Come evening, the sentinels would gather in the bowl-shaped nexus of channels between the tiered rises. When the sky began to darken, it fell to the fledglings to roast either a goat or a boar over the glowing coals piled into a circular pit, a chore that required regular and attentive turning of the spit. They were also required to boil and stir the vegetable broth in large iron bowls, which served as an accompaniment to the feast of meat. Shamil found this the most onerous of their chores, requiring over three hours of labour amidst air steamed to an oppressive, sweat-inducing thickness. Tihla had issued stern instructions that they remain silent throughout these nightly gatherings, and they were permitted to eat only after the sentinels had had their fill.
At first, Shamil had expected some measure of taunting and ridicule from these veterans, such things being a salient and required feature of life in the Doctrinate; his back still bore the marks of stones and various projectiles hurled at him by the older students along with a torrent of verbal abuse. But no bullying was forthcoming, instead the two fledglings were either ignored or spared a rare glance of sympathy or grim encouragement.
The assembly numbered about a hundred in all, and Shamil saw no unscarred faces amongst them, several sporting eye patches, whilst a few wore wrought-iron hooks in place of lost hands or wooden pegs instead of vanished legs. He therefore found the good humour that pervaded the gathering distinctly odd, even jarring. Men and women with injuries that would have seen them beggared in most realms exchanged affectionate jibes and roared with laughter at ribald jokes. Tales of near death and calamity abounded but were never spoken in dire or foreboding tones. He might have ascribed it to the forced bravado found amongst many a warrior band, but the absence of fear in this place was as potent as the sense of warm companionship. Morgath Durnholm had spoken true, this really was a family.
The First Wing spoke often throughout the evening, but Shamil noticed he never shared any stories of his own, instead commenting on the various tales with observations that were either gently chiding or concealed a compliment within apparent scorn. Durnholm was also, Shamil saw with growing admiration, highly skilled at quelling the rare disagreements or burgeoning arguments that rose amongst his subordinates. Sometimes two sentinels would carry mismatched memories of an event, which could lead to conflict for it was clear that a correct accounting of shared history was highly important in the Eyrie.
“No,” one stated, interrupting a lurid recounting of the death of a comrade some years before. She was a slender woman of similar complexion to Shamil but spoke with an unfamiliar accent, coloured now by an emphatic note as she rose, shaking her head at the stocky storyteller opposite. “It wasn’t just flensers that day. There was a whole company of vehlgard archers at the lip of the Maw too. That’s why Hawber took his bird so high. That flenser pack would never have got him otherwise.”
“He soared high because he was too fond of flying, Ashinta,” the stocky man returned, not without good humour, but also with a steely defiance in his eye. “Sky mad. Something we should all guard against.”
“He was no more sky mad than I,” Ashinta insisted, voice growing heated enough to draw a glower from the storyteller. His face darkened as his lips began to form a response, the retort lost when Morgath’s voice rang out, loud and cheery.
“We’re all sky mad!” he laughed, rising to clap a hand to Ashinta’s shoulder. “At least a little. Else, why would be here?”
This drew a laugh from the other sentinels, and just like that the rising tension was gone. Morgath Durnholm, it seemed, knew how to wield his words as well as Tihla could wield a spear. Ashinta gave a slightly sheepish grin as the First Wing jostled her, resuming her seat whilst he raised his voice once more.
“I think, brothers and sisters, our fledglings have endured our tales long enough.” He turned, extending a hand to Shamil and Lyvia. They were busily scouring slops from the pots and took a moment to realise all eyes were now turned in their direction.
“Fourteen evenings filled with stories of enough horror to send any sane soul scrambling down this mountain,” Morgath went on, eyes warm as he regarded them, “and yet they stayed. Despite every indignity, chore, and injury our excellent Second Wing heaped upon them, they stayed. She has pronounced them ready for the choosing, and I agree. Do I hear a dissenting voice?”
There was a long moment of silence, Shamil’s gaze tracking over the tiers of serious faces arrayed on all sides, finding shrewd appraisal on some but acceptance on most. The silence stretched until Morgath gave a satisfied nod, only for a single voice to speak up.
“The girl,” Ashinta said, dark eyes fixed on Lyvia. “She looks too much like the Wraith Queen’s statue. It’s . . . unnerving. An ill omen, some might think.”
“Are you a seer now?” another sentinel asked, sending a ripple of amusement through the crowd.
“Course I’m cacking not!” The woman’s snarl faded into a grimace as she continued to stare at Lyvia. “Just worried how the birds will take to her is all. Mine gets twitchy at the mere sight of her.”
“The greatwings will decide,” Morgath told her, his voice for once devoid of humour and possessing a note of authority that caused Ashinta to meet his eyes. “The Eyrie belongs to them as much as us. She’ll be chosen, or she won’t. Besides, none of us can help how we look.” He held her gaze until she nodded and looked away.
“Then it’s decided.” The First Wing moved to wrap a broad arm around Shamil and Lyvia, pulling them close. Shamil noted that this time his fellow fledgling didn’t shrink from the First Wing’s touch. “Tomorrow, our young friends will meet the greatwings, and let’s hope they emerge with all their fingers intact!”
He laughed, long and loud, and the collective amusement of the sentinels filled the bowl and cast their mirth into the night sky like a roar. As it faded, Shamil saw a blossom of red above the Eyrie’s eastern flank, brief and gone in an instant, but very bright, nonetheless. No one else, however, seemed to notice.
The odour emanating from the conical peak of the nest was not so unpleasant as the stench of the tunnel beneath, but still brought a wrinkle to Shamil’s nose. It was rich in raw meat, as he would have expected, but also bore the taint of breath exhaled by inhuman lungs.
“Right,” Tihla said, dumping the sack containing a recently butchered goat at the entrance. Getting there had required a confusing climb of a dozen crisscrossed ladders made arduous by the burden of meat they had to carry. “Best if you spend no more than an hour feeding them at first; they’ll get scratchy otherwise. When you’re done, report to Ehlias. Time you two got fitted for your helmets.” With that Tihla started back down the ladder.
“We don’t need to be . . .” Lyvia began uncertainly, “. . . introduced?”
This provoked a short laugh from the Second Wing as she continued her descent. “Rest assured, they’ll introduce themselves,” she said before her head disappeared from view, “if they like you.”
“And if they don’t?” Lyvia called after her, receiving no reply apart from the sound of Tihla leaping to grasp a nearby rope swing.
Shamil and Lyvia exchanged an uneasy glance before turning to the dark oval of the entrance. As yet, none of the birds within had felt the need to call out, but the two could hear the rustle of feathers and the scrape of talons on stone or wood.
“I shan’t take offence if you wish to precede me through this doorway,” Lyvia murmured. “Terrible breach of etiquette though it would be.”
Shamil grunted a resigned laugh and bent to retrieve the sack Tihla had dumped, hefting it alongside the one already on his shoulder before taking a breath and stepping into the gloom. At first, he could see only an overlapping matrix of slanted sunlight streaming through the numerous openings in the nest’s flanks. Motes and fragments of feathers drifted from dark to light, swirling when one of the unseen birds twitched its wings. Shamil progressed along a wooden walkway for a dozen paces before it opened into a wide circular platform. A loud fluttering of wings and swirl of displaced air told of birds alighting onto perches in the surrounding gloom. Still, it took the space of several laboured heartbeats before he caught his first close-up glimpse of a greatwing.
Two points of light glittered in the gloom to the side of the platform, joined by the thin curve of a gleaming beak as the bird bobbed its head. Shamil made out the red-gold sheen of its crest before it slipped back into the gloom, beak snapping in what he read as an impatient gesture.
Unslinging the sacks, he set one close to the platform’s edge, drawing back the canvas to reveal the meat within. The bird’s head flashed out of the gloom, snapping up a large chunk of goat haunch before fading back into the shadows. Soon there came the sound of tearing flesh and the dull wet grunt of food being gobbled down an eager throat. The only expression of gratitude or appreciation came in the form of a high-pitched screech and a gust of wind as the bird took flight. Shamil looked up in time to see the broad shadow flicker through the cat’s cradle of light before it flashed through an opening and into the sky beyond.
Hearing a chorus of snapping beaks on all sides, Shamil set down his other sack and began to empty out the contents of both, distributing the hefty morsels of flesh evenly around the edge of the platform as Lyvia did the same. Sharp beaks darted from the darkness in a flurry, Shamil counting perhaps two dozen, seeing mostly the shimmer of red-and-gold plumage but also the occasional flash of blue or brown. Most seemed intent only on feeding, taking to wing when they had gobbled their fill, but a few would pause to cast an eye at the two human newcomers. None, however, seemed inclined to linger for more than a second or two of scrutiny, and Shamil was forced to ponder just how he would ever form a bond with any of these creatures.
“Oh, hello.”
Turning, he saw Lyvia face-to-face with a bird that had hopped onto the platform’s thick oakwood railing, head tilted at an inquisitive angle. Although smaller than the fire wings, with plumage of blue flecked with emerald green, it still stood three times the size of the woman who raised a tentative hand to touch its beak. Shamil began to shout a warning but stopped when he saw the bird still its head, shuddering a little at Lyvia’s touch but not drawing back. From the faint click of contentment that emerged from the blue falcon’s throat, it was abundantly clear that Ashinta’s worries were unfounded. This greatwing at least saw nothing to fear in one who so closely resembled the long-vanished Wraith Queen.
“Aren’t you beautiful,” Lyvia told the falcon, smoothing her hand along its beak, receiving another appreciative click in response. “What’s your name, I wonder?”
The bird lowered its head, allowing Lyvia to play a hand through the short feathers of its crest, letting out a small, contented chirp that abruptly turned to a squawk of alarm as a very large shadow covered the platform from end to end. The blue falcon immediately hopped about and launched itself into the shadows, a massed drumbeat of wings and subsequent whirlwind of colliding air indicating the other birds had followed suit. Shamil’s gaze snapped up to see a broad black silhouette, growing swiftly to obscure the slatted sunlight. The platform shuddered as the shape completed its descent, the impact sufficient to send Shamil and Lyvia staggering against the rails.
Shamil’s gaze fixed on the bird’s talons first, scythe blades of jet that had stabbed all the way through the platform’s timbers. His gaze tracked upwards over the grey flesh of its legs to the feathers covering its chest, all as black as the talons, before settling on the bird’s face. But for the gleam on its eyes and beak, it would have been indistinguishable from the shadows, forcing an inevitable conclusion.
“A black wing,” Shamil breathed, taking a tentative step closer.
“I thought they were all gone,” Lyvia breathed back. “Not seen in the Treaty Realms since the Wraith Queen’s time. Shamil,” she added, voice hard with warning as he continued to approach the huge bird.
“It’s all right,” he said, taking another step, finding himself captured by the sheer majesty of this beast. It towered over him, larger even than the mighty fire wing that carried Morgath Durnholm. The bird displayed no trepidation at his approach, merely tilting its head, eyes blinking white then black as a membrane slid over the shiny half spheres. As he neared, Shamil saw numerous scratches in the black wing’s beak, though its point and edges shone sharp in the meagre illumination. He also saw furrows in the plumage around the bird’s mouth and eyes, glimpsing the pale, puckered flesh of long-healed scars beneath. This, he knew, was an old creature and no stranger to battle.
He came to a halt when the black wing abruptly bent its legs, lowering its body to peer directly at Shamil’s face. It shifted from side to side with a slow, even grace he might have termed gentle but for the hard inquisition he saw in its gaze, the calculation behind the eyes born of something far from human. The rush of recognition brought a gasp to his lips, making him stiffen as the memory flashed bright and ugly in his mind.
The raptorile tried to raise itself from the sand, a hiss of pain escaping the long row of clenched, pointed teeth that lined its jaws. The wounds Shamil had inflicted upon it were too severe, however, and it collapsed, raising a pall of dust that soon cleared to reveal a defeated foe. Its eye rolled up to regard Shamil as he stepped closer, daggers raised for the killing strokes to the throat, the final act of this drama that would herald his graduation from the Doctrinate. Today, he became an anointed warrior of Anverest. All the years of pain and degradation, every blow suffered, and hard lesson beaten into his soul had led to this. He raised his daggers, looked into the defeated raptorile’s eye, and stopped . . .
The memory shattered, and breath exploded from Shamil’s mouth, feet dragging on the timbers for several yards before he found himself on his back, gasping for air. A hard, concentrated pain throbbed in the centre of his chest, reminiscent of the ache left by a punch but magnified tenfold.
“Stop!” Lyvia shouted. Shamil craned his neck to see her rush to stand between him and the black wing, arms raised in warning. From the way it ignored her, Shamil deduced the bird saw no more threat in Lyvia than it would in a mouse, instead shifting to stare at his prostrate form with the same depth of scrutiny.
Groaning, Shamil rolled onto his side, dragged air into his lungs, and pushed himself to his feet. “Quite an introduction,” he said through gritted teeth, stumbling towards the bird. “My name is Shamil L’Estalt.” He performed a stiff parody of Morgath’s bow, wincing and fighting the urge to cough up his breakfast. “Pleased to meet you.”
The black wing angled his head to peer at Shamil with one eye, blinked, then launched itself into the air, the beat of its sail-like wings sending them both to their knees. Silence reigned for several seconds until the clack of beaks and rustling of feathers told of a semblance of calm returning to the nest. The black wing had departed this place, and none of the other greatwings were sorry for his parting.
“I think . . .” Shamil grunted after trying and failing to stand back up, “. . . he liked me.”
“So, you met Stielbek.”
Tihla squinted at the livid vertical bruise on Shamil’s bared chest, lips pursed in consideration as she poked a finger to the purple flesh, provoking a shudder of suppressed pain. “Little bit harder and he’d have shattered your sternum. Must’ve caught him in a good mood.”
“If you don’t mind,” Rignar said with polite but firm insistence, causing the Second Wing to move aside. “This won’t hurt,” the mage told Shamil, holding a stone close to his bruise. The stone was smooth and deep red in colour, its hue starting to shift as Rignar channeled its power, flecks of blue light flaring to life in its facets. “Carnelian always works best for bruises.”
Shamil’s pain faded with sufficient suddenness to bring a surprised gasp to his lips, the bruise quickly losing its dark lividity to subside into a pinkish brown. Lyvia had helped him navigate the first few ladders as they climbed down from the nest, their progress slow and painful until Ashinta, freshly returned from patrol, noticed their plight. Her bird, a fire wing with more gold than red to its crest, swooped down to pluck him from the scaffolding, carrying him the short distance to Rignar’s dwelling, where he was deposited at the door with unexpected gentleness.
Before flying off to her perch, the sentinel paused to look down at him, face hidden by her helm but the pity in her voice still audible as she said, “Don’t take the leap, boy. If the birds don’t take to you, there’s nothing you can do. Best climb down and seek your honour elsewhere.”
“I thought they were extinct,” Shamil said, forcing his gaze from the fast-disappearing bruise. “The black wings.”
“Could be he’s the only one left,” Tihla replied. “No sentinel’s seen another for many a year. He turns up every time new fledglings climb the mountain, never chooses any, and flies off again. It’s been going on since long before I got here, and that was fifteen summers ago.”
“The black wings were known to nest far to the east,” Rignar said, brow furrowed in concentration as he continued to hold the stone to Shamil’s injury. “Appearing over the lands that became the Treaty Realms only rarely, and spreading terror when they did. Sharrow-Met formed an alliance with them with the aid of the Voice’s dark magics, though many legends would have it that they followed her out of love rather than enchanted enslavement.”
“Or love of slaughter,” Tihla said. “Stielbek’s a vicious swine. Damn near took my head off when I first ventured into the nest.”
“That should do it.” Rignar said. The red stone’s shimmer faded as the mage stood back from Shamil’s chest, the bruise’s colour now almost completely vanished, along with the pain.
“What about the others?” Tihla asked.
“We fed them.” He shrugged and pulled on his shirt. “They ate the meat happily enough. A blue falcon seemed to take a liking to Lyvia.”
“And you.” Tihla’s face took on a serious cast. “Did any take a liking to you?”
“Time was short before the black wing arrived.”
She gave a short nod. “Go back tomorrow. Spend more time in their company. I doubt Stielbek will show up again now he’s done his mischief for the year.”
She turned to Rignar with a forced smile. “The First Wing would like news of your progress, Master Mage.” She pointedly shifted her gaze to the baskets full of crystals lining one wall of his chamber. Shamil was no expert in such things, but he knew enough to recognise most as quartz with an occasional yellow gleam that told of topaz.
“It’s coming,” Rignar replied, and Shamil detected an undercurrent of irritation beneath his affable tone. “Better quality stone would make it go faster.”
“This is what we have. It is a requirement of a sentinel’s lot to make the best of the meagre resources the Treaty Realms choose to provide.” Tihla’s false smile broadened a fraction before disappearing completely. “Please, work faster.” She moved to the doorway, glancing back at Shamil. “You don’t need to cook tonight. Get some rest and be sure to return to the nest at first light.”
After she departed, Rignar raised a caustic eyebrow at Shamil but made no other comment, moving to one of the baskets to grasp a handful of stones. “Once,” he said with a wistful sigh, “I worked with only the highest-quality gems. Now”—his tone soured as he let the pale fragments of quartz fall back onto the pile—“I have these.”
“Don’t they work?” Shamil asked. “With your”—he waved a vague hand at Rignar, —“magical gifts.”
“Magical gifts, eh?” Rignar repeated, lips quirking in amusement. “Tell me, my young friend, what do you know of crystalmancy?”
“Next to nothing,” Shamil admitted, inclining his head as he rubbed a hand to his chest. “But I do appreciate it nonetheless.”
“I think”—Rignar paused to reach for his cloak—“it’s time you had a proper education in the subject. Besides”—he took a hammer and chisel from the row of tools above his workbench, placing them in a satchel, which he handed to Shamil—“there’s a small task you can help me with, if you don’t mind a little hard work.”