A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,1
they had dismounted, removed the saddle, harness and battered mail shirt from Hammer’s body, packing it away in paniers and saddlebags. They’d tended to the wounded bear and fed her some foul concoction that Keld said was called brot, then led Hammer and fresh horses into the darkness, knowing they could not wait until dawn.
They had agreed to head west, using the cover of the forest to screen them from eyes in the skies, avoiding the town of Kergard, and then to turn south when they reached the western rim of the Bonefells. Drem had voiced his worry for the townspeople of Kergard but knew there was little they could do to help them. No one in the town had believed him before, and besides, he did not know if there was anyone in Kergard left to save. To Drem’s horror, scores of the townsfolk had been at the mine, secret acolytes of the Kadoshim, including Ulf the tanner, a man Drem had once thought of as a friend.
So, they had committed themselves to speed. Pursuit from the mine was likely, and they had to use every moment given them to reach Dun Seren and the Order of the Bright Star.
Drem had led to begin with, his knowledge of the terrain making him the obvious choice to steer them through the darkness. With the rising of a pale sun they had mounted their horses and Keld had taken point, his wolven-hound Fen scouting ahead. Hammer had followed them, grumbling doleful growls, taking herself deeper into the woods, though never quite out of sound or sight.
She feels grief for Sig, just like Cullen and Keld. More, maybe. They were rider and mount for more years than Cullen has drawn breath. Probably longer than Keld has lived, too.
Keld strode to the bear, unbuckled the saddlebags she was carrying, then checked over her wounds and patted her neck. She rubbed her huge head against the huntsman, almost knocking him from his feet.
“Ah, lass, we miss her, too,” Keld muttered, tugging on one of the bear’s ears. She seemed to like it, a mournful rumble escaping her throat.
Fen loped into the clearing, eyes glowing in the firelight. The slate-grey hound dropped a hare at Keld’s feet.
“A hot meal for supper, then. Thank the stars, I’ve had enough of brot,” Cullen said, his obvious pleasure at the thought infectious.
Keld skinned and gutted the hare and set it on a spit over the fire, fat dripping and hissing. A flapping of wings came from above as a white crow descended from the branches, landing on Cullen’s shoulder.
“I was wondering where you were, Rab,” Cullen said to the crow.
“Rab watching, protecting friends,” Rab squawked, then hopped from Cullen’s shoulder to the pile of guts and offal that had been stripped from the hare. He pecked noisily.
“But the love of slime and foul things drew you back to us,” Cullen observed.
“All must eat,” the bird croaked as it swallowed an eyeball.
“Fair point,” Cullen said.
The dead can’t eat, Drem thought, his mind filling with his father, Olin, and Sig, grief a wave rising within him, whipped high by the winds of exhaustion. His body ached, everywhere, a thousand cuts and bruises from the fight at the mine, and from before that. He raised a hand to his throat, rubbed at the scar where he’d been hung from a tree in his courtyard, twice. A memory of Fritha’s face. Sweet, kind Fritha, with her blue eyes and freckles, a face he had trusted. Thought he’d begun to love.
He didn’t feel like that now.
I hate her, will see her dead for what she’s done.
A deep anger uncoiled in his chest, buried deep beneath the pain of loss and exhaustion of the last few ten-nights, distant but never gone. Much of the anger was aimed at himself, at his stupidity for staying, for the choices he’d made, choices that had led to his father’s death, the loss of the Starstone Sword, the death of Sig.
The enormity of it all threatened to engulf him.
“Drem, catch,” a voice called out, snapping him from his reverie. Cullen had thrown something to him. Instinctively, Drem caught it, a long bundle. It was his sword, still in its scabbard and belt.
My father’s sword, mine now. He looked at the worn leather hilt and scabbard, drew it a little, stared at the four-pointed star carved into the blade, just below where it met the cross-guard. My da, a warrior of the Order of the Bright Star.