27
Athena pawed at the baby’s feet, careful to keep her claws retracted. He gurgled and watched her with wide, dark eyes.
‘Athena! What have I told you about playing with the baby? He’s barely old enough to sit up.’ The voice was soft and pure, coming from above.
Tresses of blond hair descended over the child as hands lifted him out of the crib. Athena looked up from the bedsheets and took in the blue eyes of a noblewoman. She was smiling, despite the crinkle of a frown between her delicate eyebrows.
‘Edmund,’ the noblewoman called. ‘Would you get this silly Gryphowl out of the crib?’
‘I’m sorry, Alice, I wasn’t paying attention. There’s a house on fire in Raleightown. You can see it from the window.’
There were hurried footsteps and a man strode into view, beckoning Alice to follow him. Like Alice, he wore no more than a night shirt, open at the chest. His hair was swarthy and black, with a thick growth of stubble coating the lower half of his face.
Athena clambered out of the crib and settled on its wooden rail. The two nobles were huddled by the window of the nursery, watching a faint glow in the distance.
‘Is it the baker or the blacksmiths?’ Alice asked, squinting.
‘Neither, they’re both on the east side of the village. Wait … what’s that?’
Athena sensed a pulse of sudden alarm from her master. There was a faint scream, cut short as quickly as it had begun.
She fluttered on to Edmund’s shoulder and looked closer through the glass. The lawn of the manor house was neatly manicured, the edges lit by flickering lanterns. On the horizon, the flames of a burning village rose higher. Then, like the rising tide, a wave of grey appeared in the darkness.
‘Heaven help us,’ Edmund whispered.
They loped out of the gloom like a pack of wolves. Scores of orcs – lean, muscular giants with hunched shoulders and heavy brows, puffing great gouts of steaming breath in the chill night air. The short tusks jutting from their lower lips gleamed white in the lantern light, and they held their clubs and axes aloft as they ran. Athena could almost hear the thunder of their feet, yet the orcs did not howl or bellow, hoping to catch the occupants unaware.
‘All the guards are at the mountain pass,’ Alice whispered, clutching Edmund’s arm. ‘They would have raised the alarm if the orcs had attacked through there. We … we are betrayed!’
‘Yes,’ Edmund said, striding to the door of the nursery. ‘Someone showed them the underpass.’
‘Gather the servants and arm them as best you can,’ Alice said, kissing the baby and laying him gently back in the crib. ‘I’ll hold them at the main doors.’
The orcs had reached the gravel around the manor house now. There was a bang downstairs, and then the din of horny feet and clubs battering the door.
Edmund ran from the room, but Athena sensed her master’s desire for her to stay put and watch the baby. Though everything in her being drew her to him, she crouched on the edge of the crib and kept watch.
‘Protect him, Athena,’ Alice said. Then she was gone too.
Athena could only watch as more orcs streamed in from the village, bloodied weapons dripping on the lawns. The door downstairs unleashed a splintering sound as it gave way under the onslaught, then there was a shatter of glass as the nursery window imploded in front of her. A javelin whistled by, so close that Athena could feel the air flurry as it passed.
Then, as she looked out of the broken window, a blast from below hurled the mass of orcs into the lawn, like rag dolls thrown by an angry child.
Fireballs followed, flaring like meteors as each shot streaked into those left standing. They impacted with explosive force, knocking orcs down like flies.
But for every orc that fell, more took their places, crowding into the remains of the blasted entrance.
‘Hold firm, the guards will come. They have to come!’ Edmund’s voice rang out clearly through the courtyard, even as the orcs began to bellow with fury.
Lightning crackled through the gathering orcs, leaving them twitching and spasming on the ground. Athena could feel the mana draining from her. It would not last much longer.
There was a dull thrum as a javelin was hurled through the doorway, then Athena felt a fierce pain on the edge of her consciousness. Edmund had been hit, but she could sense it was no more than a flesh wound.
A bull orc, larger than the others, charged through the doorway. Blood spattered on the gravel as a kinetic blast took its head off, but the orcs that followed it made it through.
More screams. A howl, from Edmund’s Canid, Gelert, as the demon was unleashed upon the orcs. Alice’s Vulpid, Reynard, must have been battling right alongside him, for the howls were accompanied by a high-pitched snarling.
Yet, even as Athena saw grey bodies hurled from the doorway, bloodied and burned, more and more orcs shouldered their way into the manor. The tide was turning now.
Pain. Fiercer this time. A shattered arm. Orders from Edmund, images sent down their connection with clear intent.
The memory of a great tree. An elf they had once met. Take the baby there. The child who was yet to be named. Don’t stop for anything.
Athena grasped the newborn’s arms with her paws. He was so heavy, and the destination so far. But she had to try.
A hoarse cry came from outside, cutting through the screams and snarls emanating from the horrors of the battle below.
Sir Caulder, grizzled and bloodstained, staggered on to the lawn in front of the house. He could barely stand from the exhaustion, for he had run there in full mail. Even so, the first orc to charge him was cut down at the knees, then kerb-stomped with an armoured foot. As the next orc turned to face him, it was thrown back by an arrow in its skull. More soldiers stumbled out of the darkness, firing their bows.
But they were outnumbered – scores of orcs against a few dozen men. One by one, the exhausted soldiers were cut down by flying javelins or hurled axes, plucked away like puppets jerked from the stage. The closer men were battered to the ground by swinging clubs, as the grey giants ululated guttural battle-cries.
Sir Caulder fought on, even when a club shattered his arm. It hung limply by his side as he ducked and stabbed, making the orcs pay dearly for every step he took back. A blow from behind near severed his leg, the limb dangling at a sickening angle. He fell then, his eyes turned to the sky.
Athena launched into the night air, even as an explosion from below sent masonry hurtling across the lawn. The great building-stones were like a blast of buckshot, tearing through the massed orcs in clouds of red mist.
Edmund’s connection was gone, just as he was. Athena could already feel the pull of the ether, tugging at her very essence. But the baby beneath her was crying, his arms stretching painfully above his tiny body. The night air grew colder as Athena flew higher and higher.
Darkness. Wingbeat after wingbeat. Unmoving stars shining above, glinting city lights passing beneath. The call of the ether, growing steadily stronger.
Hours pass.
Snow-capped mountains, rising from the earth like jagged teeth.
Body fading. The ether’s wildness taking hold.
A village, far below.
No time.
No choice.