Sig twisted in her saddle, looking back at them all.
‘Are any of you for Drassil? Speak now, there’s no shame or insult in it. I’ll think no worse of you, but it’s better to know now, than hold it in.’
A long silence, serious faces looking back at her. All could meet Sig’s gaze, none looking away, which held stronger weight to Sig’s mind than any spoken word.
Sig nodded to herself and turned back to the Ben-Elim.
‘There you are, then,’ Sig said to Kushiel. ‘You’ve had your answer.’ She sat straight in her saddle. ‘Now get out of my way.’
Kushiel hovered in front of Sig a long moment, then his wings beat and he was rising to the battlements.
‘Israfil will hear of this,’ he said to Nara, then winged higher, joining his kin, and with great beats of their white-feathered wings they were flying away from Uthandun, blurring into the rain-soaked sky.
Sig looked up at Nara and dipped her head to the Queen of Ardain. Then she lifted a fist and uttered a command, Hammer lumbering forwards.
‘To Dun Seren,’ she called out as she passed through the gates of Uthandun, her voice echoing and booming, and it felt good to hear those words out loud. Cullen and Keld rode either side of her, their small band of would-be warriors cantering in a ragged double column behind them. Sig rode down the long slope towards the Darkwood and onto the wide bridge that crossed the Afren, Fen loping ahead of her and merging with the shadows and murk of the Darkwood. Rab was clinging on to Cullen’s saddle as if his life depended upon it, bobbing and swaying with the rhythm of it, wings ruffled and pointing in all directions.
Sig felt her spirits lift at the thought of returning home, but there was a shadow over her soul, the sense of terrors unseen growing ever stronger.
So, the Kadoshim are moving, and now I discover that the Ben-Elim are enforcing a tithe of flesh. Asking for volunteers is one thing, but this! They are enslaving those within their borders to a life of military servitude. This is something else that Byrne must hear about, if she does not know already. How can Ethlinn and Balur One-Eye condone this?
She heard Hammer grumbling beneath her, sensing her mood, and patted her shoulder.
‘Dark days ahead, my bad-tempered friend,’ she said, ‘but we’ll face them together.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
DREM
Drem walked back from the paddocks, boots crunching on the fresh snow in his yard, up the steps of his cabin, where he stamped his feet and then into the warmth of home. Heat from the hearth washed his face as he shed his cloak and pulled gloves off with cold-stiff and clumsy hands.
His head felt as if it were packed with wool, so much had happened.
It was highsun now, though the sun wasn’t too clear in the sky outside, lurking somewhere behind thickening snow cloud that was rolling down from the north. It had taken almost half a day to deal with Calder’s corpse. Drem had taken Fritha and her hound back to their hold, the hound still breathing, last he’d seen it. Hask, Fritha’s grandfather, had started squawking at her like an old crow the moment Fritha set foot inside, remonstrating her for leaving without making his porridge.
‘Your granddaughter needs some looking after, herself,’ Drem had said to the old man. ‘She’s been through a hard morning. Could do with some care.’
‘What have you done to Surl!’ Hask had yelled at Drem, as the hound was in his arms at the time, Drem carrying it into their home and laying it upon a fur that Fritha ran and fetched.
‘Feed him up: red meat, milk, cheese,’ Drem had said to Fritha, choosing to ignore the barrage of abuse and accusations that frothed from Hask’s mouth. ‘He’s a strong animal, got heart to take off into the Wild like he did. And don’t listen to him,’ Drem had added quietly, a nod at her grandfather.
Sometimes age doesn’t mellow and soften, sometimes it twists and toughens, squeezing all the kindness out of a soul.
‘He’s not always like this,’ Fritha had said. ‘Worse in the mornings.’ She’d paused. ‘And the evenings.’
Drem had stood to leave, eager to get back to Olin.
Fritha had held his wrist as he made for the door.
‘There’s something about you, Drem ben Olin,’ she’d said.
‘There is?’ he’d said, not knowing in the slightest what she meant.
‘Yes.’ She’d nodded, stepping closer, and suddenly he had been very aware of the sheer blue of her eyes, the scatter of freckles across her cheeks and nose.
‘You’re different from other men.’
Am I? Is that good? Bad? How?
‘There’s an innocence to you, nothing asked or expected. And a loyalty.’ She had nodded to herself. ‘You’re a good friend to have, Drem, a rare find, and I’m grateful to you.’
‘Well, you’re welcome,’ Drem had said, feeling his neck flush red. Not knowing what else to say, he’d turned and left, enjoying the pleasant feeling that was fluttering around inside his belly, and then he’d ridden hard for Kergard, seeking out Ulf the tanner and telling him of the grisly find. Drem had returned to his da while Ulf had sought out Hildith and the other Assembly members, promising to gather men and a wain. Olin didn’t seem to have done much, bits of Calder were still spread about a wide area, but he was on one knee examining the ground.
‘There was a bear here,’ Olin had said as Drem dismounted. Bear-prints were all over the area. But Olin had been frowning, studying the ground.
‘What’s wrong, Da?’ Drem had asked.
Then Ulf had arrived, a score of men with him, some Drem recognized, many that he didn’t. It hadn’t been long before any tracks and clues as to why Calder had been there were trampled away. Drem had stood with Olin as he spoke to Ulf, away from the others as men set to gathering up Calder’s scattered remains and loading them into the wain.
‘Look at the wounds on Calder’s body,’ Olin had said to Ulf.
‘There’s not much left to look at’, Ulf had said bitterly. ‘We must hunt that bear down.’
‘Beneath his ribs there’s another wound, doesn’t look like a bear’s doing, to me. Looks more like a blade,’ Olin said. Ulf frowned.
‘You must be mistaken,’ Ulf had said.
‘Just look,’ Olin had said, and then he was calling Drem and they were leaving.
And now they were home, Drem feeling his extremities beginning to thaw as the fire crackling in the hearth did its work.
His da was standing with his back to Drem, leaning over a bench in their sparsely furnished room, the black iron of the new sword a dull gleam upon the dark-grained timber. He was riveting a wooden hilt of ash to the tang.
‘How’s your shoulder?’ his da asked him, not looking up from his work.