Fire wings, p.1
Fire Wings, page 1
Fire Wings
Anthony Ryan
Contents
1. Exiles
2. The Climb
3. The Eyrie
4. Fledglings
5. Stielbek
6. The Black Onyx
7. The Leap
8. The Voice Awakened
9. The Maw
10. The Mage’s Gambit
11. The Black-Wing’s Quest
About the Author
Also by Anthony Ryan
Dedicated to anyone who ever dreamed of flying.
With wings of fire did she burn away her sins, and with blood did she wash their stain from her soul.
the Epic of Sharrow-Met.
1
Exiles
The skull stared up at him with just one empty eye socket, the other having been shattered, along with much of the surrounding bone, the natural consequence of colliding with bare rock after a prolonged fall. Angling his head, Shamil couldn’t escape the sense that it was grinning at him, the oddly perfect half set of teeth gleaming as it caught the midday sun. He wondered if this unfortunate had actually laughed as they plummeted to their death, reflecting on the grim notion that, should the same fate befall him, he may also find some humour in it, or possibly just relief.
“I thought it might be a myth.”
Shamil tensed at the sound of an unexpected voice, one hand instinctively reaching for his quiver whilst the other unslung the strongbow from his shoulder. The man who had spoken was perched on a flat-topped boulder a dozen yards away, wrapped in a plain grey cloak that matched the surrounding rock. Shamil blamed this for his failure to spot him sooner, and the fact that the wind was at his back, sweeping away any betraying scent of sweat. Such excuses, he knew, would have availed him little in the Doctrinate, and this particular failure likely to earn him at best a hard cuff to the head or at worst a full beating. But the Doctrinate was far away, and the fact that he was no longer bound by its strictures one of the few crumbs of comfort Shamil could cling to during his recent sojourn.
“The leap, I mean,” the man in grey said, gesturing to the half-shattered skeleton as he climbed down from his perch. He took a long gulp from a leather flask as he approached, his gait and posture lacking a threat. As he neared, Shamil saw that he was perhaps twice his own age, stocky of frame, and sparse of hair, his broad features showing several days’ worth of stubble. He bore no weapon, and his accoutrements consisted of just a leather satchel bulging with unseen contents and a small emerald pendant that hung around his neck on a copper chain.
The gem was small, but the slight glimmer of light within it provoked Shamil to step back and lower his bow, eyes averted in respect, something this unshaven grey-cloak seemed to find amusing.
“Your people still cling to the old servile ways, I see,” he said, voice rich with mirth. He took another drink from his flask and Shamil’s nostrils caught the sting of strong liquor. The man’s eyes tracked over Shamil, taking in his hardy leather boots, the long-bladed dagger in his belt alongside his raptorile-tail whip, and the strongbow fashioned from ram’s horn and ash. “What are you? Strivante? No, skin’s too dark for that. Oskilna maybe?”
“Vilantre,” Shamil said, still not daring to look at the stranger’s face. “I bid you greeting, Master Mage . . .”
“Oh, don’t.” The mirth in the stocky man’s voice slipped into weary disdain as he waved his flask dismissively. “Just . . . don’t. Please.” He waited for Shamil to raise his gaze before extending his hand. “Rignar Banlufsson, late of . . . well, too many places to mention but most recently the Crucible Kingdom. Yourself?”
“Shamil L’Estalt.” He hesitated before grasping the proffered hand, finding it strong and the palm unexpectedly callused. This mage, it seemed, had not spent his days locked away in a tower poring over ancient texts. “Late of Anverest.”
“The desert city?” Rignar’s brow creased in surprise. “You’ve come a very long way, young man.” His gaze grew sombre as it slipped from Shamil to the skull at his feet. “For an uncertain outcome, it must be said. Makes you wonder how far this one had to travel just to jump off a mountain.”
“If he fell, it’s because he was unworthy,” Shamil stated, adding a note of forceful certainty to his voice. Like him, this man might be just another exile come in search of restored honour, but he thought it best to leave no doubt about his commitment to this course.
“She,” Rignar corrected, taking another drink from his flask before nodding to the bones. “You can tell from the brows and the breadth of the pelvis. Clothes and hair all gone, so she’s been here a good long while, whoever she was, she and all the others. There’s a pile of bones on the other side of that ridge if you’d care to see.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“As you wish.” The mage shrugged and turned back to his boulder. “Come, you can sort out this fire. You strike me as a lad with experience of the wilds, and although I’ve travelled far in my time, I’ve never really managed to learn the trick of starting a fire.”
“You are newly arrived, then?” Shamil ventured, following the mage to a small pile of sticks within a circle of gathered stones.
“Barely an hour before you did.” Rignar sighed as he resumed his seat on the boulder. “I had hoped some fellow exile would get here first, perhaps have even prepared a meal.”
Shamil crouched at the fire’s edge, keeping the surprise and suspicion from his face as he rearranged the twigs, his mind filled with dark conjecture on the magnitude of any crime that would see a mage forced to seek redemption as a sentinel.
“There’s not enough kindling to catch a spark,” he said. “And we’ll need more wood if it’s to burn for any length of time.” He shifted, casting an uncertain glance at the crystal pendant around Rignar’s neck. “Can’t you . . . ?
“Certainly not,” the mage sniffed, raising his nose in indignation that Shamil took a second to recognise as pretense, but not before he had begun to babble out an apology. “Best to conserve what power I still hold, lad,” Rignar added with a faint grin, raising a pointed glance to the mountain looming above. “After all, who knows what awaits us tomorrow, eh?”
Shamil followed his gaze, eyes tracking over the slopes and cliffs forming the peak that had dominated his sight and his thoughts since it first came into view a week ago. It rose from the eastern extremity of the crescent-shaped mountain range known to those who dwelt in these lands as the Harstfelts, but to every other denizen of the Treaty Realms as Sharrow-Met’s Shield.
The mountain they stood beneath was by far the tallest in the range, and considerably narrower. From a distance, it resembled a misshapen spearpoint fashioned by one of the more primitive desert tribes. Although born to a desert city, Shamil was no stranger to mountains. The Doctrinate would compel its students to endure months of hard living in the crags that formed the southern border with the raptorile dominion. Treacherous as those were, he had never scaled a peak so tall with flanks so sheer as those looming above.
“She named it well,” he murmured, peering into the clouds misting the mountain’s summit. “The Eyrie, for who but an eagle could call it home?”
“She didn’t name it.” Rignar’s voice abruptly took on a dull, almost resentful note. Turning, Shamil found him staring at nothing, gaze unfocused as he drank from his flask with habitual automation. “Sharrow-Met,” he added after a momentary silence. “She never named anything; that was all done by those who followed her after she . . .”
His voice dwindled, and he spent a few more seconds staring before raising his flask to his lips, then grimacing upon finding it empty. “Oh well,” he sighed, tossing the flask away with an air of finality. “The last wine to ever pass my lips. Wish I’d chosen a better vintage. They don’t allow it up there, apparently.” He clasped his hands together and got to his feet. “We should get to gathering wood. It would be best to greet our fellow despised with a warm camp, don’t you think?”
The fire had grown to a tall cone of bright flame, and the sky shifted to a darker hue by the time more exiles arrived—a young woman about Shamil’s own age and a tall, well-built man several years older. Although they shared the pale skin of the central and northern Treaty Realms, the mismatched attire and accents bespoke markedly different origins.
The young man wore his blond hair in thick braids, an iron band engraved with runes encircling his brow and a straight sword at his belt. A leather jerkin studded with flattened copper discs covered his torso, and he wore a bearskin cloak about his broad shoulders. As he introduced himself, he revealed a set of even white teeth in a smile, voice rich in both surety and humour. “Tolveg Clearwater of Wodewehl, good sirs. Well met we are, and friends we’ll stay, I’m sure.”
As he bowed, Shamil noted the scars on his neck. They were an extensive, overlapping matrix of injury that evidently proceeded down his back, also not long healed judging by their colour. Tolveg, however, didn’t appear to feel any pain as he straightened, nodding in appreciation as Shamil and Rignar offered their own names in greeting.
The woman was a stark contrast to her companion, saying nothing as she crouched to extend her hands to the fire. Her hair was jet black, catching a silklike shine from the fire, and her skin even more pale than Tolveg’s. It possessed a near alabaster whiteness that recalled the ancient marble statues of long-forgotten gods Shamil had seen during his journey north. Her cloak was of finely woven wool, and her soft leather trews and jerkin betrayed the hand of a skilled and no doubt expensive tailor. Her weapons consisted of two dagger s, one on her belt and another smaller blade tucked into her boot. As she shuffled closer to the warmth, Shamil saw she also had a leather sling and pouch attached to the left side of her belt.
“This is Lyvia,” Tolveg said, taking a seat beside Shamil on the fallen tree limb he and Rignar had harvested from the wooded slope below the ridge. “We met on the trail a few days ago.” He raised an eyebrow at Shamil, his hearty tones subsiding into a sigh. “She doesn’t say much.”
Lyvia’s eyes, as dark as her hair, flicked up at Tolveg, a small crease of irritation marring her smooth brow before she returned her full attention to the fire.
“You’re from the Crucible Kingdom,” Rignar said. His tone was that of a statement rather than a question, and Shamil saw a new depth of interest in the mage’s face. He stared at the woman crouching by the fire with a strange, intense scrutiny that spoke of hard, perhaps unwelcome recognition.
“I am,” she replied, voice quiet and flat in a clear signal that further conversation was not welcome.
“Ah, a Mara-Vielle accent—noble too.” Rignar observed, undaunted. “Which house?” His voice held a depth of interest that failed to stir a response from Lyvia. Her lips remained firmly closed, and she kept her hands outstretched, refusing to turn.
“Gondarik, I’d say,” Rignar said with a note of satisfactio. “So there’s royal blood in your veins.” He angled his head and leaned close. Shamil saw the woman tense, hands withdrawing to her belt. “Her blood. Not that I need a name to tell me that.” His voice grew softer, eyes unblinking as he shifted to gain a better view of her face. “Just an inch or so taller and it would be as if she’s risen to walk amongst us . . .”
“Put your eyes elsewhere, old man!”
Hearing her give full throat to her voice, Shamil found she possessed the oddest accent he had heard in all his travels. The words were spoken with a careful precision despite the rapidity with which she uttered them, the vowels soft and the consonants clearly enunciated. This, he realised, was the voice of ancient nobility. Royal blood indeed.
She rose to face Rignar, her face somehow managing to convey both a snarl and imperious disdain at the same time. “I’ll not be gawped at! Mage or no. And my blood is not your concern.”
Rignar reclined in the face of her anger, a half-smile playing over his lips as he raised his hands. “Spoken like a true queen,” he said, which did little to calm Lyvia’s ire.
“Well, I’m not a queen.” She turned away from him, stalking to the opposite side of the fire to sit down, arms crossed and her back to them all. “I’m just a dishonoured, disgraced outcast, like each of you.”
Silence reigned as her voice faded, although Tolveg apparently found such a thing intolerable. “I prefer ‘honour-seeker’, myself,” he said. “For that is why we came here, is it not? And this is not my first journey to far-off lands, let me tell you. Once, I stood at my uncle’s side when he captained a ship all the way through the ice shards to the lands of ash smoke where the gryphons still soar . . .”
Shamil listened politely as the warrior continued his tale, finding much of it hard to credit, even though it was spoken with an earnest sincerity. The northman’s tale wore on as Rignar unfurled a blanket to settle down to sleep, whilst Lyvia, plainly having already had her fill of Tolveg’s voice, rose and walked off to seek shelter amongst the surrounding rocks. Eventually, once it became apparent this story was unlikely to have an end, Shamil abandoned courtesy and slumped down at the edge of the fire’s glow. Wrapping his cloak around himself, he soon drifted into sleep to the sound of the northman’s unending recitation, seemingly indifferent to the absence of an audience.
2
The Climb
“. . . And, though she implored me to stay at her side, I steeled my heart and returned to my uncle’s ship, for bound by duty was I, and even the promise of a queen’s love was insufficient to sway me . . .”
“Does he ever stop?” Shamil muttered to Lyvia as they clambered to the top of a craggy rock face, one of several they had traversed that morning, each time to the accompaniment of Tolveg’s endless epic.
“When he finally gets to the part where he returns home,” she replied with a wince. “And then he just starts over, and the story changes with every telling. His lovelorn queen was merely a countess last time.”
Shamil had woken that morning to the stomach-teasing scent of meat on the spit, finding Lyvia roasting a fresh-caught rabbit over the fire. Noble origins or not, she was no stranger to the wilds or the hunt. Her stern silence from the previous night abated somewhat once they had shared a meal and commenced the long climb to the Eyrie’s summit, although they were obliged to converse during the all-too-brief respites from Tolveg’s story.
“So you think it’s all lies?” he asked her. They paused on a ledge, waiting for the others to catch up. He and Lyvia had quickly proven themselves as the most agile climbers, and it would have been easy to leave the two older men behind. This climb, however, was bound by an ancient custom that dictated they all arrive at the summit together.
“Possibly.” Lyvia shrugged. “Though that sword certainly isn’t just for show. I’ve seen enough warriors to know the face of one who’s actually tasted battle.” She frowned, lowering her face a little. “Unlike me.”
“And me,” Shamil admitted.
“Truly?” Her frown became puzzled as she nodded to the raptorile-tail whip on his belt. “I thought that must be a trophy. Your people war endlessly with the lizardfolk, do they not?”
Shamil’s hand went to the whip, unwelcome memories rising as his fingers traced over the azure and emerald-hued scales that formed its base. The eyes . . . There was a soul behind its eyes . . .
“Just a gift,” he said, swallowing a cough. Eager for a distraction he leant forward to offer a hand as Rignar clambered the final few feet to the ledge.
By Shamil’s reckoning they had scaled near a third of the mountain by midday, their progress partially assisted by the pathway cut into the stone, presumably by the previous generations of sentinels. It wasn’t much of a track, however, being frequently too narrow for easy navigation and often disappearing altogether at the base of yet another cliff face in need of climbing. The surrounding stone was often marked with various inscriptions, most of them carved in letters or glyphs beyond Shamil’s comprehension, though both Lyvia and Rignar had little difficulty in providing a translation.
“‘Loelle Estarik of Mira-Vielle,’” the mage read, his blunt fingers tracing over one inscription that appeared less weathered than the others. “‘Second Wing of the Sentinel Eyrie. To my mother’s shade I offer the most earnest contrition for my sin.’” He raised an eyebrow at Lyvia. “A country woman of yours, it seems.”
“It’s a famous scandal,” she said, a shadow passing over her face as she surveyed the carved symbols. “She fell in love with a lord from a rival house and, at his urging, disclosed her family’s treacherous scheming to win the throne. The entire family went to the gallows, save Loelle, who was allowed the mercy of exile and service in the Sentinels.”
“Then perhaps she awaits us above,” Shamil said, eyeing the winding and irksomely narrow trail ahead.
“I doubt it.” Lyvia started forward with a faintly mocking grin. “Unless she’s found a means of extending her life by two centuries. Plays have been written about her, none of them particularly good, it must be said.”
Mention of theatre, unfortunately, provided yet another opening for Tolveg to regale them with more of his adventures, on the pretext that such high drama would surely one day attract the attention of a playwright.
“For it was with my words, not my sword, that I laid low the three-eyed reptile of the Black Fjord, famed for taking the form of a comely maiden in order to lure besotted sailors into her deadly embrace . . .”
