A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,53

when we do it, that’s all. Varan was standing with his brother, Gunil. Much younger than Varan, he was, born after the Ben-Elim came, little more than a giantling, really. But he was fierce, a great warrior. The two of them were standing waist-deep in the river, the waterfall roaring at their backs, Kadoshim slain in a heap about them. I ran to them, but it was chaos. Battle always is, once you’re in it, and if anyone tells you different they’re a liar. It’s no clinical act of strategy, then, though that helps to begin with. But when it comes down to it, it’s blood, steel and muck, stench and guts and screaming loud enough to burst your head, fear and rage and everything else in between, and you keep swinging your blade at the foe in front of you until your arms are numb and there are no more left, or you die.

‘I lost sight of Varan, tried to fight my way to him, though moving in one direction in a battle is a hard enough task. The Ben-Elim finally arrived, the White-Wings with them, bloodied by another ambush that had been held in reserve for them. By then the Kadoshim knew they were finished and melted away, back into the forest. By then no one was standing in the river, let alone fighting in it. I waded in, the water thick with bodies and blood, and found Varan, floating face-down. Fallen with a host of wounds.’

Alcyon hung his head, and Bleda was shocked to see a tear rolling down the giant’s cheek. Jin was staring at him with a look of disgust.

He would be cast out of the Sirak for such a display of weakness; his emotions his master.

‘His brother?’ Bleda asked, wanting to end this display. It made him feel uncomfortable.

‘He fell over the waterfall, I was told,’ Alcyon said. ‘A long drop, and then the Grinding Sea.’ He sniffed and wiped his face. ‘So that was Varan’s Fall, and a dark day it was, too.’

‘What about the Kadoshim’s lair?’ Jin asked. ‘What happened when you got there?

‘We never found it. Perhaps it was all a fiction, the intelligence we received false, all of it to lure us to that ambush. If we had entered into that killing ground together, it would have been much worse.’

Alcyon looked at them both.

‘So. Analyse,’ he said to them. ‘Why did we lose? Or at least, why did we not win?’

‘Overconfidence,’ Bleda said.

‘That’s right. Good,’ Alcyon said. ‘Many battles and skirmishes have been fought with the Kadoshim since the Battle of Drassil, scores, and we had never lost a one. Varan’s Fall was no crushing defeat, mind; but it was a defeat nonetheless. What else?’

‘Planning, scouting, knowing the ground,’ Jin said. ‘Jibril says they are key steps to victory.’

‘Aye, true enough,’ Alcyon agreed. ‘The Kadoshim were far better prepared than us, that was plain to see. They knew we were coming. Knew we were two forces. Knew the routes we would approach by, and they laid their ambushes well. And we blundered in, expecting to crush them as we had before. Huh.’ He wagged a finger at them both. ‘Never underestimate your enemy, but especially not the Kadoshim. Their numbers were winnowed on that first day, when Asroth fell, and there are certainly far fewer of them than Ben-Elim, but they are creatures of deep cunning.’

Like their kin, the Ben-Elim.

Horns blew outside, echoing in to them.

‘Best be off for prayers,’ Alcyon said.

‘Are you not coming?’ Jin asked.

‘Me? No,’ Alcyon said, a twist of his lips.

Bleda noted that with interest.

So, giants are not the obedient slaves I thought them.

‘Our thanks,’ Bleda said. ‘You have taught us much today.’

More than old Jibril ever has.

Alcyon waved a hand but had that faraway look again. Bleda and Jin rose and left him to his thoughts.

‘See, they are not unbeatable,’ Jin said to him as they stepped out into the street. ‘Not like the Cheren and Sirak will be when we are wed.’

She squeezed his hand and ran for the prayer-hall looking back to grin at the startled expression that cracked his cold-face.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SIG

I should have gone straight after Keld, not sat at Uthandun waiting for him, Sig berated herself, not for the first time, as she ran through the rain, each drop feeling like a chip of ice flung into her face by a spite-filled wind. She’d left Hammer in the stable at Uthandun, her paw not yet recovered enough for a hard run