‘Let’s have a look at this resistance, then,’ Jael said, striding to the tower. ‘And bring Gerda,’ he called over his shoulder.
Lykos walked beside Jael, warriors behind them, and further back a handful of men carrying Gerda still strapped to her chair.
The corridor was high and wide, with flickering torches breaking up the darkness. Ahead of Lykos stood a dozen or so men, all with weapons held ready. They parted for Lykos and Jael.
The floor was slippery, covered in blood, gore, bodies, severed limbs. It was thick with them. Two men stood further up the passage; Lykos recognized them instantly. The bald giant and his companion from the bridge. The ones who had slain Thaan. Deinon knew them as well; Lykos heard his shieldman draw in a sharp breath and felt his weight as he made to push past.
‘Wait,’ Lykos barked at Deinon, holding a restraining arm out.
Jael recognized them too, by the look on his face.
‘Ironic. The last time I saw you, Maquin, we were underground,’ Jael said.
The smaller man took a step forwards, a look of such hatred sweeping his face that Jael took an involuntary step back.
‘Question is, what are you fighting so hard to keep us from?’
‘Why don’t you come and take a look?’ Maquin invited. Grey streaked his hair, where it wasn’t gore splattered, but judging by the corpses piled high about him he was not too old to use a blade.
Jael raised an arm, summoning Gerda’s chair-bearers forward. They placed her before the two warriors. Lykos studied her face, saw a question bleeding out through her pain. The big man gave an almost invisible nod and she sagged back in her chair.
‘You know where her boy is, then,’ Jael said. It wasn’t a question. ‘Spears,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘They cannot kill him,’ Deinon whispered to Lykos. ‘The bald one – he is mine, for Thaan . . .’
Lykos stepped forward, uncurling the grapple rope that was wrapped about his waist. He swung it once over his head, flicked his wrist and then its end was snaking forwards, wrapped around Maquin’s sword wrist. Before the warrior realized what was happening Lykos tugged hard, dragging the man forwards, and Deinon was surging towards him, knocking the sword from the man’s hand and placing his own blade at the warrior’s throat.
The big man took a step.
‘No, Orgull,’ Maquin snapped.
‘Deinon,’ Lykos said, and Deinon had a knife in his other hand, had sliced quicker than Lykos’ eyes could follow. Blood spurted and then Deinon was holding up a scrap of flesh.
Maquin’s ear.
Orgull took another step forwards.
‘My man can keep cutting chunks out of him all day,’ Lykos said. ‘Want him to stop – you drop that axe.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CORBAN
Corban shouted a warning, seeing wolven everywhere, leaping into the hollow. Instantly all was madness. The wolven were not on a side, did not care who was from Ardan or Cambren; they were here to feast, and they were taking meat where they found it. Horses screamed from where they had been hobbled, wild and terror stricken, the sound echoing around the rock walls. Craf exploded upwards in a burst of feathers and squawks as a wolven snapped at him. Corban saw men wrenched from battle, mauled in slavering jaws, saw hounds scattered like flotsam and two wolven rolling in savage battle. One dark, one white. Storm. He felt a rush of fear, the thought of Storm dying launching him into movement. The two wolven were a mass of fur and teeth and claws. For a moment they separated. Corban saw blood on Storm’s white fur. He lunged at the other wolven, burying his sword in its belly. It yelped and writhed, a claw slicing his shoulder. He pushed harder, deeper, his sword-point piercing the creature’s heart. It sagged, its heart’s blood a hot flood.
Storm limped up, her side matted with blood, claw marks raking one side of her muzzle. Corban buried his fingers in her fur and she stepped closer to him, pressing her head against his chest. ‘Good girl,’ he said quietly, felt an echo of the fear that had consumed him, that she would be slain. So loyal, fighting for us, for me, even to death. And it’s not over yet.
Where’s Mam and Gar? He scanned the dell desperately, but could make little of the nightmare visions set against the flickering light of the burning branch that Heb and Brina had just ignited.