Riv was hovering above the gate’s battlements, stabbing at the first Revenant to scale the wall. It fell back with a shriek, blue flame crackling from a hole in its throat.
“Riv, come on,” Meical called to her, the Ben-Elim winging back towards the keep. Riv saw the first warriors reaching the keep’s open doorway, others sprinting across the courtyard. The wall was clear of them, now, and that had been why Riv had lingered: to protect any stragglers. She saw a rune-marked spear on the wall, its owner dead; she sheathed her sword and swept down to it, plucked it up, beat her wings and gained some height as Revenants started to swarm over the battlements.
A noise on the wind, swirling louder and then quieter, snatched away, blurred by the hiss of rain. A roaring.
Then she saw a handful of figures change direction in the courtyard, her sharp eyes picking out Drem, Keld and Cullen. Alcyon was close behind them, a few more warriors followed, one of them the man with the flaming sword. Riv couldn’t remember his name, though she liked his fighting style—all-out attack, no thought of defence. They were heading away from the keep.
Riv flew into the courtyard, swirled around the statue of Corban and started to fly after Drem and the others.
“Riv,” Meical called again. He was hovering above the steps of the keep. He saw her hesitate, her eyes staring after Drem and the others, and he flew to her.
“We’d be no use inside the keep,” Riv said. “We should go with them.” She nodded into the darkness, where Drem and the dozen others had disappeared. Something about Drem, Cullen and Keld reminded her of her friends Vald and Jost. A camaraderie they shared, a friendship forged in blood.
The thought of Vald caused a knot in her gut, like a fist wrapping around her intestines.
He’s dead. Fallen on the field protecting me.
“They’ll need our help,” she shouted.
Meical stared. The sound of bears roaring swirled around them. There was an edge to it that Riv didn’t like.
It sounds like… pain.
“The mist-walkers must have scaled the wall,” she said. “Come on.”
“Byrne needs to know,” Meical said.
“No time to wait, I’m going after them.” Riv shifted and beat her wings, speed building as Meical wheeled away, back to the keep.
In heartbeats she was alone, twisting through a wide street, wind and rain whipping into her face. The sound of feet, figures appeared out of the darkness: Alcyon, Drem, half a dozen others charging towards the building ahead of them. As the group drew near, the door exploded open, splinters of wood, two figures careening out into the street. Two men, both dressed in the Order’s dark mail. They rolled on the ground, came to a halt. The one on top looked… strange, then his head thrust down and his jaws clamped around the other’s throat. A savage wrench, a spray of blood.
A Revenant! How?
Riv swept lower, almost level with Drem and the others.
Keld was closest to the creature in the street. His sword arm came back, began to swing, but the creature saw him, ducked with unnatural speed and rolled to the side. Keld’s sword hissed over its head and Keld’s momentum was carrying him on, his feet skidding to check his speed and he was turning, his backswing catching the Revenant as it leaped at him. A flash of blue fire, but the creature kept coming, crashing into Keld, and the two of them flew through the air, crunching to the ground, rolling. They slowed, limbs thrashing, the Revenant on top, one hand over Keld’s face, pinning him, its mouth opening wide, bearing down.
Riv saw movement at the edge of her vision, heard a savage growling, and two wolven-hounds burst from the shadows, crashing into the figure on top of Keld, hurling it off him.
The wolven-hounds set about ripping the still-rolling Revenant to pieces, tearing chunks of flesh from its arms and legs. It came to a halt, got one knee beneath it and rose, the hounds snapping, snarling, ripping. The Revenant lashed out with a taloned hand, sending one wolven-hound stumbling away, grabbed the other one by the fur of its neck and opened its mouth wide, fangs dripping. The wolven-hound squirmed and bucked, growling and whining in the Revenant’s grip, but its hold did not loosen.
Riv’s spear took the Revenant through its open mouth, a spatter of blue fire and the creature flopped into a puddle, its grip on the wolven-hound abruptly loose. Now Riv was closer, she could see the hound was red-furred, the other one a dark slate grey, like storm clouds.
“My… thanks,” Keld panted as he rolled to his knees. The wolven-hounds pushed themselves close, licking his face.
“Ach, you two, you’re a pair, so you are,” Keld said, ruffling their fur, hugging them. “I told you both to stay out of it. I can’t rune-mark your teeth and claws, and I’d not have you ripped open or infected by one of them.” His lip curled, a glance at the Revenant.
“Love and loyalty thinks not of itself,” Alcyon murmured.
Riv looked at the giant—something in those words struck a chord in her.
Drem gave Keld his arm, helping the huntsman up.
“I’m fine, lad,” Keld said to Drem’s worried look. Keld sounded angry with himself. “The sight of him, it shocked me. Slowed me down.” He pointed to the Revenant.
“It’s Giluf,” Drem said. “We left him in the hospice with a bite wound in his neck.”
Screams echoed out behind the shattered door.
The warrior with the flaming sword was first through it: no hesitation, he charged in, curved sword raised high. A woman followed, stern-faced, wielding a curved sword.
A crash, grunting, a scream. Riv was desperate to get inside, but Alcyon’s bulk filled the doorway, then he was through, Cullen after him and Riv close behind.
She paused a moment, blinked. The stench of death was thick in the room, blood and excrement.
A healer’s room, by the number of beds and the way they were laid out, and by the cupboards lining the walls, bottles and jars full of herbs and plants. Now everyone was dead.
The room was a slaughterhouse, blood everywhere, sprayed across the walls, glistening pools on the floor. The flaming sword chopped into a Revenant’s neck; its head spun through the air.
Alcyon’s axes swung, an explosion of blue light as another Revenant fell, body opened up from shoulder to gut.
Then it was silent, punctuated by the groans and wet rattle of the dying.
“Four, five Revenants did this,” Drem whispered, nudging corpses with his boot. “I told them to strap Giluf and the others tight, to watch them close.”
“Not tight enough, not close enough,” Cullen snarled, stabbing a dead Revenant; its body twitched.
“It’s dead,” the warrior with the flaming sword said.
Cullen shrugged. “Makes me feel better, Utul,” he grunted.
Utul stuck his sword into a dead Revenant. He looked up at Cullen and grinned. “So it does,” he said.
“Tsk,” chided the woman at Utul’s side.
“They have turned so quickly,” Keld muttered.
“Come,” Alcyon grunted, “they are all beyond our help here, but the living still need us.”
Another roar swept through the open doorway on a gust of wind, this one louder.
Alcyon ran into the night, the others following, Riv running out through the door and into the air, beating her wings.