Fen stopped in front of Drem, the wolven-hound’s ears pricked forwards, a low snarl and his hackles raised in a ridge between his shoulders. Drem pulled to a sudden halt, swaying with the weight of the packs upon his back.
They were standing close to the ridge of a long, shallow incline that they’d been steadily climbing the whole day, pine still thick about them, for which Drem was grateful. He had a compulsion to check the skies continually for leathery wings. Without thinking, he found himself looking skywards again, although most of it was obscured by layered boughs of pine. Here and there a gleam of light broke through, a few snowflakes drifting down like white leaves.
Does it snow eternally in the Bonefells?
“What is it?” Keld said, joining Drem. The huntsman was sweating and pale but had managed to keep walking from sunset to sundown for the last four days. Keld ate like a starving man each evening and morning, and slept like the dead each night. Drem thought he saw a slight improvement in the huntsman each day.
Drem pointed to Fen, who was alert, totally focused on something he could sense or hear.
Drem couldn’t hear anything.
“What’s the hold up?” Cullen breathed, striding up from behind Hammer.
“Whisht,” Keld said, holding up a hand and cocking his head to one side.
Cullen was silent for long moments. The gentle snowfall had a muting effect on the pinewoods, as if the world were holding its breath.
“I can’t hear anyth—”
Then they all heard it. A distant roar.
Behind them Hammer rumbled, deep in her belly.
Drem looked at Keld.
“It sounds like… a bear,” Drem said. He put his hand to his throat, found his pulse.
“Aye,” Keld agreed.
They heard it again, clearer. Beyond the ridge, almost dead south.
“Think we should go around,” Drem said, thinking of Fritha’s giant and his bear.
“Good idea,” Keld said.
“Be quicker to go straight on,” Cullen said. “Kill it, whatever it is, if we have to.”
“Do you never get tired of fighting, lad?” Keld snapped.
“No,” Cullen said without hesitation, looking at Keld as if he were mad.
Another roar, sounding louder, closer. There was an odd note in it. Drem had heard a lot of roaring from bears lately, challenging, fighting. This wasn’t quite like that. Still…
“We’ll go around,” Keld said firmly.
Hammer snorted behind them, dug a gout of forest litter with a paw and broke into a lumbering run, surging past them, limping a little, but showing more energy than at any point since she’d leaped into the river.
“What’s got under her skin?” Keld frowned.
“Don’t know, but whatever it is, we can’t let her face it alone,” Cullen said, hefting the pack on his back and breaking into a laboured run.
Keld scowled. “Damn it.” And then he was running, too, Fen keeping pace with him.
Drem sighed and followed.
Cresting the ridge, a gentle downward slope running away from him, Drem glimpsed to his right the sharp rise of a cliff face running parallel to his course, probably a few hundred paces away. To his left was a sea of trees.
Another roar, louder, that same odd edge to it that struck Drem as unusual. Then it dawned on him what it was.
Fear.
No; terror.
He caught up with Keld, the pack on Drem’s back actually increasing his speed as he ran downhill. He saw the bulk of Hammer ahead, and close behind her Cullen, legs pumping away like a racing hare as he tried to catch up with the bear.
Drem glanced at Keld, saw that he was sweating and blowing a little, but looking as if he had it all under control.
The pinewoods were opening up, huge boulders scattered around them, looking like the long-buried skulls of giants poking from the forest floor. Snow was thicker on the ground as the density of the treetop canopy lessened.
An ear-splitting roar, very close now, and then Hammer was slowing. Drem heard an answering roar from her. Cullen finally caught up with her and skidded to a halt beside the bear.
Thirty paces from them, Drem’s breath and pounding heart was all he could hear. He saw Cullen shoulder off his pack, draw his sword.
Never a good sign.
Drem drew his seax and a hand-axe in preparation. There were the two bears roaring, the sound of timber splintering, and something else, a sound beneath the clangour, constant, though ebbing and flowing—a hissing, like steam.
And then Drem was there, running around Hammer, almost colliding with Cullen.
For long moments he could not understand what was happening in front of them.
Struggling in the centre of a glade, there was a giant white bear.
Drem’s breath caught in his throat as his hand went to the bear claw around his neck.
Is it my bear? The one that nearly killed me and Da?
He tried to check if it was missing a claw on its right paw, but it was impossible to tell, because the bear was fighting for its life.
Bone-white things, like huge coils of pearly rope, were looped and twisted around the bear—around its torso, its neck, its legs. For a moment Drem thought the bear must have become caught in some giant kind of net, with rope as thick as Drem’s chest, except that the rope around the white bear had teeth. More than one set of teeth.
And they were ripping the bear to shreds.
Keld skidded to a halt beside Drem.
“Wyrms!” he hissed.
Fen crouched and growled, baring his teeth in a savage snarl.
Have I stepped out of the real into a world of faery tales?
The tales told of an ancient creature, bred thousands of years ago by giants and used in the War of Treasures; giant wyrms, snake-like, but bigger, much, much bigger, and the wyrms in front of Drem were a thousand times bigger than any adder he’d ever seen. For once, the tales didn’t seem to have exaggerated.
They were huge, red-eyed sinuous lengths of scale and muscle, their jaws flat-muzzled and rowed with teeth. Drem counted at least four sets of eyes and teeth, though it was hard to understand where one wyrm ended and another began, not helped by the way the white bear was lurching around the glade, trying to break free of the coiled loops that were binding and constricting his movement.
The white bear was huge, at least a head taller and wider than Hammer, but it was obvious that it was losing this fight. Blood stained its white fur, oozing from dozens of puncture wounds, and the coils of the wyrms were wrapping ever-tighter about its torso, as well as seeking to tether the bear’s legs. Its jaws were wide, clamping onto scales. The bear’s teeth sank deep and it shook its head savagely, blood and scales spraying, but the wyrm just hissed and bared its fangs, twisting and bucking in muscular spasms to break free.
The white bear slashed with a paw, scouring red lines across the wyrm’s body, and Drem saw for a clear moment that one claw was missing from the bear’s paw.
It is my bear, then.
His instinct was to go and help this bear, though a voice whispered in his head that he was mad to think of such a thing.
It is the wild, nature’s way, the voice said. The strong kill and eat the weak. You have done it a thousand times yourself.
And yet…
It was his white bear, and he felt a sympathy for it, some kind of bond. The first time he’d encountered it, the bear had tried to kill him and his da. Not the best beginning, he acknowledged. They had only just escaped, Drem cutting a claw from its paw, which he had worn around his neck ever since. It had not been long after that corpses had started turning up in the forests north of Kergard, torn and mauled with tooth and claw. Old Bodil, Calder the smith, Hask, Fritha’s grandfather. Even the death of Olin, Drem’s da, had been attributed to the white bear. But Drem had discovered the truth of it, that the true murderers were Fritha and her giant’s bear.
The white bear had been hunted by the people of Kergard, trapped and caught, dragged back to the town and caged as a trophy. It had been close to a bear-baiting from the town’s huntsmen and their hounds.
Drem had set the bear free.
Even now he didn’t quite understand why he had done so, only that he had felt a huge sympathy for it, this magnificent creature of the wild, blamed and about to be murdered for acts it had not committed.
The white bear roared, rage, pain, terror, all rolled into one, and Drem took a step towards it.
Don’t be a fool. Walk on—you must reach Dun Seren, a voice in his head said. Those wyrms will kill you all. And besides, why try and save a bear that would be as likely to eat you as to thank you?
Despite the voice in his head, he took another step forwards, felt Keld’s grip on his wrist, looked at the huntsman, saw Cullen staring at him as well.
And then Hammer was moving, roaring, throwing herself at the wyrms wrapped around the white bear.
Cullen shrugged, grinned and charged.
So did Drem.
He heard Keld swear behind him, then the sound of the huntsman and Fen following in his wake.
Snow on the ground had been churned to pink sludge. Drem’s boots slipped as he chopped with his hand-axe at a twist of wyrm-coil that was looped around the white bear’s foreleg. The axe pierced scales, but it was tough, and the blade did not sink deep. He stabbed with his seax, this time piercing flesh, his blade sinking to the hilt, dark, glutinous blood thick as porridge leaking from the wound, but Drem wasn’t sure what real damage he had inflicted. The wyrm was not responding, as if it hadn’t even felt his blows.
To his right he glimpsed Hammer sink her teeth into wyrm flesh, puncturing deep, and in a heartbeat a wyrm head was rearing, loosening a coil about the white bear, hissing, its malevolent red eyes fixing on Hammer.
It felt that, Drem thought.
The wyrm’s jaws opened unnaturally wide, full of too many teeth, as its head drew back and struck at Hammer. She jerked away, but the wyrm was so swift, its teeth clamping onto her neck. Hammer shook violently, but the wyrm’s bite held fast. A flash of steel, and Cullen was there, screaming, chopping at the wyrm’s neck, Hammer retreating, tugging the wyrm with her, dragging its coiled length away from the white bear.
The wyrm did not seem to want to let go its grip on either bear, tail coiled around the white bear, fangs sunk deep into Hammer.
Gouts of flesh and viscous blood flew through the air as Cullen struck and hacked.
Drem left his seax and hand-axe in the wyrm he’d attacked, pivoted and drew his father’s sword. Raising it high overhead, he rushed over to Cullen and Hammer, bringing his blade down diagonally—lightning strike, his father’s voice whispered in his head—slicing deep into the wyrm flesh, the treacle-like blood seeping out. He raised and cut again, and then again, deeper into the great rent in the wyrm’s torso, until a white fluid started mixing with the dark red of its blood. Cullen stood the other side of the wyrm, his blade rising and falling in a frenzy, more butcher than sword master.
Drem glimpsed bone through the carnage of his blows, felt his sword grate on vertebrae. The wyrm, finally relinquishing its grip on Hammer, twisted to look unsteadily at Drem and Cullen, much of its supportive muscle and sinew severed. It bared its fangs at them, snapping at Cullen, but Hammer’s paw swatted it to the ground, the two men still hacking frenziedly, until, with a final blow from Drem, the severed head fell. Its lower body and tail twitched and spasmed, and then was still.
Hammer gave out a victory roar, stamped on the wyrm’s head for good measure, and then leaped forwards, swiping at another wyrm wrapped around the white bear.
“Some help!” Keld cried out. Drem turned to see the huntsman clinging to the back of another wyrm, just below its head, legs and one arm wrapped around the wyrm, his hand-axe rising and falling as he slashed and hacked. This wyrm had detached itself from the white bear and was giving all of its attention to Keld. Fen was leaping in, biting, ripping out chunks of flesh, then jumping away as the tail whipped at him.
Drem and Cullen ran to Keld, began their butcher’s work again.
A tail-strike caught Cullen, sent him spinning through the air.
The wyrm’s head came for Drem, darting forwards, quick as thought.
Drem stabbed his sword up, by immense luck more than skill connected his sword-point with the wyrm’s lower jaw, a burst of instinctive terror adding a wild strength to his blow, punching on up into its head, pinning the jaws together. It flopped to the ground, dragging Drem with it, Keld rolling away, the wyrm’s head shaking frenziedly. Finding purchase with his feet, Drem pushed, driving his sword deeper, felt it scrape on the top of the wyrm’s skull. He twisted his sword. A ripple of spasms through the wyrm’s body as it died.
Drem stood, heaved his blade free.
Then he was flying through the air, lost his grip on his sword and rolled a dozen paces. Scrambling to his knees, he saw a wyrm speeding towards him, jaws open, fangs dripping. He lurched to one side as the head stabbed at him, fast as a spear-strike. As he staggered to his feet, the tail wrapped around his ankles. His natural inclination was to run, but as his ankles were crushed tight together, all he managed to do was fall over. Another coil looped around him. He started to panic, searched for a weapon—his belt empty, his sword out of reach—resorted to punching ineffectually at the thick coils as they constricted around him. Another ripple of muscle and another few loops curled around him, pinning one arm to his side, covering his stomach and lower chest.
He screamed. Regretted that when another constriction squeezed his breath out of him, made it difficult for him to inhale.
The wyrm’s head reared in front of him, a malignant hiss, a tongue flickering, filled with the stench of rotting meat.
Cullen appeared, sword stabbing into the wyrm’s mouth, the wyrm rearing away, its coils loosening around Drem. He sucked in air greedily and squirmed free. Keld offered him a hand and helped him rise. Cullen followed the wyrm, slashed up, left to right in a diagonal cut, like a scabbard-draw, opened a great rent in the wyrm’s torso. Its head lunged at him, even as he stabbed straight into its belly, its jaws opening, vomiting blood as Cullen’s blade sank deep, and two-handed he ripped it upwards, opening its guts as if he were filleting a giant fish.
The wyrm’s jaws closed around Cullen’s head and shoulders, but it was dying, its strength deserting it, the power in its jaws fading. Teeth locked around Cullen, scraping on his skin, but not piercing much deeper than that. The wyrm collapsed in an explosion of blood and slime, dragging Cullen down, burying him in a mountain of its entrails.
An earth-shaking roaring grabbed their attention, Drem looking to see Hammer and the white bear clamping jaws into another wyrm, both of them shaking their muscled necks, tugging the wyrm in two directions. There was a tearing sound as they chewed and tore the creature in half.
The last surviving wyrm uncoiled itself from the white bear’s neck and wove unsteadily from the glade, disappearing through foliage into the cover of woodland in half a heartbeat.
The white bear lifted its head and roared, spittle flying, the ground quaking. It took a staggering step after its fleeing attacker, then a shudder rippled through its body and its front legs collapsed. It toppled onto its side, its chest rising and falling in short, shallow gasps.
“Help… me,” a muffled voice called.
Cullen!
Drem and Keld ran to the pile of dead wyrm, heaved its lifeless bulk away to reveal Cullen buried in a heap of offal, slime and putrescence.
Cullen sat up, looked at Drem, wiped wyrm slime from his face. Spat more of it up. Retched. There was no grin from him now.
“Drem, a question.” Cullen spat out more slime. “Why the hell would you choose to live out here?”
Drem stared at Cullen, started to chuckle, looked at Keld, who laughed, too, and then Drem was throwing his head back and laughing from the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t laughed in a long while, and especially not like this, a deep, uncontrolled laughter that shook his core, rattled his bones and made his jaw ache.
“Well,” he said, cuffing tears away when he could finally draw breath. “At least things can’t get any worse.”
“Can they not?” Cullen said, eyes drifting up.
Drem followed his gaze, and saw a black silhouette high above them, framed against the luminous glow of snow clouds.
A black silhouette with wide, bat-like wings.