A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,81
almost directly above, a stirring of air, more like turbulence than wind. Unnatural, somehow.
Something dropped from the sky, a clang as it bounced and sparked on flagstones. Bleda ran to the object and picked it up. It was round, glinting in the wan light. A silver torc with two serpents’ heads. Parts of it were coated in something black and sticky. Bleda touched it.
“Blood,” he whispered to Ruga, who was scanning the coal-black above.
There were no more sounds, no sense of any kind of presence. Bleda slipped the torc into his cloak, both of them still looking up. Then something materialized out of the darkness, pale and floating. A large white feather drifted down between them and landed at Bleda’s feet.
It had blood on it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DREM
Drem blinked sweat from his eyes and stumbled over a rock. He was trying to keep Flick in sight, without breaking his ankle or neck on the loose terrain.
And that crow sets quite a pace.
They had followed Flick south and east into the Desolation, four days of almost constant movement, ever using the gullies and ravines that twisted through the land like the desiccated veins of a corpse.
Flick was swooping back to them, low over their heads.
Drem turned to watch Flick pass over them all, the white bear far to the rear of their column raising its head and rumbling at the crow. Flick ignored it and banked into a half-circle, disappearing up and over the edge of the ravine they had been following since dawn.
Drem looked to the north-west, eyes searching the skies. There was still no sign of Morn’s bat-like silhouette. Drem had seen no evidence of the half-breed since the day they had fought the wyrms, almost a ten-night ago.
Doesn’t mean she’s not up there, though, Drem thought. He felt more vulnerable now that Flick was gone, especially down here in a ravine, no way of knowing if enemies prowled above them, just beyond the ravine’s edge.
A bad spot for an ambush.
In the distance, the white-topped peaks of the Bonefells reared like jagged teeth along the horizon, making Drem realize how far south they had come. The weather had changed, the snow clouds disappearing, the ground underfoot free from snow, and the temperature had risen.
A handful of days had passed since Drem had woken and not had to crack ice from his beard.
We are leaving winter behind us.
He twisted his head, squinting into the distance as something drew his eye. A flicker of movement, a speck in the sky. Drem blinked, straining to see better, but whatever it was had gone, if there had been anything there. Absently, his hand reached to take his pulse.
“Stepor must be close, then,” Cullen said.
“Must be,” Keld said. The huntsman seemed to have fully recovered from his injuries, though Fen still walked with a limping gait at Keld’s side. Drem suspected that would never leave the wolven-hound.
“Good old Rab,” Cullen said. “I knew he wouldn’t let us down.”
“He’s a good bird,” Keld nodded.
Drem walked back to Hammer and checked on her injuries, the bear lowering her head to give him an affectionate nudge with her muzzle. He was pleased to see she was mending well, all her wounds healing, scabs thick, some of them already peeling to reveal white scars underneath.
Her fur will never grow back there, Drem thought. “A record of your courage and loyalty,” Drem murmured as he stroked a scar along Hammer’s muzzle.
He looked at the white bear. It was thirty or forty paces behind Hammer and had sat down with a rumbling sigh. It was still following them, or following Hammer, seeming quite happy to shamble along with them, though sometimes it would fall behind as it paused to rest. Its wounds had taken their toll. They were far worse than Hammer’s, and each night Drem, Keld and Cullen had tried to change its dressings. They had not been entirely successful, the bear growling, curling his lip to reveal teeth as long as Drem’s seax. At one point Hammer had intervened and swatted the white bear with a paw, and although the white bear was significantly bigger than Hammer, he had acquiesced to her reprimand, bowing his head and rumbling quietly in his belly.
But then Drem had discovered the trick to approaching the white bear safely. He reached into his pack and pulled out a clay jar, un-stoppering it and pouring some of its contents into his hand.