A Flight of Marewings

by Kristen S. Walker

  The physick nodded and left.

  The door had barely closed behind her when it burst open again. Korinna ran into the room and threw herself down on the floor in front of him. “Please forgive me for my rash actions, sir,” she begged, raising her hands above her head in supplication. “I never meant for you to get hurt like that. I am so, so sorry.”

  Varranor chuckled at her exuberance, but watched her closely. What was her motive for coming to him? “I’m not sure this is what your sergeant had in mind for a formal apology. Did you fear that I would demand your own injury as punishment for mine?”

  Korinna blinked back tears. “He said that it would be your decision if I went on probation or got kicked out of the company—”

  Varranor shook his head. “Yoren has punished you enough, I think. It’s his job to be tough on you, to get you used to the kind of discipline that we need in our ranks. But you’ll find that I, like most of the officers, am actually rather lenient.” He leaned forward and offered her a hand up. “Actually, I saw your face when Skyfire struck. I think fear is the best lesson that you’ve learned from this experience.”

  Korinna shuddered. She accepted his help up and, at his gesture, took a seat in the chair across from his. “I didn’t know that marewings could be that vicious. Thank you, by the way, for saving me.”

  He nodded. “We don’t call them monsters for nothing. They agree to accept one human as their rider, and it’s rare that they let anyone else approach them.” He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed her the scar from the bite. “Fortunately, we employ a rather adept mage for our healing needs, and with a little exercise I’ll be good as new.”

  Her eyes widened and the blood drained from her face. “She healed it that fast? But it left a scar.”

  He covered the mark again. “Yes, for combat healing, we prefer speed over quality. A soldier has to be ready to get back into the field as soon as possible.” He grinned. “Besides, what’s a battle-hardened warrior without a few scars?”

  She smiled back, beginning to relax a little. “I guess. Still, that bite was meant for me. You shouldn’t have been hurt at all.”

  “Trust me, if Skyfire had managed to get to past me, she would have hurt you much worse. I’d rather get bitten myself than let her kill half a unit of talented recruits.” He also noticed how Korinna looked at him. Winning her loyalty was more than worth another scar.

  She looked at the floor. “I never meant to lead my unit into such danger. Now I don’t get the chance to lead them at all.”

  “Yes, I heard that was part of your punishment. It’s a shame that you lost your rank after it was so hard-won. Yoren told me that you were doing quite well.”

  Korinna flinched at the praise. “Really? He hardly ever says anything good to me.”

  He smiled. It was so easy to play her. “As I said, it’s his job to be tough. Other than this incident, though, how is it going? Are you still happy with your choice?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Just when I think that things are starting to go well, something else happens. And I still have to finish my basic training, if I don’t get someone killed first, and then I have no idea how I qualify to be a marewing rider.” She looked up at him hopefully. “Do you have any tips?”

  He waggled a finger with a teasing grin. “Actually, it’s a part of the selection process that we never tell our candidates what we’re looking for or how they’re doing until we’ve chosen.”

  “Why? That’s so frustrating.” Her face showed her disappointment openly. He was confident that she hid nothing from him.

  He shrugged. “Tradition, I guess. Practically every recruit we get thinks that they have what it takes to be a rider, but if we let everyone try, most of them would die in the attempt. So we have to have a selection process to determine those most likely to succeed, and then we do everything we can to train them ahead of time so they have the best chance of survival.”

  She covered her mouth with her hand.. “So if you fail, you always die?”

  “Well, the other riders all try to fly underneath to catch the ones who fall, but we don’t always get there in time.” He looked off into the distance, as if recalling tragic memories. “I’ve seen good soldiers, who could have had long and decorated careers in the infantry, die because they wanted the chance at something greater. A marewing is a powerful ally, but they don’t come easily.”

  Korinna leaned forward. “I’m not afraid to try.”

  Varranor looked at her and smiled. “You remind me of myself when I was your age. That was a long time ago.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t think you were that much older than me.”

  He laughed. “You’re what, nineteen? I’m ten years older than you.”

  “Really? You seem much younger than that. A lot younger than your brother.”

  He heard the wistfulness in her tone and an idea occurred to him. If he could make her doubt her choice to marry Galenos and became infatuated with him instead—well, that would be an interesting twist to the story.

  “I guess I age well.” He leaned in so that his face was barely a hand’s width from hers. “And as for Galenos, well, he’s only thirty, but he acts like a man twice his age. He wants to sit on a patio overlooking his farm and dandle babies on his knee. I’m not sure if it’s the fighting or the responsibility of leading, but something has changed him.”

  She smiled at him, and when she spoke, her warm breath stirred his hair. “Yet you’re still loyal to him.”

  He let out a long-suffering sigh. “He’s my brother, and he’s always looked out for me. I’ve spent half my life flying under his command.”

  Her eyes sparkled with interest. “Half your life? How old were you when you caught Skyfire?”

  “I was fourteen and Galenos was sixteen when we decided to start our own mercenary company.” He shook his head at the memory. “Our father never wanted us to fight, but we ran away from home and caught two marewings on our own. We were just a couple of children, but we thought we could take on the world, and once we started winning fights, well, that got enough attention that other people wanted to join us for the chance to get a marewing, too. The infantry came later, when we’d found ourselves a patron.”

  Korinna listened to his story with rapt attention. It sounded like a bard’s tale when he told it now, the two poor Khazeem brothers who ran away from home and became the most feared mercenaries in all of northern Seirenia. He leaned back in his chair as he talked. He didn’t want to push her too fast.

  When he paused, she laid a hand on his knee. “Who was your patron?”

  He looked down at her touch. At his glance, she blushed and pulled her hand away. He knew it was time to wrap up the conversation and leave her to think of him in private. By all reports, she was inexperienced at love; she would want to process her new feelings.

  “Your father, of course, Duke Basileos. He said we were a bunch of hotshots, but with some military discipline and an infantry to support us on the ground, he thought we could be even better than the other companies he was contracting at the time. So he found us some experienced officers and the funds to train recruits, and we’ve managed to take it this far.”

  He stood up and stretched. “I’ve got my own duties to get back to now, though. I accept your apology, recruit. Dismissed.”

  Korinna jumped to her feet and saluted him. “Yes, sir!” She paused and gave him a smile. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  Varranor grinned. “You’re welcome. We’ll try to talk again sometime.” He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s necessarily fair, everything my brother is putting you through to prove yourself, but for what it’s worth, I believe you can make it.”

  She smiled up at him and touched her hair self-consciously. “Really?”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Really. So don’t let the demotion bring you down. You’ll earn your rank again.” He rubbed his hands together. “And when I get my hands on your unit ag
ain, we’re hunting monsters.”

  Varranor searched for his brother on one of those golden evenings that made the water of the bay glow. He found him cooped up in his office, as usual, behind a desk with a pile of papers and a dark scowl.

  “You need a break.” Varranor went around behind Galenos’s chair and dragged it back from the desk. “It’s a beautiful sunset and your marewing could use the exercise. Let’s go for a ride.”

  Galenos reached for one more piece of paper. “Let me just finish this letter—”

  “No.” Varranor snatched it out of his hand and threw it back onto the desk. “If you don’t come now, you’ll never catch us before we make Lumor Cliff.”

  The Warlord looked up with a sudden glimmer in his eye. “So it’s a race, then?”

  He grinned to see a spark of his old brother reappear. “One that you’re going to lose.”

  “We’ll see about that!” Galenos stood up, knocking his chair onto the floor to block Varranor’s exit, and raced for the door.

  The two brothers ran down to the stables, shouting jibes at each other. Varranor snatched Nightshade’s saddle off the wall and threw it into a pile of hay to delay his brother, then raced off with Skyfire’s tack.

  In the paddock, the marewings must have heard the brothers coming, because both of them were eagerly waiting by the fence. He scrambled over and tried to saddle Skyfire quickly.

  Galenos was right behind him, though, and somehow managed to get Nightshade ready even faster. The Warlord was in the air moments before the Commander.

  Varranor laughed and urged Skyfire up after him. She struggled to gain altitude in the narrow confines of the city and barely managed to clear the top of the wall. Once they were in the open sky, however, she caught a thermal from the winds off the ocean and soared up. At a touch from Varranor, she angled northwest up the coast toward Lumor Cliff.

  Nightshade watched and caught the same updraft, and soon she was close on Skyfire’s tail. Galenos shouted out threats of what might happen if Varranor reached the cliffs first.

  Lumor Cliffs were a rocky outcropping at the edge of the river valley, where the foothills started to lead back up into the mountains. No human settlements or roads were nearby, so it was largely inaccessible except from the air, which made it a popular meeting place for marewing riders. That evening there were several others, released from their duties for the day, ranged about to watch the sunset.

  Varranor kept up a merry chase of Galenos to the last, but finally he reined in Skyfire and allowed Nightshade to glide in first for a landing.

  Galenos dismounted and made a face at him. “You let me win.”

  “I prefer to see you stay in a good mood,” Varranor said, coming up to join his brother near the cliff’s edge. “They’re rare enough these days.”

  The setting sun was still warm on the rocks where they sat down to admire the view. They took off their leather riding jackets to enjoy the sea breeze.

  Galenos pointed to the scar on Varranor’s arm. “What happened to you? I don’t see you for a few days, and you come back with a new injury.”

  The Commander shrugged it off with a smirk. “Oh, that’s just a love bite from Skyfire. I had to fight her off to protect your warrior bride.”

  The Warlord sat up with a start. “What? Is the girl hurt?”

  Varranor shook his head. “Relax, she’s fine. Her sergeant had to demote her, though.” He lounged back against a boulder. “She feels terribly guilty about the whole thing. Perhaps guilty enough that she might feel obligated to make it up to me.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  Galenos’s good mood disappeared with a scowl. “Now see here,” he said, waving a finger in front of his brother’s face. “You can seduce any other person you like in the company and I won’t care. But you stay away from the girl.”

  His grin broadened at his older brother’s irritation. “What’s the matter? Can’t handle a little friendly competition in the romantic department? You must be afraid I’ll win. I’ve heard she blew you off the last time you visited the fort.”

  “I don’t have time for your games.” Galenos pushed himself back up to his feet. “You need to grow up and stop treating life as something that you need to best me at. When I give the company to you, you’ll have to make your own decisions instead of looking to follow mine.”

  “If you give the company to me,” Varranor muttered.

  “Keep this up, and I won’t.” Galenos stalked off and called Nightshade to leave.

  Varranor thought about running after his brother to apologize, but decided to let him run off and stew for a while. Let Galenos believe that he posed a threat to his future marriage prospects, and maybe he would actually pay more attention to Korinna. At the very least, he could stop calling her “the girl.”

  22

  Korinna VII

  Korinna marched at the end of the rank, stretching her legs to keep up with the other recruits in her unit. Ahead of them, some kind of monster was attacking a farmstead, and their final test was to hunt it down and kill it. They didn’t know what they faced, so they brought a selection of weapons and supplies with them, which weighed them down. They would have to evaluate the threat and decide how to take it down on their own.

  She’d seen farmsteads taken by the wyld before. When the magic got a foothold, the forest encroached at a rapid pace, weeds and brush swallowing up crops and houses alike. A family’s entire livelihood could disappear overnight.

  The full transformation hadn’t happened in this location yet, but Korinna recognized the signs as they approached. Branches reached across the road to snag at passing recruits. Vines climbed over the fences, obscuring the structure underneath. Weeds grew across the crop fields, which were fortunately lying fallow during the dry summer, so there was no grain to be lost.

  Zephyros halted them in the field just southwest from the farm house. “There’s something ahead. Who thinks that they can get a little closer and check it out?” He looked around the group. He’d barely had time to learn their names.

  Korinna knew the strengths of every member of her unit from months of training exercises. Herokha could scout, but she wouldn’t volunteer if Korinna suggested it. So she nudged Orivan, who had grown out of his early clumsiness.

  Orivan set his pack and weapons down on the ground. “I think I can sneak in without being seen. Those trees on the south side can give me cover.”

  Zephyros nodded. “Alright, then. Be careful.”

  The rest of the unit hunkered down in the field to wait. They watched as Orivan crept forward, keeping the trees between him and the house. He disappeared into the brush.

  Up ahead, there was a strange mass in front of the farm house. To Korinna, it looked like a huge bouquet of pale pink flowers. Was it just another plant grown by the wyld magic?

  There were no signs of any other life in the area, whether human, farm animal, or monster.

  Suddenly, one of the enormous flowers opened. An enticing sweet smell wafted to them on the breeze.

  “What’s that?” Yulina whispered. “Is it something your farmers grow here? It smells good.”

  Korinna shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. We’d better be careful.”

  After a while, Orivan emerged from the trees and returned to them. “It looks like some kind of enormous plant,” he reported to Zephyros. “There’s fruit growing inside of those buds. It opened up when I got closer. But it’s not natural. I think—” He glanced back at it over his shoulder. “I think that might be the monster.”

  Herokha snorted in derision. “A plant that attacks people? That’s crazy. I don’t even see any damage. The farmers must have freaked out and run away over nothing.”

  Zephyros shook his head. “Sergeant Yoren said that some of the farmers were still here. At the very least, we have to find out if they’re alright and get them out safely.” He began to string his bow.

  On his command, they all lined up in four ranks and d
rew their bows.

  Korinna stood up with the first rank and fired at the plants. She watched as her arrow sailed through the air to a closed flower bud and bounced off.

  Other arrows grazed leaves and stalks without any apparent effect on the plant.

  Zephyros held up his hand to halt the second rank and they all crouched down again. “I guess we have to get closer.” He pulled out an ax. “And let’s get rid of that thing. Whether it’s related to the monster or not, I don’t like the way it looks.”

  He turned and counted out half of the squad, including Herokha. “I’ll take this group with me for a frontal assault. The other half of you will circle around those trees to the south and approach the house from the east.” He looked at Korinna. “You’re in charge of the second group.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “But I’ve been demoted to the lowest rank.”

  Zephyros shook his head. “As unit leader, I get to choose my second, and I say that you’re the best one for the job. You know how to lead these people. Get them into the house and check for survivors.”

  Korinna flicked her hand in salute. “Yes, sir.” She looked down at their supplies. “Let’s travel light. Keep your shields, swords, and bows. We’ll leave the rest behind.”

  Zephyros signaled his group to do the same. “Except leave the bows. They’re not effective.”

  It only took a few moments for the recruits to equip themselves appropriately. Then Zephyros took the head of his formation.

  He looked up at the sun. “I’ll give you half an hour to get into position before we move in. Be ready on my signal.”

  Korinna nodded and headed into the trees, letting Orivan take the lead. Because of the plant’s reaction to Orivan’s earlier movements, he kept them even farther back. They couldn’t see the plant or the house through the trees.

  She measured her steps until she felt that they must be close to the house. Then she crept through the underbrush and paused at the edge of the clearing that surrounded the house. She could see the building now, and about half of the strange plant. Far on the other side, she could just barely make out Zephyros and his group crouching in the field.