A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,167

towards her prize.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

DREM

Drem strained with all his might, veins bulging, feeling as if his head would burst, his eyes explode from his face.

But nothing happened.

The giant wyrm-thing with a woman’s face and upper body had wrapped him tight in her coils, pinning his arms to his sides. He still held his seax and axe but could not move them. The creature regarded Drem with cold, reptilian eyes.

“No point sssstruggling,” the thing said, and then its coils were rippling and it slithered sinuously across the glade, weaving through the combat that raged about them. Drem yelled, saw Fritha’s face smiling at him, growing closer.

“Well met, Drem ben Olin,” Fritha said with a delighted smile, as if the wyrm-woman was giving Fritha a gift on her name-day.

“I will… kill you,” Drem said.

“You need to let go of that obsession,” Fritha said, like someone giving their good friend the best of advice.

“You… killed him,” Drem wheezed. He felt a flood of emotion—frustration, rage, grief all mingled—blinked the angry tears from his eyes.

“Ah, to be loved as you loved your father,” Fritha murmured.

Drem strained again, the sight of Fritha talking about his da incensing him, wanting only to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze.

“Kill… you,” he grunted.

A ripple of wyrm-muscle and the breath was crushed from Drem’s chest, coils constricting tighter about his torso, the beast glaring at him.

“Not too tight, Elise,” Fritha said. “We don’t want a dead Drem, now, do we?”

The coils loosened a fraction, allowing Dem to gasp in a breath.

Elise! It has a name!

Drem stared at Fritha, saw her watching him with fascinated eyes.

All around them the fight was raging. Drem glimpsed Cullen fallen to one knee, blood sheeting from a wound on his scalp, Keld standing over the young warrior, fending off Morn’s stabbing spear with his shield as she hovered above them both.

And then a mountain of fur was crashing through the trees into the battle about them, Hammer the bear surging into Drem’s view, Alcyon the giant upon her back, swinging his two long-hafted axes.

Fritha jumped and rolled to the side, Elise the wyrm-woman swayed, an axe blade hissing past her face. She lashed out with the sword in her hand, a red line along Hammer’s flank, Drem jerked and heaved as Elise’s coils rippled, loosening a moment, then constricting, refusing to let him go.

Hammer turned, a swipe of her claws raking the wyrm’s coils, gouging red wounds. Elise hissed a scream, her upper body darting forwards impossibly fast, stabbing at the bear’s face, Alcyon’s axe clanging into her sword, sending it spinning through the air, his other axe whirling, chopping deep into the meat of her coils.

She did scream, then, a high, lilting shriek that set heads turning, her coils spasming, releasing Drem, hurling him through the air to crunch into a tree and drop to the ground. He raised himself on his elbows, saw heads all around the glade looking at the wyrm-woman and giant bear.

Drem climbed to one knee, head spinning, hands scrambling for his seax and axe, which he saw lying close by on the forest litter.

“WRATH,” Fritha yelled, her cry answered by a deafening roar that shook both the ground below and branches above them.

Alcyon tugged on his axe embedded in coils, and Elise’s head lunged forwards, jaws unnaturally wide, too-long teeth sinking into the flesh of Alcyon’s arm. The giant grunted a yell, let go of his axe and ripped his arm free of Elise’s jaws, a splatter of blood arcing through the air.

And then the draig was there, wings beating, lifting it into the air, and it was hurtling at Alcyon, the giant swaying in his saddle, swinging his other axe. The draig’s wings shifted, twisting it in the air, Alcyon’s axe hissing under a wing, the draig lashing out with long talons, raking Hammer’s flank and rump, tearing bloody strips, then it was crashing into the bear. Though smaller than Hammer, the draig’s weight and momentum sent the bear staggering, stumbling and toppling to the side, Alcyon hurled from his saddle as they rolled on the ground, crushing figures beneath them, friend or foe, Drem did not know.

Drem shook his head, trying to scatter the black dots that were clouding his vision, heard Hammer roar in agony as the draig ripped into her side with its powerful jaws, at the same time its claws digging, raking at her exposed belly.

There was an answering roar, elsewhere, echoing through the woodland, followed by a thunderous crashing, getting closer,