It doesn’t seem right, Riv thought. For whoever it is to do this, even to go as far as marking the way to this spot. The trail of bodies. Why go to all this trouble? It must be an ambush. Why else would we have been lured out here.

Why else would they want us here.

And then it hit her.

So far away from Drassil.

CHAPTER THIRTY: BLEDA

CHAPTER THIRTY

BLEDA

Bleda’s eyes snapped open.

Something’s wrong.

It was dark, his eyes taking a while to adjust, some instinct telling him it was the small hours between midnight and dawn, though he could not be sure. And his head hurt.

Too much wine.

But it has been Midwinter’s Day.

Then he heard it. Faint cries.

What?

He swung his legs out of bed, feet cold on the stone floor. Embers still glowed in his fire-pit, a half-light that he dressed by, swiftly pulling on breeches and boots, a wool tunic, reaching instinctively for his belt with his bow-case and quiver of arrows.

I feel like someone made anew, since Riv returned my bow to me.

Just at the thought of it he felt a tremor of emotion that threatened to undo his cold-face. It took a few moments to master it.

More cries, louder. Boots thudding on stone.

He padded to his window and opened the shutter, shivered at a blast of frost-filled air and looked out into the starlit street. White-Wings were running, still in loose formation, but running.

They never run. They march everywhere. Even to bed, most likely.

Screams on the night air. The clash of steel. Bleda felt a jolt of fear, a shock.

Death, battle, in unassailable Drassil, heart of the Ben-Elim.

He left his chamber, his heart thumping in his chest, and found Jin standing in the doorway of their shared house. Their guards, usually half a dozen White-Wings that dwelt in the same building, were nowhere to be seen.

‘They ran off, towards the gates,’ Jin hissed, an answer to his look at the empty guard room where water in an iron pot was bubbling over flames in the hearth. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We’re being attacked,’ Bleda said.

‘Who?’

He just shrugged.

A raid? A full-on assault?

‘Let’s go find out,’ Jin said, stepping into the street, breath misting in the starlit night. She looked excited by the prospect, one hand resting on the hilt of a long dagger sheathed at her belt. Bleda followed, as it was exactly what he had intended to do, anyway.

They slipped through the darkness of Drassil, the ancient trees’ branches swaying high above, sending shadows shifting across the flagstoned streets. The clamour of battle rose in volume, and then they were at the courtyard before Drassil’s gates. Bleda pulled Jin into a darkened alcove.

Before them was a scene of chaos.