‘Aye, true enough,’ Alcyon agreed. ‘The Kadoshim were far better prepared than us, that was plain to see. They knew we were coming. Knew we were two forces. Knew the routes we would approach by, and they laid their ambushes well. And we blundered in, expecting to crush them as we had before. Huh.’ He wagged a finger at them both. ‘Never underestimate your enemy, but especially not the Kadoshim. Their numbers were winnowed on that first day, when Asroth fell, and there are certainly far fewer of them than Ben-Elim, but they are creatures of deep cunning.’
Like their kin, the Ben-Elim.
Horns blew outside, echoing in to them.
‘Best be off for prayers,’ Alcyon said.
‘Are you not coming?’ Jin asked.
‘Me? No,’ Alcyon said, a twist of his lips.
Bleda noted that with interest.
So, giants are not the obedient slaves I thought them.
‘Our thanks,’ Bleda said. ‘You have taught us much today.’
More than old Jibril ever has.
Alcyon waved a hand but had that faraway look again. Bleda and Jin rose and left him to his thoughts.
‘See, they are not unbeatable,’ Jin said to him as they stepped out into the street. ‘Not like the Cheren and Sirak will be when we are wed.’
She squeezed his hand and ran for the prayer-hall looking back to grin at the startled expression that cracked his cold-face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SIG
I should have gone straight after Keld, not sat at Uthandun waiting for him, Sig berated herself, not for the first time, as she ran through the rain, each drop feeling like a chip of ice flung into her face by a spite-filled wind. She’d left Hammer in the stable at Uthandun, her paw not yet recovered enough for a hard run across the wind-blasted hills of Ardain. At the edge of Sig’s vision she glimpsed Rab, the albino crow flapping stoically onwards, a white blur amidst the sheeting downpour.
Cullen rode alongside Sig, head down and cloak up against the wind and rain. Sig had thought about ordering him to stay behind, but he was part of her crew. He’d splinted and bound his wounded arm with strips of wood and leather.
Elgin rode at Sig’s left, grim-faced, a score of men in column behind them. Nara had wanted to come herself, but Elgin and Sig had convinced the Queen of Ardain to remain at Uthandun. Rab had said that he’d found Keld’s hounds, not Keld himself. They’d left as soon as they could after Rab’s arrival, making the most of what day remained before nightfall. Since then Sig had hardly shared a word with the white crow, who had led them north-west, past the hill where the Kadoshim had been discovered, on into foothills that had once separated the realms of Narvon and Cambren, long united now by the marriage of Conall and Edana over a hundred years ago.
They’d made camp as darkness fell. Rab had disappeared, only rejoining them with a screeching admonishment to hurry up as dawn crept unannounced across the land, a grey, rain-soaked shroud. Now Sig guessed it was close to highsun, though that was hard to tell – a diffuse glow only hinting at a sun beyond the leaden sky. They were climbing steadily into the hills, the terrain a bleak mixture of exposed granite and stunted, twisted trees.
‘Sets a good pace, that crow of yours,’ Elgin said.
‘Aye,’ grunted Sig, concentrating on the loose rocks and rabbit holes at her feet. To her surprise and anger she was feeling the pace that Rab was setting, lungs burning, legs aching – she, who used to run for a ten-night as easy as rising.
There’s a lot to be said for riding bears into battle, but I’m going to have to do something about this.
Ahead, Rab began to circle a spot, spiralling downwards.
Sig wiped rain from her eyes, saw forms materializing upon the path where it narrowed before a sharp turn. To the right was a sheer rock face, to the left a steep drop to a fast-flowing stream. Sig slowed, loosened the sword sheathed across her back, Elgin and Cullen doing the same.
Bodies were scattered across the path, twisted in death. Eight, ten, Sig counted, checking them carefully. Keld was not amongst them, though Sig found his huntsman’s axe embedded in the skull of a shaven-haired man. Sig put her foot on the man’s head and wrenched the axe free. All of the dead had shaved heads in common, like those they had found at the Kadoshim’s lair. Many of the death wounds were ragged tears, flesh torn and ripped. One of Keld’s hounds, Hella the brindle bitch, lay strewn across the path, bodies piled around her, a bodiless arm in her mouth, strips of frayed flesh and sinew hanging at the shoulder. A score of puncture wounds crusted dark with blood ranged along the hound’s side, her back leg almost chopped clean through.
Sig knelt by the dead hound and put her hand on its head a moment.
‘Thank you, Hella, faithful hound, for your sacrifice. You will be avenged.’
‘Ach.’ Cullen spat. ‘Keld will take this hard.’
Aye, if he still lives, Sig thought. Keld would never have left Hella like this. He’s either slain or captured. She felt a stab of fear for her friend, quickly morphing into a swell of rage.
They will pay for this.
Beyond the dead was a small cabin, situated just around the bend. It looked like a goat-herder’s hut. Elgin and a handful of men approached it, Elgin kicking the door down with one booted foot, sticking his head in.
‘Empty,’ he called over his shoulder.
A squawking drew Sig’s attention. She looked around for Rab, couldn’t see him at first, then spotted the crow down by the stream at the bottom of the slope.
‘Come, come,’ Rab was squawking, hopping about upon a rock, bobbing and shaking his head, muttering to himself.
‘QUICK!’ Rab screeched.
Sig made her way down the slope, skidding and sliding on slick, goat-cropped grass, the sound of others behind her.
Rab had found Keld’s other hound, Fen, lying upon the corpse of another shaven-haired man, a long, bloody knife still gripped in the man’s fist. His throat was a red, ragged wound.
The hound’s hind legs trailed in the stream. He was covered in wounds, one ear missing, but he was still alive, his big chest rising and falling.
‘Poor Fen,’ Rab croaked mournfully. ‘Sig help Fen?’
‘Aye,’ Sig grunted, ripping a strip from her cloak and soaking it in the stream, then setting to washing out the hound’s wounds, fingers gently probing for broken bones. Footsteps thudded around them as Elgin and a few others joined them.
‘Tracks leading on into the hills,’ Elgin said. ‘My tracker says ten, maybe twelve of them. Looks like your man was still alive then. He tells me they’re maybe one day ahead of us, so we’ve gained on them.’ He looked at the big hound, the shallow rise and fall of its chest. ‘We should be after them.’
‘A few moments,’ Sig said. ‘Keld will take his axe to me if he hears I left his Fen to die.’ She was rummaging through her pack, crushing dried comfrey and lavender in her big fists, drizzling honey into the mix and packing it into the hound’s many wounds. Fen whined, lifted his head to look at Sig, then slumped back down. Sig wrapped bandages where she could.
‘One man to stay and guard him. Give him water.’ Sig unstoppered her brot bottle and poured some into the strip she’d torn from her cloak, squeezed a few drops into Fen’s mouth. ‘And give him this.’
‘One man to guard a dying hound? Can we spare him, not knowing what lies ahead?’ Elgin frowned.