Goldenfire

by A. F. E. Smith

  The poor man had tried, of course. He’d suggested to her father that Ree would benefit from practising with some of the other merchants’ sons. But Ree’s mother had put her foot down. It’s one thing for you to indulge this nonsense in the privacy of our home, Cheri. It’s quite another to make a spectacle of yourself before the whole neighbourhood. Ree suspected that the only reason her father had been able to overrule her mother on the subject of training in the fifth ring was that Arkannen was too far away from Torrance Mill for Ree to embarrass the family. It didn’t matter to Ree’s mother that plenty of women made a good living out of weaponry. Ree’s mother didn’t think ladies should make a living at all.

  The difficult part, Ree thought ruefully, was that her mother wasn’t at all an unpleasant person. If she’d been cruel with her words, harsh in her strictures, then Ree could have hated her and that would be that. But no, she delivered her criticisms as plaintive suggestions, peering at Ree all the while as if she couldn’t work out where this odd, independent child had come from. She simply wanted the best for her daughters – and as far as she was concerned, that was aping the wealthy, with their etiquette and their social functions and their pallid, soft daughters whose sole purpose in life was to make a good marriage. She’d grown up in poverty herself; no doubt that was why she was so anxious to see her children established in comfort. And no doubt that was also why Ree found it so hard to convince her that safe and secure would never be enough for a girl who would rather overcome an exhilarating hardship than wallow in stifling luxury.

  Easy for you to say, she told herself guiltily. You’ve never had to suffer real hardship. Yet she was convinced she’d suffer almost anything rather than be married off to someone she barely knew, or endure her mother’s constant gentle comments on what she considered was the only way to lead a good life. After what had happened when Ree declared that she never wanted to have children – the tears, the recrimination, the subsequent skirting around any issue that might cause a similar reaction – those conversations were a particularly gruesome form of torture.

  Outside the window, dawn was beginning to extend pale fingers across the smoke-streaked sky. Ree abandoned her bed and headed to the bathing room for a wash. Though it was early, a couple of other girls were already in there. She nodded and smiled at them, trying to conceal the fact that she didn’t remember their names. None of them would be training alongside her, because none of them had been crazy enough to sign up for the Helm assessment programme. They’d be taught by different weaponmasters in a different part of the fifth ring. Briefly, Ree wished that she was going to be joining them – that she didn’t always feel the need to put herself under such pressure. She could have made friends with other girls like her, girls who were more interested in swords than sewing. She could have relaxed a bit and enjoyed herself, instead of going into training with the knowledge that she’d have to prove herself every step of the way against a group of boys who were expecting her to fail.

  But someone has to be first, she told herself, so why not me?

  All the same, by the time she’d finished washing, her stomach was churning too much to let her eat breakfast. She didn’t think she could face the mess hall anyway, not with all the excited chatter and the speculation over who’d stay the course and who’d drop out into ordinary training. And since the first bell had barely begun, it was far too early to show up at the training hall. So instead, as soon as she was dressed, Ree left the barracks and walked down to the archery stands. She’d never been very good with a bow; she didn’t have the eye for it. But she’d been practising this past week, just in case she got tested on it, and there was time to fit in one more session before training started.

  To her surprise, she wasn’t the only one to have had that idea. One of the boys who’d be training with her was already at the stands, a bow in his hands and a rack of arrows beside him. In contrast to the girls in the bathing room, his name came to her with ease: Penn Avens. Unlike the other boys – Zander and Farleigh and the rest – he was very much a second-name sort of person. Though he’d only showed up the day before yesterday, that was clear enough. Ree suspected he wouldn’t welcome any interruptions for the sake of mere politeness.

  She collected her own bow and arrows and took her place a couple of stands down from him, but after a while she found she was watching Penn rather than concentrating on the practice. Because though she hated to admit it, he was far better than she was. His arrows were clustered neatly at the centre of the bull’s-eye, whereas hers – Ree bit her lip, glancing over at her own target. Inconsistent was too kind a word. The arrows that had actually hit the woven straw circle were scattered randomly across its face like a handful of dropped pins.

  ‘Don’t let them see that,’ Penn said. She turned her head. He’d lowered his bow and was standing there watching her, a sardonic curl to his lips. ‘You’ll be out before you can blink.’

  Blushing, Ree made no attempt at an answer – simply rested her own bow on its stand and went to collect her wayward arrows. When she got back to the shooting line, she found that Penn had abandoned his own equipment and crossed the empty stands to join her.

  ‘I take it you haven’t done much archery before,’ he said, arms folded, watching her from beneath close-drawn brows. She resisted the urge to make excuses – My tutor had no talent for it, and my mother decided that one teacher in weaponry was more than enough, so it was really a case of the incompetent leading the useless – and merely shrugged.

  ‘I’m better at other things.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ he agreed.

  Why, you rude, obnoxious, self-important –

  ‘I don’t see why it makes any difference to you,’ she said, swallowing the insults with an effort – though she couldn’t keep the heat from her voice. ‘Worry about your own skills, and leave me to mine.’

  Penn brushed the mop of sandy hair out of his eyes, all the better to glare at her. His eyes were a very pale blue, like a cloudy sky. ‘I’m only telling you the truth. You have to be good at everything, or exceptional at something. Otherwise the weaponmasters and Captain Caraway –’ for some reason, he gave that name a bitter twist – ‘will show you the door.’

  Ree’s stomach plunged. ‘Is Captain Caraway going to be there today?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Penn’s eyes narrowed and darkened with the force of some angry thought. ‘But I really hope he is.’

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked away, leaving his abandoned bow and arrows where they lay. Ree heard the door slam as he left the building.

  Well. That was interesting.

  The encounter had left her surprisingly shaken, and it took her a few more rounds of not very good archery practice before she’d calmed down enough to focus again. Then the assistant weaponmaster at the archery range poked her head through the door and said, brusquely but not unkindly, ‘You’re going to be late.’

  Shit. The silence hit Ree like a brick. No-one else was around. They’d all gone up to the training hall. And if she didn’t hurry –

  ‘I’ll put your equipment away,’ the woman said. ‘Worth it just to see a girl in trainin’ for the Helm. But you’d best be quick.’

  Heart pounding, Ree stammered out her thanks. Then she put her head down and ran.

  She arrived in the practice yard, panting slightly, a little before the second bell. To her panicked eyes, the whole place seemed full of people; yet when she centred herself enough to look more closely, she realised there were only forty or so, standing in loose rows about six to a row, facing the door where the sign-up sheet had been pinned. Still, forty competitors for only a handful of places in the Helm meant the odds weren’t in her favour … and the squirming in her stomach returned with full force.

  To distract herself, she looked around. The boys she’d been getting to know over the past week were there, all in various shades of hungover – with the exception of Zander, of course, because Zander was the sort of person who never, eve
r looked the worse for wear. And there were also a few new faces, stragglers who must have signed up just before the list came down. A broad-shouldered lad, a gangly one – and then the world froze around her. Because standing demurely in the front row was a girl. A tall, red-haired girl dressed in beautiful, immaculate clothes with lace at the cuffs, for all the world as if she’d just stepped out of one of Ree’s mother’s soirees. As soon as she saw Ree, she broke into a beaming smile and said loudly, ‘At least I’m not the only one!’

  Ree flinched as a dozen heads turned her way. She could see how they expected this to go. Either she and the other girl would become great friends and form their own exclusive little circle separate from the rest, or they’d be bitter rivals who constantly vied to beat each other in training. Those were the only two narratives open to her. That was what happened when you were part of a minority: to everyone else, your identity was intimately bound up with the group you belonged to. And now, however much Ree longed to be an individual person, a trainee like the rest, she’d forever end up being compared to some ridiculously attractive redhead – just because they were both female.

  At least I’m not the only one, the girl had said; but as far as Ree could see, it was much worse being one of two than it had been on her own.

  She realised that the girl’s smile had faded, and that she herself was scowling. Hastily she smoothed the scowl away – it wasn’t the girl’s fault, after all. It was just the way things were. But Ree didn’t go and stand in the front row, all the same. She wove through the ranks until she found a place where she wouldn’t be so visible. From there, she glared at the back of the red-haired girl’s head until the door at the front of the yard swung open and the assembled recruits fell silent.

  The man who walked out to face the group was unmistakably a warrior: broad-shouldered, shaven-headed, skin roughened by the elements. He stared them all down as though he wouldn’t hesitate to kick the lot of them out if they didn’t behave themselves. And when he spoke, though he didn’t appear to be trying to shout, his voice carried into every corner of the yard.

  ‘I’m Art Bryan. One of the weaponmasters here. I’m the one who’ll be training your sorry behinds.’

  He was big. Seriously big. He looked as if punches and blades alike would bounce off his impervious hide. Ree’s confidence ebbed a little further. Compared to this man, she was a twig next to a mighty trunk: far easier to snap.

  Still, there was no-one with him wearing a Helmsman’s striped coat, so at least she wouldn’t have to impress Captain Caraway today. That was something.

  ‘During this first week,’ Bryan went on, ‘my colleagues and I will assess your basic skills. And if any of you have wasted our time by signing up to be considered for the Helm before you’re even competent to swing a sword –’ he glared indiscriminately around – ‘you’ll be out on your ear and you won’t be allowed back. So if you have any doubt at all that you’re in the right place, you’d better leave now.’

  He waited, arms folded as if waiting for them to run, but the yard was utterly silent. Ree couldn’t hear anyone breathing, much less moving.

  ‘Good,’ Bryan said. ‘Then if you are found to be at an acceptable standard after the first week, we will continue to assess you for another six weeks – after which time, the best of you will be selected for Helm training with Captain Caraway and myself. Do you understand?’

  Again there was complete silence. Bryan nodded as if he’d expected nothing less.

  ‘As new members of the fifth ring, you will be expected to adhere to our Code at all times,’ he said. ‘You will not fight in anger. You will not use lethal weapons outside the training grounds. You will not settle your differences with your fists. And if you do, you’ll be out on your arse. Got it? Let me hear you this time.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ The chorus was loud and fervent. Bryan’s stern expression cracked into a rather sadistic grin.

  ‘Good,’ he said again. ‘Then let’s get started.’

  As he continued to speak, giving them a short recap of the key people they’d be dealing with and the locations of certain facilities in the fifth ring, Ree risked moving her gaze, ever so slightly – just as far as the two men standing behind the weaponmaster. One – the shorter and older of the two, who Bryan introduced as the armourer – fairly bristled with assorted steel. In contrast, the second man carried a sword at his hip, but other than that he went unarmed. Ree frowned at him, trying to work him out. He wore nondescript clothing, like that of any labourer, and his brown hair was slightly too long and rather scruffy. Not a warrior, then. Or perhaps he had arrived late for the training – albeit he was rather too old to be an inductee – and was now awaiting an unobtrusive moment to slip past Bryan without being dressed down for his tardiness.

  Ree was quite pleased with that bit of deduction, right up until Bryan ordered the new recruits to pair up and spar – at which point, the stranger wandered over to lean against the wall. A new assistant weaponmaster, then, come to learn the ropes? Though his behaviour seemed too casual for that. It was all rather odd.

  ‘Want to pair?’ Zander’s voice said in her ear, and she turned quickly.

  ‘You want to spar with me?’

  ‘You promised to run rings around me, remember? I must admit, I’ve rather been looking forward to it.’

  She still couldn’t tell if he was mocking her or not, but she was so relieved not to be paired with the other girl – because that would have confirmed their status as outsiders – that she merely nodded. Zander grinned and handed her one of the two wooden swords he was holding.

  ‘There you go. I don’t want to run the risk of being spitted on my very first day.’

  She glared at him. Stop patronising me. Stop –

  ‘Hey, Zander!’ called one of the other recruits as he passed by with his own practice weapon. ‘Let me know when you’ve finished messing about with her and I’ll give you a real match.’

  Ree spun on her heel, lifting her wooden sword, opening her mouth to insult him in kind – but as always, Zander was there first.

  ‘Sorry, Timo. I might not survive this one.’

  ‘Will you stop that?’ Ree snapped. ‘I don’t need you to rescue me!’

  He looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘I was just trying to be helpful.’

  ‘Then don’t!’

  ‘Fine.’ Smile gone, he paced away from her until they were the right distance apart, then stopped and turned. ‘Come on, then. If you can.’

  Ree clutched the practice sword, anger surging in her blood. She welcomed it; she’d been angry often enough when sparring before to have learned how to use it. How to channel it down from a vast cloud of feeling into something precise and vicious. She offered a short, jerky salute in response to Zander’s more graceful one – and then, without waiting any longer, she went for him.

  He was a decent swordsman, she discovered as she went through the patterns of attack and defence. Maybe a little better than her, but not by much. Not enough to matter. In fact, in some of the forms she had the edge. If she could just use that to her advantage …

  She pressed forward, and had the satisfaction of seeing alarm rise in his eyes. He was stumbling backwards, sword wavering, unable to escape the blade that was rising towards his throat – and then, suddenly, he moved in an odd twisty motion, knocking her sword arm aside and coming up right in front of her. Close enough to kiss, had she felt the slightest desire to do so. His foot hooked her ankle, the flat of his sword pushed her back – and she was falling.

  Her head bounced against the dirt, and for an instant her vision blackened. Once she’d blinked it away, she found Zander crouched beside her with a concerned expression on his face.

  ‘Ree, I –’

  She struggled into a sitting position. ‘Don’t you dare apologise.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Zander, I mean it.’ She couldn’t stop the smile that was spreading across her face. ‘That was brilliant! I’ve never seen anything
like that before, you’ll have to show me how –’

  ‘You’re not angry?’ he interrupted.

  ‘Of course not! This is what I came here for!’ She lifted a hand to the back of her head and winced at the sore patch she found there, grinning all the while. Finally, finally, she was among people who could teach her something new. ‘I’d only be angry if you’d held back on me.’

  He studied her face a little longer; then the anxiety in his eyes vanished and he answered her smile with an insouciant one of his own. ‘You’re a very strange girl, Ree Quinn.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘All right, you two!’ The bellow made them both jump. They looked around to find the weaponmaster standing a short distance away, arms folded across his massive chest. Ree grabbed Zander’s proffered hand and used it to scramble to her feet. Don’t blush. Don’t panic. Don’t blush.

  ‘Names?’ Bryan demanded. They told him, and he nodded. ‘Good. You, Zander –’ a finger stabbed in Zander’s direction – ‘are inventive. I like that about you. But you’re also lazy. You take shortcuts in your stances, in the way you hold your sword. And that might work for you now, but later on you’ll regret it. Because once you get on to advanced training, you’ll find yourself with a bunch of bad habits you’re too old to break. Being accurate now might be harder, but it’ll pay off in the long run. Get it?’

  Zander nodded, looking more serious than Ree had yet seen him. Not that she had much attention to spare, because now Bryan was turning to her.