Balur One-Eye. Even I have heard of him, thought Corban.
‘Balur One-Eye,’ Dath whispered. ‘He’s ancient. Even older than Brina.’
‘I heard that,’ Brina snapped.
The giant’s strides faltered as he stared at Meical. He took another few hesitant steps.
‘That was a long time ago,’ the giant said.
‘It was. The time of fire and water.’
‘Aye. And why are you here now? Fighting alongside the Dark Sun. Have you Fallen?’
‘No. I made my choice. The Dark Sun has a captive, someone dear to us. Dear to the Bright Star.’ Meical pointed at Corban.
I wish he wouldn’t do that.
Balur and the other giants peered at him.
‘He has my sister. I mean to take her back,’ Corban heard himself say.
‘We are not your enemy,’ Meical said.
‘Hurry, hurry, hurry,’ Fech squawked. Balur stared at the bird.
‘Fech?’ He shook his head.
‘He is taking us to the cauldron. That is where Nathair will be, the Black Sun,’ Meical said.
‘And these others?’ Balur asked, looking suspiciously at the Jehar. ‘We have just fought their kin in the great hall.’
‘It’s complicated,’ Tukul said, ‘and time does not allow its full telling. The short version is that the ones you have fought have been deceived.’
‘Join us,’ Meical said. ‘If we wanted you dead we would be killing you now.’
The giants bristled at that.
True, but not very tactful.
Slowly Balur nodded. ‘We shall join you. But you go first.’ He smiled.
‘Agreed. Lead on, Fech.’
Then they were running through corridors again. Slowly Corban became aware of a sound, a deep humming, more a feeling than a sound, vibrating up through his feet, out of the rock walls about him. It grew until it was all he could hear, filling his senses.
‘We are here,’ Fech said.
The doorway was wide, like everything in this underground stronghold, room for a score of them to stand across.
It took a few heartbeats for his eyes to adjust, the light in the room lurching from shades of darkness to bursts of incandescent light, leaving after-images seared into his mind. Slowly the scene before him coalesced into a wholeness. First he saw the bodies. They were everywhere, men, horses, giants – wyrms. Most of them had been hacked to pieces.
In the centre of the room stood a cauldron. It was elevated, sitting high upon a dais. Above it hovered a black roiling cloud, bolts of darkness radiating from it, joined to people, hundreds of people, kneeling on the ground before the cauldron.
The Jehar.
They didn’t appear to be enjoying the sensation. Most were writhing, groaning, arms outstretched. And it looked as if something was pulsing through the dark columns, like when a snake swallows an egg, but faster, moving from the cloud into the bodies of the Jehar.
‘No,’ Meical hissed.
Corban hardly heard. Upon the dais he saw two men, one old, silver-haired, a look of rapt awe upon his face. The other he recognized. Nathair, the slayer of his da. He was staring at the cauldron, something close to shock on his face. Corban closed his eyes, for an instant was back in the feast-hall of Dun Carreg watching Nathair stab his da through the heart.
I told him I will kill him.
He scanned the room. Then he saw her. Cywen. She was standing to the left, between Corban and the kneeling Jehar. Next to her a horse stood, pawing the ground.
Shield. It is Shield.
He forgot about Nathair, the sight of his sister filling him with hope, and a great fear. So close, we have come so close. Dear All-Father, do not let us fail now.
He felt a hand grip his arm, squeezing. His mam. She was grinning, tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘What do we do?’ Corban whispered to Meical.
Then there was squawking, yelling, shouting; a giant that Corban hadn’t noticed was waving his arms in the air as Fech and Craf attacked him.
‘Uthas,’ Balur growled from behind him.
Without thinking, Corban ran into the chamber, veering left, heading straight for Cywen.
He heard footsteps next to him, glanced to see his mam, her face determined, gripping her spear in one hand, a knife in the other. Storm and Buddai flanked them, overtaking, bounding low and silent towards Cywen. Somehow he knew that behind him others were following.
Someone passed him, taking great bounding strides – Balur, fixed on Uthas.
The giant in front of Cywen turned then. He saw them all pouring into the chamber, his eyes widening, and lifted an axe before him, its blades a black metal that seemed to shimmer and pulse, like the cauldron.
‘Balur – he has the starstone axe,’ Meical called from behind him. The giant shifted his course slightly, barrelling straight at the axe-wielder. Other giants were close behind him.