hear, “or you shall be my enemy.”
Kamael cradled his broken wrist, looking at Riv and then around the chamber. He slowly nodded. “The Moot has spoken,” he said, then spread his wings and flew back to the tiers.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over with,” Kol whispered to Riv through a beatific smile, even as he raised a hand in thanks, cheers of acclamation echoing from the Ben-Elim. “Now we must fly for Dun Seren. Time to tell the good news to Ethlinn, Balur One-Eye and the damned Order of the Bright Star.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
DREM
Drem stood open-mouthed and looked up.
“Well met, One-Eye,” Keld said to the giant, who towered over them.
They had just crossed the ridge of a shallow slope and stood on a plateau that abruptly gave way to a sheer drop, the sound of a river far below. Balur was leaning against the wall of a wide bridge that spanned the drop. Beside him another giant sat upon the ground, passing a whetstone across the edge of a long-hafted axe. This giant was black-haired, the sides of his head shaved to stubble, the hair on the top of his head long and woven into a thick warrior braid. Another axe, like the one across his lap, was slung over his shoulder. But Drem’s eyes were irresistibly drawn to Balur One-Eye.
Balur One-Eye.
Thousands of years old, the tales tell, one of those that drank from the Starstone Cup, giving them long life and strength. Not that he looks as if he needed any more strength. Though he does look old.
Balur’s face was a map of scars and ridges, skin puckered around one empty socket, his hair white as milk and tied into a thick warrior braid. His long, drooping moustache was bound with leather cord. But Drem could see the knots and slabs of muscle that bunched beneath Balur’s clothes. Even beneath layers of wool, leather and fur, Balur’s musculature was formidable. His legs were wider than some trees Drem had seen. Tattoos of thorn and vine coiled around his thick forearms, disappearing beneath leather vambraces and fur-edged sleeves of linen. A war-hammer was slung over the giant’s shoulder.
“Stepor found you, then,” Balur One-Eye rumbled.
“Flick found them,” Rab the crow squawked. He was perched on Cullen’s shoulder.
“Aye, that’s the truth of it,” Stepor said.
“Well met, Balur One-Eye,” Cullen said, swaggering up to the giant.
“Well met, little Cullen,” Balur replied, the edge of a smile touching his lips. “I am glad to see your hubris has not put you in a cairn yet.”
“No one out there capable of doing that,” Cullen replied with a grin.
Balur looked at the dark-haired giant. “You see what I mean?”
“Aye,” grunted the giant, not breaking a stroke of his axe-sharpening.
Hammer crested the ridge behind them, and the dark-haired giant rose, slinging his axe across his back and calling out to her.
“Ach, it is a sore sight, seeing that bear’s back riderless. Sig, how could you fall?” Balur’s face twisted in grief, shifting to a glowering anger. “Sig, I will avenge you,” he growled.
Then the white bear appeared behind Hammer. He saw the giants and stopped, though Hammer lumbered down to them, the dark-haired giant striding to her and wrapping one of his thick-muscled arms around her neck, laying his head against the bear and murmuring quietly.
Balur looked at the white bear, then at Stepor and Keld, and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me,” Stepor said. “This lot have been making friends in the wilderness.”
“Found him being set upon by a brood of white wyrms,” Keld said. “We helped him out a little, and since then he’s taken a liking to us.”
“Taken a liking to Hammer’s rump, is more like it,” Cullen said.
“Ha.” The dark-haired giant barked a laugh.
“Though the white bear likes Drem well enough as well,” Stepor said. “Or at least, he likes the honey Drem gives him.”
“So,” Balur rumbled, pushing away from the stone wall and taking a pace closer to Drem, glowering down at him with his one eye. “You are Neve and Olin’s boy, then.”
“I am,” Drem said nervously.
“Byrne tells me we are in your debt, for the warning you bring us.”
Drem didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all, just shrugged.
“It may not sound like it,” the black-haired giant said, lifting his head from Hammer’s thick fur, “but Balur is saying thank you.”
“I do not need an interpreter, Alcyon,” Balur said, and continued to glower down at Drem.
“Dun Seren had to know of Gulla and all that he