A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,33

were small and black, gleaming with a primal fury.

Is that a draig?

Spiders crawled down her spine.

The creature paused, surveying them all, petty intruders within its realm. It opened its vast jaws and roared again, trees and branches shaking, setting the ground to trembling, vibrations passing into Fritha’s boots, up her legs.

Then it charged.

For something so vast and squat it was incredibly fast, surging forwards on its muscular legs, scythe-like claws sending great gouts of snow and earth arcing into the air.

For a timeless moment Fritha was frozen, fear and awe immobilizing her.

Drem shifted beneath her, his arm knocking her boot off his chest, sending her stumbling away. He leaped to his feet, pushed her hard in the chest and she crashed to the ground, rolling in the pine needles.

And then the draig was between them, a surging leviathan of muscle. It barrelled into a knot of Fritha’s acolytes, sent them careening through the air, powerful jaws clamping upon one, a ripple of its sinuous neck muscles and her acolyte was severed in two, only his legs and hips remaining.

“TO ME!” Fritha yelled, staggering to her feet, unsure if anyone had heard her, her natural instinct to order the shield wall, but she’d commanded that all shields be left behind on this hunt through the wild, thought it was unnecessary weight that would have slowed them down.

Arn and Elise ran to her; a handful more joined them.

The draig’s head snapped around, eyes fixing upon something. Fritha saw it was the wolven-hound that stood over the form of Drem’s companion.

The huntsman of the group, that is how the Order of the Bright Star work: always a captain, a huntsman with wolven-hounds, and a few fresh warriors.

The huntsman was moving sluggishly, the wolven-hound crouched over him, snarling and snapping at the draig.

The draig clearly didn’t like that challenge to its supremacy. It broke into its scuttling run, Fritha’s acolytes frantically leaping aside as it charged. Fritha felt a jolt of shock when she saw that the wolven-hound did not bolt and flee like everything else in the draig’s path. Instead it gathered its legs beneath it and burst into a run at the draig, not away. Bounding and leaping, the wolven-hound twisted in the air, avoiding the gaping mouth with snapping jaws by a hair’s breadth, skidding along the draig’s head, its claws raking from muzzle to skull, finding purchase, the wolven-hound’s fangs sinking deep into the draig’s neck. It hung there, back legs scrabbling, ripping bloody rents in the draig’s scaly skin.

The draig bellowed, head whipping round, jaws snapping, trying to reach its assailant, tail lashing in its pain and rage, crushing the ribs of an acolyte unfortunate enough to be in its trajectory.

A savage shake of the draig’s body, and with a tearing and rending of flesh, the wolven-hound’s fang’s tore free from the draig’s neck, the creature swiping a claw at the hound as it fell through the air, punching it flying, crunching into a tree. The crackle of breaking bones. The wolven-hound whined, fell to the ground and did not move.

The draig cast its head about for its next victim.

An ear-splitting roar and Claw was lumbering to attack. The two beasts came together like a thunderclap, the force of it knocking men and women from their feet. Bear and draig slashed, raked and bit at one another, their vast bulks heaving, straining, claws gouging bloody streaks through fur and scale and flesh, jaws seeking purchase, snapping, biting. Claw cried in pain, staggering back, blood leaking from a myriad of wounds, the draig mercilessly ploughing forwards, a strike of its claws across the bear’s head sending it crashing to the ground.

Gunil bellowed a challenge and charged, his war-hammer swinging in a loop, crunching into the draig’s ribs, the sound of splintering bone, a scream from the draig, its tail whipping at Gunil, sending him reeling, clutching his side.

“TO ME, TO ME!” Fritha screamed over and over as she lurched into motion, knew that one by one the draig would defeat them all.

As she broke into a run her Ferals gathered about her, only a handful of them still living. Arn, Elise and a few others were already with her. Others, hearing her call, came stumbling and staggering as they approached the draig.

Claw was back on his feet, growling, a heavy paw-strike lashing the draig’s head. Gunil staggered back into the fray, swung his hammer, howling with the pain it caused him, and crunched it into one of the draig’s clawed