A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,5
at his hold. Dawn was settling about them, darkness shifting to grey. Hammer was gone, and Keld’s bed mat was empty, the huntsman nowhere to be seen, but Cullen was curled and snoring beneath a bearskin cloak. Rab was roosting beside the red-haired warrior, his head tucked under a wing. As Drem stood and stretched, a myriad of aches clamouring for his attention, the crow poked his head out from under his wing and studied Drem with a bright, intelligent eye.
“Rab remember Olin,” the bird said. “Olin kind to Rab.”
Drem blinked at that; the thought of his father talking to crows was a strange one.
Though it shouldn’t be, not after all I’ve learned of him.
“He was kind to me, too,” Drem said.
Keld appeared from the trees, his wolven-hound a blurred shadow deeper within the forest.
“No sight or smell of any pursuit. Still, we should be away.” Keld nudged Cullen with his boot and tutted. “He’s a good lad to have at your back in a scrap, but he’d sleep and snore his way through the world’s ending.”
“I’m wide awake,” Cullen’s muffled voice came from beneath his cloak. “Just resting my eyes.”
“Rab, you should be for Dun Seren, now.”
“Rab go search first, make sure friends are safe from Kadoshim.”
“Aye, go on then.”
They broke camp as Rab flew into the canopy above, were saddled and ready to go by the time the white crow returned to them.
“Rab see nothing behind,” the bird cawed.
“Good,” Keld said. “Be on your way, then.” He looked into the trees behind them, sniffed. “And fly fast.”
Cullen sat up and threw the crow something—a remnant saved from last night’s meal. The crow caught it with a snap of his beak.
“Farewell, Rab’s friends,” the crow squawked as he flapped into the air, spiralled higher and disappeared through the branches above, the sky a snow-glare beyond.
“Let’s be off, then,” Keld said.
Drem stamped his feet and rubbed his gloved hands together, then climbed into his saddle. With a clink of harness the three men set off into the snow.
CHAPTER TWO
RIV
Riv sped through the sky, wings beating, wind ripping tears from her eyes, the joy of it bubbling in her chest. She passed through a bank of cloud, whooping as she overtook a flock of geese.
I am free up here, away from the world and its turmoil. Here all is so simple and clean. A moment’s thought, and her wings were snapping in tight to her body and suddenly she was looping and diving, away from the clouds and the dull gleam of the sun, down, towards an endless canopy of green. She flew back, towards a range of hills cloaked beneath the immeasurable green of Forn Forest, ancient trees rising up to meet her. A little closer and a gap in the forest became visible, a road growing clearer, upon it small figures on horseback riding towards her.
Her sharp eyes counted a dozen riders, amongst them the distinctive shape of her friend, Jost, tall and thin, and not the greatest figure on horseback.
He looks like a sack of grain tied to the saddle. Riv grinned.
She spotted another rider galloping well ahead of the others, a league at least, and Riv’s grin widened.
Bleda.
Flying towards him, lower and lower until she skimmed the road, racing her own shadow, the trees of Forn Forest rearing tall either side of her. Bleda called out to her, but his words were lost in the roar of the wind. With a twist of her wings she decelerated and turned, diving into the treeline, the world immediately shifting to shadow. Twisting and turning, spiralling through winter-sparse branches, the muscles in her back aching as she demanded more from her new-found wings, the sharp sensation of scratches opening along her shoulders, one across her cheek. She didn’t care, lost in the pounding of her heartbeat, and then with a burst of leaves and twigs and laughter she exploded back onto the road, right in front of Bleda.
He was an expert horseman and reined in, his knees moving, squeezing, bringing his horse out of a gallop as if it were a manoeuvre he practised a dozen times each day before highsun, but even though Riv didn’t hear the words she saw the curses spilling from his lips, which made her laugh all the louder.
She hovered above Bleda, grinning as he frowned up at her, his sweat-streaked horse blowing great plumes of air in the cold.
“You should not fly so far ahead, it is not safe,” Bleda said.