Korinna remembered her flight from home with Galenos and Nightshade, months before. She’d been too distracted by the view to see anything special that Galenos had done. But the sensation was wonderful, to be up high and see the whole world stretched out below. She was eager to experience that thrill again.
To take each candidate up individually would take too much time, so Sergeant Navera enlisted the help of the posted riders. She introduced them to their assigned partners, then left them alone to get acquainted.
Korinna was paired with a young man named Tsukaro. Along with an unpronounceable name, Tsukaro had light brown skin and almond-shaped eyes, and he spoke with an accent that she’d never heard before. “Where are you from?”
“Kisai.” Her puzzlement must have shown on her face, because he added, “It’s a province in Itteki. I came to this country to go to school, but the Academies would not accept my previous training, so—” He shrugged. “I ended up here. Come, I will show you my beauty.”
Tsukaro led her up the rocks to a clearing apart from the others and whistled. A familiar bay roan swooped down out the sky and landed a cautious distance away. Tsukaro reached out to take her halter, and she calmed at his touch. “This is—”
“Firefly,” Korinna finished for him with a big smile. “I’ve watched you two fly before. You always do fantastic tricks.”
Tsukaro blushed and looked down at his feet, but he had a smile, too. “You have an admirer,” he murmured to Firefly, and the bay turned her head to inspect Korinna.
She tried to remember what Navera had told them about staying calm, but Korinna had trouble containing her happy excitement at getting to ride the beautiful, agile Firefly. At the same time, she was cautious not to provoke an attack like she had done with Skyfire. “May I approach her?” she asked politely.
Tsukaro spoke to her in low tones, then looked up in surprise. Firefly took a step closer to Korinna and lowered her nose to inspect her.
Korinna held out her open hand, palm flat, and felt the tickle of the marewing’s soft lips.
Firefly seemed unsatisfied. She began to sniff Korinna all over as if searching for something.
“Oh.” Tsukaro let go of Firefly and dug through his pockets. He found a small clay bottle and dumped it out into his hand. “She’s looking for this.”
Korinna recognized the sticky blue fruit that he handed to her. “Cloudfruit?”
Firefly smelled the cloudfruit and took it from Korinna. She licked the remaining brine from her fingertips and sniffed her over again, looking for more.
“How did you know?” Tsukaro asked.
“I—I rode once before,” Korinna said, intentionally vague. She didn’t want to brag about her association with the Warlord.
“Oh. You kind of know what you’re doing, then.” Tsukaro showed her where to scratch behind the marewing’s ear. Firefly leaned into Korinna’s touch, her eyes glazing over happily. “Maybe that’s why she’s warming up to you so quickly. Or she just likes having an admirer. I’m afraid she’s rather vain.”
Korinna smiled and stroked the marewing’s neck. “She deserves a little vanity. She has the best somersaults of any marewing at Fort Aelyzoai.”
When they were acquainted, Tsukaro showed Korinna how the arched saddle and stirrups helped keep him on Firefly’s back while they flew. “But it can get a little hairy sometimes,” he admitted. “I’ve wondered if there were some way that I could tie myself to her back, just to be sure, but I haven’t worked it out yet. And the whole setup isn’t really made for more than one rider. With you on the back, we’ll have to fly a lot more carefully because you’ll just be hanging on to me.”
Tsukaro mounted first and then did his best to give Korinna a hand up after him.
She was grateful for the muscles she’d built up climbing the rock face. To sit, she had to wrap her legs around Firefly as tightly as she could and lock her arms around Tsukaro’s waist.
When she was secure, he showed her the reins, but also how Firefly responded to his knees and changes in his seat. “When you fight, you shoot with your bow, and you need both hands for that,” he explained. “So I have to steer her some other way. We practice together a lot so she knows all of the commands.”
Korinna looked around for flat ground to launch themselves. “How do we take off?”
“Oh, that’s easy up here. Hold on!”
She tensed and grabbed Tsukaro just in time as the marewing sprang into action. Firefly went straight for the nearest edge of the mountain and leapt off into the open air.
They soared out over the valley, then circled back around to the fort. As promised, Tsukaro kept them to an even glide with slow turns, but it was still a chore for Korinna to keep her balance on the marewing’s back. Although she was tempted to admire the view, she tried to watch what the rider did: how he sat, how he held the reins, how his legs moved to give Firefly signals.
All too soon, the flight was over. They landed safely on solid ground again and Tsukaro helped her down. Reluctantly, she said her farewells to marewing and rider.
When Korinna returned to Sergeant Navera, she was surprised to discover that she was the first of the candidates to complete the practice flight. Looking around, she realized that most of her colleagues were still getting acquainted with their marewings, and only a few others had made it into the air.
Sergeant Navera met Korinna’s eyes and gave her an approving nod. “Well done, Votsis. You get the rest of the afternoon off.”
Early in Omerosekos, the seventh month of summer, the prospective riders’ training was suddenly interrupted. Nearly all of the scouts arrived at the fort in a hurry, and the news they brought set the entire company into an uproar.
Korinna and her friends couldn’t get an explanation from any of their superiors. Then she suggested that they find Herokha to see if she had picked up on any gossip.
They tracked down Herokha alone in the mess hall, having a late dinner of pasta with spicy sausage in tomato sauce. She grunted in acknowledgement when the three friends surrounded her.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Korinna asked. “The officers have been in meetings all day.”
Herokha scowled in between bites of pasta and shook her head. “Spotted mercenaries on the move from Sympaia. Probably taking advantage of the Warlord’s absence. Be here soon.”
“The Warlord’s absence?” Korinna said in surprise. “Where did Galenos go?”
Herokha held out her empty cup, and Orivan grabbed a pitcher of ale to refill it for her. “Last month, he went to Petropouli to make some kind of deal. Commander Varranor’s been running things.” She paused to take a drink. “Soon as they heard, they made their move. They’ll be hitting us here on the border in a matter of days.”
Mkumba counted out the number of soldiers stationed at the fort on his hands. “Two hundred infantry, a hundred archers, and thirty-two marewings.” He looked up. “I doubt that’s enough to hold the whole border from a Sympaian invasion.”
Korinna bit her lip. “Is there time to get more troops here from another fort?”
Herokha wiped red sauce on her sleeve and shook her head. “Some will come from Fort Inazelas, at least as many as us, but they’ll have to plug other vulnerable spots on the border between us and the eastern pass at Trovaelos. No time for the main force to come from Kyratia. We’ll have to hold our own.”
A shiver went down her spine. This wouldn’t be a training exercise, or even a small-scale monster hunt. This was war. For the first time, the reality of the path that she had chosen by becoming a soldier struck home.
She would have to fight. They all would have to fight, regardless of how prepared they felt. She looked around at her friends and saw the same realization in their eyes. Any of them could be hurt—some of them would surely die.
Korinna pushed away her plate of food. Suddenly, she didn’t feel hungry. “How much time did you say?”
“Three days, maybe four.” Herokha looked down at Korinna’
s half-eaten plate. “Are you going to finish that?”
She shook her head and stood up. “No, take it if you want it.” She turned and left the mess hall alone.
Outside, she looked up at the night sky. The marewings had all gone into their stables for the night, so there was nothing to see, just the vast expanse of stars. She wondered if even the marewings and their riders would be safe in the battle to come. Itychia had lost her marewing to a lone harpy attack. What could an entire army do to them?
She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against the cool stone of the mountain. Even in the hot summer she felt so very, very cold.
27
The Council VI
Pelagia stood up from her seat and looked over the assembled Councilors with a harsh eye. Many of them looked worse for wear after having been summoned from their beds in the middle of the night: rumpled hair, clothes in disarray, blinking bleary eyes across the table. Eutychon, Zeno, and a few of their other cohorts looked as if they had been drinking heavily again, and they struggled to appear sober. Diokles was the most alert of all of them, and he wore the same clothing from earlier that day, as if he hadn’t gone to sleep at all: she wondered what he had been up to in the middle of the night.
As her gaze swept past, they straightened up and began to squirm nervously. Pelagia prolonged her silence, because she wanted to keep them on edge. Someone was going to pay for their treason tonight and she wanted all of them to feel the effects.
At last she cleared her throat. “I have called you all here because messengers have just arrived to tell us that our enemy, Sympaia, is on the move toward our borders.” She paused for the audible gasps of surprise. “But one of you already knew this, or perhaps more. There are traitors in our midst. Someone told Sympaia that our military leader, Warlord Galenos, was not in the city and we were vulnerable to attack.”
She scanned her gaze from one end of the room to the other again, fixing her stare on each of them. “Tonight, we are here to find the traitors and punish them for endangering us all.”
Diokles got to his feet. “Who could hope to gain from inviting our enemies to attack us? This could mean the destruction of all our livelihoods.”
“Who, indeed.” Pelagia turned and looked down at Eutychon.
Eutychon turned red. He moved as if to stand, but swayed for a moment and sat back down. “Don’t look at me. I’m the one who told the Council that the Warlord had flown the coop.”
Zeno bobbed his head. “And I told you to look into the Warlord, because his brother was coming to the city with that secret letter for him. We have been nothing but helpful.”
Pelagia put her hand on the back of Eutychon’s chair and leaned closer. “And how does that absolve you? You could be helpful to us and to our enemies at the same time.”
Eutychon turned pale. “But—”
“But you don’t have anything to gain by inviting our enemies onto our doorstep. I know.” She straightened up and looked around the room again. “There’s only one person here whose trade would be undisrupted by a war, someone whose guild employs many people trained in Sympaia.”
Eutychon let out a sigh of relief. Next to him, Zeno was a little quicker to put the pieces together, and he turned his head around to stare at Thais. “The main musicians school is in Sympaia.”
Pelagia gave a grim smile. “Precisely.”
Thais leapt to her feet. “Now, just a moment here. Just because I was trained in Sympaia doesn’t mean that I am any less loyal to Kyratia than any of you. Do you think that the enemy will spare my guild just because we went to school there?”
Pelagia’s smile faded and she narrowed her eyes at the musician. “That depends. What kind of deal did they offer you in exchange?”
Thais looked around at the other Councilors wildly. “You all know me. You know that I would never make deals like that.” She turned to the representative from the Theatre Guild. “Rievios, tell them that I’ve always been loyal.”
Rievios shrank away from her. “I thought you were.”
Pelagia smiled. They would all turn on her at the whisper of treason, or risk being blamed themselves: alliances were never strong in the Council. “We have evidence against you.” She sat down and beckoned to her assistant.
He came forward and handed a packet of letters to Pelagia. The other councilors leaned closer to see as she unfolded each one and laid it on the table.
“A letter, in your hand, addressing the Duke of Sympaia as a ‘dear old friend’ and promising him that Kyratia ‘yearned for the return of a stern hand of a single man, instead of the inharmonious voices of the Council,’” she read aloud from the first one. “Another letter, addressed to you from the Duke, promising you a place in his future administration. And here he promises to fund a second school of music in Kyratia, a gift to your guild.”
Zeno pounded his fist on the table. “This is an outrage! Her sedition is clear!”
Eutychon smirked. “I think that we should have her publicly executed. We need some entertainment.”
Others around the room began to shout their agreement. Thais buried her face in her hands.
Pelagia held up her hand for silence. “Calm down. We do not need to earn further animosity from Sympaia for killing their agent, and we do not want a reputation for cruelty.” She looked at Thais and smiled. “We should deal with treachery in the same way as we always have: with exile.”
Thais looked up with a despondent expression. “But my entire family is here in Kyratia!”
“Then you can take them with you, and any other traitors in your plot.” She heard the other Councilors hold their breath. “I think it’s clear that no one else in this Council has aided you, but surely there are those in your guild who knew of your actions. We shall commission a full investigation into this plot and remove any members of the Musicians Guild who aided you.”
Rievios leaned forward. “My guild would be happy to assist in this investigation. And should their leaders be implicated as well—”
“Then it will be up to the rest of the guild to choose their new leadership and representative for this Council.” Pelagia gave the eager councilor a stern glare. “It’s not up to the Council to dictate the way that the individual guilds are run. As a Republic, we serve the people, not the other way around. Is that clear?”
Rievios subsided. “Yes.”
Thais let out another anguished sob. “But where will we go?”
“You can hope that your beloved Duke of Sympaia will take you in.” Pelagia gestured to the guards. “Please, take her away.”
After the guards came and took Thais away, still crying loudly, she settled in to the rest of the business. “Now, we must discuss what actions we can take to prepare for the invasion. Zeno, do you think that the Warlord’s younger brother can adequately lead the defense?”
Zeno looked nervous. “This is the kind of opportunity he’s been waiting for. He’s been training with his brother as the second in command since they first started the company. And besides, I do not think that we have any other choice, since we cannot get Galenos back here any faster and there is no time to hire any other mercenaries.”
Pelagia frowned. “That is not an answer.”
Zeno spread his hands out helplessly. “Well, all I can do is hope for his success.”
Eutychon leaned back and folded his hands in front of him. “I think that the little brother may surprise us all.”
Pelagia glanced at him. “What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “Wait and see.”
28
Galenos VI
Galenos flew Nightshade back to Kyratia as fast as he could manage, flying mostly in the dark hours to avoid the Dry heat. His marewing had taken days to recover in Petropouli, but she was still tired from the long flight out and he couldn’t push her as hard.
On the morning of the sixth day they had just reached the border between Kyratia and Petropouli. They landed in the field outside of Fort Inazelas. He no
ticed that the defenses were lax: only half as many soldiers were on the walls as should have been there, and he didn’t see a single marewing, although he had posted three flights there.
He was prepared to take the commanding officer to task, but first he walked Nightshade for a cool-down and rubbed her dry in the field before turning her loose to graze. Even as he itched for news from the capitol, he didn’t skimp on the task of caring for his marewing. She needed every hour that he could afford to give her to rest if she was going to make the rest of the flight.
Galenos had barely finished when a young man in uniform came running out of the fort and met him at the edge of the field.
“Oh, thank the gods! Is it you, Warlord?” the young man panted between gasps for air.
Galenos clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at the soldier, identifying his insignia. “What is the meaning of this, Private? Where is your commanding officer?”
The private straightened up, his face turning pale, and issued a proper salute. “Sorry, sir! Everyone has been looking for you for weeks now, beg your pardon, sir, and we were just so relieved to spot you at last. The commander’s gone with most of the troops. The captain sent me out here to make sure who it was and bring you inside.”
Galenos looked up at the fort. “Your captain had better come out to meet me, or I’ll have his head. Who ordered the movement of the troops from here?”
“Your brother, sir—I mean, Commander Mrokin, sir.” The private began to back away toward the fort. “I’ll go tell the captain right away. But please, sir, come inside so we can give you some refreshment. I know it’s been a long journey.”
The eager soldier turned and ran up the road back to the fort without waiting for a reply or dismissal.
A Flight of Marewings Page 23
