A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,157

its hidden pocket and leaned and lunged at the bundle of weapons by the fire, gripped his bow, and then they were airborne, juddering up and away, into the cover of darkness.

“Ellac, the others,” Bleda said, not willing to leave his warriors again.

“They are running, too,” Riv said. “Look.”

Bleda saw riders scattering out from the fire-pit, riding in all directions.

“They will lead the Cheren a merry chase, but they know where to meet us.”

They weaved through the air, the glow of the fire-pit shrinking below.

“What’s wrong?” Bleda asked. Riv was breathing heavily and they were swaying. It felt nothing like when Riv had carried him away from the Revenant in the forest, all strength and weightlessness.

“One of those Cheren bastards put an arrow in my wing,” Riv snarled. “When Uldin attacked on the road.”

“Thank you,” Bleda breathed.

“For what?” Riv asked.

“For saving me.”

Riv smiled. “I love you, Bleda,” she said, as if that answered everything.

Bleda looked down at the retreating glare and saw the prone body of his mother. Jin was standing over her, eyes searching the night sky.

“I will see you dead, Jin ap Uldin,” Bleda whispered. “On my mother’s soul I swear it, and on the souls of my people that your treachery has murdered.”

Riv heard him, but she said nothing. As silent as mist they swept away from the Cheren and into the dark of Forn.

CHAPTER FIFTY

DREM

Drem saw the line of warriors upon the crest of the ridge ahead, at least two or three thousand paces away. From down here in the vale it was impossible to tell how many of them there were, just a long line of roughly a hundred swords that disappeared beyond the ridge-line. It could be ten rows deep or fifty.

“Why won’t the crows fly closer?” he asked Cullen, who apart from Tain Crow Master seemed to have the closest relationship with the crows of Dun Seren.

“Something’s spooking them,” Cullen said. “And Byrne and Tain are telling them not to fly too close. Because of Flick.”

Flick still hadn’t come back, and Drem thought the same as most others. That Flick was dead. Drem was sad about that, he had liked the crow.

“What’s the plan, then?” Drem asked.

They had sighted their enemy early, but almost immediately Gulla’s warband had made an orderly retreat. The Order had followed, scouts flanking wide and ahead to search out any ambushes they might have been lured into, but nothing had happened. Now the Order was spread along the lower reaches of a vale, the enemy halting their steady retreat and gathering atop a ridge before them. Above the enemy warband Drem saw dark specks in the sky, a handful of Dun Seren’s crows circling high. Morning mist still lingered in low-lying spots, where it pooled and swirled. A long, gentle incline rose ahead of them, mostly open ground punctuated with swathes of red fern and clumps of gorse. To Drem’s left was scattered woodland that rolled up to a sheer granite outcrop, and to his right the ground was bordered by one of the twisting, cracked ravines that littered the Desolation’s landscape, like the ones they had used for cover after leaving the Bonefells.

“Best ask the boss,” Keld said, pointing at Byrne.

She was upon her horse at the head of their loosely ordered warband, roughly a dozen rows ahead of Drem. Balur and Ethlinn were leaning in the saddles of their great bears and talking with her.

Ethlinn’s giants, three or four hundred of them, were gathered on the right flank, at least half of them mounted upon bears. The bulk of the Order’s warriors were arrayed in a mass in the centre of the vale, Drem glimpsing Utul and his Jehar warriors by the swords jutting over their shoulders. The huntsmen and their wolven-hounds were spread along the left flank. Keld had ignored the order when they’d left camp that morning to gather with the other scouts.

“Why are you not with the scouts?” Drem asked Keld, in his usual diplomatic way.

Keld looked at him a moment.

“Because someone’s got to keep an eye on young Cullen,” he said, giving Drem a wink.

“I can look after myself,” Cullen murmured distractedly, eyes fixed on the line of warriors at the top of the ridge.

Drem suspected Keld’s presence was more to do with looking after him than Cullen.

“Come on, Byrne,” Cullen muttered. “Let’s just get on with it.”

“Patience, lad,” Keld said. “See,” he said to Drem. “If he was left to his own devices, he’d be running up the hill at them