A Time of Dread

by John Gwynne

  ‘Secondly, your arm is straight. This is wrong. I keep telling you, a bend at the elbow of your bow arm, otherwise, when you release, the string will shred your skin. Remember last time?’

  Riv did, the throbbing bruise on her arm not letting her forget.

  ‘So,’ Bleda continued, ‘bow arm bent, not straight, bent.’ He paused. ‘Understand?’

  Argh.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Release your draw, you cannot hold this small tree at that angle for more than a few moments. It is a poor design.’ There was a hint of a smile at the edge of his lips, just for a moment.

  Is he enjoying this? Riv clenched her teeth and resisted the urge to throw the bow at Bleda.

  ‘It’s worked well enough for our huntsmen,’ Riv growled.

  ‘You saw Jin with a bow,’ Bleda reminded her.

  ‘Aye,’ Riv sighed, a hint of defeat in her voice.

  ‘Do not take too long about any of it,’ Bleda said. ‘A fight is constant motion, fluid, you moving, your enemy moving. Who has time to stand still for a dozen heartbeats and aim?’

  ‘Show me,’ Riv said, holding the bow out to him.

  ‘I don’t like these bows, but . . .’ He shrugged and took the longbow of yew from her. Riv took a step back, looked at the target and then back at Bleda. The string of his bow was thrumming.

  ‘There,’ he said, holding the bow out to her.

  ‘Huh?’ Riv grunted. She looked back to the target, saw an arrow in the target’s head, just about where an eye socket would be found.

  ‘The eye is a more certain kill if your foe is wearing a cuirass and chainmail. Depending on the distance,’ Bleda said.

  ‘That is amazing,’ Riv said.

  ‘Pah,’ Bleda said. ‘From horseback, against a mounted foe. That is where skill really starts to tell. But you will never shoot from horseback with a bow like this,’ he said, giving Riv back her bow. ‘Too long, too hard to draw. Which is why in Arcona we have bows like this.’ He patted his recurve bow, sitting in a case on his hip. He never seemed to be parted from it these days.

  ‘Do not be dejected,’ Bleda told her. ‘Before too long I will have you loosing three shafts before the first hits your target.’

  You have greater faith in me than I do.

  Footsteps, a tap on Riv’s shoulder.

  It was Vald, her friend.

  My once-friend, she corrected herself. Strangely, since I kicked him in the stones we have not been so close.

  ‘Can we talk?’ Vald said to her. Riv realized that she was looking him in the eye.

  I thought he was taller than me.

  He was still broader, covered in a sheen of sweat, muscles bulging after his training session in the weapons-field.

  He looks tense.

  ‘Aye,’ Riv said.

  ‘Somewhere private,’ Vald said, not able to meet her eyes.

  Riv felt her anger stirring, remembering him treating her like a servant, in front of the whole hundred. Warriors she had lived amongst all her life.

  ‘Whatever it is, you can say it here. And if you’re about to ask me to clean your boots, you’d better bid a final farewell to your stones.’

  A moment’s pause, pride warring with something else across his face.

  Shame?

  Vald sighed, blowing out his cheeks. ‘I just wanted to say . . .’ Vald looked about, saw Bleda standing nearby, outwardly appearing calm and controlled as always, but nevertheless there was something about the way he was looking at Vald. A threat in his eyes. Vald returned his gaze, then looked back to Riv.

  ‘I wanted to say, I am sorry. I should not have treated you like that. We have been friends for many years, trained together, guarded each other’s backs.’ He shrugged. ‘What can I say? I’m an idiot when I drink.’

  Riv felt her anger melt away, replaced with a pleasant glow. She grinned at him.

  ‘It’s forgotten,’ she said easily. Vald gave her a huge grin, relief rolling off him in waves, and offered her the warrior grip, which technically was reserved for those who had passed their warrior trial. Riv appreciated the gesture and took his arm.

  A noise drew their attention, the blowing of horns.

  The three of them looked at one another.

  ‘Too early for prayers,’ Vald said.

  ‘It’s the Lore-Giving,’ Bleda said.

  ‘Aye,’ Riv agreed. People were beginning to leave the weapons-field, heading towards Drassil’s Great Hall.

  ‘Come on,’ Riv said, and with a shrug of her shoulders she led them off the field.

  The last time this happened a half-breed Kadoshim tried to slay Israfil before every eye in Drassil.

  She quickened her pace.

  As they followed the crowds hurrying through Drassil’s wide streets Riv saw her sister, Aphra. She hurried over to her.

  Because the two women she’d seen on the road, that night with Bleda, had been her sister and Fia, and since then Fia had disappeared from their barrack, had not been seen at Drassil. Aphra had been difficult to pin down every time Riv had approached her.

  They stood in the midst of the crowds hastening to the Lore-Giving summons, a rock amidst a fast-flowing river.

  Aphra blinked. ‘There’s no time for this.’ She scowled, waving a hand at the air. ‘The summons.’

  Riv grabbed her arm, holding her fast. ‘I saw you,’ she said in a low voice, urgently, ‘on the road with Fia. Where is she?’

  A flash of concern, then anger.

  Aphra tugged free of her grip and strode on with the fast-flowing crowd, leaving Riv wondering what it was her sister was hiding.

  The Great Hall thrummed with murmured conversation, full to the brim with Drassil’s residents. The tiered steps were not enough to contain everyone, crowds standing pressed close together in stairwells around the room. In the chamber’s heights Ben-Elim flew in lazy circles. They raised horns to their lips as a door opened and Israfil, the Lord Protector, strode into the room, a procession of Ben-Elim behind him. Golden-haired Kol was first amongst them, a score more, spread in two wide columns, and between them walked two figures. One Ben-Elim, one a woman in the training livery of a White-Wing.

  Israfil stopped on the dais, standing before the figures of Asroth and Meical, giant guards looming behind him.

  ‘Faith, Strength and Purity,’ Israfil said, shouting passionately, far from the monotone recitation that was the normal way of speaking Elyon’s Lore. His eyes were blazing, wings twitching with pent-up anger.

  ‘For that is the Way of Elyon,’ Riv muttered along with the rest of the chamber, though she was unsettled by Israfil’s demeanour.

  ‘A crime has been committed, here at Drassil,’ Israfil’s voice boomed, a hush falling over the chamber.

  Riv could see the two figures escorted in the midst of the Ben-Elim. One was the Ben-Elim Adonai, the friend of Kol. He had feasted with Aphra’s hundred the night Riv had kicked Vald in the stones, been seated on the table of honour, alongside Aphra. His skin was pale as milk, eyes dark hollows. The warrior beside him lifted her head. It was Estel, who had been sitting on the bench beside him the same night. Her eyes were red for weeping, face twisted with shame.

  ‘They are accused of improper relations,’ Israfil continued, ‘of behaving in a manner which has been deemed unacceptable between a Ben-Elim and a mortal of the Banished Lands.’

  Whispered murmurs rippled around the chamber. Riv felt herself lurch in her seat, the horror of Israfil’s statement like a blow.

  ‘Elyon the Maker created us all,’ Israfil continued, ‘but the Ben-Elim he created as beings of spirit, without the desires of the flesh. We have become flesh now, as you humans are flesh, but that does not mean he created Ben-Elim and humans to lie one with the other. We Ben-Elim are the Sons of the Mighty, the Separate Ones, that is how Elyon made us, and that is how we shall remain!’ He held a hand up as shouts rang out. ‘These two have not committed that foul act, or their lives would be forfeit. But they have acted imprope
rly, one with the other, and committed acts which if left unpunished may lead to the Great Transgression. To mix the blood of eternal with mortal.’ He paused there, his eyes blazing with wrath. ‘We are Ben-Elim, separate, pure, created so by Elyon. Our blood cannot become diluted, mutated. And that truth is the same for the mortals of these Banished Lands, whether mankind or giant.’ He paused, looking down contemptuously upon Adonai. ‘You would make us less, your thoughtless act threatening to bring upon this earth a new, tainted breed, corrupted by the weakness of human emotion, ruled by the desires of the flesh, rather than Elyon’s Lore. You would make us too weak to enforce the Lore of Elyon.’ He almost spat those last words, took a long, trembling breath to compose himself. ‘We were created separate, and our blood must remain so. The Lore demands it. By pain of death.’

  He turned to the Ben-Elim flanking Adonai and nodded to them, at the same time drawing his sword.

  The Ben-Elim gripped Adonai and forced him to his knees.

  A hush fell across the chamber, across the whole of Drassil, it felt to Riv.

  Adonai looked up at Israfil as he approached.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Adonai whispered, though his voice carried across the crowds. ‘We are all Elyon’s creation.’ His eyes flickered to the Ben-Elim standing guard about him, lingering for a moment upon Kol. He stared back at Adonai with hard eyes.

  ‘Be silent, Lore-breaker,’ Israfil roared as he stood before Adonai.

  ‘Adonai of the Ben-Elim, I judge you guilty of breaking our Holy Lore,’ Israfil cried out as he raised his sword, ‘and in judgement I take your wings.’ The sword sliced down, a sound like soft wood splitting, an explosion of white feathers as the wings were sheared away, followed by a piercing scream, ringing out, another heaped upon another, seeming to Riv that they would never end, fading slowly to a piteous whimper as Adonai slumped in the grip of the Ben-Elim to either side of him. His two white wings lay in the dirt, speckled with crimson as blood pumped sluggishly from the two stumps upon his back.

  Israfil and the Ben-Elim guards stared down at Adonai. Riv glimpsed a ripple of emotion on Kol’s face, something between pity and shame.

  Israfil turned to Estel.

  To Riv’s surprise the woman did not cry or whimper, but instead stood and returned Israfil’s gaze with a silent courage.

  Like a White-Wing, Riv thought.

  ‘You, Estel ap Toril, are stripped of your rank and position in the White-Wings. You are banished, from this moment forth, from Drassil and the Land of the Faithful. You have two moons allotted to you to vacate this realm, after which, if you are discovered within our borders, you will be executed without trial.’

  He glared down upon her, his sword still dripping with Adonai’s blood.

  A white feather drifted down to the ground between them.

  He stepped forwards and grabbed the White-Wing emblem sewn upon the shoulder of her training vest, ripped it off and threw it to the stone floor.

  ‘Do you understand your punishment?’ Israfil said.

  Estel did not answer, just stared at Israfil.

  ‘Estel ap Toril, do you understand your punishment?’ Israfil repeated, quieter, yet more terrifying.

  ‘I do,’ Estel said, bowing her head, a sob rippling through her, quickly controlled.

  ‘Get them out of my sight,’ Israfil snarled and strode from the Great Hall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DREM

  Drem opened the door, looking out and along the track that led to their hold. Riders were approaching. Lots of them.

  ‘Da,’ Drem said, stepping out onto the porch. His da followed, moved in front of him, wrapping a cloak about his shoulders and slipping the Starstone Sword inside it.

  Riders cantered into their courtyard, ten, twelve, sixteen men, more still coming. Drem felt a leaden weight shift in his belly, because he recognized some amongst them. The man at their head was shaven-haired and had a scar running from mouth to jaw, and behind him rode a man with a wispy red beard. He had a new bruise that covered half his face, one eye purpled and swollen.

  Has he been fighting someone else?

  As they reined their mounts in before the cabin, Drem recognized more of them: one had a splinted forearm, and another splint upon his hand, where Drem had crushed it and broken finger bones. Others gathered behind, an aura of bad intentions radiating from them. Drem was used to living amongst trappers and men who existed on the fringes of civilization, men who lived by their own laws, or none at all. But there was something different about these men, something worse, as if there was a stain upon their souls.

  ‘What do you want?’ Olin said to the bald one with the scar, who still seemed to be their leader. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘We’re here to hang the murderers of Calder the smith,’ the bald man said as he dismounted, ‘and then I’m going to strip your hold of anything worth a coin and burn the rest, leave you two swinging from a beam.’ He grinned at them both as he unstrapped a long thick rope from his saddle and strode towards the cabin, men swarming behind him.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Drem said. ‘Murderers?’

  ‘Don’t deny it,’ the bald man said. ‘Ulf’s saying Calder was stabbed and left in the woods for a bear to maul. Everyone knows you were in Calder’s forge all night long – robbing him, no doubt. There’s witnesses. The town guards saw you leaving Kergard at dawn, and your hold is the closest to where he was found.’

  He put a boot on the first step to the cabin, men either side of him.

  Drem felt a jolt of panic ripple through him. He opened his mouth to protest, to point out that their logic was flawed: how could they have murdered Calder and left him in the woods if witnesses had sighted them in Kergard at dawn? But he knew it would be futile.

  These men mean to see us dead and just want an excuse to make it happen, and there’s near enough a score of them! Not even Da’s weapons-skill and magic can fix this!

  ‘Drem,’ his da said, a hissed whisper. One look at him and Drem knew he’d reached the same conclusion. ‘Back inside, through the cabin and out the back window.’

  For a moment Drem almost did it, so used was he to following his da’s instructions. Then he realized his da did not intend to follow him. Fingers to his throat, counting the beat of his heart. It was a lot faster than normal.

  ‘No,’ Drem said, stepping forwards to stand beside his father.

  Olin glanced at him, saw the resolve in Drem’s face and gave a curt nod.

  ‘We’re innocent of Calder’s death,’ Olin shouted, ‘but another step closer and I’ll have your blood on my conscience, and not lose a single night’s sleep over it.’ He shrugged his cloak from his shoulder, freeing his sword arm, and raised his black blade, high, two-handed, over his head.

  The bald man hesitated on the steps, whether at Olin’s words or at the sword in Olin’s hands, Drem did not know, but his eyes were fixed on the blade of the black sword.

  Others around and behind the bald man pressed forwards, though, and, for Drem, everything slowed. He saw Wispy Beard climbing the steps, a spear in his hand, a frenzied grin splitting his face, realized the man had shaved his head.

  He must be cold. An impractical act for one who is wintering in the north.

  Then someone was stabbing a spear at Olin, blade aimed at his da’s gut. Olin just seemed to shuffle his feet and then the spear was stabbing past him, through thin air, at the same time Olin’s black sword was chopping down, cutting into the man’s head, just behind his ear. There was a wet cracking sound, and what looked like a burst of flames around the starstone blade and the man’s head, except that the flames were black and sulphurous, and then the sword was shearing out through the bottom of the man’s jaw, the front of his face falling to the step with a slap, blood and bone and brains splattering those either side of him. Olin kicked the still-standing corpse back into those behind, men falling, tangled.

  Drem fought the urge to vomit. The sight of a man swinging a sword at
him helped him to get that under control. He stumbled back a step, felt the hiss of air past his face as the sword missed by a handspan.

  How can this be happening? I just watched my da kill a man, while others are baying for our blood. Can I do this? Can I take another’s life?

  He felt sick, wished for a moment he’d taken his da’s advice and run for the back window, though he wouldn’t have left without his da.

  What do I do? Stand and fight? Kill or be killed?

  A glance at his da, who was holding the top of the stairs, chopping through a spear shaft, splintering it like kindling, back-swinging across someone’s eyes, a spray of blood as they fell away.

  And then the decision was taken from Drem. As more men pressed onto the steps to the cabin, the man with the sword who’d just tried to carve a slice from Drem’s face was pushed forwards, and without thinking Drem stepped in to meet him, slipping past his sword, slashing with his bone-handled seax across the man’s arm, chopping with his axe between neck and shoulder. The man screamed, blood bubbling in a fountain as he collapsed, tripping the man behind him.

  Pain lanced across Drem’s arm, a spear-thrust grazing him, a hand gripping his axehaft, pulling him forwards. He slashed and stabbed wildly with his seax, heard a scream, the grip on his axe pulling him off balance. He stumbled, dropped to one knee, something hard glancing off his head, white lights exploding in his vision as he stabbed blindly, felt his blade punch into something, the resistance of flesh, the grate of bone.

  His vision cleared and he was still on one knee, his knife blade stuck to the hilt in the thigh of the man who had gripped his axe haft. More bodies were pressed behind him, men shouting, yelling, reaching for him. He tried to see his da, but there was a crush about him, no sign of Olin, though he did hear a man scream, which was encouraging – meant that fighting was still going on, just as long as the one screaming wasn’t his da.

  Drem twisted his blade inside the man’s leg, heard a corresponding scream, rising in pitch and felt the grip on his axe disappear. He wrenched his seax free of the man’s thigh, a gush of hot blood over his hand, and he tried to stagger to his feet. More blows, hands grabbing him, dragging him in all directions, and he was lurching forwards, then his feet were leaving the ground and he was being carried, passed down the steps of the cabin and into a courtyard. The noose of a rope was slipped around his neck, yanked tight; it was Drem’s turn to scream, fear erupting in his belly, gave his limbs strength and he kicked and stabbed and hacked. There was a sharp pain in his left arm and his axe was gone, hands holding his other arm, pinning him, twisting and then his seax was gone, too.