few heartbeats as she leaned forwards, her spear gripped tight, shaft tucked between her arm and torso. Wind whipped her face and dragged tears from her eyes. She wanted to yell for the joy of it, the thundering hooves beating a shuddering time, echoed by the rhythm of her heart.
Her target seemed a long way away, everything around her slow, moving at quarter time. To one side of her, White-Wings were training in the shield wall, on the other side giants were shaking the ground in individual sparring. Closer, she glimpsed Jost, a blur attacking a training mannequin; even with his broken arm still bound he was fast and deadly.
And then, abruptly, her target was close, rushing towards her, the world around her lurching into speed and motion, and everything faded away, the world reduced to the tip of her spear and its target, one seemingly drawn unerringly to the other.
An explosion of straw and she was letting go the shaft, galloping on, leaning back and shifting the pressure on her reins. A spray of turf as her horse slowed and stopped.
Riv looked back to see her spear still juddering in the head of the straw target, felt the thrill of a blow perfectly struck, a grin splitting her face. She saw Jost raise his good arm to her, a salute; the two of them had become closer since their failed attempts at their warrior trial. It still hurt to see her other friends training as White-Wings, although she had a fierce pride in them as well, sword-brothers and sisters whom she had grown up with, trained beside for over three years. Except for Vald. She still felt a simmering resentment for him, though putting her boot in his stones had helped to dim that a little.
Riv patted her horse’s neck and praised him as she rode him to the paddocks adjoining the weapons-field. She dismounted and set about removing his tack and rubbing him down before she handed him over to the grooms.
Abruptly, she was stumbling into the fence, a pain shooting through her back, snatching her breath away and turning her legs to porridge. She hung onto the paddock rail, eyes screwed shut as the pain stabbed through her torso, radiating out from her shoulder blades, and then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, only a dull ache remaining, the faintest echo of the pain.
‘You all right?’ one of the paddock grooms asked. She stood straight and rolled her shoulders.
‘Fine,’ she grunted, though she wasn’t: an ache in her back and, come to think of it, in most of her joints as well, a throbbing in her wrists and knees.
I must visit the healers about this. When I have some time.
She headed towards Jost and the training mannequins. Along the way a noise drew her attention, a square of warriors, fledglings from another hundred of White-Wings, training in the shield wall. She stopped and stared at them. There was some kind of disruption going on, voices raised, the shield wall splintering, a figure pushed and falling to the floor, another stepping forwards, standing over the fallen one.
It was Bleda on the floor, the young Sirak. He rose slowly, stumbling over the long wooden shield in his hand. The other lad standing over him was laughing. He pushed Bleda’s shield when he was halfway up, sending Bleda rolling to the ground again. He laughed harder and there was more laughter from the rest of the shield wall, about twenty of them. He stopped laughing when Bleda’s shield cracked into his ankles, though, sending him howling to the floor.
Bleda was up first, discarding his shield this time, the other lad hobbling to his feet a little more slowly. Bleda flew at him, a flurry of punches and kicks sending the lad reeling backwards.
Others in the group leaped forwards, grabbing Bleda. Five of them, seven, more of them. Riv saw punches flying, and then she was running, the injustice of it sending her blood boiling. She was upon them quickly, though not fast enough to prevent dozens of blows landing upon Bleda. She grabbed one of the fledglings from behind, pulled and threw him, leaving him rolling across the grass. The next one wouldn’t come free so easily, so she kicked the back of his leg at his knee joint, sending him crashing to the ground, grabbed his flailing wrist and twisted, heard him scream. The next one saw her, turned and threw a punch at her. She