show, they seem to be stirring.’

  ‘Aye, all this I know,’ Nara said.

  ‘We Ben-Elim seek to protect you, the race of men, and giants –’ he looked at Sig again – ‘from the dread hand of the Kadoshim. But the practicalities. We number only so many, can patrol and protect only so much ground before our watch grows thin. There are many of your kind who . . .’ He paused again, thinking on his words. ‘Who assist with the practicalities of maintaining the peace. The White-Wings, the giant Clan.’

  Not all of the giants.

  ‘But they are not enough. We need more. Those within the borders of our protection give a flesh tithe, as is only right.’

  A flesh tithe! Sig frowned at that, felt her hackles rising.

  ‘Israfil has sent me to request a tithe from our neighbours, our allies,’ Kushiel continued. ‘From you. A tithe of warriors, to fight the good fight. The holy war against the Kadoshim.’

  Nara was silent a long moment, quiet settling over the whole courtyard, just the gentle sigh of rain, the pulse of Ben-Elim wings from the two circling overhead.

  ‘I will not order warriors of Ardain to leave their kin and their homes, to leave Ardain against their will,’ Nara said.

  ‘Then why do I see two score gathered behind the . . . representative of Dun Seren and their Order of the Bright Star?’ Kushiel asked, his voice far from polite now. Flat and cold.

  ‘They have chosen – volunteered – to go,’ Nara replied calmly. ‘And so they have my blessing.’

  ‘Really?’ Kushiel asked, his eyebrows rising again. ‘Why would they choose them? A tower in the north, when they could join the Ben-Elim, the champions and protectors of your race? The Ben-Elim, who defeated the Kadoshim and their allies on that Day of Days—’

  ‘You lie,’ a voice said, low, grating, but heard by all in the square. It took Sig a moment to realize that the voice belonged to her.

  Kushiel’s head turned slowly to glare up at her.

  ‘I was there, too,’ Sig said. ‘I rode in the charge that broke Asroth’s allies on the plain before Drassil’s walls. I know what Corban did. Fought Asroth, slew Calidus, helped to destroy the Seven Treasures and your gateway to the Otherworld.’

  ‘Enough!’ Kushiel snapped.

  ‘Many sacrifices were made that day,’ Sig said. ‘They will never be forgotten.’

  ‘We will never forget,’ Cullen and Keld intoned either side of her, the mantra of their Order.

  ‘And you should take a care,’ Cullen said, ‘that’s my great-grandfather you’re belittling. Might be the quickest way for you to go about getting your wings clipped.’

  Sig gave a warning growl, at the same time wishing she’d said the same.

  Kushiel’s eyes blazed.

  ‘Wings clipped?’ he hissed, ‘You arrogant pup.’ He reached for the sword at his hip.

  ‘Not in my realm,’ Queen Nara said, a sudden tension in the air.

  Kushiel drew in a deep breath and took his hand away from his sword hilt. He stared at Sig, Cullen and Keld, only his eyes hinting at the emotion he controlled within.

  ‘They are free to choose, you say?’ he directed at Nara.

  ‘Aye. They are. They have. More than that, they requested the privilege of going to Dun Seren,’ Nara said.

  ‘Privilege!’ Kushiel muttered. With a pulse of his wings, he lifted into the air and hovered gracefully above the group of volunteers.

  ‘Trainees of Ardain, I speak to you,’ Kushiel said. Sig felt Hammer begin to growl, a tremor deep in the bear’s belly, vibrating into Sig’s boots.

  ‘You have a choice before you,’ Kushiel called out. ‘Dun Seren or Drassil. The Order of the Bright Star, or the Ben-Elim. Where would you rather complete your training? A crumbling tower filled with a fading order, or the greatest fortress in the world, home to the mightiest warband and warriors the Banished Lands have ever witnessed. What would you rather be part of?’

  A silence filled the courtyard, the creak of harness, a horse stamping a hoof.

  ‘Dun Seren for me,’ a voice said, high, a tremor running through it. Kushiel’s gaze snapped onto the speaker. A girl, dark-haired and gaunt. Despite her trembling voice she held Kushiel’s gaze and returned it.

  ‘Me too,’ another voice called out. ‘Corban was the greatest warrior that’s ever lived, and he came from here. From the west.’

  ‘Aye. He was one of us,’ someone else called out, ‘and he built Dun Seren. That’s where I want to be, not Drassil.’

  Murmurs rippled through the young warriors.

  ‘I’ve heard there’s wolven-hounds at Dun Seren,’ another voice called out, ‘big packs of them.’ Fen gave a deep-rumbling growl, as if agreeing.

  ‘And me,’ Rab squawked, making Kushiel blink. ‘Rab from Dun Seren, too.’

  Sig twisted in her saddle, looking back at them all.

  ‘Are any of you for Drassil? Speak now, there’s no shame or insult in it. I’ll think no worse of you, but it’s better to know now, than hold it in.’

  A long silence, serious faces looking back at her. All could meet Sig’s gaze, none looking away, which held stronger weight to Sig’s mind than any spoken word.

  Sig nodded to herself and turned back to the Ben-Elim.

  ‘There you are, then,’ Sig said to Kushiel. ‘You’ve had your answer.’ She sat straight in her saddle. ‘Now get out of my way.’

  Kushiel hovered in front of Sig a long moment, then his wings beat and he was rising to the battlements.

  ‘Israfil will hear of this,’ he said to Nara, then winged higher, joining his kin, and with great beats of their white-feathered wings they were flying away from Uthandun, blurring into the rain-soaked sky.

  Sig looked up at Nara and dipped her head to the Queen of Ardain. Then she lifted a fist and uttered a command, Hammer lumbering forwards.

  ‘To Dun Seren,’ she called out as she passed through the gates of Uthandun, her voice echoing and booming, and it felt good to hear those words out loud. Cullen and Keld rode either side of her, their small band of would-be warriors cantering in a ragged double column behind them. Sig rode down the long slope towards the Darkwood and onto the wide bridge that crossed the Afren, Fen loping ahead of her and merging with the shadows and murk of the Darkwood. Rab was clinging on to Cullen’s saddle as if his life depended upon it, bobbing and swaying with the rhythm of it, wings ruffled and pointing in all directions.

  Sig felt her spirits lift at the thought of returning home, but there was a shadow over her soul, the sense of terrors unseen growing ever stronger.

  So, the Kadoshim are m
oving, and now I discover that the Ben-Elim are enforcing a tithe of flesh. Asking for volunteers is one thing, but this! They are enslaving those within their borders to a life of military servitude. This is something else that Byrne must hear about, if she does not know already. How can Ethlinn and Balur One-Eye condone this?

  She heard Hammer grumbling beneath her, sensing her mood, and patted her shoulder.

  ‘Dark days ahead, my bad-tempered friend,’ she said, ‘but we’ll face them together.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DREM

  Drem walked back from the paddocks, boots crunching on the fresh snow in his yard, up the steps of his cabin, where he stamped his feet and then into the warmth of home. Heat from the hearth washed his face as he shed his cloak and pulled gloves off with cold-stiff and clumsy hands.

  His head felt as if it were packed with wool, so much had happened.

  It was highsun now, though the sun wasn’t too clear in the sky outside, lurking somewhere behind thickening snow cloud that was rolling down from the north. It had taken almost half a day to deal with Calder’s corpse. Drem had taken Fritha and her hound back to their hold, the hound still breathing, last he’d seen it. Hask, Fritha’s grandfather, had started squawking at her like an old crow the moment Fritha set foot inside, remonstrating her for leaving without making his porridge.

  ‘Your granddaughter needs some looking after, herself,’ Drem had said to the old man. ‘She’s been through a hard morning. Could do with some care.’

  ‘What have you done to Surl!’ Hask had yelled at Drem, as the hound was in his arms at the time, Drem carrying it into their home and laying it upon a fur that Fritha ran and fetched.

  ‘Feed him up: red meat, milk, cheese,’ Drem had said to Fritha, choosing to ignore the barrage of abuse and accusations that frothed from Hask’s mouth. ‘He’s a strong animal, got heart to take off into the Wild like he did. And don’t listen to him,’ Drem had added quietly, a nod at her grandfather.

  Sometimes age doesn’t mellow and soften, sometimes it twists and toughens, squeezing all the kindness out of a soul.

  ‘He’s not always like this,’ Fritha had said. ‘Worse in the mornings.’ She’d paused. ‘And the evenings.’

  Drem had stood to leave, eager to get back to Olin.

  Fritha had held his wrist as he made for the door.

  ‘There’s something about you, Drem ben Olin,’ she’d said.

  ‘There is?’ he’d said, not knowing in the slightest what she meant.

  ‘Yes.’ She’d nodded, stepping closer, and suddenly he had been very aware of the sheer blue of her eyes, the scatter of freckles across her cheeks and nose.

  ‘You’re different from other men.’

  Am I? Is that good? Bad? How?

  ‘There’s an innocence to you, nothing asked or expected. And a loyalty.’ She had nodded to herself. ‘You’re a good friend to have, Drem, a rare find, and I’m grateful to you.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome,’ Drem had said, feeling his neck flush red. Not knowing what else to say, he’d turned and left, enjoying the pleasant feeling that was fluttering around inside his belly, and then he’d ridden hard for Kergard, seeking out Ulf the tanner and telling him of the grisly find. Drem had returned to his da while Ulf had sought out Hildith and the other Assembly members, promising to gather men and a wain. Olin didn’t seem to have done much, bits of Calder were still spread about a wide area, but he was on one knee examining the ground.

  ‘There was a bear here,’ Olin had said as Drem dismounted. Bear-prints were all over the area. But Olin had been frowning, studying the ground.

  ‘What’s wrong, Da?’ Drem had asked.

  Then Ulf had arrived, a score of men with him, some Drem recognized, many that he didn’t. It hadn’t been long before any tracks and clues as to why Calder had been there were trampled away. Drem had stood with Olin as he spoke to Ulf, away from the others as men set to gathering up Calder’s scattered remains and loading them into the wain.

  ‘Look at the wounds on Calder’s body,’ Olin had said to Ulf.

  ‘There’s not much left to look at’, Ulf had said bitterly. ‘We must hunt that bear down.’

  ‘Beneath his ribs there’s another wound, doesn’t look like a bear’s doing, to me. Looks more like a blade,’ Olin said. Ulf frowned.

  ‘You must be mistaken,’ Ulf had said.

  ‘Just look,’ Olin had said, and then he was calling Drem and they were leaving.

  And now they were home, Drem feeling his extremities beginning to thaw as the fire crackling in the hearth did its work.

  His da was standing with his back to Drem, leaning over a bench in their sparsely furnished room, the black iron of the new sword a dull gleam upon the dark-grained timber. He was riveting a wooden hilt of ash to the tang.

  ‘How’s your shoulder?’ his da asked him, not looking up from his work.

  ‘I can feel it again,’ Drem said. ‘Hurts like I’ve been kicked by a horse.’

  ‘Good,’ his da grunted. Drem knew what he meant. It was good that sensation was returning, the anaesthetic of the bat’s saliva wearing off. The first thing his da had done upon returning to their hold had been to wash out Drem’s wound, finding some usque to boil, letting it cool a little and then pouring it into the torn flesh. Drem had been grateful for the numbness then. After that it had been a poultice of comfrey and honey and then off to the barn to let the livestock out, and the paddocks for their two ponies.

  He thought about Calder, could not believe that the big man was dead. He looked at his da and felt a wave of sympathy for him, knew that he and Calder had been good friends.

  And Calder’s death. There’s something about it that’s not right. Another bear attack? And why was he in the woods when he was supposed to be meeting Da at the gates of Kergard? His mind was picking through the threads and tangles of this knot, but he couldn’t focus on it, not yet, because there was something else foremost in his mind.

  ‘Da, we need to talk.’

  Olin paused in his work, a frozen moment, then he carried on, reaching for a strip of tan leather. Drem watched him as he pinned it close to the cross-guard, then began to wind it tight around the ash hilt, spiralling up towards the pommel.

  ‘We do,’ Olin replied. ‘You’ve got questions.’

  Da’s always been good at understating an issue, but that’s the biggest understatement I think I’ve ever heard.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Last night, the things you did, the things you said!’

  Drem sucked in a deep breath, condensed all of the spinning questions into one.

  ‘Who are you, Da?’ he breathed.

  A pause in Olin’s work. ‘Your father. First, before all other things.’

  ‘I know that.’ Drem sighed. It’s like getting a horse to walk where it doesn’t want to. Just say it straight.

  ‘Da, last night, you spoke a spell. In a different language. And it worked! The metal wouldn’t soften, even with the white heat of the forge. But then you spoke, and . . .’

  And you sprinkled your blood on the fire and metal . . .

  But some things he just couldn’t say out loud.

  ‘And the metal softened. And now you want to go running off and cut Asroth’s head off. I thought Asroth was already dead, and how would you find him, anyway, to get close enough to, you know, chop his head off, and—’

  ‘Stop!’ Olin said, turning around. He’d finished wrapping the sword’s hilt, was holding it now, blade lowered. There was something about it that drew Drem’s eye, even though it was plain and simply bound, no gold or silver wire, no jewels or intricate scroll-work. Shadowed runes were carved into the dark metal of the blade and cross-guard. Drem noticed something else, at the top of the blade; just before it met the guard a small, four-pointed star was carved.

  ‘There’s something I need to show you. It will help you understand.’ Olin walked away, still gripping the Starstone Sword, out of their shared room into his own bed
chamber. He dropped to his knees beside his cot, pulled a pile of furs out of the way and dragged a chest into view. It wasn’t particularly big, and about as long as Drem’s arm. The wood was plain, old and worn.

  ‘Tell me, Drem. What do you remember?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of before here. Five years we’ve lived in the Desolation. Before that, what do you remember?’

  ‘Grass and mountains, Arcona and the mountains to the north.’

  ‘Aye.’ Olin nodded. ‘I thought we were safe enough there, but then the Horse Clans began to fight and the Ben-Elim came running. Or flying, stamping on any sign of conflict that they hadn’t created, enslaving more free people, and too close to us for my comfort. And before that?’

  ‘Travelling, many places. Some hot. I remember a tower that overlooked a bay, the sea blue as the sky. The sound of gulls.’

  ‘Aye, the Tower and Bay of Ripa,’ Olin grunted. ‘In the Land of the Faithful.’

  Now Drem had started, the memories began to come quicker, piling one atop another.

  ‘A black-walled fortress beside a lake, big as a sea.’ He closed his eyes, seeing the fortress with its tall tower, looming over a meadow and lake. Ships bobbing, and something in the distance. ‘Mountains.’

  ‘Jerolin,’ Olin said.

  He thought again, enjoying this exercise, though it was getting harder.

  ‘Trees high as the sky, a grey tower. A black river.’

  ‘Brikan, in the fringes of Forn Forest. Before that?’

  Drem frowned, screwing his eyes closed. He wasn’t sure how long he was silent, sifting through memories. ‘Grey hair, a man laughing? It’s blurred, like a dream.’

  ‘Aye, that’d be your grandfather,’ Olin said, a rare smile ghosting his face.

  ‘Where?’ Drem asked.

  ‘Close to Dun Taras, in the far west of Ardain.’

  Drem remembered a bleak, rain-soaked land. With the memories came a warm, pleasant sensation in his belly. Then a sour note, an image of packing, running in the dark.