‘Dear Elyon above, no,’ Sig whispered.
‘What?’ Drem hissed.
‘Blood and bone of Asroth,’ she breathed. ‘It’s Asroth’s hand.’
‘Bheith ar cheann, a bheith rud éigin nua,’ Fritha cried out, the crowd before her joining their voices to hers, ringing out in the winter’s night. The two corpses on the table convulsed and heaved, limbs and wings entangling, spasming, merging, flesh softening as if they were melting together, their mixed blood bubbling and seething.
‘Become one, become something new,’ Sig intoned.
Steam spread out from the entwined bodies on the table, a great cloud boiling out and settling upon the clearing. There was a squelching sound, a series of violent cracks ringing out, and then, slowly, the mist evaporated and a silence fell.
We should get out of here, now, Drem thought. While all are focused on this dread act.
But he couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene before him, his body just as unresponsive.
Upon the blackened timber a body lay, curled like an unborn bairn still in the womb.
‘Behold,’ Fritha cried out in a voice that did not sound like her own. ‘The first Revenant!’
Slowly, as all watched in hushed silence, the body moved, a twitching that became a ripple of limbs and wings, and it stood. Gulla, but different. He seemed bigger, for one, more muscular, a strength barely contained within his frame. And his veins pulsed with a dark light. His head twitched, raptor-like, as he looked about, long fangs curling from desiccated lips.
‘Who shall be my first-born, the first disciple?’ Gulla said, even his voice changed, deeper, more resonant, though more bestial, too.
‘You?’ He pointed at Fritha.
She stared back at him.
‘I am promised to another,’ she said and, bowing her head, stepped back.
A man leaped forwards from amongst the acolytes that had followed him into the clearing, shrugging off his cloak. Drem recognized him immediately: scar-faced Burg, Wispy’s leader.
‘Choose me, Lord, I beg you for the honour,’ he cried out, voice laced with hysteria and wonder.
Gulla’s wings unfurled with a powerful snap, spreading wide and then curling inwards, wrapping around Burg, pulling him closer to Gulla, whose head dipped down, and then Gulla opened his mouth wide, long canines glinting red in the firelight, and he was biting into Burg’s neck.
Burg screamed, a terror-filled shriek that gradually subsided into a weak mewling, slowly overcome by a new sound, a hideous, child-like suckling that echoed around the clearing, making Drem’s skin crawl as if a thousand spiders were scuttling over him.
Burg’s legs buckled and he slumped, Gulla taking his weight as easily as a corn doll, though Burg was still conscious, his eyes bulging and rapturous.
With a shudder Gulla disengaged from Burg’s neck and lifted his head. He raised Burg up and placed him upon the table, the shaven-haired acolyte twitching and shivering as if he were caught in the grips of a fever. A single drop of blood ran from the puncture wounds in his neck.
‘Drem,’ Sig whispered. ‘We must get back to Dun Seren. Byrne must hear of this, the Order must be warned,’ she said. ‘We cannot search for your friend Ulf, this is too important, too dangerous. The fate of the Banished Lands rests upon others knowing of this.’
Drem nodded, but a new hush had fallen over the clearing as Gulla beckoned another acolyte forwards.
We need some noise to cover our departure.
‘Is he here?’ Gulla called out to this new acolyte.
The figure pulled his hood back, another shaven-haired zealot, though this one was older.
It was Ulf the tanner.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Ulf said.
‘He’s here, somewhere,’ another voice called out from the crowd, stepping forwards. A woman this time, shaven-haired as well. It took a moment for Drem to recognize her.
Tyna, Ulf’s wife, whom Drem had seen that morning, terrified for her husband’s safety.
‘Show him,’ Gulla said to the acolytes spread about the clearing, bloodied lips spread in a sanguine smile.
More and more acolytes started to push their hoods back, more shaven heads, but they were faces that Drem recognized. Fear seized him, then, a paralysis that threatened to incapacitate him, for they were mostly faces he’d known for the last five years, neighbours, townsfolk, some he’d even considered friends.
Is everything and everyone a lie?
‘It seems that half the town of Kergard is here,’ Drem wheezed, finding it hard to breathe.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
BLEDA
Bleda sat before the window in his chamber, the shutters rattling with the wind and beating rain. Behind him a few embers glowed on his hearth, all but burned out. He was restless, had been for some days now, and couldn’t sleep. He knew the root of it, though it had taken him a while to admit it to himself.
I am worried about Riv.
For as long as he could remember, all he had thought about was the Sirak. About his kin, his dead brother and sister, his pride-battered mother. Arcona, the Grass Sea, nursing his grudges, he and Jin feeding each other’s flames of hatred, their spite-filled mocking of all things Drassil, their disgust at any who were weak enough to show emotion, their bitter dreams of justice or vengeance, whatever name you gave it.
But now I am worried about something – someone – else. Riv. My friend.
It was a new feeling, having a friend. Caring about someone who had not come from the Clans. Especially when that someone was as wild and emotionally unfettered as an unbroken colt.
But she was his friend, he could as much deny it as deny that water was wet, or the sky was blue. She had done something unprecedented that day when she’d given him his bow. She’d forged a bond with him somehow, across the abyss of his pain and scorn.
So, she is my friend. I care about her welfare.
And that was why he’d rushed after her when he’d seen her carried from the weapons-field, almost a ten-night gone, why he’d hammered on her barrack doors, only to be told to go away, that she was unwell and could not have visitors.
Every day he had returned, everyday been told the same thing, whether by her mam or sister. Sometimes a different White-Wing. Even by the bull-muscled Vald once. He’d called Bleda back as he had turned to leave.
‘Don’t take it personal,’ Vald had said. ‘I’ve not seen her, either. None of us have. Only Aphra and Dalmae. Riv’s got some kind of fever, so they’re saying.’
Somehow that had made Bleda feel slightly better.
Until Jin had spoken to him.
And she’s not happy, either.