Wrath (The Faithful and the Fallen Book 4)

by John Gwynne

  ‘I was hit by a bear,’ Dath pointed out. ‘A giant bear.’

  ‘He’s feeling much better,’ Kulla pronounced.

  Corban shook his head, smiling.

  These people, my friends. I love them, would die for them, as they would for me, it seems.

  ‘So,’ Varan said, ‘what are you all going to do?’

  Gar looked at them all and gave a vicious, cold grin.

  ‘We’re going to fight,’ he said. ‘It’s what we do best. Asroth, Calidus and Nathair will all come for us soon, when they’re stronger. Best fighting them now. Win or lose, it’s the best chance we have. And besides, I think they deserve some pain.’

  ‘Aye,’ Farrell agreed. ‘Fair’s fair, after all.’

  Sig looked at Varan.

  ‘I like these people,’ she said.

  By highsun they were packed and as prepared as they could be. Varan had given them one of the saddles from a dead bear, and with some reworking it had been adjusted to fit Storm. She hadn’t been very impressed, in fact had growled with enough malice to convince Corban she’d bite anyone except him who tried to fit it to her, and even then she’d flattened her ears and attempted to make a dignified retreat. He’d had to scold her to make her stand still, which he was aware must have looked ludicrous.

  She killed a giant bear last night. Today she’s scolded by me, and takes it.

  Now Dath was sitting in that saddle, looking as unhappy as Storm about the situation. ‘Stop pulling faces,’ Kulla said. ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘You could always walk,’ Coralen pointed out.

  He scowled.

  All the others were ready. Gar checked his kit bag for the hundredth time, it seemed. Coralen strolled up to Corban and kissed him on the lips, hard. He was breathless when she pulled away.

  ‘What was that for?’ Corban asked her.

  ‘Just because,’ Coralen said, then turned her back on him and walked away.

  ‘Finally,’ Kulla said, and Corban saw Farrell and Dath staring at him. He felt himself blushing and shrugged, decided he needed something to do and so he went looking for the Jotun giants; Sig was by their bears. She was tying a bag to her saddle, dried blood crusted the bag’s bottom.

  ‘It’s Mort’s head,’ Varan said. ‘Proof to the clan that we caught up with him, and that he’s received Jotun justice. Even if it was dispensed by a freakishly huge wolven. Is she the one you wanted a chainmail coat for?’

  ‘Aye,’ Corban said. ‘I thought she was dead.’

  ‘So did I,’ Varan said. ‘It was I that pulled you away from her, that day by the river. She has a strong spirit, that one, to survive. Something she wanted to live for.’ He looked between Corban and Storm. ‘Walk with me,’ he said and strode away, towards his bear, passing around to its far side. Corban followed, and suddenly he and Varan were alone, hidden from all others by the bulk of Varan’s bear.

  ‘Hello, Long Tooth,’ Corban said, patting the bear’s flank. Varan had stripped it of its chainmail coat, which was now rolled and tied in a big pack that hung from buckles on the saddle.

  Varan looked at him a moment, then reached inside his pack and pulled out a package rolled in fur. He held it out to Corban, holding one big finger to his lips.

  Corban took it, unrolled the fur a little, then nearly dropped it.

  It was the starstone dagger.

  ‘What! Why?’ Corban hissed, Varan signalling for quiet.

  ‘Mort had it,’ Varan whispered. ‘Sig is searching for it, but I found it last night, fallen to the ground during the fight.’

  ‘Why are you giving it to me?’ Corban asked.

  ‘That is a very good question,’ Varan said, but didn’t answer immediately. Eventually he shrugged. ‘Because you saved my life, even though it put yours at risk. Because you stayed for your friend, when you could have run. Because these people here ran through the length of Forn to find you, fought the Jotun, fought bears, risked death, all for you. That speaks a thousand words. Because there is something about you, Corban ben Thannon.’ He looked about him, at the dead giants and bears. ‘As you said, conflict and war seem to be overtaking us.’

  ‘You could come with us,’ Corban said.

  ‘No. My clan is in chaos, our King dead. I cannot abandon them.’ He turned, put one huge foot into a stirrup and hoisted himself onto Long Tooth’s back.

  ‘Farewell, Corban ben Thannon,’ he said from what seemed a very long way up. ‘I wish you well, and may your enemies feel the strength of your arm and the edge of your sword.’

  Corban covered the dagger and slipped it inside his cloak, just as Sig appeared upon her bear. She looked none too happy.

  ‘Farewell, Varan of the Jotun,’ Corban said. ‘And farewell to you, Sig the first-sword.’

  ‘I am first-sword no longer,’ Sig said, leaning in her saddle. ‘My King is dead.’

  ‘Somehow I think you will always be a first-sword,’ Corban said.

  She smiled bitterly, and then the two giants were spurring their bears away, towards Gramm’s hold.

  Corban walked slowly back to his friends and they began a slow, limping gait into Forn – back to Drassil.

  But we are together. Battered, but not beaten. And Calidus, Nathair – we are coming for you.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  RAFE

  Rafe ran ahead of the warband on a sun-dappled woodland path, the sounds and scents a constant barrage on his senses. In the world beyond the trees the sun was setting, sending eerie shadows dancing and flickering through the forested paths.

  To either side of him ran Sniffer and Scratcher. They slipped through the undergrowth like grey wraiths, but to Rafe they sounded like a herd of auroch pounding through the woods.

  They’d been travelling almost a ten-night, the journey back to Dun Carreg made quicker as they took the old giantsway that carved through the heart of the Baglun, the old woods that spread across the heart of Ardan like a blanket of russet and green. Not quickly enough for Rafe’s liking, but considering they had a warband of five hundred swords and enough wains of provisions to feed a campaign into winter, it was never going to be a gallop all the way to the fortress by the sea.

  Rafe was aching to see the walls of dark stone, rising high above the bay.

  Dun Carreg. Home.

  Darkness settled about him as he padded on. Then a horn blast was ringing out through the trees.

  That’d be Rhin, with the call to make camp.

  He found them spread along the giantsway: Rhin, the giant Uthas and his followers, fifty Benothi giants stomping along the road, loud enough to wake the dead. Next came a long line of wains, pulled by lowing, shaggy-haired auroch, and behind them rode around five hundred warriors. A dozen fire-pits had been raised along the road, with pots of water boiling or meat turning on spits. A perimeter of sentries spread into the trees, though none feared any real attack, not against five hundred swords and fifty giants.

  Rafe saw Rhin in conversation with Uthas; she looked up when she saw him. Behind them stood Uthas’ two guards, the male one with his axe, the female with two long knives, hilts jutting over her shoulder.

  ‘Rafe,’ Rhin said, beckoning to him. He walked over, the hairs on his arm prickling.

  Uthas nodded to the female giant, who drew one of her blades – it was as long as a short sword – then hurled the knife directly at Rafe.

  Acting on instinct, he spun to one side, reached out and caught the knife by its hilt. He stood frozen a moment, staring at the leather-wrapped hilt in his hand, the blade of dark-mottled iron. Then looked up at Rhin.

  ‘You see,’ Uthas said to her. She was staring at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  ‘Where’s the cup?’ Rhin asked coldly.

  He took a step backwards.

  Rhin sighed.

  ‘Bring him here,’ she said and the two giants behind Uthas leaped for him. Rafe stumbled backwards, turned and ran.

  He wasn’t sure why he was running; he had reacte
d without thinking.

  I just don’t want to give her the cup, he decided as he slithered down the embankment of the giantsway, heading towards the tree-line, then there was a whirring sound as something smacked him in the back of the legs, tangling with his ankles, sending him flying. He rolled over, saw that Uthas had hurled his spear sideways at him, like a stick. The female giant was bearing down on him, one arm reaching out for his throat.

  Then two bundles of grey fur and snapping teeth slammed into her chest, toppling her back to the ground.

  Scratcher and Sniffer!

  In a heartbeat Rafe was back on his feet and running.

  There was growling and snapping behind him, then a high-pitched whine, more growling. Rafe skidded to a halt and looked back to see Scratcher standing over Sniffer’s prone form; the other giant had arrived now and was raising his axe over them both.

  ‘NO,’ Rafe screamed, arms reaching.

  ‘Stop running,’ Uthas said, reaching the bottom of the embankment and retrieving his spear, ‘and come here, or the hounds will feel Salach’s axe-blade.’

  Rafe stood, paused between flight and surrender, looked at Scratcher and Sniffer.

  Don’t have many friends. Don’t have any, really, and definitely not ones that’d take on a giant or two for me.

  He blew out a long breath and walked back to the giants.

  Rhin appeared at the top of the embankment as Rafe was marched back to the camp, Sniffer limping along beside him.

  ‘You should never, ever, run from me,’ she said calmly as he stood before her. ‘No matter how special you are.’ She ran a long-nailed finger down his cheek, along the line of his jaw, scratching at stubble.

  ‘Now, where is the cup?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ he sighed.

  He led them along the giantsway, then down the embankment, and before long was standing before an old oak. He jumped up to grab the first branch, swung himself up and reached into the knotted bole for his pack.

  Again he was taken by an overwhelming urge not to hand over the cup, the thought of sharing it, of giving it up, filling him with a sense of dread.

  I could run again.

  He looked down, saw Rhin and the giants gazing up at him with their small, suspicious eyes. Scratcher and Sniffer were standing with them, watching him too.

  He sighed and fished the pack out of a natural bowl in the trunk.

  Salach grabbed the pack from him and emptied out the contents onto the ground – a whole bundle of things he deemed useful falling out: rope, flint and tinder, a hemp bag of herbs, his eating knife, a spare wool tunic. And then the cup.

  It fell to the mossy ground with a dull thump, as if heavier than it looked. It was crow-black and smooth, pale veins of silver running through the darkness, like lightning on a storm-ridden night. Around its rim old runes curled in a scrawling script. For long moments they all stood around it and stared. Scratcher took a sniff of it and whined. Uthas moved first, his hand twitching down for it, almost of its own accord, but then Rhin was snatching it up greedily.

  ‘It’s heavy,’ she gasped, ‘and cool to the touch.’

  The female giant lifted her hand towards it and Rhin pulled the cup away.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ she hissed.

  ‘It is the starstone cup,’ the other giant said, ‘kept by the Benothi for two thousand years. I have more right than most to touch it.’

  ‘Eisa,’ Uthas breathed, a warning in his voice.

  The starstone cup! One of the Seven Treasures! No wonder it’s made me feel . . . different.

  ‘You lost it over a thousand years ago,’ Rhin snarled. She looked about at the three giants glowering down at her. ‘But that is the past. We have it now, and will share in its gifts soon enough.’

  ‘But first?’ Uthas said.

  ‘First we must tell Calidus.’

  Rafe had been in Rhin’s tent a number of times now, but it felt different this time. Torches of dried rushes crackled and smoked, the tent a place of vapour and fume, of flickering torchlight and baleful shadows, making Rafe feel sick and uneasy. He’d tried to slink off once they were back within the perimeter of the camp, but Rhin was having none of that.

  ‘You are set apart, now, belonging to an elite group,’ she said to him as they entered her tent. ‘You shall stay close to me, from now on.’

  He’d looked at her blankly, and she laughed.

  ‘You really have no idea what you’ve done, do you?’

  He just shrugged at that, too embarrassed to answer with the truth.

  ‘Drinking from the cup. It prolongs life, and I am told it enhances everything: strength, vision, hearing, stamina . . .’ She gave him another lingering look that sent the sensation of spiders running across his skin.

  ‘Long life?’ Rafe said uneasily.

  ‘Uthas drank from that cup, over two thousand years ago,’ Rhin said, smiling. ‘Close enough to immortal, wouldn’t you say.’ She searched through a bunch of keys, old iron rattling, then opened a shadowed chest in the recesses of her tent.

  Immortal!

  ‘I don’t feel immortal, now,’ Uthas rumbled. ‘My bones creak and my body aches, my vision fails and my grip is weak.’

  ‘Yes, that is why you wish to drink from the cup again,’ Rhin said, pulling things from the chest she’d opened, setting them upon a table. A wooden frame, velvet cloth, a small box, an iron bowl.

  ‘Tell me how it feels,’ Rhin asked.

  ‘And how you found it,’ Uthas said. ‘I lost it in Domhain, a long time ago.’

  ‘That’s where I found it,’ Rafe began. He recounted how Sniffer had fallen into a bog beyond the walls of Dun Taras and how he’d gone in after the hound, ended up climbing out of the bog with a wooden chest under his arm. And he told of drinking from the cup, the wondrous sensation spreading through him, then the agony, and then . . . nothing. A ten-night he had slept while the cup had worked its magic upon him, and then he had woken. Transformed.

  Rhin and the giants were staring at him with eyes glistening.

  ‘How did you know?’ Rafe asked them.

  ‘I suspected,’ Uthas said. ‘Your speed, your vision, other things. And when you caught Eisa’s knife . . .’

  ‘It could have killed me,’ Rafe grumbled. He looked at Rhin, saw that she had put the iron bowl upon her table and set a small fire within it, had placed the wooden frame before it and was unfolding the velvet cloth and lifting something carefully from it. It looked like old parchment, thick and creased. Rhin was attaching it to each corner of the frame by small suspended hooks, stretching the parchment out. Rafe’s eyes narrowed as he looked at it. There were holes in it, and as he stared, the sense of dread he’d experienced earlier returned.

  ‘Is that . . .’ he began.

  ‘A face, yes,’ Rhin said. ‘Flayed from an enemy,’ she added, as if she were talking about making some hot tea.

  She opened the small casket, drew out a vial full of dark liquid, unstoppering it and sprinkling a few droplets on the fire, making it spit and hiss. Rhin’s voice rang out, a whisper that filled the tent.

  ‘Thoghairm mé leat anois, Calidus, aingeal dubh, tríd an flesh agus fola ar mo namhaid,’ she said, time and time again. The torches set about the tent blazed and went out, darkness closing in about Rafe like dark wings, only the iron bowl on the table aglow, the flayed skin stretched before it illuminated with an orange fire.

  Then it moved, a ripple through the skin, like a sail filling with wind, and the flayed face of a long-dead man was inhabited, the dead lips were moving, fire-glow through the eyes looking like something else entirely now.

  ‘Rhin . . .’ the lips whispered, dry as the tomb, ‘what providence, I wished to speak with you.’

  ‘Welcome, Calidus,’ Rhin said. ‘I have excellent news.’ For the first time Rafe saw something vulnerable in her, even submissive. ‘I have the starstone cup.’

  The face’s lips moved, a stuttering hiss escaping from them. Rafe was slow to reali
ze that it was laughter. ‘A good day,’ the voice said. ‘You must bring it to me.’

  ‘We are searching for the necklace, too. We are close, will have it soon.’

  ‘Find it. Muster your warbands and then march to Drassil.’

  Rhin took a step back, blinking, glanced at Uthas.

  ‘The day is almost upon us,’ the lips hissed, a crackle of winter leaves, ‘now is the time to fulfil your oath.’

  ‘I, of course . . .’ Rhin said. ‘This is unexpected – sooner than I thought.’

  ‘We have prepared for this hour, spilt rivers of blood to ensure it arrives. Now you must act, send out your messengers, call upon all sworn to you. You know what to do.’

  ‘It will be done,’ Rhin said.

  ‘Make sure that it is,’ the face of skin snarled, lips rippled and wrinkling. ‘You do not want to fail me in this.’

  The skin stretched and moved, the firelight flicker in the eyes seemed to darken, become red, and for a moment they appeared to look around the room, fixing upon Rafe. He felt transfixed, wanted to run, to scream, to squeeze his eyes shut, but instead he just stared back, mesmerized, gazing into a fiery well of malice and despair and dark power. He felt his bladder loosen, warm liquid soaking into his breeches. The eyes released him and fastened back upon Rhin.

  ‘Come to me,’ the voice hissed and then the skin was slack and empty, drooping like melted wax.

  One of the dogs began to bark outside the tent and Rafe turned and stumbled away, fumbled through the opening, past Rhin’s guards. He heard laughter behind him.

  Torches were burning along the roadside, making Rafe blink as his eyes adjusted. A movement drew his attention, in the treeline beyond the embankment. Something glinted.

  Iron? It shone in firelight, glimmered in a way that any warrior worth his salt would recognize.

  Scratcher and Sniffer’s barking grew louder, but they were not barking at something in the trees, they were jumping, looking up at something, on Rhin’s tent.

  ‘What are you doing, idiot dogs?’ Rafe muttered. He felt ashamed of himself as the wet stain in his breeches began to cool, but fragments of his terror still lingered. Looking up, he saw a darker shadow upon the tent pole. He squinted, and then the shadow moved. A huge black crow, wings unfurling. On instinct Rafe jumped and grabbed at it, one hand closing about a taloned claw, and with much squawking and protesting he dragged the crow down, with his other hand pinned its beating wings. I hate crows, he thought, fingers closing about its neck, still staring into its malignant, intelligent little eyes.