Free The Beauty of Destruction by Gavin G. Smith Page B

much she wanted to lie with him. ‘For you are the lowest of all the slaves.’ Bress was circling, making her turn to keep the tip of the spear between them both. She tried to remind herself of all that he had done. How he had all but wiped out her tribe, but she wanted to grab him by his hair, ram him against the closest tree, and take him.
    Bress nodded towards the spear. ‘I can take that from you any time I wish.’
    ‘Draw your sword, let’s end this now,’ Britha spat, but it was bravado. Even with her own skill, even with the magics of the chalice inside her and the demon imprisoned in the spear whispering to her, hungry for gore, she knew she was no match for Bress. ‘You lied to me. You said that you would take me back to the Ubh Blaosc!’
    Bress made a claw with his hand and nodded towards her belly. ‘I could tear it out of you now, like I tore out your friend’s heart.’
    Britha tried to blink away her tears. It was the cruellest thing he had ever said to her.
    ‘Kill it with tansy. It will only live to do Crom Dhubh’s bidding.’
    Britha heard someone running through the forest towards her. Her attention was diverted for a moment and Bress was gone.
    Tangwen almost slipped over in the snow as she came to a halt next to the dryw , a hatchet in one hand, her dagger in the other, looking around frantically. ‘He was here, wasn’t he?’ she demanded.
    Britha did not answer. Instead she looked through the trees towards where she knew the cave entrance to Oeth lay.
     

    Bress staggered against the wall of the cave and sank into a crouch, hugging his knees, his tall, thin frame wracked by sobs. The Lochlannach stood sentry at the mouth of the cave paying not the slightest bit of notice to their master.
    Eventually he straightened up and walked over to the mouth of the cave. From there he could see much of the valley. It was dusted in white and seemed to glow in the moonlight. It was still snowing, though the cloud cover had disappeared, making it bitterly cold. To the east, far in the distance, he could make out the fires of Bladud’s warband.
    Staring at the camp, Bress drew his dagger and ran it across the palm of his left hand. He went to first one and then the other Lochlannach guard. They were unmoving as he smeared his blood on their faces. She was right, he was a slave and his master wanted him to travel south, to return to where they had grown the wicker man from the very roots of the earth, to search the corpse of a dragon for a way to summon others. She was right that he did not have the courage to disobey the Dark Man, and now he lacked the courage to do the deed himself.
    He had given the two Lochlannach one simple order: kill her.
    You leave soon . It was not a question. The guilt that the words crawling into his skull made him feel was absurd. If Crom Dhubh wished to know what Bress had just done there was nothing Bress could do to prevent it.
    ‘Yes,’ Bress said out loud.
    Summon the remainder of your forces before you leave. The presence was gone. Bress had stopped feeling the residual nausea a long time ago. He closed his eyes and reached out to the south and the east.
    In a copse of woods on the banks of the Tros Hynt rows of Lochlannach turned and faced the west and started to march. Giants rose out of the water and stepped onto land, pushing trees aside as they went.
     

    A freezing mist had formed in the lower ground and in bowls on the surrounding hills in the morning. Britha recognised that she and Tangwen should have felt much worse than they both did, though she observed that once again the young hunter had avoided sleep.
    As she wrapped the holly around Bladud and Anharad’s arms, both of them wearing crowns of mistletoe, Britha noted that the Trinovantes noblewoman, with her bloodshot eyes, looked as tired and hung-over as befitted a bride on her wedding morn.

 

    5
     
    Now
     
    Du Bois knew it was ridiculous to get attached to objects, particularly for someone as