Drem sat on a bed in Dun Seren’s hospice while a healer prodded at his shoulder.
“You’re lucky,” Aelred the healer said. “It’s bruised but doesn’t look like its teeth broke your skin.”
Drem blew out a sigh of relief. He’d seen what Gulla’s fangs had done to those he bit.
After the journey back to Dun Seren, all the wounded had been ordered to pay a visit to the fortress’ healers. Keld had accompanied him while they waited to be seen.
They had stood in silence and watched as healers strapped down Giluf, a warrior of the Order with seven Kadoshim kills notched on his sword. He was bandaged around the throat, fresh blood seeping through the fabric. A Revenant had tried to tear his throat open, just missing the artery. It was a deep and ragged wound, though, and Giluf had deteriorated on the journey home. He was acting disoriented, now, his face pale, and he was struggling with the healers.
Drem had spoken to the healers helping Giluf, had advised that they use more straps, and kept a very close watch over the young warrior, and any others bearing signs of puncture wounds from Revenants’ fangs.
“It must be someone else’s blood,” Aelred said, still examining Drem’s shoulder.
“Good,” Drem grunted, a wave of relief flooding him as he proceeded to struggle back into his ringmail and strap his belts back on.
He was feeling exhausted, and downcast. He was glad to be back inside Dun Seren’s walls, but every time he closed his eyes he saw Rosie’s corpse. He knew she was a warhorse, bred and trained for battle with the Kadoshim, and that this life of violence often ended quickly. But he felt he’d let her down. That she’d carried him faithfully, trusting his guidance, and she had died because of it.
What kind of creature did Fritha create that wants to suck the world dry and watch it crumble? Does she have any idea what she’s unleashed?
Drem was slow to anger, but he felt it building within him, now, deep in his core. A rage fuelled by the injustice of it all, the acts of murder and slaughter. He had seen too much death recently: his father, Sig, the battle in the Desolation, and now this.
All of it flowing from that one night at the starstone mine, when Fritha transformed Gulla into a monster. He jerked his weapons-belt tight, buckled it with white knuckles.
“You all right, lad?” Keld asked him.
“No,” Drem said, blowing out a long breath. “I’m angry. At Gulla, Fritha, the Kadoshim and their acolytes. Those blood-drinking Revenants. At all this death and bloodshed.”
“I meant your wound,” Keld said, pointing at Drem’s shoulder.
“Oh.” Drem frowned. “Aye, that’s fine. Just bruises, nothing more. Thanks to this.” He slapped his mail, the blow dispersed in a gentle ripple. “How about you?” Drem nodded at a bandage on Keld’s arm.
“Just a scratch,” the huntsman said. “Claws, not teeth, apparently, so it wasn’t deep. And I’ll not become a Revenant by morning.”
“Well, that’s always good to know,” Drem said.
A horn blast rang out, echoing through the hospice building, repeated again, and then again.
“Call to the walls,” Keld said. He looked at Drem.
“They’re here.”
Drem stood with a groan, muscles aching and stiff. He picked up his helm, tucked his gloves into his belt and then they made their way out into the darkness. He looked briefly towards the bear stables and paddocks, where he’d left the white bear. He had ridden home on the bear’s back, but the animal had growled and curled his lip at Keld, showing his teeth, until the huntsman had dismounted. Drem, though, the bear seemed to tolerate happily for the entire journey back to Dun Seren.
Drem had felt strangely… honoured.
Horns sounded again.
“Come on, lad,” Keld called back to him. “We are needed.”
Drem hurried after Keld. It had taken half a day to get back to Dun Seren from the skirmish with the Revenants. They had caught up with Queen Nara and her people, many loaded on the wains from Dun Seren, and the sun had been sinking into the horizon when the last rider passed through the gates of the fortress. Now it was deep into the night, a blustery wind whipping rain into Drem’s face.
The courtyard was crowded. Drem and Keld threaded their way through people who were making their way into the great keep, most of them inhabitants of the outer ring of Dun Seren, tradespeople and their families.
Byrne had ordered the outer fortress evacuated. It was protected by a stone wall, but Byrne wanted the keep manned only by warriors who carried rune-marked blades, and they would be spread too thin on the outer wall. In truth, they would be spread thin on the inner wall, too, but it was better than the alternative. No warrior was permitted to carry more than one rune-marked blade, allowing for closer to three hundred warriors to line the walls, rather than the hundred and fifty who had ridden out earlier that day. Drem had loaned his sword to a warrior of the Order. He felt more confident with his seax, had spent a decade with it in his fist, whereas he was still adjusting to fighting with a sword. He’d rather fight with the seax than a sword.
Drem climbed the stairwell beside Dun Seren’s gates and found Byrne on the wall.
She was surrounded by Ethlinn and Balur, Kill, Tain and Utul, Alcyon with his twin axes, and a dozen of her honour guard. Meical was also there, and Drem saw Cullen lurking close by. He grinned to see Drem and Keld. All those with rune-marked blades were gathered close on the wall, waiting.
A fluttering of wings and Rab swept down out of the darkness.
“They are here,” the white crow squawked. “Bad people everywhere, filling the shadows.”
More wings from above and Riv appeared. Drem had not had a chance to thank her for helping him.
For saving me. I was trapped and buried, thought it was the end of me, and then she was there. And she did not leave.
“Mist-walkers are swarming through the gates of the first wall,” she said to Byrne, who nodded. Byrne jumped up onto the wall’s rampart and turned to face everyone.
“Our enemy are within the walls of Dun Seren,” she cried. “We are outnumbered, but we have this wall, we have our blades, but greater than that, we have TRUTH AND COURAGE!” She brandished her sword, Drem and three hundred others answering her with a battle-cry that echoed from Dun Seren’s stone walls.
“Drem,” Byrne called, and he made his way to stand before her. She offered him a hand and gripped his wrist, pulling him onto the battlement beside her, though he felt uncomfortable standing before so many.
“The leader of these Revenants,” Byrne called out. “Kill her and the rest of her brood die, just like the horde in the Desolation. Drem knows her.” She looked at Drem. “Describe her.”
Drem closed his eyes, picturing Arvid as he had once known her, as he had seen her that night at the mine on the shores of Starstone Lake. She had been one of Hildith’s enforcers. Tall and broad, long-limbed and muscled. Then Gulla had sunk his teeth into her neck.
“A woman named Arvid,” Drem cried out. “Tall, a muscled physique. Long dark hair. Her clothing was once rich, her tunic of fine wool, embroidery on the neck and sleeves, though it is in tatters now. There was something about her when I saw her: she had more control than these other Revenants, seemed more human, more calculating. And she held a hand-axe in her fist, the first Revenant I have seen with a weapon beyond their teeth and talons. There were other Revenants grouped around her, like an honour guard.” He shrugged. “That is all I can say of her.”
“That is enough,” Byrne said. “If you see her, kill her!” she shouted. “And remember, DO NOT let them bite you.” A moment’s silence as they thought on the consequences of that. “Now, to your stations,” Byrne called.
With that, Drem was jumping back onto the stone walkway and making his way a few hundred paces along the wall. Every twenty paces or so was a burning brazier, a stack of oil-soaked torches piled either side.
Drem buckled his helm on, shook his head to check the strap was tight enough, then pulled his thick leather gloves on.
“Ah, you’re learning, laddie,” Cullen said with a grin, and thrust a shield at Drem. He didn’t really like working with a shield, preferred to have a blade in each fist, which he told Cullen.
“It’s not about liking something,” Cullen said, his face serious for once, “it’s about choosing the right tools for the job. You have one rune-marked blade, not two. And your blade is not so long—you will have to get close to these vermin to use it. You need a shield to hold them off; you know, to stop them from biting your face off while you stab them.”
“Cullen’s right, much as it pains me to say it,” Keld said, hefting his own shield and a sword.
Drem thought about it, knew that the logic was sound and so took the shield. He slipped his hand into the grip behind the shield boss, tested the feel of the iron handle, a bar wrapped in leather riveted to the back of the linden boards. He hefted the shield, measuring its weight. It was large and round, banded in iron, painted black with a four-pointed white star upon it.
The Bright Star.
“My thanks.”
He looked out over the wall.
The night was as black as pitch, rain clouds hiding any sign of moon or stars. Bonfires blazed in the street surrounding the wall, crackling and hissing in the wind-whipped rain, buffeted beacons of light in the darkness.
That is what we are, Drem thought, standing against the darkness of Asroth and his Kadoshim. They spread evil like a plague.
“Where are they?” Cullen muttered beside him.
And then elongated shadows were detaching from the night, a swarm of long-taloned shapes surging towards the wall, mouths gaping.
“Truth and Courage,” Drem whispered, as he drew his seax.