A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,110

that she had left behind.

A shadow skimmed the ground and Fritha looked up and saw Morn sweeping low over the mine, circling down towards the central square, where Fritha’s table was set.

Fritha led her column through the complex towards its centre, where the cave-riddled boulder of granite reared. Shaven- haired men and women greeted Fritha, acolytes she recognized, and others she did not.

More that have answered Gulla’s call.

As she rode on she saw people everywhere, a frenetic energy in the air.

Something is happening.

Elsewhere were groups of men and women, standing in huddled masses. Fritha’s eye was drawn to them. Hair matted and unkempt, clothes lank, torn, arms hanging limp at their sides. They were standing perfectly, unnaturally still. The acolytes seemed to avoid these groups, swirling past them like water parting for rocks in a stream.

Space opened around Fritha as she rode her horse into the clearing before the boulder, a gesture ordering her column to halt in the shadows of a street. Her bloodstained table dominated the open space, wide and deep, iron hooks and chains littered upon its surface, and beyond it was Gulla, High Captain of the Kadoshim.

He stood tall and broad, leathery wings folded and arching behind each shoulder, his face all sharp angles and tight skin, the gaping socket where the white crow had taken his eye a dark, skin-puckered hole. When he moved there was a shimmer of darkness around him, a black nimbus.

A figure stood behind him, unnaturally still. It took a moment to recognize him as Ulf the tanner of Kergard.

No, no longer Ulf the tanner. Now he is Ulf the Revenant, one of the Seven.

He was thinner than Fritha remembered, his face gaunt, features chiselled, with deep pools of shadow around his eyes and cheeks. A smear of something dark and crusted ran from his lip to his chin.

Gulla strode around the table and stood before Fritha as she reined in and dismounted, one of her Red Right Hand hurrying over to take her reins and lead her horse away.

Morn swept down from the sky, landing beside Fritha, and together they dropped to one knee, bowing their heads before Gulla.

“Greetings, my daughter,” Gulla said, and Fritha heard Morn stand.

“Father,” said Morn. An embrace.

“Priestess, where are those I sent you out to capture?” Gulla said, his voice sounding as if it hissed and scratched inside Fritha’s skull.

“Forgive me, Lord,” Fritha said. She paused, struggling with the words she was about to say. Knew she had to say. “I have failed you.”

Fritha left a silence as Gulla stared at her.

“The huntsman, versed in the earth power, and Cullen, descendant of Corban, both slipped through your fingers,” Gulla said quietly, dangerously.

Fritha gulped. “But I have brought you gifts,” she said.

“Gifts,” Gulla said. “They must be great indeed to make your failure fade.” A brush of his fingertips upon her shoulder bidding her to rise.

Fritha felt her blood burn at his words as she stood.

Failure.

“Behold,” Fritha said, gesturing behind her and turning.

A shouted command, the crack of a whip and her column rolled into the space.

First came a dozen of her Red Right Hand, all on stolen mounts, and swirling at their flanks were her Ferals, loping, some on two legs, others using their extended arms as extra legs. They all filed left or right, making way for Gunil upon his giant bear, dipping his head to Gulla as he reined in. Claw was pulling a travois with a cage upon it, sheets of stitched hide covering its contents. Fritha heard a sibilant hissing from within the cage and smiled. Her wyrm was still alive, stronger than it had been.

Behind the bear and the cage a wain was being pulled by a harnessed bull auroch, its chest as broad as the wain. Its head reared up as Arn touched its flanks with a whip and it let out a mournful bellow. On the bench seat beside Arn stood another cage, far smaller than the one that contained the wyrm. The crow from Dun Seren sat upon a perch, head bowed, feathers ruffled and shoulders hunched as its intelligent eyes swivelled back and forth, taking in all it could see of the mine.

He is a nosy bird, perfect for being a spy of the Order.

The crow’s eyes touched on Gulla and froze, staring.

In the back of the wain lay Elise, pale and sweat-stained, and beside her one last cage, this one larger than the crow’s cage, smaller than the wyrm’s, and in it was Fritha’s draig.