A Time of Dread

by John Gwynne

  A silence settled between them, just his stare.

  ‘Was that a rhetorical question?’ she eventually asked, uncomfortable, ‘or do you want me to answer?’

  Kol snorted a laugh at that. He laughed a lot, judging by the creases at his eyes.

  ‘I can only help you so much – like today in the market square. You must help yourself.’

  ‘Why do you care?’ Riv grunted. She knew it was churlish as soon as she said it, but she seemed to be doing a lot of things like that lately. Acting, speaking, doing, before thinking.

  ‘I like you, Riv.’ Kol shrugged. ‘You have spirit. I can see your mam in you, and your sister, and that is no insult. But keep on like this and you’ll never make the White-Wings.’

  ‘I know,’ said Riv with a frustrated sigh. ‘And that is my greatest, my only wish.’

  ‘Then let me help you make it come true,’ he whispered.

  ‘You would help me?’

  ‘Yes. If I can. But you must help yourself, too. Start by stopping your brawling. It won’t do. It’s spoiling your looks.’ He smiled then, a flash of white teeth and Riv felt herself blushing. Starlight highlighted the arch of his eyebrows and cheekbones, making the scar that ran from forehead to chin a dark valley. Somehow it made his face more handsome, different from the Ben-Elim’s perfection. And fierce. She was glad the sun hadn’t risen so far that Kol could see her blush. He reached a hand out, fingers brushing the cut on her lip. Riv fought the instinct to pull away, would have, if not for the wain’s board behind her head. Something about his touch sent a shiver through her.

  ‘You are so different from Israfil,’ she whispered, scared by his touch, the smile in his eyes, enjoying it, too.

  ‘He is too serious,’ Kol whispered, fingertips still brushing her cut lip. ‘This life of flesh, there is so much more to it than his constant frowning and his fixation with the Lore.’

  Riv smiled, snorted a shocked laugh.

  ‘I thought the Lore was everything,’ she said.

  ‘Is it?’ Kol said. ‘The Kadoshim must be exterminated, it is the only way to fulfil our Holy Calling, to protect mankind. But as for the rest . . .’ He shrugged, a ripple of his wings. His fingers moved away from her lip, a caress on her cheek.

  Footsteps, soft, a shape looming over the wain’s side.

  ‘Riv—’ her sister said as she looked into the wain, then froze, stared from Riv to Kol.

  ‘No,’ she said, a quiet voice, cold as winter, face hard and flat, but Riv could see the sudden fury in her eyes. ‘No,’ she repeated, some of that fury leaking into her voice.

  Kol smiled at Aphra as he stood, stretched luxuriously. With a beat of his wings he was airborne, a silhouette against the rising sun.

  Aphra stared at Riv, her mouth twitching, though nothing came out.

  Horns sounded, announcing the change of guard and the coming of morning.

  It’s Midwinter’s Day, Riv realized.

  Trees blotted out the day as Riv entered Forn. It was close to highsun, and she was marching in formation with the other fledglings of Aphra’s hundred, all of them equipped with shield and spear.

  Scouts had worked through Oriens and out onto the surrounding area as soon as dawn had arrived and, not long after, evidence of a trail had been discovered on the north-eastern side of the town, leading into Forn Forest. Kol had sent two score White-Wings in to scout the path while the rest of the three contingents prepared to march.

  As they did, Kol had alighted on the wall of Oriens and addressed them all, a stirring speech of justice for the slain, of Elyon’s judgement upon the murderers. He quoted from the Book of the Faithful again, more about the iniquities of the Fallen catching up with them, of justice and blood. Then he ordered that the fledglings be equipped for battle and accompany the search into Forn. Riv had seen Aphra’s frown, but not known whether it was from worry for Riv’s safety, or for some other reason.

  And now they were marching into Forn, shadow and leaf all about.

  Has Kol done this for me? Is this what he meant, when he said he would try to make my dream come true?

  It was like a dream, a thrill coursing through her as she’d stepped into line and lifted her shield, Jost beside her. To her left there was a loud crack as a branch snapped, a giant appearing between trees. They were spread to either side of the White-Wings’ ragged column, impossible to keep tightly regimented in this terrain.

  And on they marched, deeper into Forn.

  Something changed about them. Riv was at first unsure what the change was. Then she realized.

  It had become silent.

  No birdsong, no insects. And with it, a tension in the air, thick and stifling.

  A horn blast, the front of the column halting, the rest rippling to a stop behind.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Jost said, peering along the line.

  ‘You’re taller than me,’ Riv said. ‘All I can see is someone’s back. And Jost, I wanted to give you my thanks, for last night.’

  ‘You’re my sword-kin, what are friends for, eh?’ he said, smiling, one eye half-closed, a purple bruise circling it.

  ‘Your poor eye,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, it’s not so bad. I’d rather that than wake up this morning with teeth marks in my ankle, like one of their lot has had to do.’

  They both laughed at that, receiving strict looks from a White-Wing in the ranks ahead.

  Another horn blast and then the column was moving on again. Suddenly, Riv saw what had caused them to stop.

  They had found the bodies of the townsfolk. From an overhanging tree branch hung a body. A noose about one ankle, it was headless, skinned and gutted like a boar ready for the spit. Riv had to force herself to look away as they marched beneath it and on into the forest.

  As they pushed on, more bodies were visible, hanging from branches, swaying, dangling, chewed upon by things that flew or climbed.

  They are like markers showing the way.

  Which is worrying. Is this an ambush? Are we marching to our slaughter?

  Riv felt fear tingling through her veins, but also excitement, the thought that she might finally fight the Kadoshim. She felt as if she were born to do that. The one thing that she existed to do.

  And then they found them.

  Bodies in a small clearing, hundreds upon hundreds heaped upon each other in a tangled, stinking pile. Crows and flies rose in a buzzing, croaking cloud, the stench of rot rolling out from the dead like a wave. Jost was not the only one to empty his guts into a bush.

  Orders were barked, Balur One-Eye appearing out of the gloom. All were mindful of an ambush, eyeing the trees suspiciously, horns blowing and the White-Wings splitting, some moving to help Balur and his giants as they went about setting up a perimeter, giants hacking at thinner trees, White-Wings using machetes and axes to chop at vine and brush, pushing the forest back a little, clearing a defensible space. The other White-Wings and fledglings merged into a circular defensive formation, weapons bristling outwards, while Kol and his captains stood and consulted near the pile of the dead.

  Riv scanned the forest, her spear clutched ready, her eyes drifting higher, aware that Kadoshim could strike from any angle, any direction. She saw a Ben-Elim swooping through branches high above. The more she stared, the more she thought.

  There’s no one here, except the dead.

  It doesn’t seem right, Riv thought. For whoever it is to do this, even to go as far as marking the way to this spot. The trail of bodies. Why go to all this trouble? It must be an ambush. Why else would we have been lured out here.

  Why else would they want us here.

  And then it hit her.

  So far away from Drassil.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  BLEDA

  Bleda’s eyes snapped open.

  Something’s wrong.

  It was dark, his eyes taking a while to adjust, some instinct telling him it was the small hours between midnight and dawn, though he could not be sure. And his head h
urt.

  Too much wine.

  But it has been Midwinter’s Day.

  Then he heard it. Faint cries.

  What?

  He swung his legs out of bed, feet cold on the stone floor. Embers still glowed in his fire-pit, a half-light that he dressed by, swiftly pulling on breeches and boots, a wool tunic, reaching instinctively for his belt with his bow-case and quiver of arrows.

  I feel like someone made anew, since Riv returned my bow to me.

  Just at the thought of it he felt a tremor of emotion that threatened to undo his cold-face. It took a few moments to master it.

  More cries, louder. Boots thudding on stone.

  He padded to his window and opened the shutter, shivered at a blast of frost-filled air and looked out into the starlit street. White-Wings were running, still in loose formation, but running.

  They never run. They march everywhere. Even to bed, most likely.

  Screams on the night air. The clash of steel. Bleda felt a jolt of fear, a shock.

  Death, battle, in unassailable Drassil, heart of the Ben-Elim.

  He left his chamber, his heart thumping in his chest, and found Jin standing in the doorway of their shared house. Their guards, usually half a dozen White-Wings that dwelt in the same building, were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘They ran off, towards the gates,’ Jin hissed, an answer to his look at the empty guard room where water in an iron pot was bubbling over flames in the hearth. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘We’re being attacked,’ Bleda said.

  ‘Who?’

  He just shrugged.

  A raid? A full-on assault?

  ‘Let’s go find out,’ Jin said, stepping into the street, breath misting in the starlit night. She looked excited by the prospect, one hand resting on the hilt of a long dagger sheathed at her belt. Bleda followed, as it was exactly what he had intended to do, anyway.

  They slipped through the darkness of Drassil, the ancient trees’ branches swaying high above, sending shadows shifting across the flagstoned streets. The clamour of battle rose in volume, and then they were at the courtyard before Drassil’s gates. Bleda pulled Jin into a darkened alcove.

  Before them was a scene of chaos.

  The gates were open, flames flaring high from one of the oil-filled braziers that burned day and night, and smoke and flame crackled and spilt from one of the stables edging the courtyard. Horses screamed within.

  Combat ranged about the courtyard, steel clanging. Shapes of men silhouetted by flame were fighting, wrestling, as a wave of dark-cloaked figures surged through the open gates, hundreds, it seemed to Bleda, though it was hard to tell through the smoke and flame. White-Wings were forming their shield wall, more shields locking into place with every moment, and then a horn blast and they were slipping fluidly into movement, pressing towards the gates, the dark-cloaked enemy falling before their short stabbing blades.

  Two figures crashed into a wall nearby, came careening towards them, a White-Wing and a Dark-Cloak. There was a wet, punching noise and the White-Wing fell at their feet, blood bursting from his mouth, black in the starlight. The Dark-Cloak stood over his enemy, his hood fallen away to reveal a pale-faced man, shaven-haired and wild-eyed. He looked about for more White-Wings to kill and threw himself back into the battle.

  ‘Stay back,’ Bleda hissed at Jin when she took a step forwards, ‘you’ve only got a knife.’

  ‘And you’ve your present, I see,’ Jin said, not able to hide an edge of venom from her voice as she glanced at the bow in his hand.

  Jin had been awestruck when she saw Bleda’s bow, a little less so when she’d heard where it had come from.

  ‘All these years she’s kept it from you,’ Jin had said.

  ‘She has,’ Bleda had agreed. ‘But she has given it to me now.’ And Jin had seen something in his eyes then that she hadn’t liked. Not one little bit. Ever since then Jin had hidden it well, but whenever he used his bow or spoke of it her voice had been gilded with spite, veiled threads of jealousy leaking from her.

  Jealous of his bow, or of Riv, he did not know.

  ‘Don’t worry for my safety,’ Jin said as she stood over the dead White-Wing, turning the fallen man’s head with her foot. ‘I just wanted to make sure he’s dead. I have no intention of getting involved. Let them kill each other, what do I care? Good, I say. The world is better for fewer Ben-Elim and White-Wings.’

  A short while ago and Bleda would have agreed without thought, but now, at Jin’s words the first image to flash into his mind was Riv.

  A fledgling White-Wing.

  He had missed her since she’d been gone, over a ten-night, which had surprised him, but now he just felt a sense of relief that she was not here, was not fighting, risking death in this courtyard.

  Though she may be no safer, wherever she is.

  He pushed the thought away, brought back to the present by another death-scream.

  How did they get in here? Get the gates open, take Drassil by surprise? And where are the Ben-Elim?

  As if answering his thoughts, he felt the air shift above him, saw shadows flitting across the sky.

  But they weren’t Ben-Elim.

  Bleda knew it in a moment. The shape of them was different, their outline – silvered by starlight above, red-flamed glow from below – looked wrong, somehow. Their wings were ragged and thin, like wind-torn clouds after a storm, and they were edged in sharp-curved talons.

  Kadoshim!

  Even as he thought it, one of the winged figures was descending to the ground, only fifteen, twenty paces from Bleda and Jin. And it was carrying something in its long arms, another figure that it as good as hurled into a knot of White-Wings who were forming a small shield wall of a dozen men, calling others to them.

  The figure thrown into their midst scattered them like kindling, roaring a battle-cry as the White-Wings scrambled to their feet. Its arms swung, some kind of sickle-like blade in its hand, and a head was spinning through the air. Then it leaped at two more White-Wings, the three of them crashing to the ground in a roaring tangle of limbs.

  The Kadoshim alighted between them and Bleda, its wings furling behind it with a snap, a rush of air that tasted of the grave, of rot and decay. Bleda and Jin just stood and stared at the creature. All his life Bleda had heard of the Kadoshim, dread foes of the Ben-Elim, their opposite in every way. But no tale had prepared him for the sight of one in the flesh, living, breathing, stinking, just ten paces away. It was taller than a man, black eyes set in a reptilian face, fixing upon him, dark veins cobwebbing its pallid flesh. Its face shifted, smile or snarl, Bleda was unsure, revealing white, pointed teeth, and it strode towards them, drawing a sword from its scabbard, dark wings framing it like a cloak.

  ‘Kill it!’ Jin hissed beside him, but Bleda was frozen, those black eyes burning into him. He felt the closeness of death, a cold breath down the back of his neck. He fumbled desperately with the arrows in his grip, dropped them clattering about his feet, beside him Jin moved into a fighting stance, knees bent, her knife gleaming in her fist.

  The Kadoshim raised its sword.

  Bleda nocked an arrow to his bow, fingers feeling numb, swollen, like when he’d been stung by a bee. He tried to draw his arrow, aim, knew he was too slow, too late, the Kadoshim’s shadow falling across him, the stench of its breath filling his senses, and all Bleda could do was stare into its pale-as-death face.

  Jin stepped forwards, crouched, knife levelled. She hissed a challenge.

  An axe slammed into the Kadoshim’s skull, its head gone in a heartbeat, an explosion of blood and bone and brains, the axe continuing its descent, carving down deeper, through clavicle bone, sternum and ribs, on and into its chest cavity. Then the axe-blade was being ripped free, the Kadoshim collapsing to the ground with a wet slap, blood steaming. A figure appeared in its place.

  Alcyon, covered in blood.

  ‘Get out of here,’ the giant shouted at him, gesturing for Bleda and Jin to flee. Then he
was turning and wading into the fight, other giants appearing, Ethlinn striding into the courtyard wearing a gleaming coat of mail, a long spear in her fists.

  The air above was suddenly full of movement, more Kadoshim winging overhead. And other shapes, winged, but their outlines shorter and less reptilian, more human.

  Like the half-breed that attacked Israfil.

  The pale gleam of white feathers reflected starlight as Ben-Elim appeared, the din of steel clashing, shapes swirling, Ben-Elim and Kadoshim spiralled through the night sky, stabbing and chopping and screaming at each other.

  Bleda felt overwhelmed, chaos, confusion and death a whirling maelstrom all about. He felt he couldn’t breathe.

  He turned and ran from the courtyard a dozen paces, a score, two score, the tumult receding quickly behind him. He paused, hands on his knees, sucking in deep breaths.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jin said behind him. ‘Don’t leave, I want to watch!’

  He felt better now, his head clearing, angry with himself. Ashamed of his fear.

  The whisper of wings overhead, a swift shadow, and Bleda looked up, glimpsed a Kadoshim flying deeper into Drassil, carrying a figure in its arms, more of them, too dark to count.

  Where are they going?

  ‘Get Alcyon,’ he said to Jin and ran off after the disappearing Kadoshim.

  Within moments the streets were silent, the battle seemingly focused and contained within the courtyard. Bleda caught a glimpse of dull metal up above, more Kadoshim and half-breeds flying overhead, all clutching a warrior-passenger in their arms, moving in the same direction as he’d guessed the other ones to be flying. Deeper into the fortress.

  Where?

  And then he knew, as he ran skidding into another courtyard, this one all but empty, the huge domed walls of Drassil’s great keep rising before him. Bodies lay scattered upon the steps, a Kadoshim or two, some Dark-Cloaks, and White-Wings. Blood steamed, clouds of it in the cold night air.