A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,145

had heard a rumour that Israfil was dead and you had replaced him. I hoped it was true.”

“Aye, Gulla, it is I,” Kol said coldly. “I am glad to see you crawl out from beneath your rock. It is a mistake, of course, because now I am going to send you back to the Otherworld.” He raised a fist, Ben-Elim swooping up from the back of the column, speeding over the heads of Uldin’s Cheren.

Gulla just leaned down, gripping a huge iron pin on the cage front and tugging it free. With a squeal of iron and wood the front panel of the cage fell forwards, crashing to the ground, a cloud of dust erupting. There was the sound of savage snarling, a cacophony of howls and growls, and then a tide of fur and muscle and claw was exploding from the dust cloud.

Bleda felt his blood freeze.

Ferals.

But where Bleda had seen a score or so of these creatures before, now hundreds of them swarmed from the cage and surged towards Kol, and Erdene behind him, even as another Kadoshim landed onto the top of the second cage and pulled the pin, releasing the door in another eruption of Feral beasts.

Kol and his Ben-Elim companions leaped into the air, rushing to attack the Kadoshim swirling above them.

Behind them Erdene was shouting, just noise, but horns rang out from those beside her and the front rows of her Sirak began to trot forwards, at the tide of Feral murder surging towards them. Even in the midst of the chaos and terror that was turning his veins to ice, Bleda felt his chest swell with pride for his mother, ordering a charge at these fearsome creatures, where the first and basest instinct was to turn and run.

Another horn blast, Erdene and her Sirak breaking into a canter, bows in hand, arrows gripped, and then within heartbeats they were at a gallop, their hooves a thunderous avalanche, five hundred paces between them and the onrushing, slavering Ferals, four hundred paces, three hundred, two, and then the front rank of Erdene’s line was breaking left and right, across the Ferals’ path, and their bows were singing, arrows loosing, the huge power of the Sirak bows hammering into the front rows of the Ferals’ charge, hurling them from their feet, throwing them back into those behind. Screams and howls of agony rang out, Ferals going down in a tangle, snaring those on their heels, a tumbling mass of limbs and blood.

Bleda saw Ferals claw their way back to their feet, tearing arrows from their bodies, raising their heads to the sky and howling, then breaking into a run again. Some stayed down, a dozen arrows pin-cushioning them, twisted unnaturally in death.

But still the vast tide of them came on.

Erdene and her front row were galloping back along the roadside, reforming behind her last row of riders to continue the manoeuvre in a perpetual cycle, peeling and loosing their arrows in an endless hammer-hail curtain.

They need more room.

Bleda had seen this manoeuvre performed before, upon the open plains of Arcona, where mounted warriors could ride like flocks of birds in the open sky. But here their flanks were constricted by the looming walls of the forest, and they could not endlessly retreat because the road was blocked by Bleda’s hundred and then Uldin’s Cheren.

We need to get off the road, give them more room to retreat.

A movement on the edge of Bleda’s vision, amongst the trees on his left. He stared, arrow nocked, and then saw a Sirak rider burst from the trees, one of their scouts. He was shouting a warning, twisting in his saddle and shooting back over the hindquarters of his mount into the murk.

“Protect the flanks,” Bleda cried out, the cry rippling through the warriors about him, spreading, and he commanded his horse towards the trees. His hundred began falling in on either side of him, a long row facing into the forest.

“Tell Uldin, protect the right flank,” Bleda yelled to Mirim beside him. She nodded and galloped away.

Two bodies crashed into the turf before Bleda, making his mount dance backwards. A Ben-Elim and Kadoshim, wrapped in a tangle of limbs and wings, still fighting, stabbing, biting, even as they rolled on the ground. They came to a halt, a flurry of blows, then a sharp shriek.

The Ben-Elim rose slowly to his feet, blood on his face, wings shaking off grass and dirt, and then he was leaping back into the air,