masked by the shadows. A war-hammer was slung across its back.
‘Ah, well,’ Sig snarled, ‘if it’s time for introductions, let me introduce you to Hammer.’
Sig put two fingers to her lips and whistled, and to her right the palisaded wall burst asunder, timber exploding in a spray of splinters, and Hammer’s two front paws crashed into the compound. Her dark fur was covered by a coat of chainmail, harnessed and buckled with leather, gleaming and sparkling in the starlight like a coat of diamonds. She roared a challenge, spraying spittle. Acolytes scattered like flotsam before a tidal wave. With a swipe of her paw she eviscerated one that moved too slowly, her head lunging forwards, jaws grabbing another, the sound of bones cracking, a scream cut short.
The half-breed on the palisade took to the air as it collapsed beneath her feet and swooped on Hammer, hurling a spear, but it was stopped by her coat of mail, skittering harmlessly away.
The other bear roared a challenge of its own, the giant upon its back shouting a command, and it lumbered forwards, charging at Hammer, who was in no mind to stand around waiting for it. She leaped into a charge of her own, acolytes diving in all directions to escape being trampled and broken. Sig ran too, a few long steps, but then Gulla was flying at her, acolytes swarming behind him, and she was ducking swords and spears, sweeping blades aside with her own, barrelling her shoulder into one acolyte, throwing him into the side of a building, where he slid to the ground, twitching.
The two bears came together with bone-crunching force, teeth snapping, claws raking, bellowing. Sig saw Hammer draw first blood, her claws gouging red gullies through the flesh of the other bear’s shoulder.
All around Sig battle exploded, Cullen, Keld and Drem drawing tight together, defending against Kadoshim from above and acolytes that had managed to find a way around the two bears as they were busy turning the encampment into splintered ruin. A building disintegrated as the two animals crashed into it, a fountain of shattered timber raining down upon them all.
Sig took the head from a Feral as it leaped at her, body and head spinning in different directions, and strode after Hammer, but something slammed into her side, sending her tumbling to the ground, the half-breed, wings flexing. She had a flat, broad face, hair shaved and growing out in dark clumps, her body heavily muscled. She snapped her teeth at Sig, more animal than human.
A hand rested on her shoulder, dragging her back, throwing her into the darkness, and Gulla stepped in front of her.
‘She is mine,’ the Kadoshim growled.
Sig made to rise and he kicked her in the head, sending her rolling, grabbed her by her mail shirt and dragged her to her feet, stronger than she would ever have imagined, even for a Kadoshim.
‘I have the blood and bone of Asroth flowing through my body now,’ he snarled, his jaws opening wide, teeth gleaming.
Fear hit Sig then, a jolt like jumping into ice-cold water as she knew what Gulla was about to do to her. She struggled but his grip held her, those teeth moving inexorably towards her throat.
And then a squawking streak of feathers, beak and talon was hurtling into Gulla’s face, Rab scratching, pecking, gouging with beak and claw.
Gulla dropped Sig and reeled away, Rab furiously battering at the Kadoshim, raining insults upon him as well as pain. Gulla’s hands grabbed at the white crow, but Rab flapped away, something slimy hanging from its beak, Gulla screaming, a hand over one eye, blood leaking through his fingers and he stumbled into the shadows. An acolyte moved on Sig as she swept her sword from the ground, a spear stabbing at her heart, but a mass of fur and muscle slammed into the acolyte – Fen, taking advantage of the hole Hammer had smashed through the wall. The hound’s jaws clamped around the acolyte’s throat as they both tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs. As they rolled to a stop, Fen stood upon the corpse of her victim, raised his head and howled.
Sig heard Hammer cry out in pain. She stumbled after the sound, through a tableau of destruction, buildings flattened, half-torn down, beams and detritus everywhere.
The two bears were tearing at each other with tooth and claw, Hammer looking much better on that account because of her chainmail coat, though it was torn to strips in places.