A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

had a streak of red across its chest. Erlan grimaced with satisfaction, at last feeling the fire of the Watcher’s blood in him, welcoming it now, revelling in it, feeling strong in its cruelty and fury. Three pairs of pitiless eyes glared at him. They hesitated. Perhaps they smelled on him something they didn’t understand. Something to fear.

‘Come on, you ancient ones!’ he screamed in a voice of savage joy. Death was here. He would ride it with demon’s wings.

He ran at the white wolf but all three leaped to meet him. He slashed down, left and right, inflicting wounds, and for an instant the black and grey were gone. Only the white faced him. He threw himself under its snapping jaws, seizing its throat, squeezing, stamping his legs to drive the beast back. The white head thrashed, claws scraped viciously, carving furrows of flesh out of his chest – but still he drove forward, tipping the animal over its hind legs, and then they fell together into the quagmire, his fist pumping the sacred blade into the white fur again and again. Blood gushed scarlet over his face, filling his screaming mouth – but he knew the white wolf was finished.

Tangra was dead.

A gasp rose above him then wild cackles and yells. He flopped onto his back, smearing the blood from his eyes only in time to see a dark shadow above him. He took a blow to his chest, knocking the wind from him. He fought back, pounding blindly with his left fist, his right arm pinned and fangs slashing at his skull. His right arm was burning hot, he felt his fingers losing their grip on the sacred knife. Then the grey muzzle appeared above him, too. Everything was moving slowly. So slow. . . He would die now. . . Die. That was all.

But through the clamour of the crowd, another sound split the air. A bark! – and barely before his brain could grasp what it was, a granite-grey shape smashed like a boulder into the black wolf and the two bodies tumbled away across the pit.

Now only this grey monster was left on him, crushing his chest. The blade was gone. His hands went to its throat, holding the snapping jaws inches from his face. His torso was a fire of shredded flesh. They rolled and rolled, man and beast, his fingers gripping harder, trying to crush the life out of it, but the pelt was too thick. His senses filled with snarls and snapping jaws – but then he felt something sharp digging into his calf. With a thought like a lightning bolt, he knew what it was. He kicked his leg over the wolf’s back and rolled again, putting himself on top. His ravaged hand slipped to his boot, seized the little knife haft and wrenched it clear. His grip loosened on the wolf’s throat. The animal scented weakness, perhaps victory, and made a final lunge for his jugular, but Erlan’s hand rose first and he drove Gerutha’s little blade through its temple, deep into its skull.

The wolf collapsed on his chest. He wrestled out from under it and got to his knees. His body was shattered but his mind still seeking the next danger. And there it was, another grey beast jumping at him, blood dripping from its jagged jaws. He seized its throat, only this wolf didn’t fight back. Still, he must kill it. But instead of the baying of the crowd, he heard a single voice – Kai’s voice strangely – whispering in his ear, ‘Erlan. . . Erlan. . .’ One eye – the eye of Odin – staring at him in silent reproach.

At last he saw Aska and his hands fell away. He sank to his knees in the churned-up mud, staring around him wild-eyed. There was blood everywhere. And three corpses: white, grey. . . and black.

He flopped back on his heels, hands limp at his side, lungs heaving, too weak even to push away Aska who was licking the blood off his face. The front of his tunic was soaked crimson. The crowd was silent. Stunned. He looked up. The khan was on his feet; Prince Kosmesy beside him, face dark as thunder. Erlan lifted his arm, pointing at him. ‘Your gods are dead!’ he cried.

‘But the dog,’ answered Tervel. ‘The dog was not—’

‘They have judged in my favour, have they not! Well, Bulgar? Are you with us?’

The khan exchanged an uncertain look with his son, but neither spoke until, at last, Kosmesy nodded. The khan’s face creased into a broad smile. ‘Erlan Aurvandil!’ he roared. ‘It seems you’ve won yourself an army.’

Later, after they had pulled him bleeding and bruised from the pit, Erlan lay on his back, gazing up at the rain. He sensed, only dimly, someone flop down in the mud beside him. ‘Still with us, lad?’ said Einar, grinning over him.

‘Just about,’ he groaned, his breath coming in painful gasps. ‘Aska. . . Got loose, did he?’

‘You know me.’ Einar winked. ‘I always was a clumsy bugger.’

PART FOUR

F

IRE

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ said Gerutha.

‘Of course,’ Lord Katāros answered, gesturing to a silk couch in the corner of his chambers. ‘It’s pleasant to speak in the old tongue now and then.’ He went to fill her a glass of wine.

‘No. Thank you.’

He shrugged and filled a cup anyway for himself. She could smell the spicy flavouring of spikenard and cloves as he poured it out.

As parakoimōmenos – High Chamberlain – his apartments were close to the private rooms of the emperor in the Daphne wing of the palace. Gerutha felt intimidated just being there. His rooms were as richly appointed as any in the city – an array of silks and ivory, gilded mosaics and polished stone. Lord Katāros himself seemed no less an ornament to the whole – his eyes kohl-rimmed, his dark hair entwined in an elaborate headdress studded with gold,