A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,125
slammed into stone. Breathless, he lost his grip on the bow, then the man-beast was on top of him, claws reaching for his throat, scouring his chest, pain erupting like lines of fire; hot, fetid breath in his face as far-too-long teeth snapped a handspan from his jaw. He kicked and punched, pain lancing up his shoulder, writhed and bucked in the thing’s grip, felt those long claws seeking out his throat, moving inexorably closer.
I will not die like this!
His grasping hands made contact with a loose arrow on the floor and he grabbed for it desperately, punched it into the side of the creature’s head, into its cheek, ripped it out, stabbed again, saw teeth through the gash. The creature barely seemed to notice. He stabbed again and again before it howled, jaws open wide, its red maw of a mouth all jagged teeth, and bit into his shoulder.
The pain was shocking, a burning, tearing agony …
Then large hands were around his attacker’s neck, hauling it off, the creature tearing chunks of flesh from his shoulder, as Alcyon held the spitting, snarling thing in the air then hurled it away. It hit stone, rolled, scrambled to its feet far too agilely and then it was running at them. Alcyon stepped in front of Bleda with a roar, his twin axes windmilling, hacking into the creature’s shoulder and waist. It collapsed, howling, Alcyon putting a boot onto its head to wrench his blades free. The thing on the ground twisted, tried to bite into his foot, somehow still refusing to die.
Another axe blow and it spasmed, one foot drumming, then was finally still.
Behind Alcyon Ben-Elim were sweeping through the wide-open doors, White-Wings beneath them in a shield wall, marching out of the darkness of the courtyard, down the stone steps into the blue-flicker madness of the Great Hall.
‘Here, lad,’ Alcyon said, offering the blood-soaked shaft of one of his axes for Bleda to pull himself upright. His shoulder was screaming its pain at him, nausea lurching in his belly, but all he could think of was his bow. He’d dropped it, had glimpsed it skittering across stone.
There.
He stumbled down a dozen steps, over halfway to the chamber floor now, and swept it up.
Someone grabbed his arm, spun him around.
‘You could have died!’ Jin said to him furiously, looking as if she wanted to slap him.
‘Still could,’ he muttered, pulling his arm free, the battle din echoing loud and furious.
The new wave of White-Wings, giants and Ben-Elim had hit the battle on the chamber floor, and though the fighting was fierce, it did not look as if it would last long, the Dark-Cloaks and their Feral companions outnumbered and flanked now. Although, even as Bleda stared, he saw the shrinking line of giant guards around the statue of Asroth and Meical fracture and break apart into islands of melee-like combat.
One figure drew his eye. A tall Dark-Cloak, hood falling back as he leaped onto the dais. Slim and athletic, fair hair shaved to stubble on his head. He drew a sword from a scabbard; something about it was strange, the metal a dull, sheen-less black. The warrior strode to the figure of Asroth and lifted the blade. His lips moved, the clamour in the chamber was too great to hear anything, but again, there was something wrong about it.
No!
Bleda reached inside his quiver, only one arrow left, and nocked it. Drew it, an explosion of pain in his shoulder where the Feral had bitten him.
Black smoke hissed from the sword.
Bleda gritted his teeth, drew and loosed, hoped his aim was good.
A moment as he held his breath.
The arrow struck the man in his shoulder, staggering him, dropping the sword.
Bleda grinned.
A Kadoshim alighted beside the shaven-haired man, this one standing out from the others, bigger, a greater sense of menace and power about it. It hauled the warrior Bleda had shot back to his feet, and together they gripped the black sword’s hilt and touched its blade against the starstone metal that encased Asroth and Meical. Then they began to chant.
‘Cumhacht cloch star, a rugadh ar an domhan eile, a leagtar aingeal dorcha saor in aisce.’ Though Bleda did not understand their words they chilled his blood. The chanting continued, rising in volume over the din of battle, the same phrase, again and again.
And then the black sword began to glow, tendrils of red veins spiralling through it, up, seeping into the starstone metal that encased Asroth and Meical.