arms against a raider. Men, women, bairns, all were amongst the macabre, blood-soaked mound.
Kol had ordered the mound dismantled, in itself a grisly act, as a search for the bodies had been made, but none had been found before light had begun to fade. So a deep pit had been dug, Riv’s hands blistered by the hard shovel work, and the heads were buried. Kol had spoken words from the Book of the Faithful over them.
‘The unjust will laugh and mock the righteous, they may outlive their dark deeds by a day or a year, but the righteous will find them, and when they do, the unjust will tremble.’
Voices had called out agreement, oaths made to avenge the slain.
‘Who would do such a thing?’ Jost whispered to Riv.
‘Kadoshim,’ Riv breathed back to him.
Must be. Who else would murder innocents, mutilate children and babies?
The smell came back to Riv unbidden, a vision of a tiny skull, red holes for eyes. She breathed deep and slow, controlling the lurching of her stomach.
‘Ask Aphra,’ Jost urged her.
She looked at her sister, who was staring into the flames of the fire-pit, not involved in the conversation between Kol and Lorina. Garidas was silent, too, though his eyes were on Aphra, not the flames. Riv had long thought that he had more than a warrior’s respect for her sister.
‘Go on.’ Jost nudged Riv with his elbow.
‘Is it Kadoshim?’ Riv leaned close and whispered in Aphra’s ear.
Her sister jumped as if stabbed, staring at Riv.
‘I don’t know, Riv. We found only the dead in Oriens,’ Aphra said, her voice clipped, as if she were straining to hold the rest in.
Kol glanced between Aphra and Riv.
‘It’s a dark, grievous thing that has been done here,’ Kol said, standing; others turned to listen. He looked at the faces about the fire-pit, all staring at him, washed in a blood-red flicker.
‘Was it the Kadoshim?’ a voice asked. Jost.
Kol looked at Jost, the fledgling White-Wing standing still as stone, all sinew, stretched muscle and tendon. He looked ten shades of uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many eyes.
‘I don’t know. This could well be the work of the Kadoshim,’ Kol said, a snarl twisting his features, his golden stubble glinting in the firelight. ‘I can think of no other that would perform an atrocity such as this.’
That’s what I thought.
‘Whoever they are, we will find them,’ Garidas spoke up. He was a fine warrior, and a respected leader, though Riv considered him to be too serious, too obsessed with following the Lore’s every dictate, and that was saying something, because she took the Way of Elyon more earnestly than most. As Riv watched him, his gaze flickered beyond Kol’s wings to Aphra.
‘As to the how of it,’ Kol continued. ‘When the sun rises we search, we scour this place for tracks, signs as to who did this. Then we hunt them down. There will be a reckoning.’ He shrugged, his wings a rippled sigh with the motion, then strode into the darkness.
‘There’s your answer, then,’ Aphra said with a weary sigh to Riv.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Riv said, sitting next to her sister. ‘Is it something I’ve done?’
Aphra gave her a long look. ‘No,’ she said eventually.
‘Then wha—’
‘Leave it,’ Aphra snapped, quiet and cold. ‘The world does not revolve around you and your woes, Riv. Shocking as it may seem, people have troubles of their own.’
Riv stared at her, then stood and marched off.
Sick of being Aphra’s training post. Thinks she can take out her anger on me!
She heard footsteps behind her, hoped it was Aphra following her. She didn’t like how cold and distant her sister had become, wanted her to go back to normal.
I suppose Mam is right, though. Leading is hard. Especially at times like this.
She looked back over her shoulder and saw Jost hurrying up behind her, felt a rush of disappointment that it wasn’t her sister.
‘What do you want?’ she said to Jost, more curtly than she meant it to sound.
‘Shouldn’t be walking around on your own,’ Jost said stoutly. ‘Orders. Safety in numbers, those giant bats of Forn …’
Riv knew that. ‘Orders aren’t iron,’ she said, though, and stalked on.
The camp was contained to the meadow and road, neatly ordered rows of tents, a paddock roped off for the horses, wains on the raised embankment of the road. Riv was stomping along close to the paddocks, only a few hundred paces from the trees of Forn which loomed like dark cliffs.
Riv knew Jost was