The sight of it twisted a knife in Riv’s gut and she wrenched her eyes away, back to Jin and the others. It looked as if Israfil was showing the two lords from Arcona something of warrior training and life at Drassil.
The Lord Protector was talking to the man Jin had given Riv’s longbow to. Jin’s father, Uldin, Riv presumed. The others were lined up watching riders galloping at targets with sword and spear. As Riv watched, she saw Bleda amongst the crowd, but he wasn’t watching the riders. He was staring right back at Riv. A woman, Bleda’s mother, leaned close to him and whispered in his ear. Riv remembered her well: Erdene, sitting upon her horse, bloody and bowed. She was still clearly a warrior-born, solid and wiry as a twisted rope, head shaved clean except for a coiled warrior braid.
Riv saw a jolt go through Bleda at Erdene’s whispered words and he leaned away from her, looking into her eyes, his face twitching with more emotion than Riv had ever seen from him since the day he had been torn from his Clan and kin. Then the emotion was gone, face swept clean as if it had never been there. He gave his mother a curt nod and turned to look at the riders as they galloped by.
Riv turned and left the weapons-field. She felt agitated, troubled by her encounter with Jin and her resulting humiliation, and something about what she’d just witnessed between Bleda and his mother bothered her, making her frown.
The streets of Drassil were heaving with activity. Riv walked through a traders’ market thick with the sounds and smells of food and drink, vendors cooking all manner of meat and fish, a blend of herbs and spices mixing into a heady aroma. Close by, fat steaks of auroch and sliced onions sizzled on a charcoal griddle, making Riv’s stomach growl, but she walked on, the streets thinning a little as she left the market behind, the roads changing as she moved through the potters’ district, with all manner of jars, vases, cups and plates on display upon tables before workshops. And then she was through them, passing through the clangour of hammer on anvil, the hiss and steam and rolling heat of the blacksmiths’ quarter, and then, finally, she was standing before the barracks of the White-Wings: a series of stone buildings on either side of a wide street, great arched doorways leading into entrance chambers as big as a keep.
The military might of the Faithful was split into different disciplines. There were the White-Wings, the infantry heart of the army, masters of the shield wall, of sword and spear. There were the archer units, smaller bands of men and women who scouted and foraged during campaigns and formed solid blocks of archers during any battle. There were light cavalry, skilled with horse, with spear and lance, used mostly in battle for swift flank attacks and the harrying of routed forces. Then the giants, fewer in numbers, who when on foot acted as the shock troops of the army and became the heavy cavalry when mounted upon their giant bears.
And of course the Ben-Elim, death-from-above.
There were rooms enough at Drassil for the full strength of the Faithful’s army, in total over twenty thousand strong, the White-Wings alone numbering over ten thousand swords, but the bulk of the army was spread throughout the Land of the Faithful, stationed at outposts and garrisons along the far-flung borders, at the Tower of the Bay at Ripa in the south, at Gulgotha in the east, at Brikan and Jerolin and Tarba.
So many of the buildings before Riv were empty and dark. At Drassil now there were around a thousand White-Wings, and they were split into ten units, each hundred its own compact fighting force. Riv’s sister, Aphra, was captain of a hundred. Riv remembered the day Aphra had been promoted, her wings presented to her by Kol, one of Israfil’s captains. Riv had thought she would burst with pride.
Now she walked through the open doors of the hundred that she had been assigned to for as far back as her memory reached. The same hundred that her sister commanded, and the one that her mother had served in before that. Two generations, lives dedicated to the White-Wings and the Ben-Elim. It was all Riv knew. The centre of her life, around which all else revolved.
The feast-hall was empty, the fire-pit cold, as Riv expected. The whole hundred should be out on guard duty and then training in the weapons-field, so Riv was surprised when she opened the door that led to her barrack chamber and heard voices. A woman, not shouting, but voice raised, in anger or alarm. And another voice, quieter, calmer, deeper. Riv cocked her head to one side, straining to listen. She climbed a few of the stone steps leading up to the chamber she shared with her mam and sister and the other members of their hundred, ten warriors and their attendants, all sharing the same sleeping quarters, bonds forged by a lifetime of eating, sleeping, training, fighting, living and dying together.
The woman’s voice grew louder, tremored with emotion, the other lower, an edge of iron to it. Both were blurred, the words unclear.
The door behind Riv grated shut and the voices beyond the closed door at the top of the stairwell fell silent, quick as a snuffed candle.
Riv paused a moment, only the sound of her breathing, then decided to go on.
I live here, they’re my quarters, too. And besides, she was intrigued to know who the voices belonged to.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, a figure was striding down towards her. It was Fia, tall and dark-haired, her sister’s closest friend. She saw Riv and nodded a greeting, though she did not stop, just carried on past her. She was looking away, but Riv noticed that Fia’s eyes were red-rimmed.
Still looking over her shoulder, Riv entered the chamber, a sizeable room that was home to almost thirty people. It was one long, large room, neat rows of cots along two walls, chests at the bottom of each cot, an aisle running down the middle.
There was no one else in the chamber.
Riv frowned.
Strange.
The shuttered window over her cot was open and she looked out into the street, but there was no sign of anyone. Riv shrugged and walked to the end of her cot, kneeling before her chest, home of all her belongings, although in reality they were not hers. The White-Wings renounced all worldly possessions, emulating the Ben-Elim in their devout desire to serve Elyon. All that they owned was given to them by the Ben-Elim, every item useful for the furtherance of Elyon’s kingdom on earth. She unlatched the bolt, slid it across with hardly a sound – the White-Wings taught discipline and cleanliness as if it were the path to holiness – and raised the lid, pushing it back to rest against the frame of her bed. Inside was an assortment of items: clothes, boots, a pair of iron-shod sandals, belts, her best cloak, her fire-making kit, knives of various blades and lengths, a short-hafted axe, rags and oils for the maintenance and care of her small armoury. She rummaged through them, reaching deep, and then pulled out an object concealed in a sealskin cloak. She laid it on the floor before her and carefully unwrapped it, revealing a curved bow.