A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,10

frozen moments: leaping at Israfil, blood from his nose, rising into the sky.

‘What … happened?’ she muttered, an ache in her back between her shoulder blades pulsing up into her head. She twisted, rolled her shoulders.

‘You attacked Israfil,’ her mam said, a horrified whisper.

The voices of her companions and friends rose up, reciting the first lines of the Oath.

‘I am defender to the Faithful,’ they all began, voices ringing out.

I should be there, beside them, she thought. They should be my sword-kin, now, except that they have passed their warrior trial, and I have failed.

‘I am the sharp blade that will slay the Fallen,’ echoed across the field.

She looked back to her mam, who was regarding her with sad, disappointed eyes.

With a choked sound in her throat, Riv pushed past her mam and ran. She saw heads from amongst the gathered crowd turn and stare at her; her sister, Aphra, her pride-filled gaze of earlier a thing of history now.

And then she crashed into someone, both of them tumbling to the ground. With a grunt, she climbed to one knee, saw the other person spring agilely to his feet. The youth was staring at her, lean and sharp-featured, with deep, almond-shaped eyes and dark, weathered skin, almost the same colour as the alder-wood hilt of her sister’s short-sword. She knew him, or at least, knew his name. Bleda, the Sirak prince who was a ward to the Ben-Elim. Riv remembered the day he had been taken, all those years ago when she had been her sister’s attendant, her shield-carrier, weapon-cleaner, water-giver and all other manner of tasks. She had loved it. But not that one, long ago, moment. The scene flashed through her mind, seeing the boy’s proud face, his curved bow falling from his hand, face stricken as his kin’s heads had been tossed into the dirt before him, tears streaking down his face as the giant Alcyon had carried him away.

Bleda looked at her now, standing over her, his face as emotionless as the Ben-Elim, eyes dark pools.

‘I heard what he said to you,’ Bleda whispered. He reached a hand out, not to help, but to wipe a tear from her face. He looked at it, glistening upon his fingertip. Something about him changed, but it was only in his eyes, his face still as carved stone.

‘This is his victory, your defeat,’ he said, showing her her own tear.

She stared back defiantly, letting him see her anger and shame, allowed another tear to roll down her cheek. Her own form of defiance.

‘You will come back, stronger.’ He shrugged, then put a hand on her arm to help her rise but she shook it off, leaped to her feet, and then she was speeding around a corner, where buildings hid Bleda and the weapons-field from view.

Riv ran through the streets of Drassil. The huge giant-built towers of stone loomed all around her, and high up, above even their rooftops, the leafless branches of Drassil’s great tree soughed in a cold wind. Faces passed Riv in a blur, some uttered or nodded greetings, but Riv ignored them all, shame a cold fist clenching in her guts, her need to be away from the weapons-field driving her on. She slowed to a walk, looked around her and saw that her feet had taken her to the courtyard before Drassil’s Great Hall.

It reared before her, a huge dome of stone built around the trunk of Drassil’s great tree, which in itself was wider than any man-built tower that Riv had ever set her eyes upon. Broad steps led up from the courtyard to massive iron-banded gates of oak, flung open so that the entrance looked like a gaping, shadow-filled mouth in a giant’s skull. Riv crossed the courtyard and padded up the steps, earning a stare from the guards who stood around the doorway, a dozen White-Wings in their black cuirasses of boiled leather and bright silver helms. They knew her, though, and so Riv passed through the doorway without opposition. Once inside she hesitated a moment upon the threshold and looked into the chamber.

It was one huge circular room, the dome’s arc rising high and cavernous above her, sounds echoing and magnified; even the breath in her throat sounded loud and harsh to her own ears. The floor dropped away from her in a curve of tiered stone steps that cascaded down to the ground a good fifty paces below her. Riv went down the steps, firelight from great iron braziers