Behind it was a huge boulder, rising like a cliff face. As Drem moved to get a clearer view, the stench grew worse, fetid and cloying.
A man stood in the boulder’s shadow, wrapped in furs and cloak, a spear in his hand that he rattled against the rock, clanging on iron, and Drem saw darker shapes in the boulder, iron bars slatted across them.
Cells, dug into the rock face, iron-barred gates.
‘Shut your row,’ the guard shouted again as strange howls and whines echoed out from many cells, haunting, chilling Drem’s blood.
As Drem watched, the man walked a dozen paces, turned to face the wall, his back to Drem, and urinated up the rock face. Drem hurried across the open space, long legs speeding him, the man hearing him at the last moment, turning, urine steaming in the icy cold, but not quick enough to avoid Drem’s spear-butt in the head. He dropped with a grunt, cloak hood falling away. Another shaven-haired man.
Drem hit him again, just to be sure.
A sound in the cell closest to him and he approached it, saw only darkness inside, a form moving, deep at the back. A warning growl.
Drem bumped into the table, turned and looked at it.
Tools were scattered across its surface, saws and knives, a butcher’s cleaver chopped into the wood. Thick iron rings were set deep into the timber, chains hanging from them. Then Drem realized what the lumps he’d seen spread upon the table were.
Body parts.
Some animal, some human. Arms, legs, torsos. A wolven head, a furry shoulder and leg, its paw as big as a plate. A bat like the one that he’d seen feasting on Fritha’s hound was pinned to the table with a spike through its chest, wings spread wide, pierced with iron nails. It tried to flap its wings, a feeble movement, head swivelling to regard him with its red eyes. On the table beside it was a human hand, an iron rod jammed into the gaping wound of its wrist, tendons somehow attached. Other things, unrecognizable. A wooden frame, some kind of fabric stretched across it. Drem peered closer.
Skin! It’s flayed skin!
‘Help . . . me,’ a voice whispered, Drem leaping around, spear pointing. A shape moved in one of the cells, a dark shadow shifting.
‘Please,’ the voice whispered, slurring, as if drunken or broken-jawed.
There were rush torches set in holders about the table, some blackened, burned-out stumps, others still fresh. Drem took his fire iron from his belt pouch and struck sparks, a torch flaring to life. He knew how dangerous it was, here in the middle of this place, enemies all around – but that voice. He recognized it.
‘Sten?’ he said, holding the torch up, approaching the boulder. Darkness retreated, orange glow washing the rock face, shadows flickering and dancing, the cells looking like myriad dark eyes staring back at him, silent as secrets. ‘Sten?’ Drem said again.
Sten was one of the trappers from Kergard who had not returned from the Bonefells, along with his partner, Vidar. Drem remembered Ulf telling him and his da over a skin of mead and a warm fire. That seemed like so long ago.
Light from Drem’s torch pushed back the darkness in the cell, a figure slowly emerging, a man, stooped and hunched, shambling forwards, dragging one foot that was twisted at an odd angle.
‘Stennnn,’ the figure whispered, finally looking up at Drem.
He almost dropped the torch.
It was Sten, but not as Drem remembered him. His lower jaw was distended, looking too big for his head and hanging open, sharp teeth rowed within red, swollen gums, and his eyes were yellow. His hands were curled, as if sore and swollen, nails grown long and black.
‘Sten, what have they done to you?’ Drem whispered.
‘Killll me,’ the thing that had been Sten breathed.
‘Vidar; where’s Vidar?’ Drem asked, stepping close to the iron bars. Sten twisted his head, bones clicking. Muscles bunched in his shoulders and back, unnaturally large between shoulder and neck, taut as knotted rope.
‘Vidarrrrrr gone,’ Sten groaned, eyes flitting to the table behind Drem. He slumped, like a sail with no wind, then suddenly grew, swelling, and hurled himself at the iron bars of his cage, clawed hands clutching at Drem, snagging in his torch, his cloak. Drem leaped backwards, stumbling and falling into the snow. Sten pounded and snarled and smashed at the iron bars, a feral fury sending an explosion of dust and fragments of stone from where they were buried into the rock face.
All along the boulder things swarmed to their cell bars, crouched things, things on all fours, looking like huge, mutated wolven, bears, badgers, other creatures of the Wild. And then there were things that stood like men, or half-men, bodies unnaturally muscled, furred in parts, bones elongated. At one cage a bairn stumbled forwards, feet stretched and clawed. It wrapped its too-long jaws around an iron bar and shook it, saliva and blood dripping down the iron in long streaks.
Drem staggered to his feet, backing away, spear levelled at the cages as his torch sputtered and went out. His hands shook. Horror and fear swept through him, threatened to overwhelm him.
Behind him the bear roared in its pen, the door rattling, a loud crack as it swiped a paw at the lock. Voices shouted. The guard groaned in the snow.
A horn blew, further away, faint and distant. Beyond the enclosure, from the direction of the lake.
Drem ran, blindly, no destination in mind, just away from these creatures of nightmare. He kicked the rousing guard in the head as he raced past, then rushed into the darkness. In moments he was at the encampment wall, felt a wild moment of panic, feeling trapped, knew that if he was found he’d be thrown to those things in the cells, or worse, turned into one of them. He saw a set of stairs that climbed the palisade and sprinted up them, slipped on half-frozen snow, righted himself and reached the top.
He turned and stared back into the compound, saw figures holding torches running to the boulder, one thrusting his burning torch into a cell, a high-pitched scream rang out. Something else moved close to the bear pen, a tall figure, wreathed in shadow.
Too tall, can’t be a man.
He felt sick, his stomach threatening to empty itself, cold wind snatching at him. He put a hand to his neck, found that his cloak and undergarments were torn, right down to his bare skin.
Sten’s claws.
He shivered.
Movement elsewhere caught Drem’s eye, the horn he’d heard still ringing out, and he saw activity towards the southern end of the encampment: figures hurrying onto the pier. Further out, shapes emerged from the darkness, two boats, bristling with oars, rowing steadily for the dock. And in the dark skies above them a shape flew, two more appearing, dark shadows skimming the water, a shimmer in the starlight.
Too big for birds, Drem frowned. Then he saw one alight on the pier, a winged man in chainmail shirt. Shaven-haired warriors fell to their knees, bowing.
A rush of ice swept through his veins, a new level of fear.
It cannot be! Kadoshim.