CHAPTER ONE
DREM
The Year 138 of the Age of Lore, Hound’s Moon
Drem threw his grapple-hook high. He felt it reach the apex of its climb and then drop. There was a thunk as it connected with wood. He pulled, felt it catch in timber, gave a tug to check it had caught properly and would hold his weight.
Drem was huddled tight to the wooden wall of a stockade. The only sound he could hear was his heart pounding, echoing in his skull and the rasp of his breath. Just being back here, where it had all started – it set him on edge.
The mine at the edge of the Starstone Lake.
Upon Byrne’s orders, he and a few score huntsmen of the Order of the Bright Star had crept out of the northern woods in the full dark and made their way to the walls. Drem had noted that the hole Hammer had made in the stockade wall had been repaired. Emotion had swept through him as he’d looked at the spot where he had last seen Sig alive, where the giantess had made her last stand.
The mixture of grief and anger set his blood thrumming in his veins, even as he’d crept through the heather and rocks; it had not left him yet. And now he was here, pressed tight against the wall, waiting to go over, just as he had, twice before.
This time, though, I am going over with sixty of the toughest, hardest men and women I’ve ever encountered. Hunters of the Order of the Bright Star. There was a reassurance in that. His hand went to the hilt of his seax and brushed it lightly. There was a reassurance in that, too. He rolled his shoulders, shifting the weight of his mail coat, wincing as it rubbed on raw skin, even with two layers of linen and wool between the mail and his flesh. He’d lived and breathed in it for more than a ten-night, slept in it as well, as they’d made a forced march from the battleground in the heart of the Desolation to here. He’d learned the value of his mail at that battle and, no matter how uncomfortable it got, he was not taking it off any time soon.
The grey dawn was seeping into the land around him. With the dim light he could just make out the deeper shadows of another man and woman either side of him, twenty or thirty paces away. They had cast their grapple-hooks, too, and they were all waiting for the signal.
An owl hooted.
Keld.
Drem sucked in a deep breath and climbed, hauling himself up the rope, feet scraping on timber. He was a big man, heavy, but he was strong, stronger than most, and the climb was little effort to him. In a few heartbeats he was at the top; he rolled over, lowering himself to the walkway, crouching low.
A nod either side to his companions and then he twisted off the walkway, hung suspended, then dropped to the ground. A moment’s pause, holding his breath to listen, and he was slipping his seax and short axe into his hands and moving into the complex.
The mine was a place of shadows and grey light, of muffled sounds: a door creaking on old hinges, the skittering of rats, in the distance the lapping of the lake. Drem made his way slowly from building to building, pushing doors open, checking for any inhabitants, searching the shadows. He saw tracks and crouched to inspect them. They were not a man’s, being too long and distended, the ground scarred by claws, but they were not an animal’s, either. Drem had seen too many tracks like this for his liking, lately.
A Feral’s.
But they were old, the soil hard and dry.
A moon at least, maybe longer.
And the fact that they had not been scuffed away by new tracks was a confirmation of what he’d suspected. The mine had long been abandoned.
Drem moved on, continuing his methodical search, opening every door, scrutinizing every track. His path led him ever inwards until, abruptly, a space opened up: a square bordered on three sides by an assortment of buildings. To the north a slab of rock rose to the sky, like a cliff face. Deeper patches of shadow scattered across its darkness hinted at caves. Drem knew what they were, had seen them before.
Cages for Fritha’s experiments.
In the centre of the clearing was a table.
Drem shivered as memories crawled out of the dark corners of his mind.
Memories of blood and fire. Of Fritha, Gulla the Kadoshim and of words of power. He had seen Fritha cut Gulla’s throat and cast him upon that table, along with the body of one of the Desolation’s giant bats and the hand cut from Asroth’s body. He remembered the sensation of bile rising in his throat as he had watched that dark magic at work, the bloodied, frothing steam, the writhing and melding of the forms on the table, and finally of Gulla rising, born anew, born as something different.
The first Revenant, he called himself.
Drem shook his head and took a step into the open courtyard. Other forms separated from the shadows: more hunters of the Order who had made their search of the mine, all of them moving like a tightening noose towards this place, the heart of the complex. They stood in silence. Dawn was claiming the land, banishing the murk, and Drem saw more evidence that the place had long been deserted. The buildings were cold and empty, fire-pits stripped of ash by rain and wind, the only signs of life the occasional scuttle of rats or scratching of birds in eaves. The hard-packed earth was rutted with tracks. Drem imagined a gathering of many here, a mixture of animal and human, but the tracks were all hard and dry.
A final gathering before Fritha’s warband left, marching out to meet the Order?
The sun was rising higher now; the morning light washed over the huge table in the centre of the courtyard, where it squatted like some sleeping, malignant beast. Chains and manacles of iron were set deep into the timber, darker stains scattered in pools on the grain.
Blood always leaves a stain.
In the pale-streaked skies above, Drem made out the circling of crows. Others were scattered elsewhere above the mine, landing on rooftops, winging through unshuttered windows. One of the crows above Drem spiralled down to the courtyard, a pale bird, white-feathered where the others were all dark. It cawed and beat its wings, alighting on Drem’s shoulder. He felt Rab’s claws flex and dig into him, and was glad again for his coat of mail.
‘Gulla gone,’ Rab squawked.
‘Aye, looks that way,’ Drem said.
‘And no Twisted Men?’ Rab croaked.
‘None that I can find,’ Drem told him, knowing that Rab was referring to Fritha’s Ferals.
‘Good,’ Rab muttered, shaking and puffing his feathers out.
A figure strode from a street to the west. An older man, dark hair turning to grey, an elegance and intensity to his movement. An assortment of knives and short axes bristled from his belts. Keld, huntsman of the Order and Drem’s friend. Two huge wolven-hounds were loping at his flanks, one slate grey, the other red. In one hand Keld had something long wrapped in a cloak.
A spear?
Keld strode to the centre of the clearing and paused beside the table, looking at it with a glower. Then he lifted his gaze and stared around the circle, meeting the eyes of each and every hunter. Drem shook his head when Keld’s eyes locked with his.
No sign of the living.
With a nod, Keld put a horn to his lips and blew upon it.
An answering horn echoed in the distance. Soon Drem felt a tremor in the ground.
It is hard for the warband of the Order to move stealthily, especially when there are over a hundred giant bears amongst their ranks.
Shapes filled a wide street to the west, which cut through the mine from its main gate and led here. Mounted figures spilt into the clearing. At their head was Byrne, the High Captain of the Order of the Bright Star, and Drem’s aunt. She was a stern-faced woman, dark hair drawn back tightly to her nape, her mail coat and leather surcoat thick with dust from their ride here. A curved sword arched across her back. Drem considered how unassuming she looked, no ostentatious embellishments, no gold or silver, just plain, though expertly made equipment. To see her, no one would guess just how deadly Byrne truly was. Drem thought back to the recent battle: Byrne trading blows with Fritha, using both blade and the earth magic. Fritha had clearly been outclassed. Drem felt a rush of pride and affection for Byrne. She had saved his life in that battle. She was his kin and, with both mother and father dead, the only kin he had – that meant a lot to Drem. More than that, she had shown him love and kindness, and that counted for far more in these bleak and desolate times.