CHAPTER ONE
A bead of sweat trickled down Laeryk's neck, running down his spine. He swallowed hard, and took a deep, steadying breath. Another. Around him, Laeryk could feel the shifting discomfort of the militia members. These were men trained to defend their homes and flocks from wild animals. They were not meant to fight other men, except perhaps to break up brawls in the streets and taverns. Laeryk had more military training than half these men put together, maybe more than all of them. Any Wyvern Knight did.
Of course, Laeryk Thorn was only a squire, even though he was already older than most squires were when they were Chosen by their wyverns to become knights. Too old. The deadline of his twenty-first birthday was fast approaching, only a few short months away. The thought of never becoming a Wyvern Knight just because he had turned twenty-one without earning a Proving was terrifying. More terrifying than even the approaching bandits.
This would be Laeryk's first battle. He couldn't decide if he was more nervous than excited. He had waited most of his life for this moment, this chance to prove his uncle's words to be nothing but lies. He took a quick stock of his equipment. His armor was hardened leather lined with metal studs, with steel bracers covering his forearms, meant to be used in the place of a shield. His longbow was a comfortable weight in his hand, metal shod at the ends and center of the wood. His quiver hung at his waist, angled so that he could quickly draw a new arrow from it. He keenly missed his sword. Most Wyvern Knights had no use for swords; they were useless while the knights rode their wyverns, flying high above where they might strike any foe. Instead, Wyvern Knights had crossbows mounted onto their right gauntlets, raining deadly quarrels down upon their foes. While he was an excellent archer, Laeryk loved swords. Matching blades with an opponent felt more personal, more a true test of skill than shooting them full of arrows.
Forget the sword, Laeryk chided himself. It's gone. Belok saw to that.
A spark of anger came to life in Laeyrk as he remembered what his uncle had done, but Laeryk pushed the anger down as he always did, feeding it to the raging inferno of fury that blazed inside of him. One day that inferno would become uncontrollable and lash out at someone, but today was not that day. Going into his first fight angry was only going to get Laeryk killed.
Laeryk looked at the approaching bandits. They were a ragtag group, brazenly walking toward the gathered militia force. Little wonder, Laeryk thought. They've faced these men before, and always set them to running.
Once, the fields of outside of the city-state of Hadar had been golden with wheat, green with grass, and white with sheep. Now it smelled of smoke, roast mutton, and death. The Nadyssian bandits were ruthless, bloodthirsty men, who left nothing behind for those they pillaged. They were more organized than they had been in the past, several bands of bandits joining together to form a larger horde. Hadar had lacked the troops to defend both the city and its fields but its alliance with Valdaran had allowed it to call on the northern kingdom for aid, and Valdaran had responded by dispatching half of the Wyvern Knights making up Steel Wing to defend Hadar and wipe out the bandits. Today, Wing Lord Garon, Wing Lord of Steel Wing, planned to complete their mission and deliver a death blow to this bandit horde that would scatter it so far and wide it would never dare threaten Hadar again.
Laeryk should have been with the Wyvern Knights now, participating from the back of his uncle's wyvern. Belok had sneered at the thought, loudly declaring in front of everyone that Laeryk was too incompetent to shoot from the back of a wyvern, and that the only reason Belok had even brought his worthless squire with him was because Wing Lord Garon had demanded an evaluation of Laeryk in the field.
It had been humiliating, and infuriating, and the rage Belok's words had ignited in Laeryk was already burning with the rest of the inferno inside of him. Taking Laeryk's sword had been a further insult, and one that might cost the squire his life. Considering how much Laeryk's uncle and aunt had always hated him, Laeryk's death on the battlefield might have been their plan all along.
Stop it! You aren't going to die today, Laeryk snapped at himself.
"Get ready!" Laeryk called to the militia. They had nominated Laeryk as their commander for this battle when they'd learned that the squire would stand with them during the battle. The militia's original commander had been killed in an earlier bandit raid. The men tensed in anticipation, though Laeryk couldn't tell if they were ready to stand their ground or turn tail and flee. Laeryk nocked an arrow and pulled back the string, selecting the bandit he would shoot at first. Some of the militia men did the same, but there were too few men with bows in the militia. The rest readied their spears, axes, and whatever other weaponry they'd had. One man had only brought out a hoe from his fields.
The bandits seemed unperturbed by this show of force from the militia, and why not? They had routed these same men before. What could possibly make the difference this time?
Laeryk waited for them to get closer. They were well within range of his arrow now, but he couldn't set the militia to charging too soon, or the bowmen would be useless. Just a little closer...
"Now!" Laeryk roared, letting the arrow slip through his fingers. It flew straight and true, killing the bandit Laeryk had aimed at before the man had even known that he was in danger. The other archers were just loosing their shots when Laeryk had already readied his second shot. The rest of the militia surged forward as a second bandit died from one of Laeryk's arrows, and they met with the bandit force as Laeryk's third shot killed yet another of the raiders.
Laeryk paused to survey the battle. They didn't need to hold the bandits for long. Wing Lord Garon had never counted on the militia to defeat the bandits, only to draw the bulk of their horde out into the open. At first it looked as though the Wing Lord's plan had worked, but Laeryk's eyes narrowed as he considered the battlefield. The reports they'd heard of the bandits' numbers were far vaster than the force on the field today. Truthfully, the horde should have washed over the militia and Laeryk without pause, but this force was only half the size they'd estimated...
So where were the other bandits?
A snarl drew his attention, and Laeryk stared in horror at the approaching force of bandits riding creatures that Laeryk had only ever heard stories of in Valdaran. Nadyssian clawfiends had the basic form of a mountain lion, but were two or three times the size, with brown scales where fur should have been, and half-foot long claws on each foot. Their heads were more avian than feline, with eyes placed on either side of the head, and a sharp beak hiding their long teeth. The stories some of the older Wyvern Knights told about clawfiends said that a single Clawfiend could rip a man apart in seconds, and their scales were said to be as good as any armor ever made by man.
There were at least ten of the clawfiends and their riders. Most of the militia had little better than boiled leather armor. The clawfiends would rip them apart as if they were nude on the field that day, if Laeryk didn't do something.
Acting on instinct, Laeryk nocked an arrow and aimed at the nearest clawfiend, drawing a new arrow automatically as he released the first one, and firing on the Clawfiend's rider. Both arrows struck their targets. The bandit fell from his saddle as he clutched at the arrow that had punctured his throat. The clawfiend looked at the arrow curiously as it bounced off of its scaled hide. It turned its attention to Laeryk and gave a menacing shriek.
Wonderful. I have its attention.
Laeryk's eyes widened as two more clawfiends answered the shriek and turned to face him. Their riders tried to turn their fierce mounts around, but the clawfiends ignored them and stalked toward Laeryk, who nocked an arrow but didn't bother aiming. He needed to think this through. The clawfiends were armored, fast, and they outnumbered Laeryk, but he could probably get off two arrows before they got within range to pounce on Laeryk. Then they would turn him into a small pile of gore and viscera.
Damn you to the Hells, uncle! If you wanted me dead, couldn't you have just drowned me when I was younger?
Laeryk felt th
e surge of anger again and tried to feed it the fire inside of him as he had before, but the inferno had grown too large for Laeryk to contain it anymore. Memories of his uncle's lies about Laeryk, and the cold hatefulness of Laeryk's aunt Dianay boiled to the surface. They'd always resented the need to take care of Laeryk since his father's death. It hadn't been Laeryk's fault his father had died; Derris Thorn had been killed while fighting bandit forces when Laeryk was eight. Laeryk hadn't forced Belok to take him as a squire, denying Belok the option of squires whose Houses would pay lucrative stipends to support their scions' training. All Laeryk had ever wanted was to follow his father's footsteps and become a Wyvern Knight, and to restore House Thorn to the former glory it had held before his father's death.
He'd done his best to please his uncle. He was the best squire Steel Wing had seen since Wing Lord Garon himself. He was a better archer than most of the full knights. He had taken the shoddy, cheap equipment Belok had bought and restored it to a respectable, if not pretty, condition. He had cared for Belok's wyvern, had attended to every chore his aunt and uncle had set, every additional demand and rule they'd placed on him, and for what?
All Belok and Dianay had ever done was call Laeryk worthless and undeserving of Derris Thorn's legacy. They'd sullied Laeryk's name with every knight in Steel Wing, and doubtless knights in the other four Wings as well. He'd suffered through it all in silence, never protesting, never acting out in rage against his oppressors, bottling it all up inside himself instead.
That fury exploded inside of Laeryk now, and the inferno surged forth through his veins, filling him with heat and power. The world seemed to slow down, or perhaps Laeryk simply moved faster. Regardless, pulled the string back and let his arrow fly, readying and shooting a second and then a third before he even had time to think of what he was doing. The arrows seemed to shimmer with heat as they flew. The first imbedded itself into the eye of one clawfiend, piercing all the way to its brain. It fell over, crushing its rider beneath it. The second arrow pierced the soft roof of another clawfiend's mouth as it let out a shriek, killing that clawfiend as well. The third arrow found the soft spot between the riderless clawfiend's torso and foreleg, causing it to buckle forward, but failing to stop its advance.
Understanding that he would never get another shot off in time, Laeryk instead held his bow like a club and readied himself to meet the clawfiend's charge. Even with its injury, the clawfiend should have been moving far too quickly for Laeryk to have a hope of stopping it before he was torn to pieces, but instead it seemed as if Laeryk had all the time in the world. Just as the clawfiend was almost upon him, Laeryk swung his bow, connecting with the side of the clawfiend's head. The bow shattered from the force of the blow and the clawfiend was tossed to the side. It quickly recovered and advanced at Laeryk again. Laeryk threw the ruined bow to the side and roared in challenge at the clawfiend. The sound of Laeryk's battle cry hit the reptilian beast like a solid force, throwing it to the side.
A rush of wind and a hail of quarrels announced the arrival of Steel Wing. Bandits fell by the score to the Wyvern Knights' crossbows, and the wyverns swooped down to attack the clawfiends with poisoned stingers and claws.
"Militia, fall back!" Laeryk yelled, and by some miracle the men of the militia heard Laeryk. They quickly pulled back so that the Wyvern Knights wouldn't need to worry about friendly casualties as they rained a barrage of missiles upon the bandits.
Issuing the command had distracted Laeryk, and he failed to notice that the clawfiend had recovered until it was almost too late. He watched helplessly as it charged, that feeling of invincible fury suddenly gone, leaving only a cold exhaustion that seeped into Laeryk's bones. Unarmed and too tired to dodge, Laeryk gritted his teeth as the clawfiend raced toward him, murder in its eyes.
A wyvern's stinger easily penetrated through the clawfiend's scales, pumping the paralytic venom into the clawfiend's bloodstream. The clawfiend's body went rigid, and the wyvern pulled its stinger out and snatched the clawfiend in its talons. The wyvern flew high into the sky and released the clawfiend. It landed hard on the ground, and Laeryk could hear its bones shatter. It did not rise.
He held up a hand in thanks and thought he spotted a flash of white teeth as Gavain Whiterose, Laeryk's best and only friend, saluted him back. Gavain signaled his wyvern, and they returned to the main body of the fray.
A hoarse scream drew Laeryk's attention, and he watched as one of the clawfiend riders ran toward him, sword raised above his head to cut Laeryk down. Though he was exhausted, Laeryk's training took over, and he parried the strike with his gauntlet, falling to one knee from the force of the blow. The bandit swung wildly at Laeryk, clearly in a frenzy, and Laeryk was hard pressed to block them all. He waited for an opening, and when the bandit rose his sword of his head for another fierce blow, Laeryk lept forward, clipping the bandit below the knees and forcing him to the ground. Laeryk pulled himself on top of the bandit and punched the Nadyssian in the face, but the Nadyssian managed to throw Laeryk off, leaving Laeryk prone. The bandit sneered as he readied a thrust that would take Laeryk's life when a quarrel exploded from the bandit's throat and he collapsed with a gurgle.
Laeryk's eyes rose to watch as his uncle set his wyvern down and dismounted. Sir Belok Frostwind staggered toward his nephew, and Laeryk wrinkled his nose at the foul stench of beer and ale that wafted from Belok.
Incredible! He's still drunk from last night! Laeryk thought in amazement. He should have expected it, given his uncle's condition, but right before a battle...
Then again, how badly would his hands have shook without the alcohol, Laeryk wondered. There was no way to know what, or who, Belok might have shot if he hadn't been drunk.
"Always needing me to do everything for you," Belok sneered. There was no trace of a slur in Belok's speech. "I don't know why you ever thought you could be one of us, if a simple bandit could best you!"
"I," Laeryk started, but stopped as Belok cut him off.
"Shut up, boy! Don't you dare argue with me!" Belok's bulk shook with rage as he towered over his nephew. "Where's your bow? Where's your sword? What sort of man, squire or not, goes into a battle without a damned weapon?"
Laeryk's eyes flickered to the ruined remnant of his bow, then over to the sword sheathed at Belok's waist. Laeryk's sword. The anger burned in Laeryk's eyes, but he tried not to let it show. His reputation was bad enough; he didn't need to let his temper ruin it any further.
"What in the Hells do you think you're doing, Belok?" demanded a voice from behind Laeryk.
Laeryk tilted his head so that he could watch the Wing Lord approach. Wing Lord Garon Wyvernclaw had changed little from the days of Laeryk's childhood when Laeryk had called him "Uncle Garon" and ridden on the Wing Lord's shoulders during his frequent visits to Thorn Manor. The Wing Lord had been squired to Laeryk's grandfather at the same time that Derris Thorn had been squired to the head of House Silverheart. They had formed a friendship that had made them as close as brothers. After Derris Thorn's death, however, the Wing Lord had all but vanished from Laeryk's life, abandoning him to the cruel whims of his aunt and uncle. Laeryk had never learned why the Wing Lord had turned his back on his best friend's son.
"I think I am disciplining my squire," Belok snarled, obviously outraged at being challenged. "I believe that I am well within my right to do so, my lord."
If the Wing Lord was bothered by the condescension in those last words of Belok's, he didn't show it. "Disciplining is something to be done back at the Waystation, not on the field of battle."
"Battle? This massacre is long since over," Belok snorted.
"Still, we have other things to attend to. There are wounded, and I want to question some of these bandits to see if we took out the leaders, or perhaps confirm whether Markov had anything to do with these attacks."
"It is my right to train my squire however and whenever I see fit!" Belok screamed in fury. "Would you deny our oldest traditions? You may command Steel Wing but e
ven you must obey the traditions set down by the first Wyvern Knights!"
"I'm not telling you how to train your squire," the Wing Lord snapped, "I'm giving you a direct command, on the field of battle, and you had damned well better follow it!"
Both men drew themselves up to their full heights. Valdarans were taller than any of the men from the southern kingdoms. Wing Lord Garon was short for a Valdaran, but stood at a height equal to the tallest of the Hadaran militia men. Belok towered over the Wing Lord by a full head and a half. He was easily one of the tallest men in Steel Wing. Only Laeryk was taller, standing just over seven feet tall.
Sensing that he needed to do something to stop this confrontation, Laeryk rose and knelt before his uncle contritely. "My thanks, Sir Belok, for saving my life from that bandit," Laeryk said, his eyes cast to the ground. "I lost my bow fighting the clawfiend. If you hadn't stopped the bandit when you did —"
"Fighting the clawfiend?" Belok sneered disbelievingly. "How can you even attempt such lies in front of the Wing Lord? If you had fought a clawfiend, you'd be dead." Belok shook his head in mock disappointment. "That is just like you, Thorn. Always lying to cover up what a failure you are, and —"
Rage filled Laeryk again and a snarl escaped his lips before he comes suppress it. He rose and met his uncle's eyes, sky-blue like most Valdarans. "I am not lying," he hissed. "I killed two clawfiends, held off a third, and managed to kill multiple bandits before the clawfiends arrived. Check the fletching on the arrows if you don't believe me."
His eyes bored into his uncle's, and Belok was forced to look away. Not many could meet Laeryk's gaze for long. His mismatched eyes quickly disconcerted most who tried. His left eye was the same sky-blue as his father's had been, but Laeryk's right eye was a green so dark you could hardly tell the iris and the pupil apart. Gavain had once said that when Laeryk was angry, his dark green eye seemed to swallow all the light in the room. Laeryk had always supposed that he must have gotten his green eye from his mother. Derris Thorn's eyes had been as blue as any Valdaran, but Laeryk had no idea what color his mother's eyes were. She had died giving birth to him, and Laeryk's father had ordered that any portraits of Laeryk's mother be covered and that no one should ever speak to Laeryk about his mother, so as to spare the boy any pain from her absence. Laeryk didn't even know what his mother's name had been.
"He's right," called Sir Jarrot as he knelt beside the clawfiend Laeryk had shot in the eye. "Both arrows have Valdaran fletching."
Wing Lord Garon whistled appreciatively. "Two clawfiends," he said in wonder. "Nearly a third. I don't know of any Wyvern Knight who can say that they killed a single clawfiend on foot, let alone as a squire."
"The boy was lucky," Belok snorted.
"Alluman grant me that same sort of luck in every battle," the Wing Lord said. He rubbed his bearded chin as he considered Laeryk thoughtfully. "Could you imagine what sort of reaction a squire would receive if they passed a Proving by killing two clawfiends?"
A Proving! Laeryk's heart raced, his anger melting away. The Proving was the final test a Wyvern Knight presented to his squire before sending the squire to the wyverns to see if he would be Chosen by one of them. It was almost a foregone conclusion that any squire who passed his Proving would be Chosen by the wyverns. The few squires who hadn't been Chosen had met gruesome ends at the talons of the wyverns, and their Provings had always been revealed to have been earned through bribes or other coercion, rather than merit.
Belok had been denying Laeryk his Proving for years, always saying that Laeryk wasn't ready, or was too incompetent, or some other excuse. Laeryk had hoped that this mission would afford him the opportunity to show Wing Lord Garon and the rest of Steel Wing that he deserved a Proving, leaving Belok no avenue to deny his squire any longer — but he had never dreamed the Wing Lord would suggest that the battle itself be considered Laeryk's Proving!
"It would be an impressive feat," Belok admitted, "but Laeryk isn't ready for his Proving. I still say his kills were luck, not skill, and he's done nothing to prove to me that the Wyverns won't rend him limb from limb if he goes to them."
"If every squire had to do better than killing two clawfiends, lucky or no, to earn their Provings, we'd have no Wyvern Knights at all," Wing Lord Garon said with a chuckle. "You should reconsider your opinion of your squire." Belok opened his mouth to protest, but the Wing Lord stopped him with a glower. "I'm not telling you what to do," he snapped, "only offering my opinion."
Laeryk's heart sank. The Wing Lord's opinion wasn't worth much against Belok's hatred for Laeryk. Without another word, the Wing Lord left them to tend to the cleanup of the battlefield. Laeryk waited for his uncle to say something.
"Are you finally getting a backbone, Thorn?" Belok laughed cruelly. "Not much good it will do you now," he whispered to his nephew so that Sir Jarrot, still watching the both of them, would not hear. "What do you have, three more months? I don't think I've ever cared enough to bother remembering your birthday. Doesn't matter. I want you to listen carefully to me. I'll die before I give you a Proving. Doesn't matter what you do."
Laeryk glared at his uncle, but said nothing, fighting to keep his fury in check. The temptation to attack his uncle was tremendous, but some cold, rational part of Laeryk's brain forced him to hold himself back, knowing that Belok was goading him so that Laeryk would look bad in front of Sir Jarrot.
"For losing your bow on the battlefield, and your sword before the battle even started, you'll tend to every wyvern in the Wing every time we stop, until we're back in Valdaran. Do you understand?"
Laeryk nodded, aware that Jarrot was watching him carefully. Belok smirked at Laeryk before turning away from him to stagger back to his own wyvern, no doubt in search of a flask in his saddlebags. Laeryk watched his uncle walk away. The inferno of his rage burned as hot as ever once again.
He thinks he's won, but I won't stop. I'll never give up. Before we return to Valdaran, I will find a way to force Belok to give me my Proving! The fires of Laeryk's rage roared in approval at the thought. Nothing will stop me, he swore to those fires. Nothing!