CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

NATHAIR

Nathair sat on the back of his draig, absently patting its back and feeling an answering rumble from deep within its chest as it crushed a path through Forn. Behind him the tramp of two thousand booted feet and ahead strode the messenger who had arrived from Lothar, a man named Helred. They’d left Drassil half a ten-night gone, now, every day and night the same, surrounded by the endless ocean of oak and ash, the forest bearing down upon them, oppressive and dour.

Despite his surroundings, Nathair felt his spirits were lighter. It was being away from Drassil, he was sure, away from Calidus and the Kadoshim, from Lykos and the Vin Thalun, where he was forever reminded of the hand that had engineered his unwitting path.

Out here I can think and plan, without feeling that my every step is monitored, my every thought read.

My only regret is that I am going the wrong way—south instead of north-west. Sent to watch over Lothar when I could have been travelling to reclaim the starstone dagger.

He felt his better mood melting away at that thought.

Does Calidus not trust me? Or does he think me incapable of completing the task?

His mind filled with scenarios, battles, confrontations, each one taking him down a different path.

But we do need more men, if the cauldron, axe and spear are to be kept safe at Drassil. Now that Veradis is with my enemy. Look what he did to Gundul’s warband. We must not underestimate him.

He glanced left and right, scanning the deep shadows of Forn.

Veradis could be out there right now. Watching me.

But would he really attack me?

“Helred, how much longer?” Nathair called out to the messenger before him.

“A few more nights, at least,” Helred replied, an older man, more grey than black in his hair. He was dressed in a huntsman’s garb, hardwearing boots and breeches, a woollen tunic, leather vest and cloak. He walked with a spear in his hand, only a knife at his hip.

He knows his craft, though, the only one of ten men sent by Lothar to get through to Drassil.

His draig raised its head, its long tongue flickering out to taste the air, thick-muscled neck casting its head from side to side. It slowed.

Helred noticed and dropped back.

“Something wrong?” the huntsman asked.

By now everyone had heard of the destruction of Gundul’s warband, and added to that were the raids and ambushes that had befallen every party that had ventured forth from Drassil and had dared the forest.

Nathair raised a hand and horn blasts echoed out, bouncing off of the trees, the warband rippling to a well-trained halt.

“What is it?” Nathair whispered, looking around. The forest was calm and still, a crow cawing angrily somewhere high above, the rustle of branches caressed by a breeze. Nowhere could Nathair see or hear any movement of men amongst the trees, the glint of pale light on iron, the creak of a bent bow or the rasp of a drawn sword. Nothing that suggested an ambush.

He flicked the reins to give his draig its head. Its tongue flitted out again, and then it was lumbering on, to the right, away from their path, into a patch of dense undergrowth thick with thorn and vine. The draig trampled through it, burst into a clearing, then stopped, staring down at a carcass on the floor. Not even that, no skin, flesh or sinew left, not even cartilage, just a collection of bones. The draig was leaning close, tongue fluttering over the bones. It opened its jaws to clamp on one but Nathair barked a sharp order, the draig’s jaws snapping shut as it turned and gave him a doleful stare.

It was a wolven, a big one, its skeleton intact, from muzzle to tail, the skull broad and thick-boned, long curved canines in its jaw.

“There’s more here,” Helred said, joining them, circling the huge skeleton. “Another skeleton here. Much smaller. The big one’s cub, maybe. It broke its leg—look,” Helred said, pointing at where the foreleg of the smaller skeleton was stuck down a hole of some sort.

Rabbit hole, maybe.

Whatever it was, it looked as if the cub had fallen, broken its leg, been unable to move and the adult wolven had stood over its offspring in an attempt to defend it.

That didn’t work out too well.

Nathair crouched beside the skeletons and prodded at a rib with the tip of his sword. The bone was immaculately clean, as if it had been dipped at a tanner’s yard. Usually, no matter how fed-upon a carcass had been, there would be small strips of skin and flesh, some gristle, matted fur. Here there was nothing.

“What did this?” Nathair asked.

“This is Forn,” Helred said with a shrug. “Maybe one beast slew them, a host of others stripping it after. Best not to linger,” he added, looking at their surroundings suspiciously, eyes drifting upwards to the distant cawing of crows, a macabre choir.

“Aye,” Nathair muttered. “Feast,” he said to his draig and the beast snapped at the wolven’s bones, jaws clamping around the back leg of the adult, followed by splintering sounds.

They retreated, Nathair staring at the remains, the warband lurching into motion behind Nathair.

It is only another death within Forn, one of many. And soon there shall be a glut.