The hound wined, lifting its head from the trunk, seeming as if even that movement took the greatest effort.
Drem stared at the hound’s torso, trying to work out what was wrong. He could see the shape of its shoulder, the line of its back, but the colour was wrong, and it looked as if it had been draped with a cloak. A dark and red-veined cloak, the colour of burned charcoal from the forge. Then its body shifted, a ripple from neck to tail and the coal-black shape detached itself from the hound, rising, coalescing into a creature with red eyes set in a bloated, flat-muzzled head and long, needlelike fangs that dripped blood. A tremor pulsed through its body, vellum-like wings undulating, stretching out, twice as wide as the hound, now, snapping taut, a leathery rustle as the creature moved.
‘BAT!’ Olin yelled, throwing himself to the ground as the bat launched itself at him. It was bigger than a war shield, a high-pitched screeching like grating bones issuing from its mouth, talons raking at Olin’s back, his horse behind rearing and screaming, lashing out with hooves. The bat veered away, a shadow in flight, bearing back down upon Olin, who was turning, hampered by the deep snow. The bat landed on his chest, hurling him flat on his back, those long fangs darting down, towards Olin’s neck.
Drem flung himself at the creature, a blind rage filling him at the thought of it hurting his da and part-bellow, part-shriek burst from his throat as he slammed into the giant bat, hurling it from Olin, Drem rolling with it in a fountain of snow, wings tangling with his arms, a foul stench of rot and decay mingled with the sickly-sweet tang of fresh blood. Drem came to a halt on his back, grabbed at the bat’s wings as fangs snapped a handspan from his face, a wave of putrescence washing over him, making him gag. He tried to grab the beast by the throat, but its wings were beating a whirlwind in his face. A sharp claw on the spine of a wing slashed his arm, cutting through hide and thick wool to open the flesh beneath, a burning pain and blood-splatter across his face.
Seax on my belt. But he couldn’t spare a hand to reach it, tried to roll the creature into the snow but the weight of its body, the jerk and thrust of its muscular neck made it impossible to do anything but hold it, and he wasn’t doing that very well.
Fritha appeared above him, swinging a branch at the bat, crunching into its body. With a crack the branch splintered and Fritha grabbed a wing, heaving on it, but the blood-frenzied bat ignored her, jaws snapping closer and closer to Drem’s throat.
Another line of raking fire as the wing-talon gouged into his arm again, and then the bat’s head lurched forwards, fangs sinking into Drem’s shoulder.
He screamed, loud and echoing, new strength fuelling his body, and he ripped the bat from his flesh, blood trailing a crimson arc, the creature frenzied, jaws gnashing, red-lipped, and then, abruptly, its head exploded, blood and bone and rancid skin raining down upon Drem, in his eyes, his mouth, up his nose.
He coughed and spluttered, hurled the bat corpse away, its wings still twitching, wiped clots of blood and bone from his eyes and saw his da standing over him, framed by snow in the canopy above.
Drem rolled onto his side and vomited bile onto the snow, where it steamed in the frost-filled air. A hand under his arm and he was standing, his da checking him over.
‘Just my shoulder,’ Drem said, shivering at the thought of those long fangs in his flesh. Strangely, it wasn’t hurting, even under his da’s probing fingers it felt numb, just a faint echo of what he expected.
‘Can’t feel it,’ he mumbled.
‘That’s the bat’s saliva,’ his da muttered. ‘It numbs, like willow bark or skullcap. They usually attack prey that’s sleeping, can drain you dry without you feeling a thing.’
‘Is it dangerous?’ Drem asked, panic stirring that the numbness would spread, stop his heart and lungs from beating, or that he might die of some infectious disease.
‘Let’s get you home, clean it out properly.’
‘Aye,’ Drem agreed enthusiastically.
Fritha was sitting with her hound; the animal was still breathing, its head on her lap.
‘Will he live?’ Fritha asked, a tear rolling down her cheek.
‘Depends how long that thing had been feeding on him,’ Olin said, crouching and stroking the hound’s neck. ‘Get him home, clean his wound, feed him up.’ Olin shrugged. Then he looked past Fritha, eyes fixing on something beyond the hound. He stood, walked slowly forwards, examining the ground.
‘Get the ponies,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘We’ll see if we can get that hound up across one of their backs.’
Drem turned to find the ponies but had only taken a few steps before he felt a hand upon his arm. It was Fritha.
‘Thank you,’ she said. He opened his mouth to say something but she leaned forwards and kissed him on the cheek, a gentle brush of lips on skin, a hint of honey on her breath. Compared to the cloying stench of blood that was hovering around his face it was like a whisper of heaven.
‘Let’s get those ponies,’ she said and walked on, leaving him standing there, the beginnings of a smile twitching his lips.
Neither of the ponies had gone far; Drem’s was standing and stripping bark from a tree trunk, Olin’s remaining almost exactly where it had been to begin with.
‘What’s that?’ Fritha said, pointing at a dark object in the snow.
It was the new-forged sword, lying upon the snow, the tang, cross-guard and a handspan of the black blade poking from its sheepskin wrapping.
‘Nothing,’ Drem muttered, stooping and scooping it up, hastily pulling the sheepskin up over the tang.
‘Drem,’ his da shouted, voice muted in the snow-wreathed woods. There was a tone to it that set his skin tingling.
Drem ran, left the ponies, sword gripped tightly under his arm, the crunch of Fritha’s feet behind him. They didn’t have to go far. The smell hit Drem before he saw.
‘Think I’ve found what brought that hound into the woods,’ Olin said, standing and staring as Drem and Fritha stopped either side of him.
‘Asroth below,’ Fritha breathed.
Before them was a scene of carnage. The ground was stamped and churned, snow and blood mixed to a bloody sludge. Drem saw huge paw-prints amongst the pink mire. Lumps of meat were scattered all about the area. It took Drem a few moments to recognize them as body parts. A hand, half a leg, a shoulder and arm, flesh tattered and torn. A torso and head, the body almost eviscerated, guts strewn about like so much old rope.
‘No,’ Drem whispered, because the head staring lifelessly into nowhere had belonged to someone he knew, someone his da called friend.
It was Calder the smith.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BLEDA