Uthas looked from Nemain to the birds, still more of them gathering and flying at the host before the gates. The air was thick with them, swirling all about the Jehar, blood and feathers exploding in a hundred different places as the Jehar tried to cut the ravens from the sky. Uthas saw horses and warriors collapsed on the roadside, torn bloody by the remorseless tide of beak and talon.
Now. I must do something, now.
He looked to Nemain, all her will focused on the scene before her. Beads of sweat stood on her brow, dripped down her face.
His hand drifted to his knife hilt, but still he hesitated. Nemain had been queen for close to three thousand years; how could he strike her down?
She stands in my way. In the way of my kin. She will see us all in our graves. Kill her.
He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling as if his whole life, two thousand years, had come down to this one moment.
I cannot kill her. I will talk to her, convince her.
‘Nemain. .’
She didn’t hear him, her focus entirely upon the host at her gates. He said her name again, louder, and her gaze flickered towards him.
Then there was a fluttering sound from above. A raven drifted down, wings stretched to slow its descent. It landed on her shoulder and put its beak to her ear.
Is that Fech? It can’t be. .
Nemain’s eyes snapped onto him, her mouth opening.
‘Sreng,’ she called.
Uthas stepped forwards, drawing his knife.
‘Greim,’ Nemain said, and Uthas felt the air grow thick about him, congealing like spilt blood. Around his limbs, his chest and hips, his face, slowing him, binding him. He tried to push through it, to force his knife into her flesh, but he moved as if through sand. Behind him he heard the clash of weapons, dim and muted — Sreng and Salach. He came to a halt, his fist quivering as he tried to move it, the invisible pressure constricting about him, a fist around his throat.
‘Fuasgail,’ he whispered with the last breath in his lungs. There was a moment when his life hung in the balance, a pressure growing in his head, a burning in his lungs, then the grip about him evaporated. He staggered forwards and lunged at Nemain, the clash of weapons behind him suddenly loud, deafening. Nemain grabbed his wrist and twisted, her other hand reaching for his throat. Her strength took him by surprise and he staggered backwards, managed to grasp her arm before her fingers fastened about his neck. Locked together, they reeled about the balcony, knocking chairs over, crashing into a table.
‘Traitor,’ she hissed at him, a depth of pain in her eyes that caused him to falter. The sound of combat stopped.
Either Salach has killed Sreng, or she has slain him. He waited for Sreng’s axe to fall, but instead Nemain jerked before him, was thrown into his arms. They stood like that, gazing into each other’s eyes, then blood gushed from Nemain’s mouth. She flew across the room as Salach wrenched his axe from her back, her body draping over the balcony.
Uthas stared at her, at the great wound in her back, blood and bone mixed.
What have I done?
He stumbled over to her, lifted her legs and threw her from the balcony, an instinctive reaction to his shame, a childish denial. She toppled over the balcony’s edge, tumbling over and over as she sped to the ground. He leaned over, watching her fall.
‘Uthas, we must be quick now.’ Salach’s voice, as if from a great distance. He tore his eyes from the ruin of Nemain, spread across the mountainside, his gaze brushing across Nathair’s host. They were recovering now, the ravens dispersing about them, melting into the sky, purposeless and confused.
Without a word he turned and strode from the room.
The kin parted around him as he made his way through the great chamber before Murias’ gates. Whispers followed him, murmurs. He ignored them all, his eyes touching on the faithful, those he had turned to his cause over the ages. Silently they gathered behind him, until he led a party of forty, fifty strong.
No one hindered him, or questioned him.
They think I follow Nemain’s orders. Perhaps that I am come to speak to them, to offer words of encouragement, of honour and courage.
In the end he reached the gates and stood to one side, turning to face the crowd — the gathered mass of the Benothi giants.
‘Where is Nemain?’ a voice cried. It was old One-Eye, stepping out before the others. His white hair was tied back in a thick braid, his arms bare, displaying his tale of thorns, a war-hammer in his hands.
‘She is dead,’ Uthas cried.
A ripple went through the crowd, mutterings of discontent.
‘We stand on the edge now,’ he called out. ‘What happens next will determine the fate of the Benothi. Annihilation or rebirth. Join me; join us.’ He swept his hand at the giants with him, standing in a line before the gates.
‘And if we do not join you?’ One-Eye again.
‘Then you shall be buried and forgotten with the rest of the dead,’ Uthas cried, at the same time signalling to his followers.
As one they shouldered the oak timbers that barred the gateway, letting them fall to the ground with a crash. The gates swung open, a widening shaft of twilight cutting into the chamber. Uthas looked out, saw Nathair on his draig, the Jehar massed behind him.
The draig roared and charged forwards.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN
CYWEN
Cywen guided Shield after Alcyon, trying to avoid the surrounding battle, looking for any opportunity to make her escape. Alcyon had hung back after Nathair had charged through the gates of Murias, letting the Jehar stream past them. Cywen had the impression that Alcyon would like nothing more than to take his axe to the Benothi giants of Murias, but he had been ordered to watch her and keep her safe, and charging into battle would not be the best way of accomplishing that task. Plus fighting giants was not so easy with someone tied to your belt.
Cywen had only just recovered from the horror of the raven attack. Although she had been close enough to Calidus to be protected by his shield she had still seen the full effect of the attack on the warriors behind her. There had been so many of the ravens, a torrent of talons and beaks, too many to defend against. She saw Jehar cut ten, twenty, thirty from the air, even as they were being clawed and gouged by a hundred others. And the poor horses. Hundreds had been left dead or dying on the slope before the gates.
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it had ended, the birds wheeling away in confusion.
It had seemed that only heartbeats had passed before the gates of Murias swung open. The roar of Nathair’s draig had set the ground trembling, and then all had been a chaos of movement: horses galloping, men drawing swords, Alcyon tugging her forwards.
They were standing now just within the gates, on the edge of a huge chamber, the roof cloaked in darkness, too high for torchlight to reach. It was deafening, a thousand noises mixing: screams of the dying, enraged battle-cries, horses neighing, the draig’s basal roaring, the ring of iron on iron, the crunch of war-hammers pulping flesh and breaking bone.
Cywen saw Nathair on the back of his draig, swinging his sword, Calidus one side of him, Sumur the other, the three of them a spear-tip carving its way deeper into the chamber.
‘I cannot just stand here,’ Alcyon said. ‘Stay close to me.’ He hefted his black axe. ‘But not too close.’
With that he was moving forwards, striding through the wake of Nathair’s passing. The giants had lost their height advantage with all of the Jehar fighting from the backs of their horses; the chamber was so huge that it easily accommodated them all.
Alcyon swung at a giant that had one hand wrapped in a horse’s bridle, the other pulling a hammer back ready to crush the animal’s skull. Alcyon’s axe sheared through the giant’s arm, the backswing chopping into his back. The giant collapsed in an eruption of blood, then Alcyon was stepping over him, past a dead horse, its rider crushed beneath it, looking for his next opponent.