A Time of Dread

by John Gwynne

  This is all Kol. Charming, handsome, fascinating Kol. A storm is coming, he said to Aphra. What side will you choose?

  Kol has been arrested, accused of improper relations, Garidas said. She suddenly remembered Kol’s hand upon her cheek, fingers brushing her lips, and she shivered.

  He has made the storm, has planned for this. Sent the giants away, has Lorina with him, and my sister. But Garidas said he had Kol in custody, that he is being taken to Israfil.

  It was all there, in her mind, what was happening, but like a jigsaw the pieces were separate, were not connecting to make the whole picture clear.

  On she ran, towards Israfil’s chambers.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  DREM

  It’s Fritha! Tears burned his eyes, the sense of betrayal hot as bile in his throat.

  Not abducted by them, or experimented upon and mutilated by them. She is one of them! Has been one of them all along.

  I am the world’s greatest fool.

  ‘It is Fritha,’ he whispered, more in control, now, at least enough to not hurl himself from the roof in an attempt to kill the deceitful, lying witch.

  What part did she play in my da’s death? Was it her that hit me? Took the sword? She certainly has it now.

  He felt his body tense again, but controlled himself. He was not about to commit suicide when the chance of justice or vengeance was so slim.

  Wait, bide my time. Be the hunter Da taught me to be. But know this, Fritha – for what you’ve done, I will kill you.

  She raised the black sword.

  ‘Fuil agus cnámh, rud éigin nua a dhéanamh,’ Gulla cried, voice filling the clearing.

  ‘Blood and bone, to make something new,’ Sig whispered beside him.

  A silence in the clearing.

  ‘Do it,’ Gulla snarled.

  And Fritha cut Gulla’s throat, his two half-breed children stepping forwards and helping her catch the slumping body, heaving it limp onto the table, on top of the still-twitching bat. Fritha sheathed her black sword and reached into some kind of bag at her feet.

  ‘This cannot be?’ Sig muttered besides Drem. ‘What are they doing?’

  Fritha held something aloft, what looked like a severed hand, fingers bunched into a fist, although it was dark and gleaming, and clearly heavy. She brandished it for all to see, a ripple of muttered awe escaping those gathered before her.

  ‘Fola agus cnámh an Asroth,’ Fritha cried out, and cast whatever it was onto the entwined corpses of Gulla and the bat.

  ‘Dear Elyon above, no,’ Sig whispered.

  ‘What?’ Drem hissed.

  ‘Blood and bone of Asroth,’ she breathed. ‘It’s Asroth’s hand.’

  ‘Bheith ar cheann, a bheith rud éigin nua,’ Fritha cried out, the crowd before her joining their voices to hers, ringing out in the winter’s night. The two corpses on the table convulsed and heaved, limbs and wings entangling, spasming, merging, flesh softening as if they were melting together, their mixed blood bubbling and seething.

  ‘Become one, become something new,’ Sig intoned.

  Steam spread out from the entwined bodies on the table, a great cloud boiling out and settling upon the clearing. There was a squelching sound, a series of violent cracks ringing out, and then, slowly, the mist evaporated and a silence fell.

  We should get out of here, now, Drem thought. While all are focused on this dread act.

  But he couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene before him, his body just as unresponsive.

  Upon the blackened timber a body lay, curled like an unborn bairn still in the womb.

  ‘Behold,’ Fritha cried out in a voice that did not sound like her own. ‘The first Revenant!’

  Slowly, as all watched in hushed silence, the body moved, a twitching that became a ripple of limbs and wings, and it stood. Gulla, but different. He seemed bigger, for one, more muscular, a strength barely contained within his frame. And his veins pulsed with a dark light. His head twitched, raptor-like, as he looked about, long fangs curling from desiccated lips.

  ‘Who shall be my first-born, the first disciple?’ Gulla said, even his voice changed, deeper, more resonant, though more bestial, too.

  ‘You?’ He pointed at Fritha.

  She stared back at him.

  ‘I am promised to another,’ she said and, bowing her head, stepped back.

  A man leaped forwards from amongst the acolytes that had followed him into the clearing, shrugging off his cloak. Drem recognized him immediately: scar-faced Burg, Wispy’s leader.

  ‘Choose me, Lord, I beg you for the honour,’ he cried out, voice laced with hysteria and wonder.

  Gulla’s wings unfurled with a powerful snap, spreading wide and then curling inwards, wrapping around Burg, pulling him closer to Gulla, whose head dipped down, and then Gulla opened his mouth wide, long canines glinting red in the firelight, and he was biting into Burg’s neck.

  Burg screamed, a terror-filled shriek that gradually subsided into a weak mewling, slowly overcome by a new sound, a hideous, child-like suckling that echoed around the clearing, making Drem’s skin crawl as if a thousand spiders were scuttling over him.

  Burg’s legs buckled and he slumped, Gulla taking his weight as easily as a corn doll, though Burg was still conscious, his eyes bulging and rapturous.

  With a shudder Gulla disengaged from Burg’s neck and lifted his head. He raised Burg up and placed him upon the table, the shaven-haired acolyte twitching and shivering as if he were caught in the grips of a fever. A single drop of blood ran from the puncture wounds in his neck.

  ‘Drem,’ Sig whispered. ‘We must get back to Dun Seren. Byrne must hear of this, the Order must be warned,’ she said. ‘We cannot search for your friend Ulf, this is too important, too dangerous. The fate of the Banished Lands rests upon others knowing of this.’

  Drem nodded, but a new hush had fallen over the clearing as Gulla beckoned another acolyte forwards.

  We need some noise to cover our departure.

  ‘Is he here?’ Gulla called out to this new acolyte.

  The figure pulled his hood back, another shaven-haired zealot, though this one was older.

  It was Ulf the tanner.

  ‘Yes, my Lord,’ Ulf said.

  ‘He’s here, somewhere,’ another voice called out from the crowd, stepping forwards. A woman this time, shaven-haired as well. It took a moment for Drem to recognize her.

  Tyna, Ulf’s wife, whom Drem had seen that morning, terrified for her husband’s safety.

  ‘Show him,’ Gulla said to the acolytes spread about the clearing, bloodied lips spread in a sanguine smile.

  More and more acolytes started to push their hoods back, more shaven heads, but they were faces that Drem recognized. Fear seized him, then, a paralysis that threatened to incapacitate him, for they were mostly faces he’d known for the last five years, neighbours, townsfolk, some he’d even considered friends.

  Is everything and everyone a lie?

  ‘It seems that half the town of Kergard is here,’ Drem wheezed, finding it hard to breathe.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  BLEDA

  Bleda sat before the window in his chamber, the shutters rattling with the wind and beating rain. Behind him a few embers glowed on his hearth, all but burned out. He was restless, had been for some days now, and couldn’t sleep. He knew the root of it, though it had taken him a while to admit it to himself.

  I am worried about Riv.

  For as long as he could remember, all he had thought about was the Sirak. About his kin, his dead brother and sister, his pride-battered mother. Arcona, the Grass Sea, nursing his grudges, he and Jin feeding each other’s flames of hatred, their spite-filled mocking of all things Drassil, their disgust at any who were weak enough to show emotion, their bitter dreams of justice or vengeance, whatever name you gave it.

  But now I am worried about something – someone – else. Riv. My friend.

  It was a new feeling, having a friend. Caring
about someone who had not come from the Clans. Especially when that someone was as wild and emotionally unfettered as an unbroken colt.

  But she was his friend, he could as much deny it as deny that water was wet, or the sky was blue. She had done something unprecedented that day when she’d given him his bow. She’d forged a bond with him somehow, across the abyss of his pain and scorn.

  So, she is my friend. I care about her welfare.

  And that was why he’d rushed after her when he’d seen her carried from the weapons-field, almost a ten-night gone, why he’d hammered on her barrack doors, only to be told to go away, that she was unwell and could not have visitors.

  Every day he had returned, everyday been told the same thing, whether by her mam or sister. Sometimes a different White-Wing. Even by the bull-muscled Vald once. He’d called Bleda back as he had turned to leave.

  ‘Don’t take it personal,’ Vald had said. ‘I’ve not seen her, either. None of us have. Only Aphra and Dalmae. Riv’s got some kind of fever, so they’re saying.’

  Somehow that had made Bleda feel slightly better.

  Until Jin had spoken to him.

  And she’s not happy, either.

  Jin had told him in no uncertain terms that he was humiliating her, and himself, with his pathetic fascination for Riv. Jin had called her a bad-tempered barbarian, which had almost made Bleda smile, a twitch of facial muscle that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jin, and had not helped to soothe her mood.

  Perhaps Jin’s right. I should be more concerned with my training, earning the right to lead my hundred, and their respect. Certainly Old Ellac had looked at him strangely every time that Bleda marched to Riv’s barrack, for Ellac would accompany him, saying he was sworn to protect him, and Bleda had no reason to order him not to do so.

  But as Bleda sat here in the dark, thinking these things through, he had come to a conclusion.

  I don’t care. Not about how I should feel, about how I should behave. Riv is my friend.

  He sighed with that thought, a release of tension, and sat a little straighter in his chair.

  A sound drew his attention, standing out from the wind and rain. He opened his shutters a crack and peered outside. A movement in the street below drew his eyes, a flicker through the swirling eddies of rain.

  A person, weaving through the street as if they had drunk too much wine. A woman, fair hair plastered to their face.

  Is that . . . ?

  He leaned forwards, pulling the shutters wide.

  Riv?

  Other forms appeared behind her, following, gaining.

  Before he’d realized what he was doing he’d pulled on his boots and was buckling his weapons-belt on, the familiar weight of his bow and quiver feeling like a missing limb returning. He wrapped a cloak about his shoulders and slipped out of his door.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  SIG

  ‘Come out, Drem, trapper’s son, forger of the Starstone Sword,’ Gulla called out. ‘And you, too, Sig of the Bright Star. I know you are here, somewhere. You cannot think to ride past a town of four hundred people upon your great bear and go unnoticed.’

  Laughter hissed and rippled around the clearing.

  ‘Long have you been a bane to us, a thorn in our flesh, and now you shall be plucked and thrown upon the fire, and we shall feast upon your bones, upon the flesh of your bear and upon the hearts and organs of your sword-brothers.’

  As terrified and foolish as Sig felt right now, that made her mad.

  There’s a time for stealth, and there’s a time to kill.

  ‘Come out, come out,’ Gulla chanted, laughing, the acolytes taking up the cry, ringing out as they spread through the clearing, turning, searching. A whisper of wings, and Gulla’s children took to the air. With a victorious cry they spotted Sig and Drem and sped towards them. One was faster, the female. She thrust a spear down at them. Sig pushed Drem out of its way and grabbed the spear, pulling the half-breed Kadoshim down to her, grabbing a fist-full of leathery wing and then she was dragging herself upright, gripping the wing with both hands, setting her feet and twisting, turning, swinging the half-breed, smashing it with all of her prodigious strength into the roof, an explosion of turf, the creature loose-limbed for a few heartbeats and then Drem kicked it in the stomach, sending it rolling off the roof.

  An ear-splitting shriek and its brother was swooping towards them, wings tight as it dived, a sword in its hand. A whistle of air past Sig’s ear and a spear was suddenly sprouting from the half-breed’s chest. He swerved away, wings beating weakly, and then the wings folded and he crashed to earth.

  Below them Gulla screamed.

  ‘Ulfang!’

  A roar of rage from the acolytes below as they surged towards the building Sig and Drem were standing upon.

  Sig looked at Drem.

  ‘Sometimes the only answer is blood and steel,’ he said.

  ‘Ach, but you’re Olin’s boy, and no denying.’ Sig grinned.

  ‘I loved my da,’ Drem said.

  Sig glanced quickly around, eyes lingering on the dark alleys that led to the wall, only a fast sprint away.

  We could make a break for it. Would just need to get over the wall and to the trees beyond. To Hammer.

  The beating of wings, and Gulla’s daughter reappeared, her hand snaking out and grabbing Drem’s ankle, heaving.

  For a moment he teetered on the edge of the roof, and then he fell.

  Sig’s longsword hissed into her hand.

  ‘TRUTH AND COURAGE,’ she bellowed as she leaped into the crowd of acolytes surging around Drem, baying for their blood.

  She swung her sword with both hands as she fell, carving a bloody path through leather, flesh and bone, the momentum turning her so that she crashed into a new mass of shaven-haired zealots, flattening some, breaking bones, scattering more. Drem was on the ground, pushing himself to his knees.

  Sig was on her feet in a heartbeat and began swinging her sword in great two-handed loops. Limbs and heads sprang from bodies, blood jetting in fountains, men and women screaming. Then something else was running at her, something twisted and misshapen, all jutting teeth and hooked talons. She swung at its head but it ducked beneath, raked her with too-long claws as its momentum carried it skidding past her, links in her chainmail shirt shattering, blood welling beneath, then it was twisting on its heels and coming at her again. Sig lunged forwards, sword-tip the focal point of her entire body, like an extension of her, legs, torso, arms all flowing into the lunge. The Feral was coming at her so fast it could not adjust its momentum or trajectory, and so ran onto her sword, skewering itself through its broad chest, Sig’s blade bursting out of its back in an explosion of gore.

  She ripped her blade free, heard steel clash and glimpsed Drem blocking an overhead strike with a spear he must have wrestled from one of his attackers, twisting away from another acolyte stabbing at him, another circling to his flank. In two long strides Sig was there, kicking one in the knee, cartilage and bone snapping, and chopping into another’s neck, a spray of blood as she wrenched her sword free.

  Drem ducked a wild swing from the last one and buried his spear in the man’s chest, left it there when it snagged on bone and drew his father’s sword with one hand, a short axe in the other.

  ‘Leave,’ Sig barked at him, ‘that way.’ She jerked her head towards shadows and the wall, in the next heartbeat was running, screaming her fury at a new wave of enemy, a looping swing of her sword scattering them, one ducking low beneath her sword and rising within her guard, too close for her sword. The momentum of her blow opened her right side, left her vulnerable, and she knew there was nothing she could do. The acolyte grinned as he stabbed with a long knife.

  There was a wet thud and the acolyte dropped to his knees. Drem ran to it, hacked into its head with his sword, shards of bone erupting. He reached down and pulled his short axe from its chest.

  He’s supposed to be leaving, not hacking Kadoshim’s followers into tiny pieces!
<
br />   Sig ploughed on, knowing to slow down against numbers like this was to die. She slammed into more acolytes, a concussive impact that sent bodies spinning through the air. She stumbled but kept her feet, continued her relentless assault of stabbing and hacking and lunging, her arms drenched with their blood, and her enemies died about her, falling away screaming or silent, bloody and broken. But more kept coming. Blows rained down upon her, chainmail shirt turning some, a stutter of discordant thuds across her shield, red-fire cuts opening up on arms and legs, a dull thump on her shoulder, something more serious on her hip, a flash of pain and then tingling numbness.

  No time for pain. No time for dying. Where’s Gulla?

  It was a maelstrom of blood and chaos, and she was the centre of that storm, carving limbs from bodies, trailing scarlet arcs of blood, leaving the dead in her wake. But there were just too many of them. She tried to keep moving, to be the storm personified, but bodies heaped around her, tripping, snaring, hands grabbing, clutching at her, blades stabbing, and slowly she felt her strength leaking from her along with her blood.

  A blow across the back of her leg sent her stumbling to one knee, faces lunging at her and she smashed a fist into one, sent the acolyte crashing to the ground with a pulped nose and fewer teeth than he’d had a few heartbeats ago. A sharp pain in her back, someone trying to stab her, though it felt like her shirt of mail held. She blocked a sword-swing with her blade, rolled her wrists and slashed its tip across a throat, the acolyte, a woman this time, stumbling away gurgling, dropping to her knees as she tried in vain to stem the blood pumping through her fingers.

  A crunch to her head, white lights exploding before her eyes, and she fell forwards into the snow-slush, churned with blood and mud, lost a grip of her sword. She lifted her head, blood sluicing into one eye, hand reaching blindly for her sword hilt.

  A calm came upon her then, legs all around her, figures seeming to slow in their rush to kill her, as if they were wading through water.