A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,162

her knees. The imminence of battle flooded her veins, fear and joy mixing into a wild, heady excitement.

The wolven-hounds burst through the trees, snarling and slavering.

One leaped at Fritha, white and grey, its jaws open wide. One of her guards jumped in front of her and the wolven-hound crashed into him, biting and snarling as they fell to the ground. The guard screamed, blood spraying, the wolven-hound’s jaws clamped around his face, shaking its head with savage strength. Fritha stumbled back a few steps, daunted for a moment by the ferocity.

The hound stood over her gurgling, dying guard, then looked at her, jaws dripping red. It snarled and went at her. Fritha snarled back, lunged forwards, spear-butt low, almost wedged into the ground, blade high, just as she would do if she were hunting boar. The wolven-hound fell onto her spear-point, its momentum driving the blade deep, and it snapped and growled, a frenzied pain rage, then it was whining and slumping as the blade bit into the hound’s heart. Fritha dropped her spear, the weight of the dead creature dragging it from her hands, and she drew her short-sword.

Another wolven-hound was surging at her from the side, but Elise burst forwards on her coils, speed and power a blur, and her sword lashed out. The wolven-hound dropped to the ground, a deep wound in its flank, but it half rose and threw itself at Elise, teeth raking into her coils. She shrieked and hissed at it, her sword rising and falling in frenzied strikes and the wolven-hound collapsed, its head half-severed.

Men appeared, more wolven-hounds with them, and Fritha grinned at them.

“Death smiles at us all,” she yelled as they hefted their weapons and moved towards her.

They came at her with sword and axe, though slowly, the sight of Elise and Wrath either side of her, the draig tearing chunks out of a wolven-hound, giving the huntsmen pause.

There was a rumbling behind Fritha, echoed in her blood, the sound of snarls, howls and growls, and then her Ferals were sweeping out of the trees behind her, a slavering wave of death.

They stormed past Fritha, slamming into the huntsmen. The wolven-hounds howled and leaped at the Ferals, a crashing together of teeth, claw, muscle and fur. The hounds were powerful and deadly, but there were too many of the Ferals, and in fractured, ferocious moments the Ferals had ripped the hounds and huntsmen to bloody ruin and were sweeping them away, tearing at limbs, blood exploding in great gouts, and then they were gone, rushing down, through the woods, and out onto the plain to crash into the flank of the oncoming warband.

Fritha grinned at Elise and patted Wrath’s muscular shoulder.

She looked out at the plain and saw that on the far side giants and warriors had reached the point where they could cut around the widest pit and curl in towards her Red Right Hand.

“Ulf,” she called, and the Revenant appeared from the trees where he had retreated.

“Now,” she said.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

DREM

Drem stared at the wall of Ferals that came surging out of the woods to his left and smashed into the packed ranks of Order warriors upon their mounts. He was horrified by the numbers he was seeing, and the sheer volume of this huge battle. There was a roaring all around, deafening, giants and bears and Ferals, merging with the harsh clang of steel and the battle roars and death screams. And the smell, of blood and guts and excrement as people and animals died in enormous numbers. He’d fought before, the battle at the starstone mine was seared into his soul, a memory of blood and chaos and fear, but this was something of an altogether greater magnitude. He felt he wanted to put his hands over his ears and curl into a tight-knit ball.

But he didn’t. Instead he took a long, steady breath and tried to work out where he was most needed or useful.

In the saddle behind him, Cullen was shouting and spluttering, urging Drem to charge up the slope.

Drem ignored him and waited to assess what was going on.

Ahead of him battle was raging on the slope, where shaven-haired warriors were swarming around Balur and a score of giants, other warriors of the Order struggling to reach them across narrow spits of land between the huge pits that the enemy had dug. Drem glimpsed Utul and his followers riding across the narrow paths to reach Balur. The warriors of the Order who had formed the