A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,168
the sound of trees being ripped from their roots, and then the white bear was bursting into the glade.
It cast its head from side to side, saw Hammer and the draig, and roared a challenge, broke into a lumbering run, scattering or crushing all in its way. Drem saw Fritha stand before its rush, wide-eyed and frozen for a moment, and then the wyrm-woman was standing before her, the wyrm’s tail wrapping around Fritha and hurling her out of the way. Elise slithered on her coils, trying to evade the white bear’s charge, but she was too slow and the bear crashed into her, sending her flying through the air, disappearing amongst the trees.
The white bear slammed into the draig, wrenching it from its attack on Hammer, the two beasts thundering across the glade, swiping and snapping at each other, clawing and gouging.
All was mayhem and madness. Ferals and giants, warriors of the Order and shaven-haired acolytes, Revenants, wyrms and draigs, all fighting for their lives around him.
Revenants spilt across the slope and, framed in sunlight bright across the ridge’s crest, Drem saw Gunil atop his great bear, Balur One-Eye finally reaching him. One-Eye swerved around the slash of the bear’s paws and then his war-hammer was swinging, high and down with all of Balur’s prodigious strength, smashing into the bear’s skull. Drem heard the crunch from where he was standing, saw the power of that impact ripple through the animal, from head to claws, and slowly the legs of Gunil’s bear crumpled beneath it, its great bulk crashing to the ground, an eruption of dust.
Gunil rose out of the dirt cloud.
“You killed my Claw,” he screamed, spittle flying, and then the two giants were swinging their great hammers at each other, dark iron clashing, huge sparks leaping.
A tide of battle and banks of tattered mist swept between Drem and the two giants, obscuring them from view.
A dozen paces in front of Drem he saw a rider of the Order swing his sword at a Revenant, saw the grey-skinned creature sway away from the blade and leap up at the rider, somehow finding purchase, scrambling up behind the warrior and grabbing onto his head, yanking it to the side and sinking its jaws into the man’s neck. The Revenant shook its head, blood erupting, the rider toppling from his saddle, the Revenant falling upon him, biting and tearing flesh in a frenzy. The sight of it turned the blood in Drem’s veins to ice.
What are these creatures we are fighting? How is there any defeating this?
All across the slope Drem saw the same kinds of acts, giants, warriors, bears, all trying to fend off the blood-frenzied storm of Revenants. Drem saw a bear engulfed by the creatures, a horde of them swarming over it like ants, dragging it to the ground. A moment of fear as he saw one hurl itself at Keld. The huntsman saw the Revenant flying towards him, instinctively slashed with his sword and cut into the creature’s neck. There was a flash of blue light, the Revenant crunching to the ground, rolling. Keld stabbed his sword down into its chest with all his strength, twisting. Blue veins rippled out from the wound, the Revenant spasming and then flopping still.
And then Fritha was standing before him.
She looked like something out of a tale, short-sword in her fist, fair hair stubbled, blood smeared on her face, her cuirass embossed with red wings.
“You’re coming with me,” she said.
“Over my dead body,” he said, raising his seax and axe.
“Well, that is the alternative,” Fritha said, looking around her. “I’d rather have you for my experiments, make you into something that will do my bidding for all eternity. I think I’ll leave you with your memory, so you will always remember that I killed Olin, even as you serve me.” She shrugged. “Or you can have a painful, terrifying death as food for a Revenant.”
He snarled and swung his axe at her.
She stepped back, gracefully, a twist of her wrist sweeping his axe away.
Drem followed, seax stabbing, axe swinging, a windmill of blows, and Fritha blocked and parried and swayed, feet shuffling away, to his sides, ever just out of reach.
“You’ve got better,” Fritha commented, her face fixed in concentration. “Your footwork has definitely improved.” She smiled at him, an encouraging sword master. “But a moon training with the Order of the Bright Star is not better than a lifetime raised as one of Drassil’s White-Wings.”