FROST CHILD (Rebel Angels) by Gillian Philip

FROST CHILD
     
    One
     
     
    If I’d had my way I wouldn’t have been up to my knees in pond-muck with my eyes full of sweat and my nostrils full of gods-knew-what stench from below, but if I’d had my way there wouldn’t have been any need.
    I’d told my queen ten years back that Lammyr were nesting in this glen. It wasn’t like her to be complacent but the dark hollow in the hills was many miles from her caverns, and besides, she knew they were afraid of me. And her indifference had infected me, and I’d put off the work, unwilling to argue my case when there were other tasks to be handled, more congenial quarrels to settle. She’d left it too long, and so had I, and now the creatures would be all the harder to prise from their hole.
    It was a good day for it: by which I mean it was silent and still and as grey as death. I should say, it was an appropriate day. As far as approaching the Lammyr unheard and unseen, it was the worst we could have picked.
    ~ Griogair , said Niall Mor MacIain.
    I glanced across to where he crouched, silent, at one of the cavern entrances. It was no more than a slit in the rock, black and dank, the cold breath of underground seeping from it like marsh gas. The gods knew how deep it was, or where it led, but Niall’s sword blade was bare and he couldn’t repress half a smile; he’d been longing for this. He was rash, was Niall, and he loved a fight, and though I often disapproved, I’d liked him enough to make him my lieutenant.
    And after all, I could understand his attitude. Peace and quiet were all very well, but we were getting bored, and fat, and lazy, and so were our fighters. And nobody ever pitied a Lammyr.
    ~ Quietly, then, I told him. ~ On three .
    ~ Onetwothree , said Niall, and jumped.
     
    *
     
    There was one advantage to leaving it this long: the Lammyr were every bit as sluggish as we’d been. The first of them turned on me in the gloom with a grinning snarl, but I had the advantage of it and it went down fast. But they were all over the tunnels, quiet and fast and deadly, slinking into their holes like angry snakes. And it was hard to know where those tunnels ended, so we had to dive after them and engage them in the darkness.
    I caught the glinting light of yellow eyes to my right; lunged for it. My blow was glancing and I ended up on the rocky floor, grunting as the air was knocked out of my lungs. The Lammyr pattered out of reach and I breathed hard in the silence, listening for its next move.
    ‘They’ll try to run,’ murmured Donal behind me, his sword raised. ‘They always do.’
    ‘They should have tried already.’ I frowned. The Lammyr always had an escape route; much as they loved death and a battle, they didn’t see the point of losing fighters unnecessarily. I fully expected them to turn tail, to try and squirm out of some back entrance when they realised we meant business.
    Usually I didn’t care where they went; the idea was to kill enough of them to encourage the rest to relocate their foul nest. But these had been here too long, and worse, they’d slunk back after the first time I routed them. Who knew why? I wasn’t asking; I was here to wipe them out. I didn’t give Lammyr a second chance. I valued my throat.
    I hated this work. I hated being separated from most of my fighters, with just one man at my back to guard it.
    And I hated that my backup wasn’t Leonora.
    It wasn’t as if she was handy with a blade; it was only that with Lammyr, there was no more useful fighting partner than a witch. And while I’d never intended to fall for anyone as dangerous and capricious as a witch, I had, and I’d never regretted it.
    Ahead of me, wounded, the Lammyr hissed. ‘Missing your bondmate, Griogair?’
    ‘No,’ I said, annoyed at myself for leaving my block down. Quickly I shuttered my mind.
    It giggled. ‘Shouldn’t think so loud.’
    ‘Shouldn’t goad me.’ I went still, aware that the pinprick light of its eyes had vanished again. To