A Time Of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1)

Bleda’s bow.

A ripple of guilt at seeing it; it was not hers, had not been allocated to her by the Ben-Elim, and so in a way could be considered as her own possession, something that was forbidden.

But it is not mine, it is Bleda’s. I have just been looking after it for him.

She had seen him drop it on the day the Sirak had been cowed, all those years ago, the same day he had been taken by the Ben-Elim as a ward. It had just lain in the dirt long after Bleda had disappeared into the horizon and Erdene and Israfil had moved on to the privacy of a tent for Israfil to talk over the terms and details of the Clan’s surrender. As the sun had sunk into the hills Riv saw the bow still lying there on the ground, and without thinking had picked it up, wrapping it in a cloak and storing it with her sister’s kit. She’d brought it all the way back to Drassil with her, not really knowing why, except that something inside her had gone out to the boy as he’d been held in the air by Israfil, his brother and sister’s decapitated heads strewn upon the ground at his feet. She had thought how she would feel if it was her, with Aphra’s head rolling in the dirt. Not that the Ben-Elim’s actions were wrong, she knew that. The Sirak and Cheren had disobeyed the Ben-Elim’s Lore: to preserve life, to only slay Kadoshim and their servants. And the deaths that day had established a peace that had lasted five years, so Riv was satisfied that they were justified.

But the look in Bleda’s eyes . . .

She felt a wave of sympathy for him, because Riv knew that Israfil had punished Kol for the terrible act. Kol should have chained Bleda’s brother and sister and brought them before Israfil for judgement, but Kol had a reputation for taking things into his own hands, for being more spontaneous than most Ben-Elim.

All this time later and she had never returned the bow to Bleda, even though she had resolved to do so a hundred times. Something always stopped her.

She brushed the grip with her fingertips, worn leather smooth and sweat-stained from Elyon knew how many hours Bleda had practised with it.

Hundreds, if he is anything like Jin. To be able to do that, after five years of inaction.

The bow was about the same size as the one Jin had used with such skill, less than half the length of the longbow Riv had been practising with, significantly shorter even than the hunting bows used by Drassil’s scouts and trackers. There was an elegance and beauty of design in the pronounced curves of its limbs. Riv ran her fingers along them, the layers of wood, horn and sinew smooth and cold to her touch.

I should return it to him. Perhaps he could teach me . . .

The slap of boots on stone drifted through an open shutter to Riv, in the street outside, then echoing as they entered the hundred’s barrack. A few heartbeats and she heard the door open and feet pounding on the stairwell. Hastily, Riv wrapped the bow in its sealskin cloak and buried it back in her chest, closing the lid and snapping the lock shut even as the dormitory room opened and her sister ran into the room.

‘What are you doing here?’ Aphra asked, though she seemed distracted, not even looking at Riv, instead her eyes scanning the dormitory.

‘Nothing,’ Riv said with a shrug as she sat on her cot, a cold breeze from the open shutters ruffling her short hair. Aphra marched up and down the central aisle, looking between beds.

‘What are you doing here?’ Riv asked her.

Aphra stopped her searching and looked at Riv.

‘Have you seen Fia?’

‘Aye. She was leaving as I arrived. She didn’t look very happy.’

‘Where did she go? Did she speak to you?’

‘No, she passed me on the stairwell. Didn’t say a word to me.’

Aphra studied her a moment. ‘If you see her, tell her I was looking for her, and that I need to speak to her.’

‘What about?’

‘None of your business.’

Riv’s scowl followed Aphra through the door as her sister turned on her heel and left.





CHAPTER ELEVEN





DREM


Drem sat in the seat of their wain, the reins held loosely in one hand, his da beside him. The sky was a pale winter’s blue, making Drem think of ice, and a cold wind swept down from the Bonefells, Drem’s nose and ears feeling like ice.

‘Get on,’ Drem said, a flick of his whip adding some motivation to the two ponies pulling the wain as they reached the slope that led up to Kergard’s walls, their snorted breaths great clouds of vapour in the cold air. The wain was loaded full with the pelts they had hunted, six moons’ worth of their life being sold to Ulf the tanner, for which Drem was thankful.

Da negotiated enough coin to see us through winter and longer, and I don’t have to spend half a moon with my nose plugged, a cloth wrapped around my face and my hands stained orange.

New holds had been built beyond the timber walls of Kergard, sprawling on both sides of the track with no apparent plan or design, a snarl of timber, wattle and daub and thatch, fences, pigs, goats, chickens, dogs, a cacophony of noise as Drem and Olin rode by.

‘Looks different,’ Drem remarked.

‘Aye, and smells different,’ Olin said, frowning at the advancement of civilization all around him.

The smell didn’t improve much once they’d rumbled through the open gates, Olin nodding to the man on guard duty. Kergard wasn’t ruled by a lord or king, the Desolation was free of such rulers and authority, free even of the Ben-Elim for the time being, as it was newly settled land. A group of Kergard’s founders had worked together in the building of the village and had decided on a democratic council with no one man to lead or rule them. They’d called themselves the Assembly, and over the years some had died or left Kergard, while some of the new settlers had been invited to join the Assembly, but the core of the Assembly was still the same as it had been some twenty years ago. Ulf the tanner was one of them. Between them they organized a tithe from those who lived within the village’s walls, and that tithe paid for roads, building repairs, labour and, amongst other things, for a small unit of guards. It was the Wild, after all, and crops, herds and homes often needed defending from the predators that lurked and roamed within the dark and storm-racked north. Most of the guardsmen were older men, retired trappers and huntsmen, whose days of roaming the Bonefell’s were behind them.

Drem guided the ponies through busy streets of hard-packed earth, more people about than he had ever seen in Kergard before. They made their way through the village and towards the eastern fringes, where Ulf’s tanning yard was situated. Drem could smell the place before sighting it, the sharp tang of his lime-water vats and the sickly stench of fat-scraped hides lying thick as smoke in the air.

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