“I understand,” Murtagh said, and loosened the straps around his legs.
I understand, said Thorn.
“Then go!” And to the men on horseback, Grieve motioned and said, “Charge!”
The warriors turned their horses northward, dug in their spurs, and started to gallop toward the ridge.
Thorn waited until the group had reached the foot of the rise before he crouched and took flight after them. Murtagh hunched low over Thorn’s neck as the cold wind blasted him head-on, forcing him to squint. Its icy ferocity cleared his mind the slightest amount, a thin layer of patina being stripped from tarnished silver.
Up the hogbacked ridge Thorn soared, over the horsemen, over the snow-laden pines, and then down again, toward a broad creek bed, nearly dry in the winter, and by the creek, a band of fur-clad figures huddled among a long train of horses. To Murtagh, the Orthroc in their barbaric garb seemed bulky and threatening, and he saw curved horns upon the heads of several of them. Urgals!
Thorn roared. The Orthroc quailed and started to run, but the snow hampered them. They were too slow. Far, far too slow.
Horses screamed as Thorn thudded to the ground before them. The sound was maddening, and the beasts reared and thrashed and bolted. Some fell, crushing the Orthroc who stood near. Packs slid to the ground, and lines snapped taut, pulling horses off their feet or else cracking like whips.
Murtagh did not think. He did not need to. There was fighting to be done, and a sword in his hand, and enemies that meant to kill him and Thorn. It was a simple problem.
A figure rushed them, and Thorn slapped him down with one paw, breaking the warrior.
Murtagh jumped to the ground. The impact drove him to his knees, but he quickly recovered and charged forward, buckler held high. An arrow whirred past his head, barely visible as a blurred streak.
One of the Orthroc rose up before him, spear in hand. Murtagh batted aside the spear and cut through the warrior’s bearskin overcoat and into his neck. The warrior collapsed, blood spraying in a ruby fountain from his mortal wound.
Murtagh was already moving past. A pair of hulking Orthroc converged on him. A horse kicked one of them, and he fell. The other swung at Murtagh with a rusted poleax. He stepped out of range, dodged two lunges, and then closed the distance and stabbed the Orthroc in the belly and, continuing past, hamstrung him with a backhand blow.
At first the fighting seemed entirely separate from who and what Murtagh was. He watched himself move, and he felt nothing. But the instincts of flesh would not be denied. Even through the curtain of indifference, he felt the quickening of blood, and the deepening of breath, and the burn of overtaxed muscles. And a bloody rage rose within him, and along with it fear of equal strength, until his heart felt as if it were about to burst and—
thunk
An arrow struck his buckler, drove down his arm.
chink
An arrow struck his shoulder and pierced the scale armor.
He had no wards left against physical attack. The arrowhead punctured skin and muscle and sent a shocking jolt of pain through the bones of his arm and shoulder. In that moment, he went cold as ice, and his pulse stilled, and everything he saw acquired a bluish sheen. No longer was he angry or afraid. Rather, he was an instrument of pure, unrelenting violence, devoid of thought or mercy or anything resembling human emotion. He moved with a perfection of form born of practice, experience, and unconscious intent.
Above him a pennant of flames streaked the grey sky—fire from Thorn—and painted the field of struggling bodies with a ghoulish light.
For a timeless while, Murtagh fought. His left arm was numb and useless, but that hardly slowed him. He’d been trained by one of the finest swordsmen in the land, tempered in the fiercest battles in living memory, and his strength and speed were heightened by reason of being a Rider.
The Orthroc stood no chance before him. He cut them down as shocks of dry wheat with a scythe, and his blade ran red with blood. The few Orthroc who tried to flee covered no more than a few steps before he caught them and slew them from behind, ignoring their cries.
As he killed, a terrible glee took root within him. It was as if the dreams he’d had in Nal Gorgoth were become real, and a new surge of strength coursed through his limbs. Why should he not conquer and kill? Why should he not take the throne and rule with Bachel by his side? Why could he not shape the world to his will?
At last no more Orthroc remained before him. The final one lay at his feet, gurgling a mortal breath.
Murtagh turned. A path of bloodstained snow led back to the creek. Bodies lay strewn across the splattered ground, and of the Orthroc, only their horses were still standing: long teeth bared, eyes rolling to show the whites, sharp hooves dashing at the ground.
Thorn stood crouched within a circle of corpses—Orthroc and horses alike. His snout was wrinkled in a snarl, and his teeth and claws and forelegs were gore-splattered and dark with viscera. The dragon was panting and trembling, and small spikes of flame jetted from his nostrils with each exhalation.
Grieve still sat on Thorn’s back. The man looked shaken but triumphant.
The other Draumar gathered along the edge of the battlefield. None seemed to have bloodied their weapons.
A rattle sounded from the Orthroc at Murtagh’s feet, then the fur-clad body went limp. The motion drew Murtagh’s attention. For the first time, he looked one of the Orthroc in the face, and he saw…not an Urgal as he expected, but a man with windburned cheeks, a thick red beard, and beaded braids that hung on either side of his broad forehead. A man such as might have been found in any number of wandering tribes throughout the northern part of Alagaësia.
Murtagh raised his gaze and looked anew at the corpses of the slain. All human, and not just men but women and…smaller bodies too.
He began to shake as, in an instant, the fever of battle changed to sick revulsion and the seductive promises of misbegotten dreams became grim reality. Bachel had not sent them to attack a convoy of armed warriors but a group of tribespeople, and the only reason he could imagine for such folk to be on the move in the winter was because they were seeking safety—safety from those such as the Draumar.
Even in his addled state, Murtagh felt like vomiting. The pain from the arrow in his shoulder came to the forefront with crippling strength, and he gasped without meaning to. He wanted to deny the evidence of his eyes, but he was too practical-minded for delusion. He knew what his hands had done.
No, not his hands. Him.
He looked at Thorn, and found the dragon staring at him with a haunted expression Murtagh recognized from their time imprisoned in Urû’baen. The fires died in Thorn’s nostrils, and he shuddered and let out the faintest whine.
Thorn started to take a step forward, and from his back, Grieve barked, “Stay!” Thorn froze.
As Grieve slid to the ground, Thorn and Murtagh continued to stare at each other, hopeless to break the compulsion that bound them.
Bloody snow crunched under Grieve’s boots as he walked over to Murtagh. He studied the arrow in Murtagh’s shoulder. “It would have been better if they killed you,” he said in a flat tone. Then he took a bird-skull amulet from within his robe and pressed it against Murtagh’s shoulder and pulled free the arrow.
The pain caused Murtagh’s vision to fade out, and his knees buckled.
He came to on all fours. He looked: no blood spurted from his shoulder. The wound had sealed over and was red and puckered, as if a week of healing had taken place. He sat back on his heels and moved his left arm. It still had little strength, but the muscles seemed to work.