A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,146

hurtling back into the combat that was swirling above.

And then figures were materializing out of the shadows of the trees, shaven-haired men and women, faces twisted in fanatical rage, screaming as they came running at Bleda’s line.

A hundred arrows loosed, the sound a sweet music in Bleda’s ears, and all along the treeline the enemy were falling, tumbling to the ground.

Bleda drew and loosed, drew and loosed, grabbed another fistful of arrows from his quiver, but more enemies surged from the trees, pounding across the bodies of their comrades, so much closer now.

A snatched glimpse right and left showed Erdene’s Sirak swirling back in an endless retreat down the road, the Ferals surging on, snapping and snarling, the gap between them down to fifty or sixty paces now. Uldin’s Cheren on the right flank were facing a storm of shaven-haired enemy, as Bleda was.

Only twenty or thirty paces now between Bleda and the enemy pouring from the forest.

Bleda loosed almost point-blank into the face of a woman, her spear stabbing up at him. His arrow pierced her eye, hurled her back into a man behind her, both of them going down in a heap.

“SWORDS,” Bleda yelled, slipping his bow into its case at his hip, his hand reaching over his shoulder, gripping the worn leather of his sword hilt and drawing, all along the line his warriors doing the same.

“WITH ME,” Bleda screamed and clicked his horse on, riding to meet the enemy rushing towards him.

His trained mount barrelled into a man, threw him to the ground, then hooves were trampling the fallen warrior, cutting short his screams. Bleda struck downwards, his sword jarring on an upraised blade. The blow shivered through his wrist and arm, numb for a moment, he swept a parry, sending a spear-thrust aimed at his chest wide, returned with a backswing from his curved sword, opening a red line across the spear-man’s face, and saw him fall away, clutching at bloody folds of flesh.

Bleda rode deeper into his enemy, the treeline looming.

A grunt and scream to his left, a thrown spear slamming into Ruga, hurling her from her saddle. Bleda looked, could not see her, swayed in his saddle as an axe tried to take his face off. He chopped down, a scream, a hand hanging almost severed, dangling by a shred of sinew and skin. He thrust down, into the screaming mouth of his foe, ripped his sword free in a spray of teeth and blood.

And then the enemy were breaking before him, turning and running back into the gloom. Bleda reined in, resisting the urge to pursue his enemy, the blood-rush of victory a sudden surge in his veins. A snatched glimpse over his shoulder and he saw the same was happening to Uldin, the Cheren King spurring his horse after them, his warband following him into the treeline.

“After them,” Bleda yelled, spurring his horse over the bodies of the fallen as he chased after his fleeing enemy.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

RIV

Riv tucked her wings and stooped into a dive, slamming into a Kadoshim, the creature grunting as her shoulder crunched into its belly. A flurry of blows were exchanged, steel sparking as swords sought flesh, spiralling in each other’s grip, and then Riv’s short-sword was stabbing through rusted mail and leather, into the flesh beneath. The Kadoshim shrieked and spasmed in her grip, back arching. With a savage wrench, Riv ripped her blade free and released the Kadoshim, saw it crash into the horde of Ferals that were swarming after Erdene’s Sirak, scattering a handful in its ruin.

Hovering in the sky, Riv brandished her bloodied sword in the air, screeching her battle joy.

This is what I was made for, born to do, she exulted, a wild release flooding through her veins as she shrugged off the cloaked weight of normal living, no longer having to think about the rights and wrongs, the moral complexities and consequences of decisions.

She just had to fight, and to kill.

She searched for her next foe.

They were not in short supply.

Hadran had brought a thousand Ben-Elim on this campaign, a number deemed more than adequate to meet any Kadoshim threat, as all knew the Kadoshim numbers had been hit the worst during the last hundred years of war. And yet to Riv’s eyes this aerial combat in the sky seemed equal. It was so hard to tell, the combatants an ever-moving eddy of wings and steel, of feather and dark-leathered skin, but if anything, it looked to Riv that there were