A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,109

balance. Drem stepped in and then his short-sword was at Cullen’s throat.

“Ha, Cullen’s dead,” a voice called out, Stepor, perhaps. Cullen was standing frozen still, just staring at Drem, a shocked expression on the young warrior’s face. Then he was moving back, holding his hands in the air.

“Well, aren’t I the arsewipe,” Cullen said, a smile splitting his face. He looked at the crowd gathered about them. “That’ll teach me to underestimate a foe.” He looked at Keld and Stepor, who were laughing hard. “Thought I’d say that before you two did,” Cullen said to them, which made them laugh all the harder.

Drem looked around the crowd, saw Byrne staring at him. She gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod. A ghost of a smile, then she was moving on, talking to another pair who were sparring, checking and adjusting their stances.

“Come on, Drem, my lad,” Cullen said. “Let’s see how you get on with a shield in your hand.”

I wish he’d stop calling me lad.

A noise drew Drem’s attention; people were stopping in their training and pausing to stare towards the entrance field. Drem looked, too, and saw a group of men and women walking onto the field, a hundred of them at least.

They walked with the self-assured confidence of warriors, a harnessed grace about them, an air of violence. All were clothed in dark breeches and shirts of mail beneath hard-boiled leather cuirasses.

They were clearly warriors of the Order, as all of them wore the bright star emblazoned upon their cuirasses, but to Drem they looked startlingly different to the other warriors in the field. They were dark-skinned, all with long, jet-black hair tied at the nape, and all wore curved, two-handed swords across their backs.

Like Byrne’s.

Cheers rang out to welcome these newcomers.

A man led them, dressed the same, with a hooked nose that reminded Drem of a hawk. His dark hair was streaked with grey and silver, but something about him set him apart from the others. Perhaps it was the way he was smiling, nodding and raising a hand to the greetings echoing out. Or maybe it was the way he seemed to all but glide across the ground, his movements fluid and contained.

“Who are they?” Drem asked Cullen.

“That’s Utul and his crew, answering the call to muster, I’d guess,” Cullen said. “Not bad in a scrap, is Utul. Not as handy to have around as me, of course, but not bad. He’s captain of the Order’s garrison in Balara.”

“Balara?” Drem asked, the name vaguely familiar to him.

“Aye. An old giant fortress far to the south, on the coast of the Tethys Sea.”

That’s a long way from here, if my lessons were taught right, Drem thought.

Close by, the giant Tain looked up, shielding his eyes to stare. A shape was approaching in the northern sky, a pale pinprick that grew, squawking and croaking as it descended down to the weapons-field.

Rab alighted on Tain’s outstretched arm.

“What news, Rab?” Byrne asked as she approached, Kill and Cure either side of her.

“Death in the north,” the crow squawked. “People running, hunted by Twisted men.”

Drem felt his back stiffen. That was the name Rab had given the Ferals.

“They need help,” Rab squawked.

Byrne looked to Keld and Stepor.

“Let’s go get them,” Cullen said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

FRITHA

Fritha tapped heels against her stolen horse, urging it into a canter as she turned a corner in the road and saw Starstone Lake appear before her, its dark waters glittering in the bright sunlight. In a cluster upon its northern bank squatted the mine, the sight of it setting off an abundance of memories for Fritha.

This is where it all began. My creations. Making new life. Absently she put a hand to her belly, for a heartbeat could almost remember what it had been like to hold a new life within her, to feel it growing, changing.

The most wonderful feeling in the world.

And the Ben-Elim tainted that for me.

To her left, woodland spread as far as her eye could see, sweeping up to the foothills of the Bonefells. The last time she had been here the landscape was snowbound, but now spring was asserting its grip upon the land. Snow still clung stubbornly to the trees, but it was melting, boughs creaking as the weight upon them shifted, new streams of snowmelt winding their way into the lake.

The gates to the mine opened as she approached; Fritha rode through first, nodding a greeting to the men and women manning the gates, part of her Red Right Hand