A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,50

river, Hammer limping and lumbering after him, and Drem had run to the hound, a pile of fur at the base of a tree where the draig had thrown it. Fen was breathing, but Drem could not get the animal to stand. He’d tried to lift the wolven-hound and had managed to raise him into his arms, a prodigious feat, as the animal weighed the rough equivalent of a pony. Fen had snapped at him, whined with the pain. Drem was no weakling, in fact men had picked fights with him because of his size and freakish strength, but a score of paces and Drem’s back and legs were crumpling. He’d been unable to go on, had tried calling to Cullen and Hammer, but they were out of earshot and couldn’t hear him over the din of the draig and giant bear anyway, and there was no time to get them and come back for the wolven-hound, so he’d veered into the trees and laid Fen down behind a fallen rotted tree. A rib-bone was protruding through the wolven-hound’s side. Drem put one hand on the bone, another on the hound’s side, and pushed, trying to manipulate the bone back into place. He’d got a snapping growl and a half-hearted bite for it, but with a click the bone slotted back into place.

“I’m sorry, lad,” Drem said, “but I can’t carry you.” He heaped a mound of litter over the wolven-hound, then ran for the river and Cullen.

The guilt of it lay heavily upon him.

Cullen checked Keld, wiped his brow tenderly with a damp cloth, his eyes creased with worry.

“Come back to me, Keld,” Drem heard Cullen whisper. “I cannot lose you, too.” A teardrop dripped from the young warrior’s nose and he sniffed and cuffed more tears away.

“Can you not do… something?” Drem asked, thinking of how Keld had revealed the runes upon his seax. And of how his father Olin had forged the Starstone Sword, chanting words of power.

“What do you mean?” Cullen said, frowning. “I’ve done all I can think of.”

“I mean, the earth power. Keld made the runes appear on my seax. Can you not help Keld’s healing?”

“The Order does not spoon out the earth power like brot, more’s the pity,” Cullen said glumly. “Only a few are invited to learn. It is a great honour, a privilege, and we must be sure you can handle the responsibility of that power,” he added in a high-pitched voice, as if he mimicked someone else’s speech. “Apparently, I am not deemed responsible, yet,” Cullen muttered.

Drem spooned brot into his mouth, forcing himself to swallow.

“There are worse ways to stay alive.” Cullen grinned at him as he ate his own bowl of steaming brot with apparent gusto. Shockingly, and remarkably, Cullen had escaped the fight at the draig den almost completely unscathed. A few scratches, a bruise on his shoulder, but nothing more serious. Drem had needed stitching on the cut Fritha had given him on his forearm, as well as the deep gouges across his back from a Feral’s claws. The knife-cut from the half-breed along his waist was the shallowest, but also the one that hurt the most, almost every movement pulling and rubbing at the scabbing wound.

We should leave here soon. Should have left days ago. But how can we, with Keld still unable to walk? Cullen and I could build a litter and carry him, but we would be so slow, Fritha and her beasts would be upon us in no time. It’s amazing that they haven’t found us already. We need Hammer to carry Keld out of here, if only she would try and stand. It seems that she’s lost the will to live.

“I can’t leave Keld or Hammer behind,” Cullen said fiercely, as if reading Drem’s thoughts. “I’ve known them all my life, spent most of my days in their company. They’re close to me as kin.”

“I’d not ask you to,” Drem said. “Some things are more important than breathing a little longer.” His thoughts drifted to his da, Olin, the only constant he had ever known in his life—a stab of pain in his belly, grief, like a leviathan stirring. All of his life Drem could only remember his father, and that had been enough for him. He had loved the brief mentions of his mam, longed to hear more of her, and in the last year he had become more and more agitated at his father’s reticence to tell Drem of