The Year 1 of the Age of Courage, Eagle’s Moon
Riv swooped down into a bank of cloud, all becoming white mist for a dozen heartbeats, and then she was bursting through it, moisture coating her like a cobweb. Dun Seren spread below her, glowing in the morning sun.
Faintly, she could hear a bell ringing.
She shifted a wing and began the long spiralling descent.
Dun Seren grew larger, other winged figures flying over the fortress, all of them descending, like Riv, towards the weapons-field.
It felt good to be back, like coming home, and the knowledge that her friends were down there made her heart smile a little. But there was still something, a cloud within her, that kept her distant. She had spent so long with grief wrapped around her heart that sometimes she thought it had seeped into her bones, into her soul.
Oh, Bleda, Mam, how I miss you both.
She sucked in a deep breath and tried to focus on what was about to happen.
People were gathered upon the weapons-field, as small as ants from Riv’s great height, others walking through wide streets, making their way to the same place. A section towards the rear of the field, where a new building was under way. A stone dais stood upon a flagstoned floor, wider than Dun Seren’s keep. It had been built by Balur and many giants. On the field around it pegs and markers were hammered into earth, trenches being dug, the foundations for a new building. Balur was there, Ukran, Alcyon and Raina, a hundred other giants, all masters of stonework. Scattered around the new foundations were a handful of old oaks, their trunks wide, the bark thick and knotted. Crows sat upon the branches, watching. Riv spied Rab amongst them.
People were upon the dais; Riv was low enough now to recognize faces. Byrne was there, sitting in her chair, which had poles slipped through iron brackets so that it could be carried about. Furs were draped across her lap. Craf was perched on the chair’s back, Tain and Kill either side. Meical was standing with them, his white wings gleaming in the spring’s sunlight. He was leaning down and talking to Byrne. Or to Craf.
Probably both.
To one side of the dais Riv saw a mass of white-feathered wings. Ben-Elim, standing silently, looking up at the newly risen sun.
The sound of wings and a voice called to Riv: Faelan, sweeping through the air towards her. She raised a hand in greeting and together they spiralled down to the dais, alighting on the grass before it, landing beside her friends.
Drem and Cullen were there, both in wool tunics, grey cloaks wrapped around their shoulders. Riv was not used to seeing them out of a coat of mail, though they still wore their weapons-belts. She was wearing her coat of mail, rolled her shoulders to shift the weight.
Cullen grinned to see her, Drem smiling, too, and she strode over to them, pulling her wings tight.
“Glad you could join us.” Cullen winked at her.
“This is not something I’d miss,” Riv said. “Even if Byrne hadn’t ordered me to be here.”
An arm wrapped around her shoulder and she turned to see Jost smiling at her.
“Welcome back,” he said to her. “How are you?”
Riv had flown to Arcona, to meet with Ellac and the remnants of the Sirak. A great cairn had been raised over Bleda’s body when they had returned to their homeland, and Riv found herself visiting there often, just to stand before Bleda’s cairn and talk to him. Life was calmer in the Banished Lands since the Day of Courage, but grief still darkened Riv’s mind. She knew Bleda was gone, and nothing could bring him back, but standing close to his burial mound, knowing there was something of him within, somehow seemed to ease her pain.
“Fine,” she said with a shrug.
Jost looked at her as if he didn’t believe her.
He wore the grey cloak of the Order, bore the four-pointed star upon his shoulder. There were no White-Wings anymore. The world had changed so much, the White-Wings disbanded. Ert, Jost and the surviving White-Wings had joined the Order the day after the battle on Balara’s fields.
A horn blew, Tain on the dais.
“It is time,” he called out, when the ringing faded.
Cullen looked at Drem and Riv, and together they stepped forwards; others were stepping out of the crowd, climbing up onto the dais. A mixture of warriors of the Order, Faelan amongst them. Riv stood beside Byrne. She looked up at Riv and smiled at her.
Giants appeared, Balur, Alcyon, Raina and Ukran, carrying a chest threaded with poles between them. They approached the dais, climbed broad steps and walked to its centre, then stopped.
Balur and the others saw Riv and she dipped her head to them.
Raina opened the chest and the four giants tipped out its contents.
A long black-bladed axe, a helm, a coat of mail, a gauntlet, a spear, a sword, a second, smaller axe and a knife. The remnants of a whip, and a short-sword.
Balur and the others took the chest away.
Then Byrne took a knife from her belt and opened a red line across her palm.
“Cumhacht i mo chuid fola, oscail doras,” she said, and let it drip into a pewter cup. She passed the cup to Riv, who cut her hand and held her fist over it.
“Cumhacht i mo chuid fola, oscail doras,” Riv breathed, as her blood dripped into the cup, focusing hard on the words. Early on the journey back to Dun Seren from Ripa, Byrne had called a number of warriors to her tent: Riv, Cullen, Drem, Faelan, a few others.
“So many of our number have fallen,” Byrne said, “the secrets of the Order could have been wiped out forever. That cannot happen, so I will teach a new generation the earth power. It is a great responsibility, so guard it with your lives, and use it wisely.” And as simply as that, Byrne had begun to teach them the power of the earth. The journey back to Dun Seren had taken five moons, so a lot had been learned. Having to focus on something so intensely had probably saved Riv’s life. Up until that point she had been falling deeper and deeper into a black abyss of grief.
Riv passed the cup on to Drem.
All on the dais performed the same act, and when they were done Balur One-Eye came and collected the cup. He took it to the pile of black metal in the middle of the dais and poured the blood over the weapons.
“Iarann dubh, réalta cloiche, a bheith nua,” Byrne recited, and together they echoed her. The black metal on the dais began to shimmer, a heat haze rippling off it, and then, before their eyes, it began to melt, rippling and pooling.
“Bíodh doras agat, idir fuil agus cnámh agus biotáille,” Byrne said.
“Bíodh doras agat, idir fuil agus cnámh agus biotáille,” they echoed, all of them repeating the words, again and again. Riv felt the tingle in her blood, had learned to recognize that as a sign that the world was changing, reacting to her.
The black iron melted into a dark pool on the stone dais, and then it began to move, to shift and change its shape, rising into the air, slowly becoming something new.
“Bíodh doras agat, idir fuil agus cnámh agus biotáille,” they continued to chant, until the black substance stopped moving, seemed to cool with a hiss, steam rising from it, as if suddenly doused with water.
Their voices faded, a silence settling upon them all, spreading across the weapons-field.
Before them upon the dais stood a black-arched doorway, as tall and wide as two giants. On the far side of the dais the weapons-field rolled up to a stone wall, but Riv looked through the doorway and saw something… else. At first it looked like mist swirling sluggishly, a veil, but there were glimpses of what lay beyond. Of purple skies and white-tipped mountains.
Meical stepped onto the dais, walked until he stood before the doorway. The Ben-Elim that were gathered to the side of the dais followed him. Three hundred and twelve of them. Most of the Ben-Elim who had survived the Battle of the Banished Lands, though not all.
Meical turned and looked at Byrne.
“It is time for us to leave the Banished Lands,” he said. “We have caused enough harm.”
“You will always be a friend of the Order of the Bright Star,” Byrne said to him.
Meical smiled, the scars on his face crinkling. “I thank you for that. I was a friend to Corban, in the end, so it means much to me, to be a friend to this Order. It is his legacy, and he would have been proud to know you, proud of your courage.”
Byrne dipped her head to him.
Meical looked at them all, eyes coming to rest on Riv.
“It has been my deepest honour to know you,” he said, “and to call you friend.” He bowed to Riv, and she smiled at him, suddenly realized that she was going to miss him.
Meical beat his wings, rose into the air, then turned and flew through the mist-shrouded door. There was a turbulence of wings as the other Ben-Elim left the ground. They spiralled up, then went through the door in a storm of wings.
Tendrils of mist curled from the doorway.
They all stood there for long moments, staring at the fading shapes. Then Byrne reached beneath a fur upon her lap and drew out a book. There were two sigils upon it, a black tear and the eyes and fangs of a wolven. Byrne’s finger traced the sigils, and then she opened the book, looking upon a page of writing in a thin, spidery hand.
“Cabhraíonn cumhacht na cruinne liom. Gaoth, tine, uisce agus talamh,” Byrne read from the book, her voice loud, echoing across the field.
Earth power, help me. Wind, fire, water and earth, Riv translated in her mind, even as her voice and of all who stood those alongside her called out the same words of power.
“Faigh na cinn scoite, créatúir an bhiotáille. Aingil bhán, aingil dorcha, aingeal dílis agus tite,” Byrne continued.
Find the winged ones, the creatures of spirit. White wing, dark wing, faithful and fallen angels. Riv and the others echoed Byrne’s words.
“Faigh iad agus ceangail iad, agus tabhair chugam iad,” Byrne finished.
“Find them and bind them, and bring them to me,” Riv breathed aloud, then repeated the words in the old tongue. “Faigh iad agus ceangail iad, agus tabhair chugam iad.”
The last words echoed, slowly faded, a silence settling. A tingling in Riv’s blood as a gentle breeze caressed her face, grew quickly stronger, tugging at her braids. Between Byrne and the black portal the air shifted, shimmered. Air swirled, growing faster, wilder, became a wild spinning force, flecked with flame and water. It roared, spiralling into a tight whirlwind, and then exploded outwards, breaking into myriad strands, hurtling out over Riv’s head in all directions, like a thousand ropes of air and flame cast into the sky.
Riv looked at Byrne, but she was sitting with her head bowed, staring at the book. Turning, Riv looked into the sky, saw the tendrils of air had fractured in all directions, streaming through the sky, further and faster than Riv could see.
It seemed that only moments had passed when Riv saw the first speck in the sky. A black dot, growing swiftly larger. A trail of air and flame was returning, a Kadoshim bound within it. The Kadoshim was dragged kicking and screaming through the sky, faster than Riv could fly, over the walls and fields of Dun Seren, the rope of air and flame contracting, hauling the Kadoshim towards them, closer, closer, until the Kadoshim was held bound before them, wings and arms snared tight to its body. It looked at Byrne, hissed and screeched at her as it writhed and bucked, but it could not break its ethereal bonds.
Byrne just stared coldly at it.
More dots in the sky, a dozen, then a score, soon over a hundred. This time Ben-Elim were amongst them, shouting their outrage, their white wings bound, all of them dragged struggling, shrieking, screaming to hover upon the dais before Byrne and the others. Hundreds of them bound, bunched and jostling together.
Riv searched the sky, saw that all of the tendrils had returned.
“You do not belong here,” Byrne said.
“What outrage is this?” a Ben-Elim screeched at Byrne. “How dare you bind us? We are the Ben-Elim, the firstborn of Elyon.”
“You are not welcome here,” Byrne continued, ignoring the Ben-Elim.
Yells and cries of shock and indignation, threats and insults spat at Byrne.
“Caith amach iad, isteach sa neamhní,” Byrne cried out.
“Cast them out, into the void,” Riv breathed, and then raised her voice with the others.
“Caith amach iad, isteach sa neamhní,” they called out, like a thunderclap.
Ben-Elim and Kadoshim were dragged into the portal, hurled through it, hundreds of voices wailing, deafening at first, but fading as they passed through, disappearing.
Silence settled.
Cullen looked at Riv.
“Well, that was thirsty work. Don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink,” he whispered.
She looked at him.
“A drink with friends sounds good,” Riv said.