A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,159

could not reach them.

Gulla’s children slammed the bat down onto the table, held it pinned and stretched out by its great wings.

Gulla walked to the table, as he did so chanting rose up from the crowd in a tongue few would understand, but Sig knew it all too well.

A hush fell over the crowd.

‘Fuil agus cnámh, uirlisí an cruthaitheoir,’ Gulla cried out.

‘Blood and bone, tools of the creator,’ Sig whispered. Drem was as tense as a drawn bow beside her.

With a long black nail, Gulla slit the bat’s throat, its terrified screeching descending into a frothed rattle, the creature’s life-blood pouring onto the table, pooling and bubbling as the creature convulsed.

‘Step forward,’ Gulla said to one of the hooded figures that had followed him through the crowd, tall and slim. The figure threw back its hood, head shaved to fair stubble that glistened in the firelight.

A woman? Sig thought, though she was not wholly sure; there was something androgynous about this person. Male or female, it drew a sword from its cloak. A black sword.

The Starstone Sword!

Beside her Drem hissed, his body jerking and he almost leaped from the roof, only Sig’s hand darting out holding him down. He took a deep breath, one hand reaching for his neck, fingers probing.

Is he taking his pulse?

Drem looked at Sig then, and tears were in his eyes.

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CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

RIV

Riv staggered from her bed, the effort almost defeating her, feeling weak as a newborn kitten, but the sight of Garidas dead upon the flagstoned floor, his blood pooling dark and her mam standing over the corpse with her sword in her hand gave Riv the jolt of energy she had been lacking.

She tugged on breeches and boots, a linen shirt, which caught on her back, grating rough as sandpaper, but she managed to get it on.

Aphra ran to Garidas, knelt beside him. She closed his dead, staring eyes. Accusing. Aphra took his hand, smeared with blood, and stared up at her mam.

‘I am sorry,’ Dalmae whispered. Then, louder. ‘Forgive me. I had no choice. I would murder the world to protect you and Riv.’

Aphra was silent, her shoulders shaking, and Riv realized her sister was weeping.

‘Mam, why? What is happening?’ Riv slurred. ‘I don’t understand.’ She was washed with emotions, shock, horror, confusion. Garidas had said so many things, of Kol and Israfil and improper relations.

Aphra and Kol, involved, Garidas said. This is Kol’s doing. He has broken the Way of Elyon, broken the Lore. And Mam has murdered Garidas! A good, kind man; he was offering to help Aphra somehow.

Her mam did not look at her, would not look at her, only continued to wipe blood from her hands on her cloak.

‘Aphra?’ Riv said, but her sister just stared back at her. The stink of blood filled the room, cloying. The weight of it all, murder, Aphra, Kol, right and wrong; her entire life she had been raised to obey the Lore, wanting to do nothing more than obey it.

Purity is removing the ego, Israfil said. What is purity here? What is the right thing to do? She felt breathless, her stomach lurching.

I feel sick. Have to get out of here. And suddenly she knew, she had to see Israfil, to speak to him, to explain Aphra’s innocence before this got any worse.

‘Get Mam out of here,’ she blurted to Aphra as she stumbled past them, out of the door and onto a spiral staircase. Her mam and Aphra called out behind her but she did not stop, staggering down the twisting stairs, bumping and banging into the wall on her way down.

Shouts echoed up to her, the scrape of swords being drawn. She ran on, behind and above her the slap of boots on stone. Riv almost fell through the door that led into her barracks’ feast-hall, saw a sight that made her feel physically sick.

White-Wings, close to blows.

Garidas’ men, a score or two. They had heard his cry, tried to get to him, and been barred by Aphra’s hundred. Some were shouting, pushing, others with drawn blades, ready, threatening, but holding back from that dread step of slaying their own.

Riv staggered a dozen paces, fell against a high-backed chair, her balance feeling all wrong, as if she were trying to navigate the deck of a storm-racked ship. Faces loomed in and out of focus, thought she saw Jost and Vald but was not sure, blinking, shaking her head.

Aphra and Dalmae appeared from the door of the stairwell. They paused, taking in