‘Little Drem.’ Keld chuckled, shaking his head. Somehow Drem thought a smile on the man’s face was a rare thing.
‘There’s more to tell you, that I’ve discovered since I wrote the letter to you,’ Drem said, desperate to hear more of his past, of his mam and da, but he knew the knowledge he had was momentous.
‘You said something last night. About Kadoshim, but you were delirious by that point,’ Keld said.
‘Aye, you were off with the faeries.’ Cullen grinned.
Three days and nights of no sleep and then being hanged, again, will do that to a man.
‘And Asger told us of a great bonfire in the Bonefells.’
‘Aye,’ Drem said. ‘What of it?’
‘There have been bonfires, beacons, lit throughout the Banished Lands. We know it is some kind of signal amongst the Kadoshim. Which is another reason for my presence. It is a hint that the Kadoshim are here, this far north, and if they are, the Order must know.’
‘They are,’ Drem said. ‘The Kadoshim. I saw them. Only half a day’s ride from here.’ He gestured vaguely north-east.
‘They?’ Cullen asked. ‘More than one?’
‘Aye.’ Drem nodded.
The three newcomers shared a look.
‘How many?’ Sig asked Drem.
Drem closed his eyes, remembering those moments when he’d stood on the palisade and stared out over Starstone Lake.
‘I saw three, at least,’ he said at last. ‘It was night, there could have been more.’
He saw the questions forming on all their lips and held a hand up. ‘But before that, I must tell you this. My da found a lump of the Starstone, and he fashioned a sword from it.’
‘What?’ Sig, Keld and Cullen said in unison. Rab squawked above them.
‘Why?’ Sig said. ‘The man I knew would not have done something so rash, not without good reason.’
‘He wanted to end it all. The war between Kadoshim and Ben-Elim, wanted them gone from the Banished Lands.’
‘And how was he going to accomplish that with one sword?’ Cullen said. ‘Even if it was a magic one.’
‘He planned to cut Asroth’s head from his shoulders.’
A silence, Sig and Keld sharing a long glance.
Cullen whistled.
‘Well, that would probably do it,’ Keld said.
‘And who has this sword, now?’ Sig asked.
‘The Kadoshim must. My da’s killer took it from him.’
Sig looked at him pointedly.
‘Tell us everything you know.’
So Drem did, beginning with the clues he’d discovered that pointed to another bear and person being his da’s killers, and ending with the nightmare scenes he’d stumbled upon at the mine. The boats returning, Kadoshim in the air. The desperate, exhausted run through the forest.
‘And then you all arrived, saved me,’ Drem said with a shrug.
‘To be fair, you did a large part of that job for us,’ Keld said. ‘We’ve counted the dead. You must have put fifteen of them down before we got here.’
‘Sixteen,’ Cullen said.
‘Olin would have been proud of you,’ Keld said.
‘The question,’ Sig rumbled, ‘is what are they doing at that mine, and why?’
‘They’re making monsters,’ Drem said. ‘Feral beast-men, strong, fast, and they want to rip your throat out with their claws and teeth!’
‘That’s not the worst trait to have,’ Keld said. ‘Though I’d prefer it if it stayed with my hounds.’
‘But it sounds as if they’re experimenting,’ Cullen said, brows bunching. ‘That whatever they’re trying to create, they haven’t perfected it, yet.’
Aye. The things I saw were as much crippled as they were killing machines.
‘It sounds to me as if the Kadoshim are making weapons,’ Sig said. ‘Which would make a good deal of sense. They have their acolytes, and a lot more of them than we thought, but they still lack the numbers to win this war. They need something to tip the balance in their favour.’ She looked at them all. ‘During the War of Treasures, the first war of the Starstone, when the Seven Treasures were forged from it, the giant Clans did something similar. They bred new species: wolven. White wyrms. Draigs. Living beasts, but they were also weapons of war, used in battle. The Kadoshim are doing the same, but taking it a hundred steps further, using dark magic and evil intentions to create mutated half-breeds.’
‘Why here?’ Drem asked.
‘Because it’s the Desolation, free of the Ben-Elim’s rule, and their watchful eye,’ Keld said.
‘Aye, and do you think it’s a coincidence that this is happening where the Starstone fell?’ Cullen asked. ‘I don’t. That’s why they’ve built a mine. They’ve been searching for a stray bit of starstone. They know the only way to free Asroth from his gaol is with the Starstone.’
‘And my da gave it to them,’ Drem whispered.
‘No, lad,’ Sig rumbled. ‘He was murdered, and had it stolen from him. That’s a different thing entirely. And one that requires vengeance.’
Drem liked the way Sig said that. Not just as if she meant it, but as if it had already happened, was inevitable, and it was just the doing of it that was left to happen.
‘There’s just one other thing I need to ask you about,’ Sig said. ‘You saw a giant bear, stabled at this mine. And you think it’s the one that killed Olin.’
‘Aye,’ Drem nodded.
‘And you saw a figure, like a man, but bigger. As big as me?’
Drem looked her up and down, closed his eyes, remembering the shadowed figure in the feast-room of the mine.
‘Maybe,’ he nodded.
‘They have a rogue giant?’ Keld said.
‘Sounds like it,’ Sig growled. ‘Perhaps it was him, or her, who hit Drem when Olin was killed. And then took the Starstone Sword.’
Drem nodded thoughtfully.
That would make sense of the abductions, the bear killings and sacrifices. Bear, giant and Kadoshim, all working together.
A thought hit him.
Fritha’s hold, smashed by a bear, and leather in the hound’s jaws. Surl the hound bit the giant, which killed it and old Hask, and abducted Fritha to take her back there, to the mine, to be experimented upon. She is one of their Feral things, now. It could have been her body parts upon that table, or she may have been one of the things that threw itself at the cage bars.
The thought of it made him feel physically sick. Beautiful, kind Fritha, reduced to some creature consumed with bloodlust and used as a weapon.
‘So, what now, chief?’ Keld said to Sig.
‘We go kill them,’ Cullen said. ‘What else?’
‘No,’ Sig said. ‘We take Drem back to Dun Seren and report to Byrne.’
‘But we’re so close,’ Cullen said. ‘And what about these Ferals, and a Starstone Sword? How can we just walk away from that?’
‘You remember Ardain?’ Sig said. ‘Where we attacked one Kadoshim and its coven. We had the Battlechief of Ardain at our back with a few score of his best shieldmen, and it was still a hard fight.’
‘It was nothing,’ Cullen said, ‘we barely worked up a sweat.’
‘That scar on your arm says different,’ Keld said.
‘Aye, well, I’ve matured since then.’
Rab squawked.