Through speckled vision Riv saw someone else step between them, attacking Kol, a White-Wing with a short-sword, a flurry of blows, for a dozen heartbeats Kol struggling to defend himself, a red line opening across his cheek, down his arm, white feathers slashed and falling about Riv. He retreated a few steps, beat his wings, rocking his opponent back towards Riv, ducked an off-balance slash and stepped in closer, punching his knife into his attacker’s armpit, twisting deeper. A spray of blood as he ripped his blade free, a sigh, and his attacker collapsed, head rolling to stare at Riv with lifeless eyes.

It was her mam.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: DREM

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

DREM

Drem stared in horror as he saw Sig fall to the ground, one hand grasping blindly for her sword.

No, she cannot fall. We have only just found each other.

It was strange, little more than a day shared between them, but Drem felt as if he’d known Sig all of his life, felt she was kin to him, and the pain he experienced at seeing her fall was all the greater because of that.

He raised his sword over his head and bellowed.

‘TRUTH AND COURAGE,’ his da’s battle-cry.

Mine, now, he thought, if what Sig and the others said is true.

He was standing over the body of some half-man beast whose corpse he’d hacked into bloody ruin, the only way to get it to stop trying to bite, claw and chew him. He’d slipped into a frenzy as he had struck it down, fuelled by horror and fear at what was attacking him, felt as if he was walking through some living, waking nightmare.

He ran towards Sig, or where he thought she was, too many of the enemy swirling around for him to see her in the mad dancing shadows made by the torches and wind and starlight.

And he heard his battle-cry echoed back at him.

‘Truth and Courage,’ a voice cried, a figure leaping onto the table of horrors, an acolyte pushing back a hood to reveal a freshly shaven head, sword and shield in his hand.

Cullen!

Even as Drem saw him, the young warrior was swinging his sword, dancing along the table, avoiding sword and spear thrusts, grasping hands, snapping jaws and slashing claws, chopping and stabbing as he went, acolytes and Ferals falling, more trying to scramble up with him, Cullen’s boot, sword and shield boss slamming into them, denying them. Where Sig slew like a force of nature, a strength and inevitability built into her every move, Cullen fought with a blend of skill and joy, smiling, laughing as he drew blood-soaked lines, a precision and mastery to his every move so that it was almost like watching art. A deadly art.