‘Aye. He was one of us,’ someone else called out, ‘and he built Dun Seren. That’s where I want to be, not Drassil.’

Murmurs rippled through the young warriors.

‘I’ve heard there’s wolven-hounds at Dun Seren,’ another voice called out, ‘big packs of them.’ Fen gave a deep-rumbling growl, as if agreeing.

‘And me,’ Rab squawked, making Kushiel blink. ‘Rab from Dun Seren, too.’

Sig twisted in her saddle, looking back at them all.

‘Are any of you for Drassil? Speak now, there’s no shame or insult in it. I’ll think no worse of you, but it’s better to know now, than hold it in.’

A long silence, serious faces looking back at her. All could meet Sig’s gaze, none looking away, which held stronger weight to Sig’s mind than any spoken word.

Sig nodded to herself and turned back to the Ben-Elim.

‘There you are, then,’ Sig said to Kushiel. ‘You’ve had your answer.’ She sat straight in her saddle. ‘Now get out of my way.’

Kushiel hovered in front of Sig a long moment, then his wings beat and he was rising to the battlements.

‘Israfil will hear of this,’ he said to Nara, then winged higher, joining his kin, and with great beats of their white-feathered wings they were flying away from Uthandun, blurring into the rain-soaked sky.

Sig looked up at Nara and dipped her head to the Queen of Ardain. Then she lifted a fist and uttered a command, Hammer lumbering forwards.

‘To Dun Seren,’ she called out as she passed through the gates of Uthandun, her voice echoing and booming, and it felt good to hear those words out loud. Cullen and Keld rode either side of her, their small band of would-be warriors cantering in a ragged double column behind them. Sig rode down the long slope towards the Darkwood and onto the wide bridge that crossed the Afren, Fen loping ahead of her and merging with the shadows and murk of the Darkwood. Rab was clinging on to Cullen’s saddle as if his life depended upon it, bobbing and swaying with the rhythm of it, wings ruffled and pointing in all directions.

Sig felt her spirits lift at the thought of returning home, but there was a shadow over her soul, the sense of terrors unseen growing ever stronger.

So, the Kadoshim are moving, and now I discover that the Ben-Elim are enforcing a tithe of flesh. Asking for volunteers is one thing, but this! They are enslaving those within their borders to a life of military servitude. This is something else that Byrne must hear about, if she does not know already. How can Ethlinn and Balur One-Eye condone this?

She heard Hammer grumbling beneath her, sensing her mood, and patted her shoulder.

‘Dark days ahead, my bad-tempered friend,’ she said, ‘but we’ll face them together.’

CHAPTER TWENTY: DREM

CHAPTER TWENTY

DREM