Bleda remembered the words of his mother, whispered into his ear on Drassil’s weapons-field. He looked at Ellac and his men, at Jost and Vald, finally at Riv.

He smiled at Riv, an act of will, intentional, knew Ellac and his men would be shocked.

‘I’m taking Riv to safety,’ he said, then turned and led them through the chamber, down a stairwell and out into the din of battle.

CHAPTER FIFTY: SIG

CHAPTER FIFTY

SIG

Fire was blazing through the clearing, great gusts of wind sending flames flaring. They caught in a timber building, roaring into hungry life, blazing red and orange light onto the clearing, clouds of black smoke rolling across them. Between smoke and flame Sig saw Gulla. He was hunched over another acolyte, drinking blood from her throat, as he had done with Burg. Other acolytes were curled upon the floor, spasming and twitching in some convulsion of rebirth while still others were spread about them in a defensive half-circle.

Guarding them while they are vulnerable.

She glimpsed a shadowed figure on the far side of the table, sprinting towards the boulder that had been turned into gaols for those experimented upon but obviously untrusted. The figure’s hood blew back as he ran, another shaved head, but Sig recognized Keld, his beard still wild. He ran to the first gaol, struck at the lock and chain with his axe, a burst of sparks as it shattered, Keld ripping the chain away and hurling the barred door wide. He ran to the next gate and hacked at the lock, this one snapping more quickly, ripped the door open, dashed to the next door as things burst from the open gaols behind him. More cells and chains, more Feral beasts leaping, shambling, snarling from their gaols, throwing themselves into the acolytes that encircled Sig, Drem and Cullen.

‘NOW,’ Sig yelled at the top of her lungs, her voice ringing out, at the same time the three of them surging through a cloud of smoke towards the enemy before them, smashing them to the ground with their shields, trampling over them, carving them to bloody ruin. In the distance Keld’s voice was crying out ‘Truth and Courage,’ taken up by Sig, Cullen and Drem.

The clearing burst into chaos anew, a place of fire and smoke, steel and blood, ringing with the screams and snarls and growlings of half-men and the dying, and through it all Sig and her companions cut a bloody path out of the clearing. Abruptly they found themselves with no enemy before them. Keld erupted from a cloud of black smoke, a wild grin on his face, and then Sig was running, down a flame-lit gap between two buildings, the others close behind.