A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,174
to fulfil, a great deed to do, and at the least, my vengeance must be appeased. Kol is at Drassil. She felt a thrill of excitement at that thought, after so many years of planning and scheming, of fighting and dreaming of this moment, and now it had actually arrived. A clouded haze swirled around the towers and walls of Drassil, looking from this distance like flocks of birds wheeling and swooping, but Fritha knew what it was.
Ben-Elim and Kadoshim, locked in their eternal battle. Will this really be its end?
It could be.
The fortress rushed towards them, growing, and below her Fritha saw trees swaying and moving as some great host moved within it. Tendrils of black mist curled from the branches. To the south she saw evidence of another black cloud host surging towards the fortress.
Gulla’s Seven with their broods, all converging on Drassil. They have moved at night by cover of darkness, slipped into the deepest, darkest recesses of Forn to avoid prying eyes and crept their way here. But now their terrible beauty can be revealed for all to see. Let the world tremble.
And then Wrath was leaving the forest behind, flying over a plain before Drassil’s great walls. Kadoshim and Ben-Elim flew in the air, sweeping and looping as they stabbed and slashed at one another, screaming their aeons-old hatred.
Wrath snapped at a Ben-Elim that swept past them, trading blows with a Kadoshim. The draig snagged a wing, shook it and the Ben-Elim fell spiralling to the ground, its wing ruined.
Wrath spat out feathers.
“Taste bad,” he grumbled.
“Soon you’ll feast on the finest flesh,” Fritha crooned.
“Happy,” Wrath answered.
They winged over the high walls, the clash of arms drifting up to them, Fritha looking down to see the walls manned with White-Wings, but their enemy were already inside the fortress. There were running battles taking place in the streets, mounted warriors with bows in their hands, swirling hordes of Revenants overrunning all before them, and knots of White-Wings gathered in their shield walls, like rocks in a swirling river. Fritha felt a rush of nostalgia at seeing her old home and the White-Wings she had been raised to be part of.
I was brainwashed, part of the great lie.
She searched the sky, looking for Kol, but the Ben-Elim and Kadoshim were all a too-fast blur.
“There.” Fritha pointed at the Great Hall, a huge domed structure that was built around the trunk of Drassil’s great tree. She guided Wrath towards it.
A massive shield wall of White-Wings stood before the hall’s gates, four or five hundred strong. Riders were pouring arrows into it, but the shields were soaking them up. Fritha saw a charge of shaven-haired acolytes rush the wall, crashing into it, hoping to break through by sheer press of numbers, but the wall held and the acolytes died, short-swords stabbing.
Fritha whispered in Wrath’s ear and the draig swooped upon the courtyard before the Great Hall, sweeping low, and then it was crashing into the shield wall, scattering White-Wing warriors in all directions.
Wrath squatted amidst the destruction he had caused, chewing on a severed leg, and Fritha stood tall on his back. She drew her sword and punched it into the air.
“TO ME,” she bellowed, “TO ME,” and then she was commanding Wrath on, lumbering through what was left of the shield wall, some White-Wings scattering, others retreating and running through the hall’s gates into the chamber beyond.
Fritha and Wrath followed, screaming acolytes charging behind them.
Fritha gasped as they entered the hall—such a magnificent room, a place she knew all too intimately.
Battle was already raging in here, up above, as Kadoshim and their half-breeds swept in through the many fly-holes the Ben-Elim had crafted. Feathers and blood rained down from above.
They reached the top of the steps that led down into Drassil’s Great Hall and the dais before Skald’s throne. Fritha commanded Wrath to stop a moment and looked.
The molten-covered forms of Asroth and Meical were as they had always been, locked in eternal battle. Fritha felt a shudder ripple through her belly at the sight of them.
The dais they stood upon was guarded by a half-circle of White-Wings, maybe a hundred strong. More were joining them.
Fritha scowled at them. A thousand would not keep her away from her destiny.
“Onwards,” she said to Wrath, and the draig lumbered down the stairs, here and there White-Wings turning and reforming, trying to hold Wrath with their wall of shields, stabbing and slashing, but the draig smashed through them as if they were