Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,194
out of it. He looked straight at Craw, and Yon, and Whirrun, stuck frozen against the side of a longhouse with their mouths open like three children caught nicking biscuits. Everyone stared at each other.
Craw felt time slow to a weird crawl, that way it did before blood spilled. Enough time to take in silly things. To wonder whether it was a chicken bone through one of their ears. To count the nails through one of their clubs. Eight and a half. Enough time to think it was funny he wasn’t thinking something more useful. It was like he stood outside himself, wondering what he’d do but feeling it probably weren’t up to him. And the oddest thing of all was that it had happened so often to him now, that feeling, he could recognise it when it came. That frozen, baffled moment before the world comes apart.
Shit. Here I am again—
He felt the cold wind kiss the side of his face as Whirrun swung his sword in a great reaping circle. The man at the front didn’t even have time to duck. The flat of the sheathed blade hit him on the side of the head, whipped him off his feet, turned him head over heels in the air, and sent him crashing into the wall of the shack beside them upside down. Craw’s hand lifted his sword without being told. Whirrun darted forwards, arm lancing out, smashing the pommel of his sword into the second man’s mouth, sending teeth and bits of teeth flying.
While he was toppling back like a felled tree, arms spread wide, the third tried to raise a club. Craw hacked him in the side, steel biting through fur and flesh with a wet thud, spots of blood showering out of him. The man opened his mouth and gave a great high shriek, tottering forward, bent over, eyes bulging. Craw split his skull wide open, sword-grip jolting in his hand, the scream choked off in a surprised yip. The body sprawled, blood pouring from broken head and all over Craw’s boots. Looked like he’d come out of this with red socks after all. So much for no more dead, and so much for quiet as a spring breeze too.
“Fuck,” said Craw.
By then time was moving way too fast for comfort. The world jerked and wobbled, full of flying dirt as he ran. Screams rang and metal clashed, his own breath and his own heart roaring and surging in his ears. He snatched a glance over his shoulder, saw Yon turn a mace away with his shield and roar as he hacked a man down. As Craw turned back an arrow came from the dead knew where and clicked into the mud wall just in front of him, almost made him fall over backwards with shock. Whirrun went into his arse and knocked him sprawling, gave him a mouthful of mud. When he struggled up a man was charging right at him, a flash of screaming face and wild hair smeared across his sight. Craw was twisting around behind his shield when Scorry slid out from nowhere and knifed the running bastard in the side, made him shriek and stumble sideways, off-balance. Craw took the side of his head off, blade pinging gently as it chopped through bone, then thumped into the ground, nearly jerking from his raw fist.
“Move!” he shouted, not sure who at, trying to wrench his blade free of the earth. Jolly Yon rushed past, head of his axe dashed with red, teeth bared in a mad snarl. Craw followed, Whirrun behind him, face slack, eyes darting from one hut to another, sword still sheathed in one hand. Around the corner of a hovel and into a wide stretch of muck, scattered with ground-up straw. Pigs were honking and squirming in a pen at one side. The hall with the carved uprights stood at the other, steps up to a wide doorway, only darkness inside.
A red-haired man pounded across the ground in front of them, a wood axe in his fist. Wonderful calmly put an arrow through his cheek at six strides distant and he came up short, clapping a hand to his face, still stumbling towards her. She stepped to meet him with a fighting scream, swept her sword out and around and took his head right off. It span into the air, showering blood, and dropped in the pig pen. Craw wondered for a moment if the poor bastard still knew