A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,173

She’s your only chance.’

Shouts and yells from acolytes and Ferals as they gathered, the beat of wings, a spear hissing down at them, Cullen chopping it from the sky.

Sig dragged herself to the timber post, began pulling herself up.

She did not look at her friends, but felt hands helping her regain her feet. It was Drem. ‘Unbuckle my sword-belt,’ she said to him, and he did without question. She threaded it around the post and wrapped it around her waist, cinched it tight.

‘Buckle me up,’ she asked, and Cullen did.

‘Sword.’

Keld put it in her hand.

‘Now get out of here,’ she said to them, patted Cullen’s cheek and brushed fingertips across Keld’s face. He looked as if he planned on disobeying her last order.

‘They need you,’ she said, a whisper. ‘I’m trusting in you, my friend.’

Tears filled Keld’s eyes and he swatted them away. A twist of his lips as he nodded. Sig squeezed Drem’s hand, then she turned to face the oncoming enemy, her body all but filling the remaining gap.

The rustle of wings, and Rab alighted upon Sig’s shoulder.

‘Poor Sig,’ Rab said. The crow ran a bloodstained beak through Sig’s hair.

‘Brave Rab,’ Sig said. ‘Guide them home. Make sure Byrne hears of this.’

Rab croaked mournfully.

The scuff of boots climbing Hammer.

‘Sig,’ Keld called down to her from the bear’s back, and she looked back at them, her vision swimming.

‘We shall never forget,’ he said, clenching a fist over his heart.

‘We shall never forget,’ Cullen and Drem repeated.

‘My brothers,’ Sig said, a smile twitching her lips.

‘Hammer,’ she called, loud as she could, even her jaw feeling heavy. ‘Take my friends home.’

The great bear lifted her head and roared at the night sky, and then she was turning and shambling into the darkness, breaking into a run. Rab launched into the air, quickly disappearing.

‘The trees, where Kadoshim can’t follow,’ Sig whispered, then turned to face her enemy.

A shape loomed out of the smoke and flame, a shaven-haired acolyte, sword stabbing for her heart. Somehow Sig managed to swing her blade, up, smashing the sword away and opening the acolyte’s face from jaw to ear. He fell away gurgling.

Two more, one Sig let the weight of her blade smash into his skull, dropping him without a sound. The second one stabbed Sig in the stomach, Sig headbutting her, nose exploding.

Her fingers were tingling, sword so heavy, and Sig slumped against the belt strapping her to the post. Her head lolled.

Figures gathered before her: acolytes, Fritha, a Feral, growling as it stalked the shadows. Gulla was there, a bandage wrapped around one eye, stained red.

Sig smiled to see his wound, felt saliva drool from her mouth.

Something loomed behind them, taller, broader, a giant stepping close, a bloody wound between shoulder and chest.

‘Gunil,’ Sig whispered.

He stood and stared at her. There was a glimmer in his eyes that spoke of memory, but it was quickly replaced by something else, a sick half-madness, like his bear’s.

‘What have you done to him?’

‘I found him floating face-down at the bottom of a waterfall, closer to death than I thought possible,’ Gulla said. ‘He betrayed you at Varan’s Fall. Hated his brother and so gave you up to us. The ambush was his design.’

‘You … lie,’ Sig groaned.

Gulla smiled, too many teeth glistening. ‘He has been a useful tool since then, and no doubt will be again.’

‘You could turn her,’ Fritha said to Gulla, her head cocked at an angle, studying Sig. ‘Two giants in your service.’

‘There’s no blood left in her to drink,’ Gulla said.

Sig’s sword slipped from her fingers.

‘Very well, then.’ Fritha stepped forwards and rested the point of her black blade against Sig’s sternum. ‘Gunil, help me,’ Fritha said. The giant stepped closer and wrapped his huge fist around Fritha’s, who looked Sig in the eye and smiled.

‘Gunil,’ Sig whispered, could barely believe that he was standing before her. It gave her more pain than the thousand wounds her body had taken.

Fritha laughed, and then she and Gunil pushed on the sword, slowly.

Sig hardly felt the blade enter her body. She couldn’t feel her hands, arms, legs, everything going numb, drawing in to some central point, deep inside. Her vision speckled, darkened at the edges. She felt some pain, then, grunted with it, saw that at least half the blade’s length was sheathed inside her flesh.

‘Hold,’ Fritha said, still staring into Sig’s eyes, savouring her pain, her death. Gunil stopped.

‘We shall hunt down your friends. Kill them slowly, like this. Or turn them,’ Fritha said, cold