A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,170

she stood and drew her sword, stalking into the mayhem. Vald swept Riv up in his arms and turned to Bleda.

‘Lead the way, Dead-Eye.’

And Bleda did, his honour guard driving a wedge through the chamber, and soon they were spilling out into the corridor beyond Israfil’s chamber.

The sounds of battle echoed from all directions, the chamber behind them, the street below.

Ellac stepped close, whispered in his ear.

‘We could use this. Strike now …’

Bleda remembered the words of his mother, whispered into his ear on Drassil’s weapons-field. He looked at Ellac and his men, at Jost and Vald, finally at Riv.

He smiled at Riv, an act of will, intentional, knew Ellac and his men would be shocked.

‘I’m taking Riv to safety,’ he said, then turned and led them through the chamber, down a stairwell and out into the din of battle.

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CHAPTER FIFTY

SIG

Fire was blazing through the clearing, great gusts of wind sending flames flaring. They caught in a timber building, roaring into hungry life, blazing red and orange light onto the clearing, clouds of black smoke rolling across them. Between smoke and flame Sig saw Gulla. He was hunched over another acolyte, drinking blood from her throat, as he had done with Burg. Other acolytes were curled upon the floor, spasming and twitching in some convulsion of rebirth while still others were spread about them in a defensive half-circle.

Guarding them while they are vulnerable.

She glimpsed a shadowed figure on the far side of the table, sprinting towards the boulder that had been turned into gaols for those experimented upon but obviously untrusted. The figure’s hood blew back as he ran, another shaved head, but Sig recognized Keld, his beard still wild. He ran to the first gaol, struck at the lock and chain with his axe, a burst of sparks as it shattered, Keld ripping the chain away and hurling the barred door wide. He ran to the next gate and hacked at the lock, this one snapping more quickly, ripped the door open, dashed to the next door as things burst from the open gaols behind him. More cells and chains, more Feral beasts leaping, shambling, snarling from their gaols, throwing themselves into the acolytes that encircled Sig, Drem and Cullen.

‘NOW,’ Sig yelled at the top of her lungs, her voice ringing out, at the same time the three of them surging through a cloud of smoke towards the enemy before them, smashing them to the ground with their shields, trampling over them, carving them to bloody ruin. In the distance Keld’s voice was crying out ‘Truth and Courage,’ taken up by Sig, Cullen and Drem.

The clearing burst into chaos anew, a place of fire and smoke, steel and blood, ringing with the screams and snarls and growlings of half-men and the dying, and through it all Sig and her companions cut a bloody path out of the clearing. Abruptly they found themselves with no enemy before them. Keld erupted from a cloud of black smoke, a wild grin on his face, and then Sig was running, down a flame-lit gap between two buildings, the others close behind.

Within heartbeats they were at the palisaded wall, Cullen racing up a stairwell, but a burst of wind and Sig’s warning shout made him pause – a spear hurled from the sky above thrumming into the stairs just before him. She raised her shield and caught another spear aimed straight at Drem’s heart. Sig hacked the shaft away, but the blade still embedded in her shield dragged her arm down. She dropped it on the ground. Gulla’s half-breed daughter alighted on the palisade walkway.

‘Not so easily,’ she hissed, voice as twisted as her body.

Feet thudded behind them, Sig turning to see acolytes and Feral men swarming after them. They stopped a dozen paces from Sig and her companions and a figure stepped to their fore, the shaven-haired woman, Fritha, the Starstone Sword in her hand. Wings beat and a Kadoshim landed beside her: Gulla, a spear in his fist, veins in his body dark and bloated, even his wings seeming to be heavy, weighted with the blood he had consumed. Crimson lines trailed down his pale chin.

‘You cannot leave us,’ Gulla said. ‘I have someone to introduce you to.’

Behind the swarming acolytes a dark shadow loomed, wider and taller than Sig. A great bear appeared, muzzle and head emerging from the darkness, a hint of madness in its eyes. And upon its back sat a giant, broad, wrapped in leather and fur, still