DREM
Drem stared in horror as he saw Sig fall to the ground, one hand grasping blindly for her sword.
No, she cannot fall. We have only just found each other.
It was strange, little more than a day shared between them, but Drem felt as if he’d known Sig all of his life, felt she was kin to him, and the pain he experienced at seeing her fall was all the greater because of that.
He raised his sword over his head and bellowed.
‘TRUTH AND COURAGE,’ his da’s battle-cry.
Mine, now, he thought, if what Sig and the others said is true.
He was standing over the body of some half-man beast whose corpse he’d hacked into bloody ruin, the only way to get it to stop trying to bite, claw and chew him. He’d slipped into a frenzy as he had struck it down, fuelled by horror and fear at what was attacking him, felt as if he was walking through some living, waking nightmare.
He ran towards Sig, or where he thought she was, too many of the enemy swirling around for him to see her in the mad dancing shadows made by the torches and wind and starlight.
And he heard his battle-cry echoed back at him.
‘Truth and Courage,’ a voice cried, a figure leaping onto the table of horrors, an acolyte pushing back a hood to reveal a freshly shaven head, sword and shield in his hand.
Cullen!
Even as Drem saw him, the young warrior was swinging his sword, dancing along the table, avoiding sword and spear thrusts, grasping hands, snapping jaws and slashing claws, chopping and stabbing as he went, acolytes and Ferals falling, more trying to scramble up with him, Cullen’s boot, sword and shield boss slamming into them, denying them. Where Sig slew like a force of nature, a strength and inevitability built into her every move, Cullen fought with a blend of skill and joy, smiling, laughing as he drew blood-soaked lines, a precision and mastery to his every move so that it was almost like watching art. A deadly art.
Drem reached the acolytes swarming around Sig’s prone form, arms rising and falling. He swung his sword and short axe, screams and grunts, blood spraying as he cut and carved his way through them. Then the ones in front of him leaped into the air.
No, not leaping, thrown.
And Sig rose from amongst them, blood sheeting her face, a flap of skin hanging from her cheek, one eye swollen closed, the rest of her body a similar miscellany of wounds, shield upon her back dented and splintered, but she grinned to see him, blood on her teeth, her sword in her fist.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she growled.
‘Friends are a rare thing,’ he said to her.
They fought back to back, then, turning, stabbing, cutting, Drem’s limbs growing leaden, his very bones aching as blows shivered up his arm, breath a hot rasp in his throat.
Gulla’s daughter descended upon them, swooping, stabbing, wheeling away. Sig snatched a weighted net from her belt, swinging it around her head like a lasso and releasing. It wrapped around the half-breed, wings and all, the lead weights’ momentum swinging them in snaring loops, and the creature crashed to the ground.
A space cleared around them, hooded, shaven-haired warriors pausing, panting, bleeding. Sig spat a glob of blood. Drem saw a figure on the edge of the clearing, hooded in acolyte’s robes, emerging from the shadows and stabbing another acolyte, then slipping back into the darkness.
What?
A figure stepped into the space around Sig and Drem, slender and tall, fair hair shaved from her head.
Fritha, the Starstone Sword in her hand.
She stopped before Drem, out of reach of his blade, held a hand up to the acolytes behind her, a command. For a long moment she regarded Drem with her sheer blue eyes, which he had once thought bright and beautiful. Now he just thought they were cold. A bandage was wrapped diagonally around her shoulder and back.
‘Put your weapons down,’ she said to him. ‘You cannot win. Put them down, and live.’
‘What, to become one of those half-men?’ He shuddered. ‘Or like that?’ He nodded to Burg’s form on the table, still lying there, curled up like a bairn, twitching and jerking. Cullen fought nearby; silhouetted figures were climbing onto the table, pushing Cullen away from Burg.
‘That would be too great an honour. But no, not a Feral. My shieldman, maybe.’ She smiled at him, then, and it did not have the effect upon him that it used to.
‘You lied to me,’ Drem said, thinking of all the deceptions, the smiles and lies behind those eyes.
‘I saved your life,’ she said. ‘I could have killed you, let them slay you in the forest. I forbade them.’
‘Why?’
‘I know who you are, Drem. Son of Olin and Neve, nephew to Byrne, High Captain of the Order of the Bright Star. You would be a valued prize, especially if you stood at my side.’
‘That’ll never happen,’ Drem grunted.
‘All you have to do is open your eyes and see the truth.’
‘The truth?’ Drem spat.
‘Aye, that all is not as the Ben-Elim tell you. That they are the great evil, not the Kadoshim.’
‘I know the truth well enough when I see it,’ Drem snarled. ‘Only lies and murder from you, truth and friendship from my friends.’
‘Ha, you see,’ Fritha said, ‘I told you. There is something about you, Drem ben Olin. Something innocent, and loyal. Like a faithful hound. Once you give yourself, your loyalty, it would be unswerving, I think. I would like that. I am destined for great things, you know.’ She smiled again, a hint of the future in it, a promise of glory and greatness.
Drem ben Olin. That is who I am. My father’s son.
He thought of how he had stayed to find her, that day in the forest, instead of leaving with his da. His da had been alive, then, and was dead, now. Because of that decision. Because of her.
‘You are a murderer, Fritha, and I am going to kill you for it. Now, or another time.’ He shrugged. ‘Justice, for my da.’
‘A pity,’ she said.
‘And I am going to take that black sword from your dead fingers and use it to carve Asroth’s head from his shoulders.’
‘Blasphemy,’ she hissed at him, a crouched snarl, the first real emotion he’d seen from her, and with a wave of her hand the acolytes surged forwards.
Drem stabbed and swung his sword, used his axe more defensively, or to chop at fingers, wrists or arms that came too close in the crush. He was no mighty warrior like Sig or Cullen, but he had spent many years learning how to wield an axe and knife from his da, and the rage he felt for his da’s murderer gave him new strength and speed. And these acolytes, while many of them clearly had some blade-craft, they were no weapons-masters like Sig and Cullen. Now that the frenzied blood-rush of battle’s first moments had passed, Drem saw that some of them were hesitating, holding back, a glimmer of fear in their eyes. He lunged, stabbed a man through the throat and kicked the body away. It fell back into those behind, a momentary lull, giving Drem a few moments to fill his lungs. A crash drew his eyes to Cullen, still on the table-top, though a Feral man was upon it too. Cullen had kicked one of the torches into the crowd, flames catching in a cloak, spreading, men screaming, and he’d swept up another torch in his shield-hand as the Feral surged at him, all strength and snarl and saliva. Cullen slipped to the side, and as the creature barrelled past him, shoved his burning torch into its torso, flames catching in the tattered rags that passed for clothing, and he pushed it hard with his shield, sending the creature careening from the table into a knot of acolytes. Flames and snarls exploded, acolytes screaming.
Cullen grinned, pleased with himself.
Something moved on the table behind him. A figure shifting, a shadow rising.
Burg.
But not Burg. He was changed, as Gulla had been, a pulsing, rippling sense of malice and vitality to him, like a black halo.
And there is something wrong with his mouth. As if it had grown, too big for his face, teeth appearing sharper, needlelike, and far too many of them.
Cullen sensed something, maybe heard a movement, and spun on his feet to face this new foe. Burg took a few steps, unsteady jerks and twitches, and Cullen danced forwards and buried his sword in his belly.
Burg curled around the blade, then grinned, standing tall.
Cullen tried to rip his sword free but Burg grabbed his sword hand, a blur of movement, and Burg was grasping Cullen, lifting him high over his head, Cullen smashing his shield into Burg’s face, with little effect. And then Cullen was flying through the air, crunching to the ground and rolling, coming to a halt a dozen paces from Drem and Sig.
They fought their way to him, stood either side, and slowly Cullen rose on shaky legs.
‘Well, he’s a lot stronger than he looks.’
Drem gave Cullen his axe and drew his bone-handled seax.
‘You’ve got the ambush you hoped for, or a trap, at least,’ Sig growled at Cullen as she shrugged her shield from her back onto her arm. They formed a loose circle, Sig and Cullen with shields raised, acolytes all around them, Ferals prowling at the periphery.
‘Aye.’ Cullen grinned. ‘And it’s one that’s busy stabbing them in the arse!’ He lunged forwards adder-fast, axe singing, crunching into the forehead of an acolyte. ‘Or the head,’ he amended. ‘Though for the life of me I do not know how they can stand this,’ Cullen cried, rubbing the bristles of his shaved head. ‘It’s so cold! And it’s sure as eggs not going to help me with the ladies back in Dun Seren!’
Drem felt a laugh bubbling up within him, even with death a heartbeat away.
I like my new family.
He wasn’t too hopeful on how long they’d get to spend in each other’s company, though. They’d managed to stay alive this long because of Sig’s ferocity and perpetual movement, and Cullen’s position upon the huge table, where he’d been able to elude and leap and dance over every lunge and stab at him. Now, however, they were encircled by a crowd of their enemies.
I think we’re going to die here.