‘You will come back, stronger.’ He shrugged, then put a hand on her arm to help her rise but she shook it off, leaped to her feet, and then she was speeding around a corner, where buildings hid Bleda and the weapons-field from view.
Riv ran through the streets of Drassil. The huge giant-built towers of stone loomed all around her, and high up, above even their rooftops, the leafless branches of Drassil’s great tree soughed in a cold wind. Faces passed Riv in a blur, some uttered or nodded greetings, but Riv ignored them all, shame a cold fist clenching in her guts, her need to be away from the weapons-field driving her on. She slowed to a walk, looked around her and saw that her feet had taken her to the courtyard before Drassil’s Great Hall.
It reared before her, a huge dome of stone built around the trunk of Drassil’s great tree, which in itself was wider than any man-built tower that Riv had ever set her eyes upon. Broad steps led up from the courtyard to massive iron-banded gates of oak, flung open so that the entrance looked like a gaping, shadow-filled mouth in a giant’s skull. Riv crossed the courtyard and padded up the steps, earning a stare from the guards who stood around the doorway, a dozen White-Wings in their black cuirasses of boiled leather and bright silver helms. They knew her, though, and so Riv passed through the doorway without opposition. Once inside she hesitated a moment upon the threshold and looked into the chamber.
It was one huge circular room, the dome’s arc rising high and cavernous above her, sounds echoing and magnified; even the breath in her throat sounded loud and harsh to her own ears. The floor dropped away from her in a curve of tiered stone steps that cascaded down to the ground a good fifty paces below her. Riv went down the steps, firelight from great iron braziers washing over her. She glimpsed a Ben-Elim standing in an alcove high above, others gliding gracefully through slanting beams of winter daylight that filtered down from shuttered windows set into the dome’s walls.
She reached the last dozen steps and stopped, looking into the chamber. Below her the ground levelled, crossing a wide expanse towards the room’s centre, where the trunk of Drassil’s ancient tree rose. Before it stood a row of muscle, flesh and steel: a score of Queen Ethlinn’s giants set about a dais. Shield-breakers, they were called, some of them the very giants that had stood and fought against the Black Sun’s shield wall more than a hundred years ago, out on the plains beyond Drassil’s walls. Asroth and his host of dread Kadoshim had filled the skies that day, while his champion the Black Sun had led a warband thousands strong upon the ground.
And yet we won. The Ben-Elim saved us, Riv thought, sinking down onto one of the cold steps and staring over the heads of the giants below her. Her gaze fixed onto the dais behind them, at what they guarded.
Two statues forged from black iron, they seemed at first glance. One Ben-Elim, one Kadoshim, joined in battle. Their wings were spread, one feathered, one with wings more akin to a bat, things of leather and skin.
But they are not statues.
She stared at the Ben-Elim, his features strained with exertion. Meical, once captain of the Ben-Elim. She could even see a bead of sweat running down his forehead. And in his grip, the Lord of the Kadoshim.
Asroth, Lord of the Fallen.
His hair was long, bound with braids and wire, his face regal and handsome, exuding a fierce pride.
And a deeper malice.
I’m supposed to stand against that malice, supposed to protect the Faithful and slay the Fallen. What is wrong with me? Why did I do that on the weapons-field? And to the Lord Protector, of all people.
And why did he say those things to me?
She felt her belly churn at the echo of his words, a pain deep inside sharp as any skinning knife. Hot tears came to her eyes and she sniffed, wiping them angrily away.
Footsteps echoed behind her, a familiar stride that Riv would know anywhere. Confident, full of purpose.
Her sister, Aphra, dark-haired where she was fair, calm and controlled where Riv was not.
The footsteps stopped.
‘You might as well sit,’ Riv muttered, slapping the flagstoned stairs.
Aphra sat quietly, waiting.
‘I hate myself,’ Riv whispered into the silence.
Aphra took a deep breath. ‘It’s a setback,’ she said. ‘Not the end of your chances to join the White-Wings.’
‘I punched the Lord Protector in the face,’ Riv pointed out.
‘Aye.’ Aphra nodded, running a hand through her dark hair, close-cropped like all of the White-Wings. Practical and uniform. ‘Granted, a big setback, then.’ She looked at Riv, her hand twitching to reach out and wipe away the stray tear that rolled down Riv’s cheek. Riv saw her fist clench in the effort it took to resist that urge.
‘Why?’ Aphra said, instead. Not accusing, or judging.
‘Because . . .’ Riv’s voice caught in her throat at the memory of Israfil’s words. She took a deep breath, controlling the emotion that was stealing her voice. ‘He told me I was weak because I have no father,’ Riv said, and then the rest spilt out in a torrent of whispers, Aphra listening in her calm way.
When Riv finished, Aphra sat there nodding, eyes staring into nowhere. Looking at her sister, Riv saw a few strands of grey in her hair, was surprised at that. Her sister always seemed so strong and capable. Fierce and wise, never-changing.
She’s getting old.
‘He was testing you,’ Aphra said.
‘What?’
‘Many of us are fatherless, and motherless. We are born of warriors, Riv, and warriors die – that is the way of it. Our da was a White-Wing, he fought and died in service of the holy war. It is just a part of our life.’ She was silent a moment, her eyes distant.
‘What was our father like?’ Riv asked. She had never known him, a White-Wing like her mam, but slain on a campaign, soon after Riv was born.
Aphra looked down at her, stroked Riv’s hair. ‘A warrior.’ She shrugged. ‘A White-Wing, he gave his all for the cause, died for it.’
‘I know that,’ Riv said, ‘have heard it a thousand times. But what was he like?’
‘Ah, Riven ap Lorin,’ Aphra said, using Riv’s full name for once. ‘He was like you: wild, like the north wind.’
Riv liked that, though she thought that quality might not have helped her warrior trial today.
‘So it’s our father’s fault I punched the Lord Protector, then.’
‘I don’t think that will be an acceptable excuse to Israfil.’ Aphra smiled. ‘Though I wouldn’t worry,’ she added with a shake of her head. ‘Israfil did not mean what he said.’
‘Then why did he say it?’ Riv growled.