Drem clamped his jaws together, trying to stop them from chattering as he knelt on the forest floor and peered through a carefully manufactured screen of pine branches and shrubs. After crawling from the freezing grasp of the river, he had shivered involuntarily for a whole day and night. Even now, another day on from that, he had to fight the occasional spasm that rippled through his jaws. Cold had seeped into him, deep as his bones, and did not want to relinquish its hold.
They had spent close to a whole day and night in the grip of the river, sheer granite cliffs rising either side of them, Drem lying upon a thick-slabbed sheet of ice, Cullen and Keld upon Hammer’s back as she swam at first, and then spent her energy on trying to stay afloat. Cullen had managed to tie Keld to the huge saddle across Hammer’s back and then cast a rope to Drem, who had tied it about the hilt of his seax and stabbed it deep into the ice raft he’d been clinging to, so that they would not become separated through the dark of night.
It had felt like the longest night of Drem’s life, too terrified of rolling off his makeshift raft or losing his friends to sleep. He had been sure that death was only ever a handful of heartbeats away.
When dawn had spread its pale glow across the river, he’d seen that the cliffs had given way to steep-sided slopes of shingle and pine, and as the day had worn on eventually shallow riverbanks appeared. Hammer paddled her way towards dry land, forging across the white-foamed current. The bear had crawled and scraped her bulk out of the river, then stumbled and limped to the granite boulder she was still slumped against now. Cullen had dragged Drem in by the rope and together they had cut Keld from Hammer’s back and laid him out on the ground. He’d been unconscious and had remained more or less in the same state since then. Drem and Cullen had immediately set about making a fire and shelter, both knowing the cold was likely to kill them far faster than any pursuit from Ferals and half-breed Kadoshim. They had stripped their clothes, Cullen chopping bundles of coppiced willow branches while Drem had shivered and shaken his way through, dragging out spare cloaks and hide blankets that had been bundled into Hammer’s saddle bags and stitching them together. Even half-frozen, fingers, toes and lips turning blue, it had not taken them long to fashion a hide shelter and scrape a fire-pit, banked with stones from the riverbed and lit with wood from a dead pine tree.
After a stuttered, shivering conference, both Drem and Cullen had been confident that the river had carried them so far and fast that, unless their enemy built rafts and followed them down the river, there was at least three days’ safety between them and their pursuers.
Apart from the half-breed.
Mustn’t make a sound now. He put a hand to his jaw and physically clamped it shut, his eyes scanning the surrounding woodland through his latticed hide, looking up to search the treetop canopy.
Where is she?
Cullen was crouching in another hide in the shadows of a stand of pine, not more than thirty paces away from Drem. The sound of the river was a constant background roar in Drem’s ears, unhelpfully masking other sounds. They were too close to the riverbank where Hammer had dragged them ashore. Drem could see the bulk of the bear through the trees, a deeper darkness beyond the rough tent he and Cullen had built and where Keld still lay. Hammer was slumped beneath the shadow of a granite boulder. If there was any trouble Drem doubted the bear would be any help, she had hardly moved since she had staggered from the river.
Hammer’s done enough for us.
A rustling in the trees above and Drem shifted, quickly and quietly, tightening his grip on a rough javelin he’d carved.
A wood pigeon, that was all.
Cullen said he saw her, the half-breed, flying along the river.
Maybe she won’t come this way.
But Drem was sure that she would. He remembered her voice in his ear, the look of hatred.
This is for my brother, she had said.
Don’t think she’s the type to give up.
He stared at the path that led through the trees to the river. If the half-breed had led Fritha and her acolytes here, if they’d built rafts and floated down the river, then that path was the only approach to their makeshift camp.
Lot of “ifs” there.
A twig cracked, drawing Drem’s eyes. A shadow in the darkness, solidifying into a figure. Squat, muscular, carrying a spear, wings arching over its back.
Drem felt his heartbeat quicken. He’d sat in hides a thousand times, hunting elk and other beasts, and never felt the worry of it.
Hunting half-breed Kadoshim is different, though.
His hand reached to his neck, found the comforting beat of his pulse.
The half-breed trod carefully through the pines. Boughs hung low over her head.
Harder for her to fly here. That’s in our favour.
Drem focused on breathing long and slow, resisting the urge to burst from his hide and hurl his javelin.
Wait. It’s all about the timing, my da used to say.
She was close, now, fifty paces, her head swivelling, searching the gloom. Close enough for Drem to see the purpling bruising across her flat nose and eyes, from where he’d headbutted her.
Good. Though I came off worse in that meeting. The knife-cut along his waist burned with every movement.
Drem could see the fabric of her wool tunic, taut and stretched over the musculature of her arms, a thick neck above her leather, fur-trimmed vest.
Then she saw their tent, the patchwork of loosely stitched cloaks and blankets. The half-breed froze for long moments, staring at it, scanning the woodland around it.
Take the bait.
She took a step towards the tent, then another, and another, her spear-point coming down, levelled in front of her.
Drem shifted the grip on his javelin, slow and steady.
Just like hunting. Wait for the moment, then stand and throw. One move.
The half-breed was a dozen paces from their makeshift camp, and by now she must be able to see the shadowed outline of a figure inside the tent, a bulge pressed up against the fabric. Little did she know that it was a branch wrapped in a cloak. Drem remembered the rush of pride he’d felt at Cullen’s praise for this trap. The bait, the lure, the hides, all Drem’s idea, drawn from his hunting skills. It had just been obvious to him, what he thought anyone would have thought of.
Nevertheless, Cullen had been impressed and, as Drem was finding out about the red-haired warrior, he had not been reticent about verbalizing how he felt.
Five paces from the tent, the half-breed started to raise her spear, preparing for a stab at the shape in the fabric.
When she lunges is the moment. A few more paces and she’ll be perfectly placed for both of us. Almost there.
And then with an explosion of undergrowth Cullen burst from his hide and hurled his javelin.
No!
The half-breed leaped, no frozen moment, no fight-or-flight hesitation from her, just instant kinetic motion. Upwards, a short beat of her wings giving her extra height, her head brushing the canopy above her, where she hovered as Cullen’s javelin hissed harmlessly beneath her.
Cullen was already running at her, his sword grating from its scabbard.
The half-breed drew back her spear-arm.
He’s too far away, she’s going to skewer him like a charging boar.
Drem crashed out of his hide, to the half-breed’s left, making far more noise than he ever had before. Intentionally.
Her head turned towards him, a snarl twisting her features as she recognized him. Her wings moved, shifting her in the air, and in a heartbeat her spear was hurtling at him instead of Cullen, the half-breed bursting into flight behind it, straight at him.
Drem dived to his right. The forest litter was thick and spongy with fallen pine needles, the spring in it helping him to roll to his knees as the half-breed’s spear slammed into a tree trunk that had been immediately behind him.
Drem hurled his javelin, the half-breed throwing herself to the side, swerving but not breaking her flying charge at him. Drem’s weapon pierced a leathery wing but passed through it with no apparent effect, other than a small tattered hole in the wing.
Drem grabbed for the hilt of his seax, and then she was slamming into him, her shoulder punching into his belly, lifting him bodily from the ground, both of them flying through the air. Drem crunched into a tree, stars exploding in his vision, air expelled from his lungs, hot lines of pain opening up across his back as the claw wounds from the Feral burst open. The half-breed wrapped a fist around his throat, holding him upright, squeezing.
Drem’s vision swam, his hand fumbling for his seax, finding the bone hilt, drawing and slashing in the same move, cutting across the half-breed’s vest, slicing through leather and the fur lining beneath, through the linen under-tunic, and into flesh.
The half-breed flung herself backwards, a grunt of pain, a long diagonal line welling blood across her chest.
A whistle of air and she was ducking, turning as Cullen’s sword slashed through air, grazing her wing.
She reeled away, backhanded Cullen in the mouth, sending him staggering to one knee, and she stepped forwards, punched him in the temple, knocked him sprawling to the ground.
Drem pushed away from the tree and slashed at her again, drawing red across her back, cut the base where one wing met her back muscle. She cried out, stumbling forwards, regained her balance and ran, wings snapping wide; a beat, and she was lifting from the ground.
Drem chased after her.
The half-breed rose, swaying in the air, lost altitude, her feet grazing the ground, still running, wings trying to lift her again.
I’ve damaged her wing.
Drem increased his speed. He was tall, muscular and strong, but he had long legs and was unusually fast for someone so heavy. He gained on the wounded half-breed. She flew low to the ground, hindered by the low branches of the pine trees. Drem’s legs and arms pumping, drawing closer, thirty paces behind her, twenty, ten. And then she burst out from the trees into open air, the river wide and foaming white, shingle slopes rising on the river’s far side.
Drem exploded from the trees onto a grassy verge, sloping down to the silt and reeds of the riverbank.
The half-breed was rising, swaying erratically in the air, lurching towards the river. Drem skidded to a halt, breathing great blasts of mist into the cold air as he watched the half-breed fly ever higher into the grey sky, hoping that her injured wing would fail her and she would plummet back down to the ground.
She flew beyond the bank, out over the river.
Footsteps drumming behind him and Cullen staggered out from the trees, ran on past Drem, down the slope towards the river. Drem saw Cullen’s hand fumble at his belt, unclipping a folded net, a lead-weighted ball stitched to each corner. The half-breed was at least twenty paces out and up from him as Cullen reached the water’s edge. She saw the warrior, gave him a hate-filled snarl, then saw him raise the net over his head, swinging it in looping circles, the lead balls humming through the air.
The half-breed’s expression changed, a twisted flash of fear and she turned in the air, wings beating harder, a grunt of pain.
Cullen threw the net.
It whistled through the air, rising up, fast and high, reached the apex of its flight and the net opened, lead balls spreading, dragging it down, folding perfectly around the half-breed, the weights spinning around an ankle, a wrist, snaring her wings. She struggled for a weightless moment, then with a despairing cry she tumbled from the air, crashed into the river in an explosion of crystal-cold foam.
The creature disappeared, submerged. Drem, staring, saw her come up twenty or thirty paces downriver, carried by the fast-flowing current. She bobbed on the water, trussed and struggling.
Cullen strode into the water, but almost immediately it rose too deep. Drem ran to his side, splashing into the icy-cold.
The half-breed was carried along, sinking and rising, spluttering and gasping, bound tight in the net’s grip, and then she was gone, the river sweeping her around a bend.
Cullen looked at Drem, blood dripping from his lip; he cuffed away more from a cut above his eye.
“Hope the bitch drowns,” Cullen said, and spat blood into the water.