‘We shall never forget,’ Cullen and Drem repeated.
‘My brothers,’ Sig said, a smile twitching her lips.
‘Hammer,’ she called, loud as she could, even her jaw feeling heavy. ‘Take my friends home.’
The great bear lifted her head and roared at the night sky, and then she was turning and shambling into the darkness, breaking into a run. Rab launched into the air, quickly disappearing.
‘The trees, where Kadoshim can’t follow,’ Sig whispered, then turned to face her enemy.
A shape loomed out of the smoke and flame, a shaven-haired acolyte, sword stabbing for her heart. Somehow Sig managed to swing her blade, up, smashing the sword away and opening the acolyte’s face from jaw to ear. He fell away gurgling.
Two more, one Sig let the weight of her blade smash into his skull, dropping him without a sound. The second one stabbed Sig in the stomach, Sig headbutting her, nose exploding.
Her fingers were tingling, sword so heavy, and Sig slumped against the belt strapping her to the post. Her head lolled.
Figures gathered before her: acolytes, Fritha, a Feral, growling as it stalked the shadows. Gulla was there, a bandage wrapped around one eye, stained red.
Sig smiled to see his wound, felt saliva drool from her mouth.
Something loomed behind them, taller, broader, a giant stepping close, a bloody wound between shoulder and chest.
‘Gunil,’ Sig whispered.
He stood and stared at her. There was a glimmer in his eyes that spoke of memory, but it was quickly replaced by something else, a sick half-madness, like his bear’s.
‘What have you done to him?’
‘I found him floating face-down at the bottom of a waterfall, closer to death than I thought possible,’ Gulla said. ‘He betrayed you at Varan’s Fall. Hated his brother and so gave you up to us. The ambush was his design.’
‘You . . . lie,’ Sig groaned.
Gulla smiled, too many teeth glistening. ‘He has been a useful tool since then, and no doubt will be again.’
‘You could turn her,’ Fritha said to Gulla, her head cocked at an angle, studying Sig. ‘Two giants in your service.’
‘There’s no blood left in her to drink,’ Gulla said.
Sig’s sword slipped from her fingers.
‘Very well, then.’ Fritha stepped forwards and rested the point of her black blade against Sig’s sternum. ‘Gunil, help me,’ Fritha said. The giant stepped closer and wrapped his huge fist around Fritha’s, who looked Sig in the eye and smiled.
‘Gunil,’ Sig whispered, could barely believe that he was standing before her. It gave her more pain than the thousand wounds her body had taken.
Fritha laughed, and then she and Gunil pushed on the sword, slowly.
Sig hardly felt the blade enter her body. She couldn’t feel her hands, arms, legs, everything going numb, drawing in to some central point, deep inside. Her vision speckled, darkened at the edges. She felt some pain, then, grunted with it, saw that at least half the blade’s length was sheathed inside her flesh.
‘Hold,’ Fritha said, still staring into Sig’s eyes, savouring her pain, her death. Gunil stopped.
‘We shall hunt down your friends. Kill them slowly, like this. Or turn them,’ Fritha said, cold as the starlit night.
No you won’t, Sig thought.
She shouted at Fritha, then, as the world narrowed to a single point of light, though it came from her lips as little more than a whisper.
‘Truth and Courage.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
RIV
Riv opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, looking up. Above, she could see the thick timber beams of a roof. A beam of sunlight, motes of dust. She heard birdsong. The familiar creak of branches, scraping, soughing in a breeze.
Where am I? Not home. Not my barrack. Not even Drassil, I think. Though she was not sure how she knew that.
And then the weight of memory fell upon her.
Kol, Israfil.
Mam.
Tears leaked from her eyes, rolled down into her hair. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, crying silent tears, but it must have been a while, because the beam of sunlight had shifted when next she looked. Then a new sound, a baby crying. She rolled over, onto her side; her back felt odd. Heavy. Numb. A big feather floated close to her face, speckled grey.
A feather-stuffed mattress! No wonder I feel like I’ve slept for a moon.
She stretched, muscles shifting, and ran a hand through her hair. It felt longer. The longest it had ever been.
A fair-haired woman was sitting close by, half in shadow, a baby wrapped in swaddling held in the crook of one arm, feeding at her breast.
‘Hello, Riv,’ the woman said.
It was Fia.
Riv tried to sit up, but her back felt strange, as if it were heavier than it should be, dragging her back onto the bed, and then there was the thud of boots, and hands were taking hers, helping her up, faces dipping into her vision. Vald, grinning, Jost, eyes wider, odd. Staring at her. She looked at herself, saw she was wearing breeches and a linen shirt, baggy and shapeless.
‘Where am I?’ Riv asked, closing her eyes for a moment, feeling light-headed. She blinked them open, realized she felt better, physically, than she had for such a long time.
The fever is gone. And I feel stronger, full of energy.
‘A woodsman’s hut, deep in Forn,’ Fia said.
‘Safe,’ Vald said.
Jost was still staring at her, all white-eyed wonder.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said. He was starting to annoy her.
‘Wrong? Nothing,’ Jost said. He looked away, eyes almost instantly drifting back to her. No, behind her.
‘What is it, then?’ Riv snapped.
‘Well . . . you’ve got wings,’ Jost said in wonder.
‘Don’t be an idi—’ Riv started. Then she stopped. Another feather drifted idly down to the ground. She looked over her shoulder.
The arch of a wing reared there, big. She took a staggering step forwards and the wing followed her. Her head snapped around to the other shoulder, another wing there, too.
‘I’ve got wings,’ she said, fear and wonder mixed.
Without knowing how, a subconscious movement, she unfurled them, a shifting of muscle, a ripple of feathers, and her wings snapped wide, almost filling the room.
‘Not in here!’ Fia laughed as pots and plates went tumbling and smashing, and somehow Riv furled them back in with a snap. Vald and Jost led her outside, Fia following behind her, and Riv stepped out onto a timber porch, a woodland glade around them. The wings felt heavy upon her back, a shifting of weight and balance that she wasn’t used to. Horses whickered somewhere nearby and she saw a figure sitting on a tree stump, tending to a bow on his lap.
It was Bleda.
He looked up at her and smiled, and to Riv it looked like the most natural thing in the world. She smiled back at him.
Hesitantly, she stepped bare-footed onto cool, soft grass and moss.