Mine, now, he thought, if what Sig and the others said is true.
He was standing over the body of some half-man beast whose corpse he’d hacked into bloody ruin, the only way to get it to stop trying to bite, claw and chew him. He’d slipped into a frenzy as he had struck it down, fuelled by horror and fear at what was attacking him, felt as if he was walking through some living, waking nightmare.
He ran towards Sig, or where he thought she was, too many of the enemy swirling around for him to see her in the mad dancing shadows made by the torches and wind and starlight.
And he heard his battle-cry echoed back at him.
‘Truth and Courage,’ a voice cried, a figure leaping onto the table of horrors, an acolyte pushing back a hood to reveal a freshly shaven head, sword and shield in his hand.
Cullen!
Even as Drem saw him, the young warrior was swinging his sword, dancing along the table, avoiding sword and spear thrusts, grasping hands, snapping jaws and slashing claws, chopping and stabbing as he went, acolytes and Ferals falling, more trying to scramble up with him, Cullen’s boot, sword and shield boss slamming into them, denying them. Where Sig slew like a force of nature, a strength and inevitability built into her every move, Cullen fought with a blend of skill and joy, smiling, laughing as he drew blood-soaked lines, a precision and mastery to his every move so that it was almost like watching art. A deadly art.
Drem reached the acolytes swarming around Sig’s prone form, arms rising and falling. He swung his sword and short axe, screams and grunts, blood spraying as he cut and carved his way through them. Then the ones in front of him leaped into the air.
No, not leaping, thrown.
And Sig rose from amongst them, blood sheeting her face, a flap of skin hanging from her cheek, one eye swollen closed, the rest of her body a similar miscellany of wounds, shield upon her back dented and splintered, but she grinned to see him, blood on her teeth, her sword in her fist.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she growled.
‘Friends are a rare thing,’ he said to her.
They fought back to back, then, turning, stabbing, cutting, Drem’s limbs growing leaden, his very bones aching as blows shivered up his arm, breath a hot rasp in his throat.
Gulla’s daughter descended upon them, swooping, stabbing, wheeling away. Sig snatched a weighted net from her belt, swinging it around her head like a lasso and releasing. It wrapped around the half-breed, wings and all, the lead weights’ momentum swinging them in snaring loops, and the creature crashed to the ground.
A space cleared around them, hooded, shaven-haired warriors pausing, panting, bleeding. Sig spat a glob of blood. Drem saw a figure on the edge of the clearing, hooded in acolyte’s robes, emerging from the shadows and stabbing another acolyte, then slipping back into the darkness.
What?
A figure stepped into the space around Sig and Drem, slender and tall, fair hair shaved from her head.
Fritha, the Starstone Sword in her hand.
She stopped before Drem, out of reach of his blade, held a hand up to the acolytes behind her, a command. For a long moment she regarded Drem with her sheer blue eyes, which he had once thought bright and beautiful. Now he just thought they were cold. A bandage was wrapped diagonally around her shoulder and back.
‘Put your weapons down,’ she said to him. ‘You cannot win. Put them down, and live.’
‘What, to become one of those half-men?’ He shuddered. ‘Or like that?’ He nodded to Burg’s form on the table, still lying there, curled up like a bairn, twitching and jerking. Cullen fought nearby; silhouetted figures were climbing onto the table, pushing Cullen away from Burg.
‘That would be too great an honour. But no, not a Feral. My shieldman, maybe.’ She smiled at him, then, and it did not have the effect upon him that it used to.
‘You lied to me,’ Drem said, thinking of all the deceptions, the smiles and lies behind those eyes.
‘I saved your life,’ she said. ‘I could have killed you, let them slay you in the forest. I forbade them.’
‘Why?’
‘I know who you are, Drem. Son of Olin and Neve, nephew to Byrne, High Captain of the Order of the Bright Star. You would be a valued prize, especially if you stood at my side.’
‘That’ll never happen,’ Drem grunted.
‘All you have to do is open your eyes and see the truth.’
‘The truth?’ Drem spat.
‘Aye, that all is not as the Ben-Elim tell you. That they are the great evil, not the Kadoshim.’
‘I know the truth well enough when I see it,’ Drem snarled. ‘Only lies and murder from you, truth and friendship from my friends.’
‘Ha, you see,’ Fritha said, ‘I told you. There is something about you, Drem ben Olin. Something innocent, and loyal. Like a faithful hound. Once you give yourself, your loyalty, it would be unswerving, I think. I would like that. I am destined for great things, you know.’ She smiled again, a hint of the future in it, a promise of glory and greatness.
Drem ben Olin. That is who I am. My father’s son.
He thought of how he had stayed to find her, that day in the forest, instead of leaving with his da. His da had been alive, then, and was dead, now. Because of that decision. Because of her.
‘You are a murderer, Fritha, and I am going to kill you for it. Now, or another time.’ He shrugged. ‘Justice, for my da.’
‘A pity,’ she said.
‘And I am going to take that black sword from your dead fingers and use it to carve Asroth’s head from his shoulders.’
‘Blasphemy,’ she hissed at him, a crouched snarl, the first real emotion he’d seen from her, and with a wave of her hand the acolytes surged forwards.