The Wrath of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 2 (The Song of Britain 5) by James Calbraith

Author:James Calbraith [Calbraith, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flying Squid
Published: 2021-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Stealth and surprise are impossible here. The entire slope is built out of the odd, crumbling stone called leh by Donwen, weathered into thin, silvery tiles, shattering further under our feet. We slip and slide on it, every step rings out like a million tiny bells. It’s as if we are walking on the floor of a mosaic layer’s workshop.

“How can we track anyone with all this noise?” I ask.

“Leh always moves,” says Donwen. “Wind, animals, its own weight… Scots can’t listen, always. Watch.”

She moves in a shifting, dragging pace, without rhythm, making the movement of the stone sound like a natural phenomenon. Step… drag… drag… step… step… wait… drag… step…

We leave the ponies with Hleo and Haering at the bottom of the mountain and follow after Donwen, doing our best to imitate her shifting manner. Unfamiliar with these sharp, lofty, mist-shrouded mountains, we can only hope the druis know where they’re taking us. Donwen claims to be following some track up the slope – we have to take her word for it, as all the rocks look the same to us. She’s certain her men are up there; we checked a few other hiding places in the woods below and found only remains of a night camp in one of them. The one we’re heading for now, she tells us, is the last possible location her missing men could be sheltering from the pursuing Scots.

She halts, abruptly, and motions us to fall down behind an outcrop of black rock. The cold, sharp tiles poke me through the tunic cloth; there’s moisture in the air, piercing my nostrils painfully – dew, or mist, or maybe clouds? I don’t know how high we’ve climbed; with the jagged, grey hills rising all around us it’s impossible to tell, but once in a while I catch a glimpse of the bottom of the valley we left behind, far below, as if I was looking through a window to another world, emerald green and sunlit, while we shuffle ever upwards into the dusty gloom.

I peek over the black rock to see a group of some ten men, gathered at the entrance of a dark cave. They’re warriors – Scots, judging by their weapons and short tunics; a man I guess to be their chief sits on a boulder, sharpening his long knife in thought. He’s the only one wearing a shirt of mail, and he has a round shield slung over his back. A long sword hangs at his belt, similar in shape and size to the one carried by Donwen.

“Is this the place we’re looking for?” I ask in a whisper.

Donwen nods.

“Why aren’t they going in?”

“Afraid,” she replies with a cold grin. She points to a body I haven’t noticed before – a Scot in a grey tunic, lying on his back on the threshold of the cave. “The first to go in gets an arrow through neck.”

Seawine taps me on the shoulder and nods towards the western slope; another group of Scots

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