‘This is no ordinary hound, as you well know. Storm’s wolven blood runs in his veins, and Keld will not be best pleased if we abandon him while there’s breath in his body.’
‘I am not convinced of the wisdom,’ Elgin said.
‘Fen one of US!’ Rab squawked, shaking his wings at Elgin.
‘Trust me on this, and I’ll not forget the favour,’ Sig said, holding Elgin’s gaze. The battlechief rubbed his bearded jaw, finally nodded and bellowed up the slope to his men.
‘Rab, after Keld,’ Sig grunted and the crow leaped into the air, flapping and rising. Sig bent and stroked Fen’s head. ‘Live,’ she whispered, ‘Keld still needs you.’
The hound whined and then Sig was climbing the slope; Cullen was waiting for her at the top. She handed him Keld’s axe. ‘Look after this for Keld,’ she said. ‘He’ll be wanting it back.’
‘I’ll keep it warm for him, maybe crack a few skulls with it before I put it in his hand,’ Cullen said.
Sig crawled uphill through the grass, doing all she could to hide her bulk, her breath sounding to her as if it would wake a sleeping draig. Four of Elgin’s men were with her, the rest back on the path, waiting for the signal. For three days she’d cursed the rain, but now that it had stopped she wished that it was still falling, knowing it would have served to hide their approach better than the clear sky above her, slipping from blue to purple as the sun sank into the horizon.
Dusk settled about them, that time when shadows were thick as mist, and up ahead Sig saw the darker shape of a cabin, a handful of outbuildings, a pig pen, judging by the smell drifting down the hill to her. Behind and above the cabin on the hilltop there was the silhouette of a large mound, with patches of the sun’s last rays gleaming through it.
What is that? An unlit bonfire?
Rab had returned, after scouting ahead, with the news that Keld was only half a league ahead. The crow had seen Keld dragged by his captors into the cabin that stood before Sig now. Sig’s first instinct was to charge in, screaming death and murder at her enemies, but she knew Keld would be the first to have his throat cut. So she was hoping stealth would serve them better; Elgin and the others were still mounted and waiting a short distance away for the sound of battle.
What are they doing here? Why is Keld still alive? Why didn’t they just kill him back on the path with his hounds?
She crawled closer to the cabin, maybe a hundred of her long strides away, then closer still, grass tickling her nose.
A scream rang out from the cabin, raw and full of pain.
Keld.
Sig was on her feet before she realized it, the others a few heartbeats behind her, and then she was running at the cabin, drawing a knife from its sheath at her belt.
A plan will only take you so far.
The thunder of her iron-shod boots, every breath loud as a drumbeat in her head, behind her Elgin’s men, running, steel hissing from scabbards. Another scream, long and lingering. The sound of a door opening on the far side of the cabin, footsteps on wooden boards, then mud. Sig pointed; three of the men with her peeled away to circle the cabin. The drum of hooves, distant.
And then Sig was there, leaping up the wooden steps and kicking at the door. It collapsed inwards, a cloud of dust exploding. As it settled, Sig saw the glow of firelight, faces turned, all staring at her, ten, twelve people, more in the shadows. And Keld, in the centre of the room, strapped to a frame similar to the one Sig had seen inside the Kadoshim’s lair, cross-shaped, his wrists and ankles strapped tight, stripped to the waist, drenched in sweat. Fingers were missing from his left hand, blood streaming down his forearm, dripping to the floorboards, pooling. He was spitting curses at his captors, foam flecking his mouth.
The closest shaven-haired man to Keld was standing frozen with mouth open, bloody knife raised.
Sig threw her own knife, the big blade spun, crunched into the man’s face, hurling him halfway across the room. A moment’s silence, then men were rushing her, swords, knives, axes in fists. Sig’s longsword scraped from its scabbard across her back and she snarled a curse at them, striding through the doorway, not waiting for them to reach her.
‘TRUTH AND COURAGE,’ she bellowed, swinging her sword, a head spinning with her first blow, the body’s momentum causing it to stumble on into her. Sig shoved it aside, fouling a man’s rush at her, her fist crunching into his mouth, lips mangled, teeth spraying as he dropped on top of the headless corpse. Steel clashed as blows rained upon her, catching some with her blade, others thudding into the shield strapped across her back, or glancing off her chainmail shirt. Then Elgin’s men were pounding up the stairs behind her to protect her flanks and rear as she forged into the room, carving her way to Keld.
Vaguely Sig was aware of a door on the far side of the room bursting open: the rest of Elgin’s men that had accompanied her storming in, falling upon the shaven-haired acolytes, and beyond the timber walls she heard the thunder of hooves. But it was all as if through mist, her focus on Keld and anyone fool enough to get in her way. She hacked, stabbed and chopped her way through flesh, bone and steel, men hurling themselves at her, one scratching at her face, raking her with blackened nails, teeth snapping at her neck. She headbutted him with her jutting brow, crushing his nose, grabbed a fistful of his cloak’s hood and slammed his head into her knee, then cast his limp body aside.
Then she was standing before Keld; his eyes were wild with pain, but he recognized her, mouth moving, words whispered, incoherent at first.
‘Forgive me,’ Sig finally heard.
‘For what?’ Sig grunted as she tugged at his bonds. They were tied tight, cutting into his flesh. She sliced through them, taking his weight as he fell onto her.
‘Failing you,’ he mumbled, spittle and blood hanging from his jaw.
‘Ach, my friend,’ Sig said, ‘it is I who has failed you. I should have been here sooner.’
‘Better late, than . . . never,’ he said, a twitch of a manic smile. ‘My bairns?’ Keld growled.
Sig took a deep breath.
‘Fen still lives,’ she said, ‘but Hella is gone.’
Keld’s face twisted, a blast of raw grief, then Sig was turning as an acolyte rushed towards her, sword raised high. Keld slumped to his knees. Sig caught the blow on her blade, but before she could retaliate, an axe slammed into the acolyte’s head, wrenched free in a spray of bone and gore as the man collapsed, twitching. Cullen stood over the corpse.
‘Brought your axe for you,’ he said to Keld.
‘Good . . . lad,’ Keld mumbled. ‘The message,’ he said, voice trailing off. His head lolled, eyes rolling.
‘The message?’ Sig prompted as she and Cullen crouched down beside Keld. His eyes snapped back into focus.