Williams Titanchild

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-80336-439-1
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 560 Seiten

The stunning sequel to Talonsister, full of romance and treachery, powerful magic and devastating choices. Perfect for fans of Andrea Stewart, John Gwynn and Samantha Shannon. The Othanim have conquered Brittletain. Their murderous leader, Icaraine, plans to feed Brittletain's queens to her monstrous son. But total victory over the othanim's ancient enemy, the griffins, still eludes her. If Brittletain's resistance can secure an alliance with the griffins, they may still stand a chance of defeating the othanim. Envoy Kaeto has returned to the Imperium, hiding Felldir and Belise in a ruined castle. He believes both his friends and his attempt to murder Gynid Tyleigh have escaped the Empress's notice. Yet secrets are not so easy to keep in the Imperium. Kaeto will do anything to protect Felldir and Belise - and so finds himself en route to Brittletain as ambassador to the Othanim. Leven, Cillian, and Ynis have spent the last two years tracking Ynis's griffin sister, T'rook, a prisoner of Gynid Tyleigh. But Ynis has secondary motives for pursuing Tyleigh. Meanwhile, Leven's health is deteriorating, and Cillian - exiled and disgraced - is tormented by strange voices, who tell him of the return of the mythic Green Man to Brittletain. There is no hope for humanity in a world ruled by Icaraine. But the price of defeating her might be almost too heavy to bear.

Jen Williams is a writer from London currently living in Bristol with her partner and a dramatically fluffy cat. A fan of grisly fairy tales from her youth, Jen has gone on to write dark, unsettling thrillers with strong female leads and character-driven fantasy novels with plenty of adventure and magic. The Winnowing Flame trilogy twice won the British Fantasy Award for best novel, and she is partially responsible for the creation of Super Relaxed Fantasy Club. When she's not writing books, she enjoys messing about with video games and embroidery. She also works as a freelance copywriter and illustrator.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Jen

Leseproben

1

It has been two years since the Othanim were first sighted off the coast of Wehha by Queen Ceni herself, and we have been on the back foot ever since. What are the Druin for, if they cannot protect our borders? Brittletain has become a battlefield.

Extract from a letter signed with the seal of King Eafen of Mersia

My lord, we cannot keep this up! We must retreat!’

The Druidahnon glanced at the thicket around his feet. Elder Kirka’s face was smeared with blood, the skin across her eyes green with the forest-fury. Around her, the Wild Wood teemed and seethed, both with the other Druin warriors and the magic of the wood itself as they commanded it; roots grew and slithered from the ground as vines shot, whip fast, into the sky. But it wasn’t enough. The Othanim, the old enemy, only came within reach of their magics when they intended to kill.

‘If we’re not careful we shall retreat ourselves right into the sea,’ he bellowed back. The Court of Bears was long lost to them, and they had been gradually pushed east, setting up their makeshift camps in the woods of Wehha. At any other time, they would have been a force to be reckoned with: the Druin rangers and warriors, the last of the armies of Londus and Galabroc, fighting alongside the last Titan bear, twenty feet tall with claws as long as a human forearm. But their enemy was too lethal.

The Druidahnon looked back up to the overcast sky, where clouds hid the Othanim until they were ready to strike. Even the weather had turned against them. If my brothers and sisters were alive… he thought. But they were not: the final generation of bear Titans had died in the first Titan war, and it seemed that their last scion would die here, in the second.

A darting shape left the clouds and struck. One of the Druin rangers was taken, kicking, into the sky. The Druidahnon reached for her, too late; blood laced the air, sharp and unmistakable, and then more Othanim fell on their ragged party like locusts.

‘Get back!’ This was Aeden, a Druin he vaguely recognised – not especially talented, but loyal. He had given up on his Druin arts and taken a spear from one of the fallen soldiers; he was using it to defend an injured comrade, poking desperately at the flying shapes around them. The Othanim were eerily expressionless, each of them wearing an elaborate silver helm that covered much of their faces.

The Druidahnon reached over with one vast paw and knocked two of the flying pests out of the sky at once. They crashed into the undergrowth, feathered wings broken, but three more took their place. He snapped his jaws at them, catching the leg of one and severing it in one neat bite. Hot Titan blood gushed down his throat, and he felt as though he could taste the hot jungle air of Houraki again, the dust of the Black City stinging his eyes. Elder Kirka’s writhing vines shot up into the air, circling around the waist and legs of another Othanim, dragging him closer to the ground; Aeden buried the point of his spear in the man’s gut. But still they came.

‘It is hopeless,’ cried Aeden. The small man’s arms were shaking with the effort of holding the spear.

‘No, my friends,’ said the Druidahnon. ‘There is still hope.’

He led them back, further east, while the Othanim continued to harry them, as persistent and seemingly mindless as midges over a swamp. Wehha was not a kingdom known for its hills – beyond the Wild Wood, it was a wet, marshy land – but there was one high place, and this was where he led them, opening Paths as easily as breathing. As they emerged onto each new Path, the Othanim would appear again, and they would fight them off as best they could. That is the thing about war which the peace-born forget, thought the Druidahnon. How quickly it becomes drudgery. The sight of blood and reeking guts spilled on the floor becomes commonplace, and all that matters is the next breath you take. Survival.

When they reached the hill itself, the Druidahnon was pleased to note that the mark of Hickathrift was still there – a great white horse with eight legs, carved into the chalk of the hill.

‘My friend,’ he murmured. He placed one great paw on the gritty chalk. Around him and above him, the battle continued. ‘I promised not to wake you, but my children are dying.’

With one of his own wickedly sharp claws, he cut into the fur above his paw, digging deep into the flesh and splitting it open. He saw a brief flash of silvery blue, his own bone, and he shuddered with revulsion – but this was what was needed. You couldn’t wake the bones of the earth without showing your own.

Blood gushed across the grass and over the chalk, staining it scarlet and black. Kirka, who had been trying to keep at his side, as if she could protect him somehow, looked with alarm at the wound.

‘What are you doing? My lord, you have been hurt…’

‘Be careful, Kirka, the ground here is liable to be unstable.’

‘What do you—’

The grass under their feet rippled, then jumped. The chalk horse began to fall apart as the ground split and fell away. The Druin and the soldiers scattered, fleeing back down the hill. Above them, the Othanim darted back and forth from their cloud cover, but the Druidahnon noticed that a few of them had paused in the air, watching the breaking ground with interest.

Where is she? Where is the one who called herself the bringer of light?

Of their leader, there was no sign – from the messages they had received at Dosraiche before they were driven from their tree-city, Icaraine rarely left Londus-on-Sea – but the Druidahnon had believed she would come to him eventually. He was sure she could not resist watching the last of her old enemy die.

I am afraid I will have to disappoint her, then, he thought bitterly.

There was something crawling out of the hill, something even larger than the Druidahnon. The great old bear moved back, ignoring the searing pain in his wrist. Pieces of hillside crumbled into rubble.

‘What’s happening, lord?’ Aeden had stumbled to his knees.

Kirka bent to help him up. ‘It’s the giants,’ she said. Despite everything, there was a note of wonder in her voice. ‘He’s raising the giants.’

‘Just one of them,’ said the Druidahnon. ‘I don’t have enough blood for them all, and they sleep all over Brittletain. We shall have to hope one is enough.’

A vast figure rose from the hill, standing black and stormy against the clouds. It was roughly humanoid in shape, and covered in thick brown and greenish hair, which was clogged with mud and stones and grass. Overly long arms with grey skin hung at its sides, and from within the shaggy head of hair it was just possible to make out two great eyes, glowing red like embers in the fire, and the suggestion of a pig-like snout framed with yellowed tusks. It did not look pleased to be awake.

‘Hickathrift!’ cried the Druidahnon.

‘Thou hast woken me from mine slumber.’

The giant’s voice, unheard in Brittletain since its earliest days, was just how the Druidahnon remembered it: a rumble like a glacier collapsing.

‘We need your help, my hairy old friend!’ The great bear held his bleeding paw to his chest; he was losing enough blood to drown the people below him. ‘Our island is being invaded.’

Hickathrift lifted his shaggy head. He was so tall that the Othanim hovering in the sky were much closer to him. Already they were pointing their spears and swords in his direction.

‘Is that so?’

The giant bent back to the place where he had been buried, and drew from the ground a huge, notched blade that widened to a blunt end with a single, wicked-looking tooth. The weapon was streaked with rust and dirt, but it looked solid enough, and it was almost as long as Hickathrift himself.

‘A slaughter then, it shall be.’

Moving much faster than it seemed he should be able to, Hickathrift hefted his huge blade and swung it in a great arc through the air. The sky hummed with its passing, a hot, trembling sound, and Othanim fell from the sky in pieces. There was a ragged cheer from the surviving humans. Even the Druidahnon felt a flicker of hope as Hickathrift set about cleaving the winged Titans from the skies.

The elation was short-lived. Hickathrift struck many of them to the ground, so many that a mist of blood soon hung over the shattered hill, but the Othanim were quick and seemingly fearless. As the Druin and the Druidahnon did their best to continue fighting, their enemy drew back from them, instead creating a vast swarm that surrounded Hickathrift. The old giant began to bellow as they stung him like a cloud of wasps. Wounds from hundreds of swords opened up across his dusty grey flesh; his matted hair grew heavy and black with his own blood. Hickathrift howled with fury and struck repeatedly with his blade. The Druidahnon tried to reach him, to help his old friend, but very quickly the giant was on his knees. Blood coursed down the hill in waves. One of the Othanim, taking advantage of his weakened state, landed on the giant’s snout and thrust her sword deep into Hickathrift’s eye socket. The fiery red glow flickered and grew dark.

Slowly, like a great tree felled before its time, the giant crashed to the ground, his tusks bared to the sky in a useless, silent snarl. The Druidahnon felt his own heart thrum in his chest, as though it might splinter into pieces.

‘Ah, my old friend, I am sorry. I woke you to your death.’

‘We’re done for.’ Aeden was covered...