A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,88

ravine; one burst of speed and we could be on them.

But it was open ground between this stand of trees and the ravine. If the Order of the Bright Star were close, she would be vulnerable. She knew her ability and that of her crew, knew they were deadly and dangerous.

But so are the warriors of the Order. I am no fool to risk a battle I might lose.

And although Morn had been far wiser and not flown close, she had still been able to see and report to Fritha that even without any new additions from the Order of the Bright Star, there were still three men, the wolven-hound, and another bear down in the ravine.

Where in the Otherworld did that come from? It must be one of the Order’s battle bears, but where is its giant?

Do I rush them?

Her palm rested on the hilt of her short-sword. She was not afraid to use it, not afraid to fight. But she was afraid to lose, and to see her crew cut down.

Eleven Ferals. Ten of my Red Right Hand. Gunil and his bear, against three men, two bears and a wolven-hound. The odds are not so clear now, and that is without any of the Order of the Bright Star arriving. They must be close for their crows to be here. They could already be in the ravine with Drem.

Claw rumbled a growl in the trees behind them.

“Keep him quiet,” Fritha snapped as she balanced on the knife-edge of indecision. The bear growled again and Gunil strode back to him. She heard the giant swear.

Fritha shifted on her feet, felt her muscles tense and she gripped her sword hilt, ready to draw it.

And then the two crows flapped out of the ravine, the white one heading south-east, away from them, while the black one rose higher into the sky, circling towards Fritha and her stand of trees.

“Still,” Fritha called to her people.

Claw growled again, somehow sounding different from his usual one.

I will go back there myself and kill that bear if it does not shut up.

“Fritha,” Gunil called to her.

Swearing under her breath, Fritha twisted on her heel and crept back into the stand of trees, a hundred or so paces and she saw the bulk of Claw. The wyrm cage was set behind him, unstrapped from its litter for the time being. The wyrm lay coiled and still within its bars.

“What is it?” Fritha hissed.

Gunil just looked at the ground.

He’d unstrapped a large panier from Claw and laid it on the ground, opened the lid. Inside was a chest, the draig egg packed carefully within it, tight with straw.

The egg was moving.

A draig is hatching.

Fritha froze for a moment, excitement and fear and wonder sweeping through her, washing all else away. She forgot about Drem and the others, about the crow somewhere in the sky above her, about the Great War, about the Banished Lands.

And then she was on her knees, gently lifting the egg from the chest, straw falling away, and she was placing it on the ground, building up a bank of woodland litter around it to keep it from tipping over.

The side of the shell moved, like when she had seen her baby stir in her belly, the imprint of a hand or foot.

A crackling sound, and a line appeared in the rippling hues of the egg, as fine as a hair, growing, branching into tendrils, like the veins of a leaf. A shape pushed out from the egg, a pinprick hole materializing, growing rapidly bigger and thick, mucus-like fluid leaked from the hole.

A series of cracks, as if Fritha had stood on a cluster of snails, and suddenly a shard of the egg was splintering away, something dark pushing it out. An eye blinked at Fritha.

She tentatively reached out and pulled the splintered part away, gripped another piece, gently working it loose, her hands slippery with jelly-like slime.

A flat muzzle appeared, the creature within the egg squirming and wriggling, its first sight and breath filled with Fritha. Fritha worked harder at the shell, her excitement almost frantic, the creature within thrusting its snout through the hole, in moments its head free, then stuck at its broad shoulders, twisting and snapping as it tried to break out.

“Patience, my love,” Fritha crooned, hands slick with slime as she snapped another piece of shell, and then there was a concussive popping sound, cracks cobwebbing through the whole egg and it exploded, showering Fritha and Gunil’s feet in