A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,61

a hand and cocking his head to one side.

Cullen was silent for long moments. The gentle snowfall had a muting effect on the pinewoods, as if the world were holding its breath.

“I can’t hear anyth—”

Then they all heard it. A distant roar.

Behind them Hammer rumbled, deep in her belly.

Drem looked at Keld.

“It sounds like… a bear,” Drem said. He put his hand to his throat, found his pulse.

“Aye,” Keld agreed.

They heard it again, clearer. Beyond the ridge, almost dead south.

“Think we should go around,” Drem said, thinking of Fritha’s giant and his bear.

“Good idea,” Keld said.

“Be quicker to go straight on,” Cullen said. “Kill it, whatever it is, if we have to.”

“Do you never get tired of fighting, lad?” Keld snapped.

“No,” Cullen said without hesitation, looking at Keld as if he were mad.

Another roar, sounding louder, closer. There was an odd note in it. Drem had heard a lot of roaring from bears lately, challenging, fighting. This wasn’t quite like that. Still…

“We’ll go around,” Keld said firmly.

Hammer snorted behind them, dug a gout of forest litter with a paw and broke into a lumbering run, surging past them, limping a little, but showing more energy than at any point since she’d leaped into the river.

“What’s got under her skin?” Keld frowned.

“Don’t know, but whatever it is, we can’t let her face it alone,” Cullen said, hefting the pack on his back and breaking into a laboured run.

Keld scowled. “Damn it.” And then he was running, too, Fen keeping pace with him.

Drem sighed and followed.

Cresting the ridge, a gentle downward slope running away from him, Drem glimpsed to his right the sharp rise of a cliff face running parallel to his course, probably a few hundred paces away. To his left was a sea of trees.

Another roar, louder, that same odd edge to it that struck Drem as unusual. Then it dawned on him what it was.

Fear.

No; terror.

He caught up with Keld, the pack on Drem’s back actually increasing his speed as he ran downhill. He saw the bulk of Hammer ahead, and close behind her Cullen, legs pumping away like a racing hare as he tried to catch up with the bear.

Drem glanced at Keld, saw that he was sweating and blowing a little, but looking as if he had it all under control.

The pinewoods were opening up, huge boulders scattered around them, looking like the long-buried skulls of giants poking from the forest floor. Snow was thicker on the ground as the density of the treetop canopy lessened.

An ear-splitting roar, very close now, and then Hammer was slowing. Drem heard an answering roar from her. Cullen finally caught up with her and skidded to a halt beside the bear.

Thirty paces from them, Drem’s breath and pounding heart was all he could hear. He saw Cullen shoulder off his pack, draw his sword.

Never a good sign.

Drem drew his seax and a hand-axe in preparation. There were the two bears roaring, the sound of timber splintering, and something else, a sound beneath the clangour, constant, though ebbing and flowing—a hissing, like steam.

And then Drem was there, running around Hammer, almost colliding with Cullen.

For long moments he could not understand what was happening in front of them.

Struggling in the centre of a glade, there was a giant white bear.

Drem’s breath caught in his throat as his hand went to the bear claw around his neck.

Is it my bear? The one that nearly killed me and Da?

He tried to check if it was missing a claw on its right paw, but it was impossible to tell, because the bear was fighting for its life.

Bone-white things, like huge coils of pearly rope, were looped and twisted around the bear—around its torso, its neck, its legs. For a moment Drem thought the bear must have become caught in some giant kind of net, with rope as thick as Drem’s chest, except that the rope around the white bear had teeth. More than one set of teeth.

And they were ripping the bear to shreds.

Keld skidded to a halt beside Drem.

“Wyrms!” he hissed.

Fen crouched and growled, baring his teeth in a savage snarl.

Have I stepped out of the real into a world of faery tales?

The tales told of an ancient creature, bred thousands of years ago by giants and used in the War of Treasures; giant wyrms, snake-like, but bigger, much, much bigger, and the wyrms in front of Drem were a thousand times bigger than any adder he’d ever seen. For once, the tales didn’t seem