They were sitting around a fire-pit dug into the meadow that surrounded the town of Oriens.
All around the meadow fire-pits crackled, small oases of light in night’s darkness. White-Wings were sitting and taking their meals, giants and Ben-Elim spread amongst them, the Ben-Elim looking as relaxed as she had ever seen them. It reminded her of the night in her own feast-hall back in Drassil, when she had seen Adonai with Estel. Something twisted in Riv’s stomach, a sour taste in her mouth, and she pushed the memory away.
There’s enough darkness in this very day, without searching old memories to find it.
Guards patrolled the line between meadow and forest, and above her Riv occasionally heard the whisper of wings, hoped that it was Ben-Elim, and not one of the huge blood-sucking bats that dwelt within the gloom of Forn.
Or Kadoshim.
Riv glanced at the walled town, silent and still. There was plenty of room in there for the warriors, and the walls and roofs would have offered protection against the predators of the forest. But no one wanted to sleep within the walls of Oriens. The mound of heads had made an impression upon all of them. It was clearly the townsfolk, not just warriors or men who had taken up arms against a raider. Men, women, bairns, all were amongst the macabre, blood-soaked mound.
Kol had ordered the mound dismantled, in itself a grisly act, as a search for the bodies had been made, but none had been found before light had begun to fade. So a deep pit had been dug, Riv’s hands blistered by the hard shovel work, and the heads were buried. Kol had spoken words from the Book of the Faithful over them.
‘The unjust will laugh and mock the righteous, they may outlive their dark deeds by a day or a year, but the righteous will find them, and when they do, the unjust will tremble.’
Voices had called out agreement, oaths made to avenge the slain.
‘Who would do such a thing?’ Jost whispered to Riv.
‘Kadoshim,’ Riv breathed back to him.
Must be. Who else would murder innocents, mutilate children and babies?
The smell came back to Riv unbidden, a vision of a tiny skull, red holes for eyes. She breathed deep and slow, controlling the lurching of her stomach.
‘Ask Aphra,’ Jost urged her.
She looked at her sister, who was staring into the flames of the fire-pit, not involved in the conversation between Kol and Lorina. Garidas was silent, too, though his eyes were on Aphra, not the flames. Riv had long thought that he had more than a warrior’s respect for her sister.
‘Go on.’ Jost nudged Riv with his elbow.
‘Is it Kadoshim?’ Riv leaned close and whispered in Aphra’s ear.
Her sister jumped as if stabbed, staring at Riv.
‘I don’t know, Riv. We found only the dead in Oriens,’ Aphra said, her voice clipped, as if she were straining to hold the rest in.
Kol glanced between Aphra and Riv.
‘It’s a dark, grievous thing that has been done here,’ Kol said, standing; others turned to listen. He looked at the faces about the fire-pit, all staring at him, washed in a blood-red flicker.
‘Was it the Kadoshim?’ a voice asked. Jost.
Kol looked at Jost, the fledgling White-Wing standing still as stone, all sinew, stretched muscle and tendon. He looked ten shades of uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many eyes.
‘I don’t know. This could well be the work of the Kadoshim,’ Kol said, a snarl twisting his features, his golden stubble glinting in the firelight. ‘I can think of no other that would perform an atrocity such as this.’
That’s what I thought.
‘Whoever they are, we will find them,’ Garidas spoke up. He was a fine warrior, and a respected leader, though Riv considered him to be too serious, too obsessed with following the Lore’s every dictate, and that was saying something, because she took the Way of Elyon more earnestly than most. As Riv watched him, his gaze flickered beyond Kol’s wings to Aphra.
‘As to the how of it,’ Kol continued. ‘When the sun rises we search, we scour this place for tracks, signs as to who did this. Then we hunt them down. There will be a reckoning.’ He shrugged, his wings a rippled sigh with the motion, then strode into the darkness.
‘There’s your answer, then,’ Aphra said with a weary sigh to Riv.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Riv said, sitting next to her sister. ‘Is it something I’ve done?’
Aphra gave her a long look. ‘No,’ she said eventually.
‘Then wha—’
‘Leave it,’ Aphra snapped, quiet and cold. ‘The world does not revolve around you and your woes, Riv. Shocking as it may seem, people have troubles of their own.’
Riv stared at her, then stood and marched off.
Sick of being Aphra’s training post. Thinks she can take out her anger on me!
She heard footsteps behind her, hoped it was Aphra following her. She didn’t like how cold and distant her sister had become, wanted her to go back to normal.
I suppose Mam is right, though. Leading is hard. Especially at times like this.
She looked back over her shoulder and saw Jost hurrying up behind her, felt a rush of disappointment that it wasn’t her sister.
‘What do you want?’ she said to Jost, more curtly than she meant it to sound.
‘Shouldn’t be walking around on your own,’ Jost said stoutly. ‘Orders. Safety in numbers, those giant bats of Forn . . .’
Riv knew that. ‘Orders aren’t iron,’ she said, though, and stalked on.
The camp was contained to the meadow and road, neatly ordered rows of tents, a paddock roped off for the horses, wains on the raised embankment of the road. Riv was stomping along close to the paddocks, only a few hundred paces from the trees of Forn which loomed like dark cliffs.
Riv knew Jost was right, and she had no intention of wandering off alone into the dark. The mound of heads in Oriens had left its mark. And she was glad of Jost’s company, at least it meant he cared whether Riv lived or died. She rolled her shoulders, trying to shift a dull ache in her back, high, between her shoulder blades.
Must’ve pulled a muscle climbing that tree.
They walked past a group of White-Wings gathered around a fire – the paddock guards, part of Lorina’s hundred. Some of them were singing; one invited them over, but Riv walked on.
‘Hold,’ a voice rang out before them; two figures stepped out of the darkness, spears in their fists. Two White-Wings standing guard duty. One of them was Vald. He looked tense, his eyes constantly scanning the gloom and shifting shadows within the forest.
‘Don’t stray so close to the trees,’ the other one said, an older warrior from Garidas’ hundred.
‘They’re all right,’ Vald said.
‘Aye. Of course they are, they’re going to be White-Wings. Won’t stop them being eaten by one of Forn’s hungry mouths, though, or snatched by a Kadoshim, or whatever it was did that to those in the town.’ He looked pointedly at Riv and Jost. ‘Back to the meadow, eh?’
‘As you asked so nicely,’ Riv said, and they started back, soon reaching the road guards. They were still in their cups, songs louder and more slurred.