Riv stepped out of the tower into Drassil’s Great Hall. It was almost empty, apart from the ring of guards around the statues of Asroth and Meical. Usually giants held that vigil, but all the giants of Drassil had gone with Ethlinn to Dun Seren, so it was White-Wings that circled the frozen statues now.
Riv felt their gaze upon her as she strode through the hall, her footsteps echoing. She looked at them, a glare at first, then one nodded to her. She hesitated a moment, then nodded back. Walking out into the winter sunlight, she blinked, heard the whisper of wings above her and her hand went instinctively to the hilt of her short-sword.
A Ben-Elim drifted down and alighted beside her, Hadran, the guard from Kol’s chamber.
“I am to guard you,” he said, his face as unreadable as Bleda’s. She felt a pang at the thought of her friend, a deep sense of loneliness cutting through her. She had wanted to go to Bleda, to speak with him, but shame had held her back, the fact that Kol was her father, the man who had slain Bleda’s brother and sister. And she had made a deal with Kol.
Does Bleda hate me? Despise me for the blood that runs in my veins? And would he hate me for the deal I have made? He would feel ashamed that I have turned away from what is right, and he would hate that I have done it for him.
She burned to go and ask him; not knowing was driving her mad, itching away inside her head like ants on her skin. She had eventually overcome her shame and tried to speak to him, searched him out, but every time, Jin had been there. At his side.
Riv saw Hadran frown at her and realized she was grinding her teeth.
“Guard me, then,” she muttered and strode down the stone steps into the courtyard before the great keep. He lingered, walking a dozen or so steps behind her, then she felt the shifting of air as he took to the sky, until his presence was just a shadow on the flagstones around her.
Finding herself free of Kol’s chambers, Riv was abruptly aware that she did not quite know what to do with herself, and her footsteps faltered. She walked on, aware that people were looking at her, or more accurately, at her wings. Instinctively, she tried to furl them tighter, which of course didn’t make them disappear, and then when she realized what she was doing she purposely and slowly unfurled them, spreading them wide.
Because I am not ashamed of who I am.
She heard some gasps, whispered comments, and looked around. Some eyes looked away, discomfited, but a few stood and met her gaze. A group of children stared unashamedly at her. Riv gave a fast pulse of her wings, making them crack like a whip, and one of the children screamed. Others laughed.
Riv grinned at them and walked on.
She passed through the wide streets of Drassil, a host of different reactions happening around her. Some hurried out of her way, others stopped and gawped, some that she knew raised a hand in greeting or offered a nod.
Then she heard footsteps running up behind her and she twisted, hand on her hilt, but it was only one of the children who had been staring at her. A red-haired boy, no more than six summers. She knew him—Tam, son of a wool trader. She used to pass his stall on her way home from training in the weapons-field, and Tam would more often than not stick his tongue out and wave a stick carved as a sword at her, and she’d often get on her knees and let him swat at her in mock combat. Sometimes she’d even let him win.
“Is that really you, Riv?” the lad asked her.
She got down onto her knees. “Aye, Tam,” she said. “It is.”
“I like your wings,” he said, looking at them with wide eyes.
“I like them, too,” she said.
“Can I touch them?” he asked.
“Of course you can,” she said, and smiled.
She curled a wing tip in towards him, and he reached out tentatively, fingertips brushing a feather.
“It’s soft,” Tam breathed.
With a pulse of her wings, Riv rose from her knees and hovered a handspan off the ground, just for a few heartbeats. Tam gasped, and there were “ooohhs” around her. Riv alighted gently on the earth.
“Walk with me,” Riv said, holding her hand out to the little lad. Without hesitation he did, and together they strolled down the street.
People came and spoke to her now, walking along beside her for a while, asking her a hesitant question or two, saying they stood for her in the Great Hall. She told them she was grateful.
And then, before she had a chance to realize where her feet had taken her, she stood before the entrance to the weapons-field.
“Wow,” Tam said, who was still holding her hand. His eyes were wide.
Riv stood and stared at it a while: a huge, open expanse within the southern boundary of Drassil’s walls. Sounds drifted out to her, the clack, clack, clack of practice blades, the shout of “SHIELD WALL” followed by a reverberating thud as units of White-Wings drilled their formations, the drum of hooves further away as riders cantered and then galloped at targets, leaving spears shivering in their enemies’ straw bellies. And behind it all the whirring thrum of the archery range.
For a long, timeless moment Riv closed her eyes and just let the sounds and smells wash over her. For as long as Riv had memories, Drassil had been her home, but of all the parts that she associated with that notion of home—her barracks, the feast-hall, her dormitory—this weapons-field was the place that felt most precious to her.
Probably because I have spent more of my time here than anywhere else in all the world.
Her eyes fixed on the portion of the field that was given to archery practice, with its ranges and straw targets. She saw a few score men and women with their bows of yew and ash, people who belonged to the scouting and hunting units, but there were also others there, in woollen deels of grey and blue, heads shaved apart from long, thick warrior braids.
The Sirak and Cheren. The honour guards of Bleda and Jin.
She saw Bleda immediately, her sharp, new-found vision picking him out amongst the crowd. He was sitting upon a horse at the end of a range, arms folded, Old Ellac beside him as well as a handful more of his guards, and he was watching Jin as she stared down the range at a target over a hundred paces distant. A recurved bow was held loosely in one of her hands.
Then Jin moved.
In one fluid motion she reached into the quiver at her belt, grabbed a handful of arrows, three at least, holding them in the hand she used to grip the bow, and then she was sighting, nocking, loosing.
Three arrows were in the air before the first one hit the target, and then with a sound like hailstone drumming on clay tiles they thumped into the target, two in the straw man’s chest, one in his head, roughly where Riv imagined his eye would be located.
Riv’s first reaction was a moment of respect for Jin’s skill, a warrior’s gut reaction at seeing skills so precise, an action that she knew was difficult made to look so easy and effortless. That moment was rapidly followed by a rush of anger.
The hot blood-rush flooded her veins, and something distant in her recognized the warning signals, attempting to calm them, remembering Kol’s words to her.
Don’t lose your temper.
Riv was also a little surprised at the depth of her feeling.
I must really hate her.
Hate? Maybe not. Perhaps it is just loathing. Extreme loathing. And a touch of jealousy.
The distant, sensible side of her whispered a question.
Jealous of what?
Of her skill with a bow, of course, the red mist snapped back.
I must get better with a bow, she resolved.
Riv took a step into the field, felt a tug on her hand and she looked down, realized that little Tam was still there. Others were behind her, a crowd thirty or forty strong that had gathered as she’d walked through Drassil’s streets. Some were children, but many were adults, intrigued by this strange new being amongst them.
“It’s forbidden,” Tam said nervously. “I’m not allowed in the training field yet.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Riv said. “Times are changing,” and she hoisted him into her arms, setting him on her shoulders, his legs dangling. Then she walked into the weapons-field.
Tam didn’t complain.
No one else followed, but Riv noticed that most of them stayed at the gates, just watching her.
Riv walked past the duelling square, where one-to-one combat was practised, from wrestling to weapons work. Racks of wooden weapons edged the square, all manner of types and sizes, because it was not just men and women that trained in the field, but giants as well.
Ert, one of Drassil’s many sword masters, took his eyes from a pair of duelling White-Wings to watch Riv as she strode by. He was bald and wore his warrior braid in his white beard. He limped from an old wound, but all counted themselves lucky if they had the good fortune to be trained by him. Riv met his gaze, resisted the urge to look away, fearful of what she would see in his eyes. She respected Ert, and it would hurt if he thought less of her now.
Ert dipped his head to her, a curt movement, like when Riv scored a touch against him when sparring. She felt a grin stretch her mouth wide.
Behind Ert a White-Wing stared at her, revulsion etched on his face.
Riv walked on, past the White-Wings in shield wall training, saw some of Aphra’s hundred there, caught a glimpse of bull-necked Vald and the top of Jost’s unruly hair. Even when it was cropped short in the White-Wing style, it still managed to stick out in all directions. For a moment she wished that she was there in the shield wall with them, that all of this had just been a bad dream. She stumbled to a stop, suddenly realizing that she would never stand in the shield wall again. How could she, with wings? Ben-Elim were not built for the wall.
It was like a punch to the gut.
She had loved the shield wall, the claustrophobic camaraderie and exhilaration, the feeling of strength, of belonging, of brothers and sisters either side, trusting you with their lives, and knowing that you trusted them.
All gone now.
Her wings gave an agitated ripple, an extension of how she felt.
But I can fly, now. That is better than any shield wall. Though lonelier.
She sighed.
“You all right, Riv?” Tam asked from above her.
I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again.
“Aye,” Riv grunted. She turned to walk on, almost collided with someone. A White-Wing, young, the feather carved into his leather vambrace indicating he had not long passed his warrior trial and moved from Fledgling to White-Wing. Riv knew him—Sorch, almost as big and muscular as Vald, but where Vald was only an arrogant idiot when he’d drunk too much wine, Sorch was an arrogant idiot all of the time. Riv had never liked him much, even less after she’d seen him lead a dozen of his comrades into giving Bleda a beating.
“You don’t belong here,” Sorch said. His cheeks were red, fists clenched and knuckles white.
Don’t lose your temper.
“Get out of my way, arsewipe,” Riv said.
She could feel the tendrils of her anger creeping through her blood, twisting through her body, making her heart beat faster, her muscles tense.
“You’re an abomination,” Sorch said. “You deserve to die, should be executed.” Voices behind him added their agreement. Others were gathering in his wake, some of his own hundred, plus older White-Wings, men and women whom Riv didn’t recognize. Ten, twelve others joining them.
“You disgust me,” Sorch sneered.
Breathe. Calm. Jost is always saying I need a sense of humour.
“Now you know how I feel every time I see you eat in the feast-hall,” Riv said. She wasn’t lying. Sorch seemed to lack the ability to eat without half the contents of his mouth spilling out and sounding like someone was slurping on offal.
By the look on Sorch’s face, her attempt at humour to defuse the tension hadn’t worked, though one of Sorch’s companions chuckled.
Sorch didn’t seem to like that, either.
He spat in Riv’s face.
She felt the dam on her anger crack, begin to leak.
Very slowly, Riv wiped spittle from her eye. She flicked it away. Then, just as slowly, she reached up and took hold of Tam, lifted him gently from her shoulders and set him on the ground.
“Move away, Tam,” she said.
Then she punched Sorch in the face.
Riv had always been strong. A lifetime spent in the weapons-field, living in a barracks with a White-Wing hundred or out on campaign and attending to the myriad duties that entailed had honed her musculature and sharpened her reflexes, but since she had come into her wings, that strength, speed and fitness had seemed to increase immeasurably.
Her punch lifted Sorch from the ground and hurled him back into his comrades, scattering them like chaff.
A moment’s shock and silence, like an indrawn breath, as Riv saw Sorch sprawled atop half a dozen others, those still standing behind him dumbfounded. As if in slow motion she saw their expressions change, from shock, to outrage, to action. Fists were clenched, sparring weapons raised as they came at her. Distantly, Riv was aware of shouting, figures moving in her peripheral vision, running, of Tam’s eyes wide in something that wasn’t fear, more resembling… awe.
A shadow on the ground cast from high above moving, growing larger.
Riv knew that all of them would be too late.
She bent her legs and leaped at the onrushing crowd, pulsed her wings and gave her leap added speed and power. She hit them like a battering ram, sent bodies hurtling in all directions, landed with feet spread and a fierce smile on her face. It felt so good to just give in, to allow so much suppressed rage finally to run free.
A White-Wing from her left, a veteran, practice sword-swinging in a diagonal arc for her head. She swayed, felt the air of its passing across her face, grabbed his wrist, twisted, smiled at the crack and scream that followed, cast him to the ground, kicked him in the head as he tried to rise. He didn’t try to get up again.
A blow across her back, a pain in her shoulder-blade and the arch of her wing, and she spun around, backhanded a female White-Wing across the jaw, dropped her to the floor, unconscious before she hit the ground.
And then all was constant motion, Riv ducking, swaying, punching, kicking, using her wings to give bursts of speed, to turn tighter and faster than was humanly possible, and all who came against her fell away in bloody heaps. Dimly she became aware that she was not the only one with wings in the melee, glimpsed Hadran her guard dragging a White-Wing off her, casting him aside, and behind him other figures came into focus, Vald and Jost, Ert the sword master, all of them locked in combat against other White-Wings, fighting for her, trying to defend her.
Then a crack across her head, exploding like a drum inside her skull, and she was dropping to her knees. She punched a knee, heard a scream, kicked out at an ankle, saw someone fall, but more blows were raining down upon her.
A rumbling thunder, growing rapidly louder, the ground shaking, and suddenly she was being grabbed by the neck of her leather jerkin, heaved up, into the air, weightless, and then she was swinging onto the back of a horse as it rode away and her arms were wrapping around Bleda’s waist.
Half a dozen heartbeats and he drew his horse into a canter, then a halt.
Bleda twisted in his saddle, his bow in his hand, and drew it, aimed at the first White-Wing that was running after them.
It was Sorch.
Bleda loosed, and his arrow sank deep into the ground at Sorch’s feet. He skidded to a halt, blood running from his pulped lips and nose, looked from the arrow to Riv, took another step.
“I can kill you, if you wish,” Bleda said calmly, another arrow nocked and drawn in a heartbeat.
Something in Bleda’s voice drew Sorch up where Riv’s violence had not.
“I would like to kill you,” Bleda said. “Give me the excuse.”
Sorch took a step back, raised his hands.
“Shame,” muttered Riv.
“You’re bleeding,” Bleda said to her.
She licked blood from her lip, felt the red mist still coursing through her, but retreating now, not gone, but a lull.
“Pulling you out of fights is becoming a habit,” Bleda said to Riv. His horse danced on the spot, excited.
“I’ll try and return the favour one day,” she said.
Riv looked around, saw her conflict had spread into a brawl hundreds of people strong, some still fighting on. She saw Vald and Jost standing back to back, practice shields and swords still in their fists, a handful of her old White-Wing comrades with them, as well as Ert. Amongst the various warriors of the field involved in the melee, Riv saw others, not warriors at all, and realized with a jolt of shock that they were from the crowd that had gathered about her and followed her through the streets of Drassil.
They have rushed the field to help me.
Some were still fighting. Hadran the Ben-Elim was trading blows with a trio of White-Wings, as well as two Ben-Elim. Even as she watched, she saw Hadran fall.
Voices were raised behind Riv, a glance showing Aphra running into the field, more White-Wings with her, these with real shields and drawn swords. And Ben-Elim in the air behind her—Kol and his guards, other Ben-Elim swooping in from different directions.
Ach, Kol will not be happy. All this, she thought, looking at the bodies strewn across the ground, rising, groaning. Because of Sorch.
With a snap she spread her wings and took to the air, Bleda calling out after her. She rose briefly, then tucked her wings in and dropped into a dive, a flexing of her wings to adjust her angle, and she was speeding along parallel to the ground.
Straight at Sorch.
He saw her coming, saw the look in her eyes, and then he was turning, breaking into a stumbling run.
Far too slow. Riv caught him in moments, grabbing his leather training vest, her wings beating hard as she dragged him from his feet, sweeping him up and along in her momentum.
Sorch screamed.
Riv laughed.
She flew low, just above the heads of those who had been involved in the melee, Sorch’s feet smacking heads, then she dived down again, barrelling a Ben-Elim out of her way and reaching down, grabbing at an arm, her fist closing around a wrist, and then she was veering up, wings straining as she dragged two bodies up into the air above the weapons-field.
Sorch continued to scream, rising in pitch. As they climbed higher it became a whimper.
The other body was Hadran, battered, a cut above his eye leaking blood over his face.
He was stunned, eyes glazed and fluttering for a few moments, but his senses returned to him quickly enough and he stared at Riv.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You watched my back, I’m just watching yours,” she said.
Hadran realized he was in the air and extended his wings, flexed them once or twice.
Riv let go and he flew away, but not far, spiralled around her, a strange look on his face.
Riv gave Sorch her attention.
He had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, was whimpering and shaking.
The words Sorch had said to her came back in a rush.
You’re an abomination. You deserve to die.
Anger flooded Riv’s mind, red dots dappling her vision. She put a hand around his throat and squeezed. Sorch croaked a scream, his face turning red, then purple. He swatted at Riv, feebly. She was dimly aware of Hadran shouting at her, flying closer.
You are an abomination. You deserve to die.
She squeezed harder.
A spasm from Sorch and he shrieked, hard and loud, and jerked his leg. Riv glanced down, saw an arrow protruding from his calf, blood leaking from the wound, raining down upon the field. She blinked, felt the red mist of her rage retreat and looked down to the weapons-field far below her.
Bleda was standing in his stirrups, his bow in his hand. Another arrow flew from his bow, whistling past Sorch’s head. Instinctively, Riv jerked him away, felt herself coming back to her senses. She released her grip around Sorch’s throat and held him by his training vest.
“Open your eyes. Look down,” Riv said, hovering with great, slow beats of her wings.
He didn’t, so Riv shook him, like a cat with a mouse.
He screamed, Riv was impressed with the strength of his lungs.
“If you don’t open your eyes I’m going to drop you,” she said.
He didn’t open his eyes.
Riv let go of one arm and let him dangle a little.
More yelling as his eyes snapped open.
“P-please,” he begged. “Please, please, please.” Tears streamed from his eyes, snot from his nose.
“Look down,” she growled at him.
Slowly, inch by inch, his head shifted and he looked down. He whimpered again, a pitiful sound. Riv had only flown about the equivalent of a hundred or so paces straight up, but it was still high enough to splatter Sorch over a wide area if she dropped him. The ground seemed a very long way away, everyone on the field frozen, staring up at them.
“Remember this,” Riv snarled at him. “Remember that I have your life in my hands, could kill you if I wished.” She paused. “Do you realize that?”
He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
“I can’t hear you,” she said.
“Yes,” Sorch squeaked.
“Good.” Riv nodded. “Now, you are a worm, but you are still one of Elyon’s creations, and so have the right to live. Just like I do.”
She stared into his eyes.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
He nodded frantically.
“Tell me.”
“Th-th-th-that you are not an abomination,” he stuttered. “Th-th-th-that you should live, do not deserve to be e-e-executed.”
“That’s right,” Riv said. She narrowed her eyes. “But do I believe you? If I take you back to the ground, see you safe down there, will you just do this again, or worse?”
“N-n-n-n-n-n-no,” Sorch said. “You can trust me, I swear. Live and let l-l-live, that’s what I say.”
“Because I could still drop you. It would be easier that way. No need to worry about whether you can be trusted, then.”
Riv glimpsed Ben-Elim swooping towards her, Kol amongst them. She glanced over Sorch’s shoulder and saw Hadran. He was close, but just observing, making no attempt to interfere.
Then Riv heard a sound, distant, a horn blowing, far away, beyond the walls of Drassil.
An answering horn blast from Drassil’s towers.
What’s that?
Riv beat her wings and rose higher. Sorch let out a yelp and shut his eyes tight again, his arms flailing, reaching out and grabbing Riv. He pulled himself tight against her body. She could feel his trembling.
The horn calls resounded again and Riv climbed higher, level with Drassil’s towering walls, then higher still, until she could see the sea of green that was Forn Forest, stretching in all directions for endless leagues. Hadran flew close to her.
A column of horses was spilling onto the plain that surrounded Drassil, coming from the east road. Easily two to three hundred, with still more appearing. Riv squinted, the figures not much more than pinpricks, but she glimpsed a banner, stared a few moments longer and made out a white horse on a green field.
I recognize that sigil.
Kol and a score of Ben-Elim reached her then, but they were not giving Riv any attention, all of them staring out at the riders on the plain. With a beat of his wings and a shouted command Kol sped forwards, towards the riders.
Then Riv was descending, by the shrieks and yelps that escaped Sorch, a little too fast for his liking. When she was about the height of three horses from the ground she extended her wings wide, checking her speed, and touched down with a whisper of feet. Sorch collapsed in a heap on the floor, hugging and kissing the ground, quivering and shaking.
Riv ignored him, ignored the cheers and shouts from the crowd that were all staring at her, instead turning to Bleda, who was still sitting upon his horse where she had left him. Ellac and Bleda’s guards were about him now, as was Jin and a few of her honour guard. She was looking at Riv with that superior expression, as always. Riv ignored her.
“Bleda, there are Sirak riding onto the plain. I think your mother has come to Drassil.”