A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,121
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.
OceanofPDF.com
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 hurt.
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.