Then they were marching out onto the plain that surrounded Drassil, Riv’s heart leaping at the sight of her home, the white-winged banner snapping in a cold wind above the gates. She looked closer and forgot all about Aphra for a short while.
New cairns had been raised in the plain before Drassil’s walls, the reality of the tragedy that had befallen their home, their friends and kin, hit her, all of them, a silence falling over the White-Wings and giants as they marched past in sombre mood.
The carcass of a Kadoshim was nailed to the battlements above the great gates; Riv was not the only one who stared up at it as she passed through the gateway. Its head lolled between wide, leathery wings, eye-sockets dark holes excavated by crows.
Further above on the battlements she glimpsed a dark-skinned face, staring down at her, and she felt some warmth spark into life in her belly, welcome after the unsettling anger that was lurking in her veins.
It was Bleda.
The flagstones of the courtyard were stained with blood, even though eight nights had passed since the attack. The stains were faint, just an echo of what it must have been like, but Riv saw them.
Blood always leaves a stain.
It felt good to walk into her barrack, the fire-pit roaring, a deer turning on the spit, fat sizzling and crackling in the flames. A dash up to her chamber and it did not take long for Riv to unpack her and her sister’s kit, all of it already shining spotless, as Riv had tended to it each night on the road. When she finished, Jost and Vald tried to tempt her with a cup of wine in the feast-hall, but she felt the call of the weapons-field. As she stepped onto the turf she saw Bleda on the field, where he usually was, at the archery range. Riv felt a little flutter in her belly and increased her pace, only for it to drop like a stone as she saw Jin appear from behind him.
‘Well met,’ Bleda said to Riv as she approached them, and she thought she saw the hint of a smile ghost his lips, just for a moment. His hair was longer than she remembered, no longer close-cropped like the White-Wings, as it had been for so many years. It stuck out at angles, giving him a scruffy appearance. Riv supressed the urge to smooth an unruly tuft behind his ear.
Bleda gripped his double-curved bow, a quiver of arrows at his belt. And he had a bandage wrapped around his shoulder.
‘You were injured in the attack?’ Riv said, hurrying forwards and reaching a hand out to Bleda’s injury.
‘Aye.’ he nodded, his serious face back in place.
‘Bleda fought,’ Jin said proudly. ‘It was he who realized the Kadoshim’s plan. He fought in the Great Hall, slew many Kadoshim and their Dark-Cloaks and Feral beasts. And he foiled the plot, put an arrow in the black sword.’
Dark-Cloaks and Ferals?
‘Black Sword?’
‘The warrior with the Starstone Blade, who tried to set Asroth free,’ Jin said. ‘My betrothed is the hero of Drassil.’
Riv blinked, looking from Jin’s proud face to Bleda’s embarrassed one, both of them seeming to have lost the ability to maintain a cold-face.
Bleda is a hero!
A rush of pride made her grin.
Betrothed!
She felt something else at hearing that word, but chose to push it away into some dark corner, not even acknowledging it.
‘Your mission?’ Bleda asked her, shifting his feet.
‘A ruse, to lure us far from Drassil and weaken the defences here. Or so we suspect, anyway.’
‘So you have not fought, then?’ Jin said. The words were spoken flat, no intonation, but Riv felt the insult in them.
Please don’t make me angry.
‘No. I did not fight.’
Not the enemy, at least.
‘The bait to lure us from Drassil was a terrible thing,’ Riv said, trying to ignore Jin.
She told Bleda of their discoveries at the town of Oriens, Jin moving closer to hear properly. Riv was still talking when a Ben-Elim alighted close beside them, the only warning a blast of air.
‘The Lord Protector wishes to speak with you,’ the Ben-Elim said to Riv.
Oh dear. Riv gulped. Has he heard of my fighting at Oriens already?
She took a resolute step.
‘And you,’ the Ben-Elim said to Bleda.
‘Not you,’ he said to Jin as she made to walk with Riv and Bleda.
The only thing that made the thought of the dressing-down she was no doubt going to receive from the Lord Protector bearable was the look on Jin’s face as they left her behind.
Riv and Bleda sat in the entrance hall of Israfil’s chambers.
‘You are a hero, then,’ Riv said to Bleda as they sat waiting.
‘No,’ Bleda said, sounding very certain of the fact. After a few moments of staring straight ahead he looked at her, more emotion in his face than she had ever seen. ‘I would like to tell you something,’ he said. ‘I could not tell anyone else.’
‘Not even Jin?’
‘No. Especially not her.’
She felt a warm glow at that.
‘Of course you can, Bleda. You can tell me anything, we are friends.’
‘I was terrified,’ he said, looking down at his clasped hands.
‘What?’
‘During the battle. In the courtyard, a Kadoshim attacked us. Me and Jin. I dropped my arrows, fumbled my bow. I am surprised I did not soil myself. I froze with terror.’
‘You’re alive, though?’
‘Alcyon chopped it to tiny pieces.’
‘He’s good at that, I’ve heard,’ Riv said. ‘And what about these acts of bravery, the Kadoshim you slew?’
‘That happened later. In the great chamber. With my bow.’ A brief flicker of a smile.
He does love that bow.
‘So let me get this right. You were attacked by a Kadoshim, and you felt scared—’
‘Terrified,’ Bleda corrected.
‘Terrified. And then, soon after, you killed Kadoshim and their servants in the Great Hall. And wrestled some man-beast thing that chewed your shoulder to pulp.’
‘Aye. And then Alcyon saved me. Again.’
‘Bleda, that is the definition of courage. Or so Balur One-Eye has told me, and if you want to argue with him, well, that doesn’t make you brave, that makes you stupid.’
‘What do you mean?’ Bleda said.
‘You cannot be truly brave unless you feel truly afraid. That’s what courage is. Doing it anyway, even though you’re scared. Sorry, terrified. And you did. You chose to fight. To step into that furnace of blood and madness and pain, and fight. Despite your fear.’
She watched him, saw his face shift in ways she’d never seen it move before as her words settled into him. He sighed at the end, a relief.
‘My mother said something like that to me, a long time ago. I’d forgotten, until you said those words.’
He has fine eyes, she thought. Almond-shaped, a deep brown.
‘You fight all the time,’ he said to her. ‘Is that what you feel?’
She thought about that, her frown deepening.
I don’t ever remember feeling scared. Mostly just angry. No. Only ever angry.
And even more so recently.
‘Tell me of your mother, your home,’ Riv asked him, avoiding answering his question.
‘My mother,’ he said, leaning back, a slight frown creasing his forehead. ‘She is strong, brave, wise. A respected leader of the Sirak.’
‘I know that already, tell me something different about her.’