A Time of Dread (Of Blood and Bone #1) - John Gwynne Page 0,38
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.