He scanned the faces. Yurl and Balendin were there, a dozen paces away, the leach’s wolfhounds slavering in the morning heat. At some point, this week or this year, Valyn planned to hurt them, hurt them badly, for what they had done to Ha Lin up on the West Bluffs, regardless of whether they were involved in her death down in the Hole. It was the others he needed to worry about now, the ones he hadn’t figured out. He shifted his gaze to Annick.
She sat on the far end of the benches, her bow across her slender knees. At this distance, without being able to see her eyes, he thought she looked almost like a child, lost and alone. Where most of the cadets had gathered in small knots, Annick held herself apart—no one had come within a few paces of her, although some of the veterans seemed to be considering the sniper from beneath hooded eyes. She was a good prospect to step up to one of the established Wings—she was as deadly as any soldier twice her age with that bow, and she certainly had no connections among her peers.
In retrospect, the fact that Annick had come out of the Hole alive was something of a mystery. Underground, in the dark, that bow of hers didn’t count for much. Given the winding of the tunnels, it would take a miracle to even draw the thing before the slarn could attack. This would have been a problem for all the snipers, but most were more proficient with their blades. Valyn narrowed his eyes, but there was nothing to see—just a girl, her hair cut short, eyes fixed on the weapon in her hands.
He turned to look at Talal. The leach, too, sat a little apart, although he looked comfortable with his isolation. A slarn had raked its claws across his face, and while the wounds weren’t immediately obvious on his dark skin, one of those claws had missed his eye by the barest whisker. Valyn eyed the bracelets racked on his wrists—bronze, steel, iron, jade—the hoops and stones, precious and ordinary, sunk in his ears. A leach could draw his power from any of those things, or none.
“I wonder what his well is,” Valyn said, half to himself.
Laith raised an eyebrow. “You want to play that guessing game? Have fun. I’m sure the last eight years have narrowed it down to about a thousand possibilities … provided you were paying attention and taking notes.”
“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Gent chimed in.
“What?” Laith responded, grinning. “The fact that we got two blades and a torch when we went down in the Hole while Talal brought the ability to bend nature to his will?”
Valyn considered his next question carefully. He trusted Laith and Gent as much as anyone else on the Islands, but he wasn’t ready to tip his hand, not yet.
“What did people bring with them?” he asked. “I was so wiped from the first week that I wandered in with just my blacks and the blades on my back.”
Laith shrugged. “Most of the snipers had their bows. I think Gwenna carted along some demo—I could have sworn I heard an explosion down there. On the other hand, that might have been the poison pounding in my ears as my sanity slowly slipped away.”
“Grub,” Gent replied. “I stuffed my pockets before leaving the ship. Had enough of raw fucking rat.” Of course. Even now, he held a massive turkey wing in his equally massive hand, waving it around the way a field marshal might gesture with his baton. Gent’s favorite chapter of the Tactics was the eighth, the one that began, On an extended mission, food is as important as fighting.…
“Anything else?” Valyn pressed. “Did anyone bring … I don’t know, packs or cord or anything like that?”
“What were you going to pack?” Laith asked skeptically. “A bottle of Raaltan red and an embroidered tunic for the ball?”
Valyn spread his hands in defeat. If his friends were anything like him, they’d been paying more attention to the slarn and the gaping hole in the rock than they had to the gear carried by those surrounding them. Anyone could have brought the Liran cord that had bound Lin’s wrists. It was light and supple enough to pocket, cram in a small pack, or even thread through the belt loops that held up a cadet’s pants.
The hooting and heckling from the soldiers crested for a moment, and Valyn looked over to see Jakob Rallen walking into the arena, leaning heavily on his cane to support his bulk. Although the Kettral were the only military branch to eschew formal uniforms, Rallen was dressed for the occasion in crisp blacks, his hair carefully combed across his sweating pate. As Master of Cadets, he would preside over the ceremony—Valyn remembered as much from past years—and he did all he could to invest the role with more pomp and grandeur than it deserved. A low table and a high-backed chair sat at the center of the arena, the focus of the assembled benches, and Rallen took his seat with obvious pleasure in front of a dangling Annurian flag, the sunburst bright against the white cloth.
“Flag,” Gent grunted around a mouthful of meat. “First time I’ve seen one of those on the Islands.”
“Rallen probably figures he’ll cut a more imposing figure if he sits in front of something large and impressive,” Laith pointed out.
“Let him,” Valyn grumbled. “This is the last we’ll have to hear from that miserable bastard.”
After they were assigned to Wings, the cadets would no longer be cadets. Instead, they would report directly to their regional commanders. Rallen would turn his attention to the unfortunate classes below them, the young soldiers who had not yet passed the Trial. The fact should have made Valyn happy, but he eyed the master with a mixture of distrust and unease. Rallen had a satisfied smirk on his face as he eyed the crowd. Until the Wings were set, the man had not played his final card, and he had no love for the son of the Emperor.
“Today,” he began after ponderously taking his seat, his voice pinched and imperious, “those of you who have spent the last eight years under my charge will move on, not to more important things, because there is nothing more important than the training a cadet receives, but to the next stage of your lives as Kettral.”
The veterans had fallen quiet. They were willing to pay the man a measure of respect, although they looked anything but rapt. The Flea was trimming his nails with a long knife while Adaman Fane nodded impatiently, as though willing Rallen to get on with the preamble and reach the meat of the matter. Sigrid sa’Karnya, the Flea’s stunningly beautiful leach, lay half-reclined on one of the stone walls, her closed eyes turned toward the sun, blond hair framing her ivory cheeks. Unlike the rest of the group, she wasn’t wearing blacks. In fact, she wasn’t wearing military clothing at all. Instead, a gorgeous red dress that emphasized the fullness of her breasts clung to her figure, draping her body and the stone beneath. Hull only knew where she’d come up with that, but Valyn tore his eyes away. The woman’s reputation for cruelty exceeded that of most of the soldiers on Qarsh. She wouldn’t appreciate him staring.
“In making these assignments,” Rallen continued, “we have considered your strengths and your weaknesses as well as the needs of the various Wings. If you find yourself assigned to a group that is … not to your liking, I would remind you that more careful and deliberate minds than yours have weighed variables of which you are entirely ignorant.”
Valyn squinted. Had the man smirked at him when he mentioned undesirable assignments? The light wind had fallen, and the sun overhead was suddenly hot, boiling him in his blacks. He could hear the waves grating on the sand a quarter mile distant, the skirling of the terns as they soared, then plunged for fish. He longed for the coolness and solitude of the open bay, an escape from the mass of bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, waiting for Rallen’s pronouncements. Was it only his imagination, or could he hear the creaking of the hawsers down in the harbor?
“We’ll begin with those Kettral assigned to established Wings,” Rallen said.
“I wouldn’t mind ending up with the Flea,” Gent rumbled quietly.
“Someone on his Wing’ll have to die first,” Laith observed, “which is not all that likely.”
Valyn glanced over his shoulder. The Flea was still trimming his nails. Sigrid was still basking in the sun. Newt, the small, ugly demolitions master, was le
aning forward, picking absently at something in his ragged beard while waiting for the judgment. Chi Hoai Mi, the wing’s flier, and Blackfeather Finn were nowhere to be seen. When you’d watched a couple dozen Wing Selections, they probably got a lot less interesting.
“Flying under Plenchen Zee,” Rallen began, pausing dramatically, enjoying his moment onstage, “specializing in demolitions—”
“If it’s me, Rallen, I swear I’ll feed you your own nuts,” Gwenna remarked in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
The Master of Cadets pursed his lips in an angry frown, but the crowd loved it.
“The girl has fire!” Zee boasted, standing and waving a fat finger. “She will come to love me in mere days!”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Rallen said sourly. “Specializing in demolitions under Plenchen Zee … Gent Herren.”
Valyn and Laith turned to stare at their friend. “Well, I’ll be buggered blind,” Gent muttered. He was probably the worst demolitions man in the class, but then, word on the Islands was that Zee didn’t much care for subtle riggings and careful calculations. As long as there was a lot of smoke and more fire, the man was pretty much satisfied wading into the fray and finishing everything off with his blades. It was an honor to be chosen, but Gent didn’t look so thrilled.
Zee, for his part, was already on his feet, arms spread in mock outrage, his ruby glinting bloodily from its socket. “You could have given me the Sharpe girl and instead I get this … this … ox creature? I told you I wanted tits!” He gestured vividly with his hands. “Tits!”
“A couple more years,” Fane bellowed from a few seats away, “and you’ll be fat enough to have tits of your own.”
“Holy Hull,” Gent said, holding his huge head in his hands. “Sweet Holy Hull.”
Laith clapped him merrily on the back. “Good news for us! At least Val and I know we won’t have to lug your bulk around the better part of two continents. I swear, with you hanging from the talons, my bird flies at half speed.”
Gent shrugged off the crack and rose unsteadily from his seat to meet his new Wing mates. They were already filling an absurdly large horn with ale, gesturing toward him eagerly.
Valyn watched him go with some trepidation. Laith’s jesting aside, losing Gent to one of the veteran Wings was tough. He’d been one of the few cadets that Valyn trusted, one of the few he had hoped to serve with. Now the pool of soldiers remaining for his own Wing was that much smaller, the possibilities just a little more dangerous.
Rallen sent two more cadets off to the veterans—Jenna Lanner and Quick Hal—good soldiers, but unremarkable by Kettral standards. Then the real fun began. There were three Wing leaders in the class: Valyn, Sami Yurl, and Essa, a short young Raaltan woman with arms the size of her thighs. By the end of the morning, the three of them would be commanding the Kettral’s newest soldiers.
“Sami Yurl,” the Master of Cadets began, pointing imperiously to a spot just in front of his table.
Yurl rose, flashed a quick grin to the crowd, slapped a few of his cronies on the back, and crossed the intervening space. How he managed to look like royalty while dressed the same as everyone else, Valyn had no idea—probably something about the strut.
“Let’s see who’s lucky enough,” Yurl began, raising his chin and eyeing the crowd coolly, “to serve under the next Kettral legend.”
There was some hooting and heckling from the veterans at that, but Yurl only smirked.
“For those of you who might want to place a bribe with Master Rallen,” he added, “I’m sure it’s not too late.”
“Enough out of you, Yurl,” Rallen snapped. “You’re here to listen, not to talk.”
“I’m here to lead,” the youth responded. He never even batted an eye while the names were called.
Valyn had no idea how the Eyrie drew up the various groups, but Yurl ended up with a Wing that was little different from his daily cabal of thugs: Remmel Star, the bearded demolitions master; Hern Emmandrake, a thin sniper who used the feral cats around the Eyrie as targets; Anna Renka, the only woman on the Wing, its flier, and probably Yurl’s bedmate as well. Rumor had it that when he went whoring over on Hook, she liked to watch, liked to … encourage the girls. She was pretty enough—short blond hair, lithe limbs—but there was a cruel twist to her mouth that set Valyn’s teeth on edge. And then, of course, there was Balendin Ainhoa, feathers and ivory hanging in his long braids, face a bored mask as he took his place alongside the other killers, hounds at his heels, falcon perched on his shoulder.
“Well,” Laith said, drawing a sharp breath between his teeth, “that’s about as nasty a crew as you could come up with.”
Yurl had nodded at every name as though he expected it, and now, with his Wing assembled beside him, he shot Valyn a smug glance, then took a step forward.
“As I said, you’ve all just had the privilege of seeing the formation of what will be the Eyrie’s best Wing. Fane, step aside. Flea, look out.”
Adaman Fane snorted. The Flea didn’t even look up from his nails.
“You’re done here, the lot of you,” Rallen said. Then his fleshy lips spread into a grin. “We need to make room for the Light of the Empire, Valyn hui’Malkeenian.”
Valyn stood warily, then crossed to his place at the center of the arena. As he passed Sami Yurl, the youth elbowed him lightly in the ribs.
“Have fun up there. Too bad he won’t be calling Ha Lin’s name.”
Valyn resisted the urge to seize the elbow and shatter it.
In a way, it was a blessing that Rallen had assigned the most sadistic soldiers to Yurl’s Wing—it left a more manageable, if less deadly, lot for the next two commanders. Valyn scanned the faces. Peter the Black and Peter the Blond, the former as tall as the latter was short, were a solid combination. Or Aacha, the Hannan leach—Valyn would have preferred not to have a leach at all, but Aacha was more powerful than Talal, the weakest of the lot. There were capable soldiers still in the mix, if only Rallen would see fit to send them his way.
“Serving as flier under Valyn … Laith Atenkor.”
Valyn found a smile creeping onto his face, the first, he realized, since Lin’s death. Laith was a hothead, but he was a daring flier and a friend. Perhaps the selection wasn’t rigged against him after all. The flier rose from his place, spread his arms to acknowledge the cheering and the heckling both, turned in a slow circle, then sauntered to the center of the arena.
“I hope you like to go fast,” Laith murmured as he took his place at Valyn’s side. “Fast and really, really low to the ground.”
“Just remember that the rest of us have to ride beneath the ’Kent-kissing bird. I don’t want to get scraped off by any treetops or chimneys.”
“No promises,” the flier replied, grinning.
“Serving as leach,” Rallen continued, “Talal M’hirith.”
So. It was Talal after all. Valyn met the youth’s eyes as he approached, but it was hard to read anything in that somber brown gaze. The fighters who frighten you are not the fighters to fear. Hendran again. The man you barely notice will be the one to bury a blade in your back. Valyn extended a stiff hand.
“Welcome,” he said. He would fly with a leach, but he didn’t have to like it.
“As demolitions master,” Rallen continued, his grin stretching into a leer, “Gwenna Sharpe.”
Valyn stifled a groan. Gwenna had helped him out by diving into the wreck of Manker’s, but if Laith could be a hothead, she was an open fire. She’d spent more hours on third watch than any cadet in the class, largely because of her inability to accept anything that sounded like an order.
“This should be fun,” the flier murmured at his side.
“Shut it,” Valyn hissed. The last thing he needed was a spat before his Wing was even fully formed. As long as he could corral Gwenna, get her to listen—
“Finally, assigned to a position as the Wing’s sniper … Annick Frencha.”
Valyn’s stomach lurched. Annick, wh
o had put an arrow through his chest, who had met Amie on the day that she died, who was concealing a secret dark enough that she might have been killing people for the last two months to keep it safe, who might have brought the Liran cord into the Hole and murdered Ha Lin. The sniper’s eyes were blank as the sky when she joined the group, her face still. There was no telling if she was happy or sad, no telling if she even had the capacity for those emotions.
Valyn extended the hand again. “Welcome,” he said, the word like sawdust on his tongue.
Annick considered Valyn’s hand, shrugged, then took her place at the end of the line.
“On behalf of Eyrie command,” Jakob Rallen said, intoning the phrase with obvious satisfaction, “may Hull guard your approaches and cover your flights.”
The words sounded like a sentence rather than a blessing.
* * *
“You’ve got an hour,” Fane said, tossing a map onto the bench where Valyn sat, still slightly stunned, with his newly formed Wing.
“An hour for what?” Gwenna demanded, raking her red hair back over her shoulder.
“Figure it out,” Fane said as he walked away.
“All right, leader,” Laith said, gesturing toward the map with a grin. “Lead.”
Valyn scooped up the map. He’d hoped there’d be a chance to talk things over with the group, to establish some basic protocols, but evidently the Eyrie belief in preparing for the unexpected didn’t end once you had your own Wing. In about a month, they would all pass probation and be sent out on missions of their own. Until then … he unfolded the paper, spinning it until the north end faced north.
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