Jin had told him in no uncertain terms that he was humiliating her, and himself, with his pathetic fascination for Riv. Jin had called her a bad-tempered barbarian, which had almost made Bleda smile, a twitch of facial muscle that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jin, and had not helped to soothe her mood.
Perhaps Jin’s right. I should be more concerned with my training, earning the right to lead my hundred, and their respect. Certainly Old Ellac had looked at him strangely every time that Bleda marched to Riv’s barrack, for Ellac would accompany him, saying he was sworn to protect him, and Bleda had no reason to order him not to do so.
But as Bleda sat here in the dark, thinking these things through, he had come to a conclusion.
I don’t care. Not about how I should feel, about how I should behave. Riv is my friend.
He sighed with that thought, a release of tension, and sat a little straighter in his chair.
A sound drew his attention, standing out from the wind and rain. He opened his shutters a crack and peered outside. A movement in the street below drew his eyes, a flicker through the swirling eddies of rain.
A person, weaving through the street as if they had drunk too much wine. A woman, fair hair plastered to their face.
Is that . . . ?
He leaned forwards, pulling the shutters wide.
Riv?
Other forms appeared behind her, following, gaining.
Before he’d realized what he was doing he’d pulled on his boots and was buckling his weapons-belt on, the familiar weight of his bow and quiver feeling like a missing limb returning. He wrapped a cloak about his shoulders and slipped out of his door.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
SIG
‘Come out, Drem, trapper’s son, forger of the Starstone Sword,’ Gulla called out. ‘And you, too, Sig of the Bright Star. I know you are here, somewhere. You cannot think to ride past a town of four hundred people upon your great bear and go unnoticed.’
Laughter hissed and rippled around the clearing.
‘Long have you been a bane to us, a thorn in our flesh, and now you shall be plucked and thrown upon the fire, and we shall feast upon your bones, upon the flesh of your bear and upon the hearts and organs of your sword-brothers.’
As terrified and foolish as Sig felt right now, that made her mad.
There’s a time for stealth, and there’s a time to kill.
‘Come out, come out,’ Gulla chanted, laughing, the acolytes taking up the cry, ringing out as they spread through the clearing, turning, searching. A whisper of wings, and Gulla’s children took to the air. With a victorious cry they spotted Sig and Drem and sped towards them. One was faster, the female. She thrust a spear down at them. Sig pushed Drem out of its way and grabbed the spear, pulling the half-breed Kadoshim down to her, grabbing a fist-full of leathery wing and then she was dragging herself upright, gripping the wing with both hands, setting her feet and twisting, turning, swinging the half-breed, smashing it with all of her prodigious strength into the roof, an explosion of turf, the creature loose-limbed for a few heartbeats and then Drem kicked it in the stomach, sending it rolling off the roof.
An ear-splitting shriek and its brother was swooping towards them, wings tight as it dived, a sword in its hand. A whistle of air past Sig’s ear and a spear was suddenly sprouting from the half-breed’s chest. He swerved away, wings beating weakly, and then the wings folded and he crashed to earth.
Below them Gulla screamed.
‘Ulfang!’
A roar of rage from the acolytes below as they surged towards the building Sig and Drem were standing upon.
Sig looked at Drem.
‘Sometimes the only answer is blood and steel,’ he said.
‘Ach, but you’re Olin’s boy, and no denying.’ Sig grinned.
‘I loved my da,’ Drem said.
Sig glanced quickly around, eyes lingering on the dark alleys that led to the wall, only a fast sprint away.
We could make a break for it. Would just need to get over the wall and to the trees beyond. To Hammer.
The beating of wings, and Gulla’s daughter reappeared, her hand snaking out and grabbing Drem’s ankle, heaving.
For a moment he teetered on the edge of the roof, and then he fell.
Sig’s longsword hissed into her hand.
‘TRUTH AND COURAGE,’ she bellowed as she leaped into the crowd of acolytes surging around Drem, baying for their blood.
She swung her sword with both hands as she fell, carving a bloody path through leather, flesh and bone, the momentum turning her so that she crashed into a new mass of shaven-haired zealots, flattening some, breaking bones, scattering more. Drem was on the ground, pushing himself to his knees.
Sig was on her feet in a heartbeat and began swinging her sword in great two-handed loops. Limbs and heads sprang from bodies, blood jetting in fountains, men and women screaming. Then something else was running at her, something twisted and misshapen, all jutting teeth and hooked talons. She swung at its head but it ducked beneath, raked her with too-long claws as its momentum carried it skidding past her, links in her chainmail shirt shattering, blood welling beneath, then it was twisting on its heels and coming at her again. Sig lunged forwards, sword-tip the focal point of her entire body, like an extension of her, legs, torso, arms all flowing into the lunge. The Feral was coming at her so fast it could not adjust its momentum or trajectory, and so ran onto her sword, skewering itself through its broad chest, Sig’s blade bursting out of its back in an explosion of gore.
She ripped her blade free, heard steel clash and glimpsed Drem blocking an overhead strike with a spear he must have wrestled from one of his attackers, twisting away from another acolyte stabbing at him, another circling to his flank. In two long strides Sig was there, kicking one in the knee, cartilage and bone snapping, and chopping into another’s neck, a spray of blood as she wrenched her sword free.
Drem ducked a wild swing from the last one and buried his spear in the man’s chest, left it there when it snagged on bone and drew his father’s sword with one hand, a short axe in the other.
‘Leave,’ Sig barked at him, ‘that way.’ She jerked her head towards shadows and the wall, in the next heartbeat was running, screaming her fury at a new wave of enemy, a looping swing of her sword scattering them, one ducking low beneath her sword and rising within her guard, too close for her sword. The momentum of her blow opened her right side, left her vulnerable, and she knew there was nothing she could do. The acolyte grinned as he stabbed with a long knife.
There was a wet thud and the acolyte dropped to his knees. Drem ran to it, hacked into its head with his sword, shards of bone erupting. He reached down and pulled his short axe from its chest.