by Anthony Ryan
“The test is concluded!” Master Sollis was striding across the field. “Help the wounded to the infirmary. Leave the senseless ones lying, the masters will see to them.”
“Come on,” Vaelin told Nortah. “Let’s get you patched up.”
“I’d like that,” Nortah said. “But I’m not too sure I can walk.” He swayed again and Vaelin had to catch him. Together he and Caenis helped him from the field, still clinging to the lance. Barkus followed, with Dentos dangling in his arms, feet dragging on the earth.
“Brother Vaelin.” It was the Aspect, standing alongside the three strangers.
Vaelin halted, struggling to keep Nortah from falling. “Aspect.”
“Our guests have requested to meet you.” The Aspect gestured at the three strangers. Vaelin could see the smallest figure clearly now, a girl, wrapped in black furs like the large man to whose arm she clung. She was about his own age but small, pale skin and black hair…and very pretty. She hardly seemed to notice him, her eyes staying fixed on Nortah’s barely conscious form. He wasn’t sure if her expression was one of admiration or fear.
“Brother Vaelin, this is Vanos Al Myrna,” the Aspect said. The large man came forward and offered his hand. Vaelin shook it awkwardly, narrowly avoiding letting Nortah fall over. Caenis stiffened at the mention of the large man’s name but it meant little to Vaelin. He had a dim memory of his father’s mentioning it to his mother, it was not long before he had been made Battle Lord but Vaelin couldn’t recall what the discussion was about.
“I knew your father,” Vanos Al Myrna told Vaelin.
“I have no father,” Vaelin replied automatically.
“Show Lord Vanos some respect, Vaelin,” the Aspect said, a thin smile on his lips. “He is a Sword of the Realm and Tower Lord of the Northern Reaches. He honours us with his presence.”
Vaelin saw the ghost of a smile play on Vanos Al Myrna’s lips. “You fought well,” he said.
Vaelin nodded at Nortah. “My brother fought better, he got the lance.”
Al Myrna studied Nortah for a second and Vaelin realised he had known his father too. “This boy fights without fear. Not always a desirable trait in a soldier.”
“We are all fearless in service of the Faith, my lord.” That was a good answer, he decided. I wish it wasn’t a lie.
The Tower Lord turned and gestured at the wiry, long-haired man. He had similar colouring to the girl, pale skin and dark hair, but his face was different, high cheekbones and a hawk nose. “This is my friend Hera Drakil of the Seordah Sil.”
Seordah. Vaelin had never thought to see a Seordah with his own eyes. They were a truly mysterious people who, it was said, never ventured from the shelter of the Great Northern Forest and shunned outsiders. It was the Seordah Sil who made the forest a place of dark mystery for Realm folk, who rarely attempted to walk beneath its trees. Stories abounded of hapless travellers who had gone into the forest and never returned.
Hera Drakil nodded at Vaelin, his expression unreadable.
“And this”—Lord Vanos pulled the girl at his side forward a little, provoking a rueful smile—“is my daughter Dahrena.”
She turned her smile on Vaelin, who wondered why his palms were suddenly sweating. “Brother. You appear to be the only one uninjured.”
Vaelin realised she was right, he ached all over, and would no doubt ache worse in the morning, but he didn’t have a cut. “Luck smiles on me, my lady.”
She looked at Nortah again, her expression concerned. “Will he be all right?”
“He’s fine,” Caenis said, his tone sounding a little curt to Vaelin.
Nortah’s head came up and he gazed blearily at the girl, frowning in confusion. “You’re Lonak,” he said, his head swivelling towards Vaelin. “Are we in the north?”
“Easy, brother.” Vaelin patted him on the shoulder and was relieved when Nortah’s head slumped forward again. “My brother is not himself,” he told the girl. “My apologies.”
“For what? I am Lonak.” She turned to the Aspect. “I have some small healing skill. If I can be of any assistance…”
“We have a very capable physician, my lady,” the Aspect replied. “But I thank you for your concern. Now, we must repair to my chambers and allow these brothers to see to their comrades.”
He turned and made for the keep, followed by the Tower Lord but the others lingered a moment. Hera Drakil gave them all a long look, his eyes moving from Dentos slumped in Barkus’s arms to Caenis’s blood-smeared nose and Nortah’s sagging form, his unreadable expression turning into recognisable disgust. “Il Lonakhim hearin mar durolin,” he said sadly and walked away.
The girl, Dahrena, seemed embarrassed by the words and gave them a brief glance of farewell before turning to follow.
“What did he say?” Vaelin asked, making her pause.
She hesitated and he wondered if she would plead ignorance of the Seordah language but he knew she had understood the words. “He said, ‘The Lonak treat their dogs better.’”
“And do they?”
Her mouth tightened a little and he saw a frown of anger before she turned away. “I expect so.”
Nortah’s head lolled back and he grinned at Vaelin. “She’s pretty,” he said before finally passing out.
“So how does the Tower Lord of the Northern Reaches come to have a Lonak for a daughter?” Vaelin asked Caenis.
They were walking the wall, the post-midnight shift, one of the drawbacks of achieving four years in the Order was a regular stint at guard duty. The wall was sparsely manned tonight with so many boys in the infirmary or too badly injured to take their turn, Barkus among them. He had waited until they were back in their room before revealing a deep cut across his back.
“I think someone put a nail through their sword,” he groaned.
They put Nortah in bed and cleaned him up as best they could. Luckily his cuts didn’t seem serious enough to warrant stitches and they decided the best course of action was to bandage his head and leave him to sleep it off. Dentos was worse off, his nose seemingly broken again and he kept slipping in and out of consciousness. Vaelin decided he should go to the infirmary along with Barkus, whose wound was beyond their skill to stitch. Dentos was put to bed by a harassed Master Henthal and Barkus allowed to go after his cut had been stitched and smeared with corr-tree oil, a foul-smelling but effective guard against infection. They had left him watching over Nortah to take their turn on the wall.
“Vanos Al Myrna,” Caenis said, “is not a man to be easily understood. But disloyalty is ever a difficult thing to fathom.”
“Disloyalty?”
“He was banished to the Northern Reaches twelve years ago. No-one knows why for sure but it is said he questioned the King’s Word. He was Battle Lord then and King Janus may be kindly and just but he could not tolerate disloyalty from one so high in his court.”
“And yet here he is.”
Caenis shrugged. “The King’s forgiveness is famed. And there have been rumours of a great battle in the north, beyond the forest and the plains. Al Myrna supposedly defeated an army of barbarians who came across the ice. I must confess I gave it little credence but perhaps he is here to report to the King on the victory.”
He was Battle Lord before my father, Vaelin realised. He remembered now although he had been very young. His father came home and told his mother he would be Battle Lord. She had gone to her room and cried.
“And his daughter?” he asked, trying to dispel the memory.
“A Lonak foundling so they say. He came upon her lost in the forest. Apparently the Seordah allow him to travel there.”
“They must hold him in high esteem.”
Caenis sniffed. “The regard of savages means little, brother.”
“The Seordah with Al Myrna seemed to have little regard for our ways. Perhaps to him we’re the savages.”
“You give his words too much credence. The Order is of the Faith and the Faith cannot be judged by one such as him. Alt
hough I confess I am curious as to why the Tower Lord should bring him here to gawk at us.”
“I don’t think that’s why he came. I suspect he had business with the Aspect.”
Caenis looked at him sharply. “Business? What could they possibly have to discuss?”
“You cannot be entirely deaf to word of the world outside these walls, Caenis. The Battle Lord has quit his post, the King’s Minister has been executed. Now the Tower Lord comes south. It must all mean something.”
“This was ever an eventful realm. It’s why our history is so rich in stories.”
Stories of war, Vaelin thought.
“Perhaps,” Caenis went on, “Al Myrna had another reason for coming here, a personal reason.”
“Such as?”
“He said he and the Battle Lord had been comrades. Perhaps he wished to check on your progress.”
My father sent him here to see me? Vaelin wondered. Why? To check I’m still alive? See how tall I’ve grown? To count my scars? He had to force down the familiar well of bitterness building in his chest. Why hate a stranger? I have no father to hate.
CHAPTER THREE
Only two boys were given their coins in the morning, both having been judged as displaying either cowardice or a chronic lack of skill during the battle. It seemed to Vaelin all the blood spilled and bones broken in the test had hardly been worth the outcome, but the Order never questioned its rituals, they were of the Faith after all. Nortah recovered quickly, as did Dentos, although Barkus would have a deep scar on his back for the rest of his life.
As winter’s chill deepened their training became more specialised. Master Sollis’s sword scales acquired a daunting complexity and lessons with the pole-axe began to emphasise the discipline of close-order drill. They were taught to march and manoeuvre in companies, learning the many commands that formed a group of individuals into a disciplined battle line. It was a difficult skill to learn and many boys earned the cane for failing to know right from left or continually falling out of step. It took several months of hard training before they truly felt they knew what they were doing and a couple more before the masters appeared satisfied with their efforts. All through this they had to keep up their riding practice, most of which had to be done in the evening during the shortening hours of dusk. They had found their own racing course, a four-mile trail along the riverbank and back around the outer wall, which took in enough rough ground and obstacles to meet Master Rensial’s exacting standards. It was during one of their evening races that Vaelin met the little girl.
He had misjudged a jump over a fallen birch trunk and Spit, with characteristic bad grace, had reared, dumping him from the saddle to connect painfully with the frosted earth. He heard the others laughing as they spurred on ahead.
“You bloody nag!” Vaelin raged, climbing to his feet and rubbing at a bruised backside. “You’re fit for nothing but the tallow mill.”
Spit bared his teeth in spite and dragged a hoof along the ground before trotting off to chew ineffectually at some bushes. In one of his more coherent moments Master Rensial had cautioned them against ascribing human feelings to an animal that had a brain no larger than a crab apple. “Horses feel only for other horses,” he told them. “Their cares and wants are not ours to know, no more than they can know a man’s thoughts.” Watching Spit carefully show him his backside, Vaelin thought if that was true, then his horse had an uncanny ability to project the human quality of indifference.
“Your horse doesn’t like you much.”
His eyes found her quickly, hands involuntarily moving to his weapons. She was about ten years old, wrapped in furs against the cold, her pale face poking out to peer at him with unabashed curiosity. She had emerged from behind a broad oak, mitten-clad hands clasping a small bunch of pale yellow flowers he recognised as winterblooms. They grew well in the surrounding woods and sometimes people from the city came to pick them. He didn’t understand why since Master Hutril said they were no use as either medicine or food.
“I think he’d rather be back on the plains,” Vaelin replied, moving to the fallen birch trunk and sitting down to adjust his sword belt.
To his surprise the little girl came and sat next to him. “My name’s Alornis,” she said. “Your name is Vaelin Al Sorna.”
“That it is.” He was growing accustomed to recognition since the Summertide Fair, drawing stares and pointed fingers whenever he ventured close to the city.
“Mumma said I shouldn’t talk to you,” Alornis went on.
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I think Dadda wouldn’t like it.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Oh I don’t always do what I’m told. I’m a bad girl. I don’t do things girls should.”
Vaelin found himself smiling. “What things are these?”
“I don’t sew and I don’t like dolls and I make things I’m not supposed to make and I draw pictures I’m not supposed to draw and I do cleverer things than boys and make them feel stupid.”
Vaelin was about to laugh but saw how serious her face was. She seemed to be studying him, her eyes roaming his face. It should have been uncomfortable but he found it oddly endearing. “Winterblooms,” he said, nodding at her flowers. “Are you supposed to pick those?”
“Oh, yes. I’m going to draw them and write down what they are. I have a big book of flowers I’ve drawn. Dadda taught me their names. He knows lots about flowers and plants. Do you know about flowers and plants?”
“A little. I know which ones are poison, which are useful for healing or eating.”
She frowned at the flowers in her mittens. “Can you eat these?”
He shook his head. “No, nor heal with them. They’re not much good for anything really.”
“They’re part of nature’s beauty,” she told him, a small line appearing in her smooth brow. “That makes them good for something.”
He laughed this time, he couldn’t help it. “True enough.” He glanced around for signs of the girl’s parents. “You aren’t here alone?”
“Mumma’s in the woods. I hid behind that oak so I could see you ride past. It was very funny when you fell off.”
Vaelin looked over at Spit, who artfully swung his head in the other direction. “My horse thought so too.”
“What’s his name?”
“Spit.”
“That’s ugly.”
“So is he, but I have a dog that’s uglier.”
“I’ve heard about your dog. It’s as big as a horse and you tamed it after fighting it for a day and a night during the Test of the Wild. I’ve heard other stories too. I write them down but I have to hide the book from Mumma and Dadda. I heard you defeated ten men on your own and have already been chosen as the next Aspect of the Sixth Order.”
Ten men? he wondered. Last I heard it was seven. By my thirtieth year it’ll be a hundred. “It was four,” he told her, “and I wasn’t on my own. And the next Aspect cannot be chosen until the death or resignation of the current Aspect. And my dog isn’t as big as a horse, nor did I fight him for a day and a night. If I fought him for five minutes, I’d lose.”
“Oh.” She seemed a little crestfallen. “I’ll have to change my book.”
“Sorry.”
She gave a small shrug. “When I was little Mumma said you were going to come live with us and be my brother but you never did. Dadda was very sad.”
The wave of confusion that swept through him was sickening. For a moment the world seemed to move around him, the ground swaying, threatening to tip him over. “What?”
“ALORNIS!” A woman was hurrying towards them from the woods, a handsome woman with curly black hair and a plain woollen cloak. “Alornis, come here!”
The girl gave a small pout of annoyance. “She’ll take me away now.”
“I’m sorry, brother,” the woman said breathlessly as she approached, catching hold of the girl’s hand and pulling her close. Despite the woman’s evident agit
ation, Vaelin noted her gentleness with the girl, both arms closing over her protectively. “My daughter is ever curious. I hope she didn’t bother you overly.”
“Her name is Alornis?” Vaelin asked her, his confusion giving way to an icy numbness.
The woman’s arms tightened around the girl. “Yes.”
“And your name, lady?”
“Hilla.” She forced a smile. “Hilla Justil.”
It meant nothing to him. I do not know this woman. He saw something in her expression, something besides the concern for her daughter. Recognition. She knows my face. He switched his gaze to the little girl, searching her face carefully. Pretty, like her mother, same jaw, same nose…different eyes. Dark eyes. Realisation dawned with the force of an icy gale, dispelling the numbness, replacing it with something cold and hard. “How many years do you have, Alornis?”
“Ten and eight months,” she replied promptly.
“Nearly eleven then. I was eleven when my father brought me here.” He noticed her hands were empty and saw she had dropped her flowers. “I always wondered why he did that.” He reached down to gather the winterblooms, being careful not to break the stems, and went over to crouch in front of Alornis. “Don’t forget these.” He smiled at her and she smiled back. He tried to fix the image of her face in his head.
“Brother…” Hilla began.
“You shouldn’t linger here.” He straightened and went over to Spit, grasping his reins tight. The horse plainly read his mood because he allowed himself to be mounted without demur. “These woods can be treacherous in winter. You should seek flowers elsewhere in future.”
He watched Hilla clutching her daughter and fighting to master her fear. Finally she said, “Thank you, brother. We shall.”
