The lad nodded, his lip trembling.
‘Pax, what are you doing here?’ Gar said, stepping silently from the shadows, making the young warrior jump again.
‘You must come, quickly,’ Pax blurted. ‘My da, Corban, giants—’
‘Corban?’ Coralen hissed.
‘Aye; we must go.’ Tears were spilling down Pax’s cheeks now, tracing tracks through blood and grime. ‘He’s dead.’
Coralen froze, feeling as if a fist had just clamped around her heart.
‘I ran,’ Pax said. He began to shake, an involuntary twitching that quickly became more violent.
‘Where is Corban?’ Coralen asked, trying to control the panic leaking through her, reaching out to grab the now sobbing boy and shake the sense from him.
‘Hold,’ Gar said, putting a hand upon her arm. ‘Pax, you must tell us, as clearly as you can. Where is Corban and your da? What happened?’
Others were coming down the hill now. Coralen glimpsed Dath and Kulla, a handful of Jehar, Laith looming behind them.
‘We heard fighting, knew Corban was out there,’ Pax began haltingly. ‘We found him, facing giants, and bears.’
What? But there were no giants with Nathair at Drassil!
‘Da, he threw a spear at a giant. Then we all ran. We thought we’d lost them . . . then . . .’
‘Go on,’ Gar said. The whole group was gathered around them now, listening in absolute silence.
‘They came from nowhere. My da . . .’ He rubbed his eyes, blew out a long breath. ‘They killed my da. Corban told me to run, to fetch help.’
‘When did this happen?’ Gar asked, not able to keep the urgency from his voice.
‘Yesterday. After highsun, before sunset.’ Pax’s face had grown paler as he spoke. Now he looked like a corpse. ‘I ran. I fell, hit my head.’ He raised a hand to the cut on his brow. ‘When I came to, it was dark. I’ve been trying to find my way since then.’
‘Take us, now,’ Gar said.
‘I will try.’ Pax nodded. ‘I became lost, for a while, but I know it was that direction.’
Gar barked orders and then they were moving, Coralen taking the lead with Pax, Gar jogging beside the lad, a steadying hand on his arm.
Corban and Storm facing giants, alone. Yesterday. She sent a silent prayer to Elyon, one of many that she had made over the last half-day.
Let them still live.
Coralen was the first to enter the glade. At its far end was a sudden ridge and beyond it the sound of a fast-flowing river. The smell hit her first, the metallic tang of blood and decay. Death. Flies were buzzing in great clouds about bodies heaped on the floor. She counted three giant corpses on the ground, and Atilius, pinned to a great oak by a giant’s axe. She could not see Corban or Storm. She ran to the first giant, who was on his back, a hole in his belly, throat cleanly cut, his wrist bearing the tell-tale ripping wounds of the wolven. Coralen moved on, dimly aware of others spilling into the glade behind her, the sound of Pax’s sobs as he dropped to his knees before his da, Gar’s presence at her shoulder. The other two giants were close together, the ground trampled, rutted, dark and still sticky with blood. One’s throat had been ripped out by Storm, the flesh mangled and torn.
He is not here, nor Storm. The relief was a physical thing, though she knew their absence did not mean that they were safe, or even alive, but it was clear they had fought here, and won. They slew three giants. She felt a flush of pride at that feat, knew that it would be a story told around the campfire this very night, adding to the tales that were growing up around Corban and his wolven companion.
The other giant lay upon his front. Gar and Coralen tried to turn him over together, flies buzzed angrily, the huge warrior’s dead weight like a boulder. Farrell and Laith joined them and together they rolled the giant, the stench of corruption and decay wafting up to them as they disturbed the body.
‘He is of the Jotun clan,’ Laith spat as they stood and stared at the dead giant.
What are they doing here?
Coralen’s eyes were drawn to the glint of leather and iron amidst the congealed blood. She bent and wrapped a fist around the hilt of a sword buried deep in the giant’s thigh, angled upwards into its groin. It came free with a sucking sound, and she lifted it for them all to see: the pommel shaped like a howling wolven. The relief she’d felt fled, replaced by the crushing weight of fear.
‘That’s Ban’s sword,’ Dath said as he joined them, Kulla a pace behind him.
Coralen stared at them a moment, felt a wave of sympathy for them.
They’ve been wed less than two nights.
Gar took the sword from her and stared at it. ‘I watched Ban’s da give him this blade.’
‘In the Rowan Field at Dun Carreg,’ Farrell said. ‘I remember it.’
‘And I,’ Dath muttered.
Coralen turned away, her eyes scanning the ground, searching for any sign.
He is not here. Storm is not here. They escaped, but they did not make their way back to Drassil. Why?
Brina was on her knees beside the giant. The old healer had a vial in one hand, a knife in the other that she was using to scrape blood from the trampled grass. One side of Brina’s face was still an angry red, seared by the explosion she had generated that had rocked the chamber in Drassil yesterday.
Whatever benefit Brina thought the giant’s blood would bring, she was welcome to it. As Coralen scanned the rest of the clearing, her eyes caught a patch of crushed grass spattered with blood. It was close to the edge of the glade, leading to a sheer drop to the river below.
As if something were dragged.
She followed the marks and dropped to a crouch, looking down to the river. Further down she spied a dark smear on a boulder.
Blood.
‘They jumped into the river,’ she called out. Gar was first to join her. His eyes found the same evidence and he gripped her wrist.
‘After them,’ he said.
Coralen led the way, running along the ridge that shadowed the river, twisting around thick-rooted trees and dense vegetation, her eyes flitting between the path she was navigating and the banks of the river.
Rounding a sharp bend in the path, she suddenly saw a shape lying on a grassy verge, fur matted and bloodstained. Her heart stopped.
Storm.
She skidded to a halt on the ridge above the wolven, a part of her mind noticing large boot-prints in the grass. In a spray of dirt she scrambled over the edge, clinging to root and vine as she made her way down to the riverbank.
Storm lay still as stone, and she was covered in blood; a huge wound was visible above her shoulder.
Coralen crouched, too scared to touch her, not wanting to confirm what her eyes were telling her.
Stifling tears, she remembered the first time she had seen Storm, when she had threatened to turn the wolven into a cloak. Even then she had seen the bond between Corban and his faithful and vigilant shadow. Since then she had developed her own bond with the wolven – more like a sword-brother to her than a mere animal.
As Gar joined her she tentatively reached out a hand and laid it upon Storm’s body. She felt nothing.
No. Please, Elyon above.
She screwed her eyes shut tight, pressed harder, flattening her palm against Storm’s deep chest, willing her hand to feel the movement of life, a drawn breath, the pumping of Storm’s heart. With every moment her hopes faded, a bleakness taking hold inside, spreading through her like ink through water.
And then she felt it.
A flicker, a heartbeat deep within the cavern of Storm’s broad chest. Coralen opened her eyes and saw Storm’s amber gaze regarding her. The wolven whined, a weak, miserable sound, but one that gave Coralen a rush of joy. Storm’s tail thumped feebly on the turf.
CHAPTER FOUR
CORBAN
Corban walked through a world of grey, dimly aware that he was staggering close to a wide and dark river. There was a splash and a wide ripple, the hint of somethi
ng large and sinuous in its depths. Bloated dark clouds boiled above him, flickering with lightning, and black shapes winged through them with an occasional gleam of chainmail and iron.
This is the Otherworld.
His knee throbbed and a pain spasmed through his chest with every indrawn breath. He fixed his eyes on the ground before him, concentrating on each step. There had always been an element of the Otherworld that calmed him, a serenity that settled within him, that gave him a sense of strength and hope. But this time was different. There was something frayed about the peacefulness, it felt false. Something lurked at the fringes of his mind, trying, needing to be remembered.
When next he looked up, the river was flowing into a valley, cliffs rearing up either side of him, tall and forbidding. Ahead of him the river spilt into a lake. Vibrant colour was seeping into the landscape with every step into the valley; the grass grew greener, the river bluer, as if colour were seeping up from the rock below.
I know this place, have been here before.
The green valley and the lake of deep blue. Gentle waves lapped against the shore. A sound drew Corban’s eye, towards the lake’s heart: a splash and ripples, as if a stone had been thrown into water. His memory prodded at him and his eyes wandered back to the lakeshore, searching for something else and then he saw it – the red-leaved maple that he had once sat beneath. Without thinking, he made his way to it and sat down, his back to the trunk. Everything was still, no breeze to stir the grass or leaves, no hum of insects. The silence was oppressive. And then, high above, like a heartbeat, there was the beat of wings. He glanced up through the lattice of leaf and bark and saw a figure silhouetted against the clouds, human-like, a spear clutched in one hand, broad white-feathered wings powering it through the air.
The Ben-Elim. Meical.
Meical . . .
Then, like an avalanche, he remembered.
Meical, in the great hall of Drassil, telling Corban about the deception of the Ben-Elim, how the prophecy was nothing more than a strategy, a trick to force Asroth’s hand, to lure Calidus and the Kadoshim to Drassil. That the Bright Star and Black Sun were an invention, fabricated to snare Asroth in a trap of his own making. A sound strategy, maybe, in the great war between Ben-Elim and Kadoshim, the Faithful and the Fallen, apart from the fact that it used people’s lives like pawns on a throw-board.
My da’s life. My mam’s. So many others.
Rage swept through him, veined with betrayal at the memory of Meical’s confession. He remembered resisting the urge to strike Meical, then leaving, knowing his rage was at the boundaries of his control, and had ended up sitting upon a hill in the forest. He had sat there a long time, contemplating Meical’s words, trying to make some sense of what it would mean for the future.
And then the Jotun giants had come. Ildaer, their warlord, slayer of Tukul, Gar’s da.
Images flickered through his mind: a bear roaring, spittle spraying from its red maw, running, foliage whipping his face, the thunder of the bear’s pursuit, the wounds to his knee and chest, a spear piercing Storm, a river, ice-cold water. Storm howling as giants had dragged him away from her side.
Storm.
Pain shuddered through Corban’s chest, as if someone were gripping his heart, squeezing and twisting it.
He couldn’t breathe; his sorrow was a physical thing that crushed the air from his lungs. He staggered towards the lake, dropping to his knees at the water’s edge. Even as he did so, more memories flooded his mind, an unstoppable wave – of Drassil, the frantic blowing of horns and sound of battle that had drifted up to him. Images of his loved ones swam before his eyes: Coralen, Gar, Cywen, Dath and Farrell, Brina, so many others.
Do they still live? Who was attacking Drassil?
Dimly he became aware of movement. Before him the water of the lake started to shift and foam, something rising from the depths. A shape appeared, water cascading and masking, for a moment, the creature within.
Then a man was striding from the lake, with water dripping from the dark cloak that trailed him like seaweed. He approached Corban, an interested, amicable smile upon his face. His skin was grey-mottled and veined like a dead thing, his hair was black and slick as oil. A black-scabbarded sword hung at his hip.
‘Well,’ the man said, ‘it’s not often that I get visitors.’ His voice was liquid, flowing like a shallow stream over shingle. ‘What brings you to my home?’
‘I . . . I’ve been here before,’ Corban said.
‘I know; I’ve watched you.’
‘This is the Otherworld,’ Corban said.
‘It is, and this lake, this tree, this valley,’ the dark-haired man said with a wave of his hands, ‘are mine.’ He shrugged, water dripped from his hair.
‘Are you Ben-Elim?’ Corban asked.
The man laughed, a damp exhalation. ‘Those pompous fools. No, though to my shame we are related.’
‘Kadoshim?’ Corban asked, fearful.
‘Hardly.’ The man snorted. ‘Those fawning, debauched deviants? Do I look like one of them?’
‘No,’ Corban admitted.
‘Well, then. I am just me. Viathun.’ He lifted his hands, held one up to the sky, splayed his fingers. Corban saw that they were webbed, like a frog’s feet.
‘You are from the world of flesh, are you not?’ the man said.
Corban nodded warily.
‘And what is your name, creature of flesh?’ Viathun asked him, leaning in uncomfortably close, his breath washing over Corban, moist and full of rot.
Corban did not want to tell him. ‘I’m going to go, now,’ he said, standing, wanting to be far away from this creature.
‘I don’t think so.’ Viathun sighed. ‘I think we should continue this conversation somewhere a little more private.’
Corban backed away, turning to leave. Something grabbed his ankle. Looking down, he saw that it was a tendril of Viathun’s cloak, flexing like a grasping limb. It wrapped itself around his leg as Viathun walked back towards the lake, then with shocking strength the cloak pulled tight and started dragging Corban.
For a moment Corban was too shocked to resist, but then he scrambled back, yanking at his ankle, hand grasping for his sword.
‘Come on, don’t dally,’ Viathun called over his shoulder as he reached the lake. He walked in, sinking rapidly.
The cloak seemed to split, to flow, forming a myriad of strands, reaching up to Corban, each one contracting around his ankles, wrists, and throat. Then he was being pulled down to the lakeshore, trussed like a fly in a spider’s web, into the water. Panic filled him as his head sank beneath the surface and he struggled desperately, straining, veins bulging, muscles screaming. With a sinew-tearing effort he pulled one arm free and then he was bursting out of the water, hoisted into the air, dangling before the creature, held up by his dark cloak that looked now more like a squirming nest of snakes. Corban gasped for breath, ripping at the cloak strands enclosing him, to little effect. Viathun regarded him with a cold fascination.
‘Tell me your name!’ Viathun said, anger swelling in his voice, the crash of waves upon rocks.
‘Let me go,’ Corban grunted through his constricted chest.
‘You have trespassed here, disturbed my rest,’ Viathun said wetly as he pulled Corban closer. ‘In return I will have some answers. And then, after . . . I may see how you taste.’ A wave of foul breath engulfed Corban, making his stomach lurch.
‘What are you?’ Corban coughed.
‘I am Viathun,’ the creature said, his mouth opening wide, seeming to grow before Corban’s eyes, wider and wider, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth glistening and dripping with mucous. ‘Eater of souls.’
There was a whistling sound and a spear slammed into Viathun’s cloak, piercing it. Viathun screamed as Ben-Elim swept down from the sky. More spears flew, stabbing into Viathun’s body. His yell deepened into a bellow of pain and rage, and Corban found himself thrown to the ground as the creature turned its attention to its attackers
.
Then hands were grasping Corban and he was hoisted into the air again. There was a Ben-Elim either side of him, surging skywards, their wings beating hard.
Within heartbeats the conflict in the lake was below them, Viathun and his living cloak sinking into the water, one strand coiling around a Ben-Elim, dragging it beneath the surface. The Ben-Elim’s scream cut short as the water closed over its head.
They flew higher, following the course of a winding valley, twisting and turning amongst peaks and sheer cliffs until Corban saw a fortress appear in the crags, a series of towers and battlements. Carved from bone-white stone, it seemed to glow, even under the dark clouds that pressed down from above. The silhouettes of Ben-Elim filled the air about its towers, some spiralling amidst the clouds, others hovering sentinels with long spears and glistening mail. He saw that many more patrolled the long winding walls, and the sounds of combat drifted up to him from the huge courtyards between the high towers.
They are sparring, as we were in Drassil. They are preparing for war . . .
His rescuers alighted upon the flat roof of a tower and half-dragged Corban through an archway, down a flight of stairs, marching him into a huge, high-ceilinged chamber. Within it thousands of Ben-Elim stood, all gleaming mail and white feathers, a dense crowd which parted before Corban and his guards in an elegant ripple of feather and mail, their pale, emotionless faces staring at him.
In front of him was a raised dais, wide steps leading up to it, and upon it a great white throne, pale as bone, a splayed back fashioned to look like feathered wings that rose and curled about the figure slumped within it. Its white-feathered wings were wrapped around the figure like a great cloak, feather-tips draping the floor. The figure’s head was bowed, dark hair hanging, concealing its face. As Corban was marched closer the figure raised its head, its hair parting to reveal a familiar face that stared back at him.
Meical.
Emotions ignited within Corban, warring with one another. Relief at seeing the face of a comrade, a friend, in this strange place, but alongside that the still raw wound of Meical’s betrayal. Corban felt his cheeks flush with anger even as Meical sat straighter, his face racked with grief and pain, an expression that was so out of place on the face of creatures normally marble-carved and expressionless.