“The resemblance has been remarked upon many times . . .” Lyvia began in a tired voice, only for the woman to bark out a harsh command.

  “Shut your mouth, fledgling!” She glared at Lyvia for a moment longer, as if daring her to speak again, then grunted and turned to Rignar. “There were four of you yesterday,” she stated.

  “Our companion . . . fell,” Rignar replied.

  The woman’s head tilted in slight acknowledgment before shifting to regard the steps they had climbed. “Do any others follow?”

  “No.” Rignar gave an apologetic smile. “It’s just us.”

  Shamil saw the woman grimace before she turned away, staring up a path of wind-worn flagstones leading to a gateway in a wall a dozen feet high. “My name is Tihla Javahn, Second Wing of the Sentinel Eyrie,” the woman said. She moved with a rapid stride their recent exertions made it hard to match, and her words held the dry and passionless tones of an oft-recited speech. “As fledgling sentinels, your training is in my hands. You will follow my instructions without question. If you do disobey, and such disobedience doesn’t result in your death, you will depart this place and never come back. There is no negotiation here. There is no bargaining here. I care nothing for your excuses, explanations, or entreaties. Nor do I care about whatever disgrace brought you to this mountain top. Understand this and accept it, or leave now.”

  She came to a halt beneath the gate, turning to regard them with hard intent, her hand emerging from her cloak to hold up a brass disc. It was a thin, roughly worked thing, embossed with a crude silhouette of an eagle in flight. In material terms it possessed little value, but to Shamil it was worth all the wealth he would ever own.

  “This is what you came for,” Tihla Javahn told them. “The token that symbolises restored honour through service to the Sentinel Eyrie. It may take years to earn it, it may take months. Most likely you will die in pursuit of it. Stepping through this gate signifies your submission to the Eyrie, its customs, its rules, and the sacrifice required of its mission. Do not enter lightly.”

  She moved aside, inclining her head at what lay beyond the gate. Shamil stepped forward without hesitation, drawing up short at the sight of the Eyrie in its entirety. It was composed of stepped tiers carved from the summit of the mountain, creating a series of rises and dips. Wooden platforms had been constructed atop each rise, linked by a complex, overlapping maze of walkways. A dozen or more canvas-sailed windmills turned continuously in the stiff wind, and other sentinels moved about carrying various burdens. Most paused to regard the newcomers for a short examination, but none felt inclined to wave or call out a greeting.

  Rising above the windmills were a number of thick poles, each as tall as an aged pine, featuring broad crossbeams. Their purpose soon became obvious when a huge shape swept out of the sky and flared its wings, talons the length of sabres reaching out to grasp the perch. Shamil had thought the bird they had seen before Tolveg’s fall to be the biggest he would ever see, but this creature was at least a third again as large. Its great beak parted to emit a piercing cry as it folded its wings, the feathers betraying a flame-like shimmer. The sentinel on its back unhooked his harness from the straps about the fire wing’s neck before leaping nimbly to catch hold of one of the ropes dangling from the crossbeam. A large man, his fur cloak parted to reveal a torso of thick muscle as he descended to the ground, his fall made gentle by a counterweight that swept up as he swept down.

  He released the rope a few feet shy of the ground, landing on a slanted walkway and sliding to the nearest platform. He made his way towards the gate in a series of leaps and swings, pausing briefly to exchange greetings with other sentinels, all of whom smiled or nodded with notable deference. Upon landing he strode towards the newcomers, tugging thick leather gauntlets from his hands before unfastening the teardrop-shaped bronze helm from his head.

  After Tihla’s severity, Shamil was surprised to see a smiling visage as the helm came away. Based on his frame, Shamil would have guessed this man’s age at somewhere in his thirties, but the face he revealed bore the creases and weathering of a much older man. As he halted, his lips parted to reveal a wall of white, apart from a single gold tooth gleaming bright in the sun.

  “Fledgling sentinels,” he said, bowing and speaking in a voice that was low but strong. “I bid you welcome to the Eyrie.” His smile dimmed a fraction as he looked at the empty ground beyond the gate. “This is all?” he enquired of Tihla.

  “There were four.” She shrugged. “One fell.”

  “Ah.” His face betrayed a short flicker of dismay before the smile returned in full measure. “No matter. All who brave the climb are welcome.” He bowed again. “Morgath Durnholm, First Wing of the Sentinel Eyrie, thanks you for your selflessness in coming here.”

  Lyvia gave a visible start at the mention of the man’s name and failed to match the bow Shamil offered the leader of the Sentinels. It was awkward and clumsy, as the custom was unknown in his homeland. Rignar also offered no bow, but did step forward to clasp the First Wing’s hand.

  “Rignar Banlufsson,” he said. “I present my companions Shamil L’Estalt of Anverest and Lady Lyvia Gondarik of Mira-Vielle.”

  “No noble titles here,” Tihla said, adding in a low mutter, “certainly no ladies.”

  Morgath Durnholm spared his second-in-command a reproachful arch of his eyebrow before turning back to Rignar. Shamil noted how his gaze barely lingered on Lyvia, as if forcing himself not to stare. “You’re the crystal mage we’ve been expecting for so long,” he said, pointing to the pendant about Rignar’s neck. “Shelka, our last practitioner of the art, went to join with the spirits of her forebears last winter. She was very old and, despite having won her disc years ago, decided to live out her days amongst those she had come to see as family. For that is what we are.” He smiled again, moving to rest a hand on each of their shoulders, his affability faltering somewhat when Lyvia took a pointed backward step, her face lowered and expression rigidly inexpressive.

  Shamil found his shoulder sagging a little under the weight of the First Wing’s hand, the fellow looming above him by several inches. However, any suspicion that his gesture might be an attempt to demonstrate superior strength was dispelled by the genuine warmth that glimmered in Morgath’s eyes. Shamil had been trained to spot signs of deceit or hidden malice and saw none here.

  “We have a good deal for you to do, Master Mage,” the First Wing said, turning back to Rignar. “The Eyrie has a decent stock of crystals, but that will soon change in the event of another incursion.”

  “Is such a thing expected?” Rignar asked.

  “The Maw is sparing in the signs and portents it provides. It could belch flame for a day, and yet the skies remain clear of its foul denizens, only for dozens to spew forth a fortnight later. I’ve often thought we could do with a seer in the Eyrie, but as yet none has felt sufficiently disgraced to join our family.”

  “They tend to be a solitary lot,” Rignar agreed. “Disgrace is reserved for those of us who actually engage with the world.”

  “Ah yes, the world.” Morgath’s brows rose in faint interest. “How fares it?”

  Rignar’s face formed a humourless grimace. “Poorly. Not so many of the Treaty Realms still hold to ancient obligations, hence our number.”

  “Numbers aren’t everything. I’d rather three stout hearts come in search of restored honour than a hundred souls forced to our door by mere obligation.”

  He smiled again, less broadly, before turning to Tihla, voice lowered. “I’ll need to take Fleyrak for another patrol before nightfall. Saw an odd shadow in the smoke.”

  The Second Wing’s scarred brow creased in concern. “Something new?”

  “Or just a trick of the light. My eyes aren’t what they were.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You have more pressing duties.” He cast a meaningful glance at Shamil and the others. “I’ll take Shirmar. He’s fully healed now and keen to get back into the sky.”

  “Take Lamira too,” she told him, her tone hard with insistence, before adding with a bland smile, “Her eyes are younger.”

  Morgath gave a brief laugh, then turned to bow to the three new arrivals a final time. “Tihla will see to your training. Throughout the days ahead it would be best to remind yourselves that what she does, she does for love of family.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving Tihla to regard them with a baleful eye. “Understand this,” she said in very precise tones, “I do not love you. Mage.” She beckoned Rignar forward, pointing to the western edge of the Eyrie where the carved tiers abruptly ended in a stretch of vertical rock. It was covered from base to crest in wooden scaffolding, the rock face featuring numerous circular, cave-like openings too regular of appearance to have been naturally formed. “Best if you take Shelka’s old chamber. It’s on the lowest tier, second from the left. She left behind a pile of books and trinkets you may find a use for. Get settled and join us to eat after dark. You’ll go to the nest tomorrow. Better hope one likes you, or you’ve had a wasted journey.”

  Rignar hesitated, turning to regard Shamil and Lyvia. “I assumed I would be training with my friends . . .”

  “Mages don’t train,” Tihla interrupted. “Can’t risk losing your talents. Apart from the leap, of course. No sentinel can avoid that.”

  Rignar gave a reluctant nod, forcing a smile at his younger companions. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  After he started for his new home, Tihla stood in silent regard of her two charges, gaze roaming over their various weapons. “Know how to use that, do you?” she asked, gesturing to the strongbow slung across Shamil’s shoulders.

  “I do,” he replied.

  She blinked before her eyes slid to Lyvia, narrowing with a resentment Shamil assumed resulted from the disrespect the noblewoman had shown to the First Wing. “And you?” Tihla flicked a finger at the sling dangling from Lyvia’s belt.

  “All women of my house are trained in combat from a young age,” Lyvia replied promptly. “Proficiency in weapons is considered as important as comportment and etiquette.”

  The edges of Tihla’s mouth curved very slightly. “We’ll see. For now”—she nodded to a stack of broad-bladed shovels resting near the gate—“you have a far more important task to perform.”

  4

  Fledglings

  “Morgath Durnholm was the most dreaded pirate in the entire history of the Treaty Realms.”

  Lyvia’s words were muffled somewhat by the scarf she had fastened over her nose and mouth in an effort to assuage the stink, but Shamil detected the heat in her words, nonetheless.

  “He didn’t seem . . . piratical.”

  “What?”

  Like her, he had covered his mouth so was obliged to pull down the black silk kerchief in order to repeat himself. “He didn’t seem . . .” Shamil choked off as the miasma that filled the roofless channel immediately assailed his nostrils and throat. He coughed, fixing his kerchief back in place and shaking his head.

  “They say he took over a hundred ships,” she went on, grunting as she forced her shovel through a particularly stubborn mound. Once dislodged from the stone, it came apart to unleash a stench so thick they were forced to the tunnel mouth, retching and heaving clean air into their lungs. This end of the tunnel led to the south-facing flank of the mountain, ending abruptly in a sheer drop of dizzying depth, the stone below streaked with white and yellow from years of discarded effluent. They had learned over the course of the previous two days that seeking relief at the tunnel’s other opening would earn only a rebuke from Tihla and a curt instruction to get back to work.

  “He wasn’t kind to the crews either,” Lyvia continued in a gasp, slumping against the tunnel wall. “Dozens of sailors thrown to the tiger fish for his sadistic amusement. When the king’s fleet finally caught him, it’s said he spat in the admiral’s face and demanded immediate execution.”

  “And yet here he is,” Shamil pointed out. “Pirate no longer.”

  “It was the admiral that brought him here, in chains. The admiral’s name was Argath Durnholm, you see.” She gave an exasperated sigh at Shamil’s puzzled expression. “His father. Morgath was . . . is a renegade son to one of the great houses of Mira-Vielle. A man of even slightly less noble blood would have been subjected to the eighty cuts, and that’s not a pleasant fate, let me tell you.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, before I was born, twenty-something years ago or thereabouts. I really didn’t expect to find him still alive, let alone First Wing of this place.”

  “And I didn’t expect to spend my time shovelling this.” Shamil cast a scrap of ordure through the opening with his shovel blade. “How many tons will it take to gain a disc, I wonder?”

  Her response was drowned out by a piercing shriek that echoed through the tunnel with sufficient force to pain the ears. It was a regular occurrence, but Shamil doubted he would ever accustom himself to the calls of the mighty birds roosting in the great cavern above. So far, the only evidence they had seen of the creatures consisted of a few overlarge feathers and the steady but unpredictable arrival of the substance they had the dubious honour of clearing away. Worse than the effluent, however, were the bones. Most were the cracked or severed remnants of goats or sheep, but now and again they would unearth a skull of unfamiliar appearance. Most were too badly damaged to make out much of their features, but Shamil eventually found one that was mostly intact.

  “Any notion of what this might be?” he asked Lyvia. They had paused to enjoy the benefit of a gust of wind from the southern end of the tunnel, an infrequent event that would banish the stink for a blessed moment or two.

  He crouched to retrieve the skull from a dried mound of droppings, the yellow ash falling away to reveal what at first glance he might have taken for the skull of a child. The rounded crown of the head was roughly human in shape, but the resemblance disappeared when he turned it to examine the face. Two overlarge eye sockets regarded him above narrow nostrils and a set of misaligned, jagged teeth. Each tooth was the length of a coffin nail and still sharp, as he discovered to his cost upon touching a finger to the tip of the most prominent one. It was a small tap, but blood swelled immediately from the pinprick wound, soon followed by a sharp pain more acute than seemed natural.

  “Something from the Maw, I expect,” Lyvia said. She eyed the skull with a dark wariness and, unlike Shamil, showed no inclination to touch it.

  “It’s a flenser.”

  They both turned to find Tihla standing in the tunnel, surveying the results of their work with a critical eye.

  “Body like a monkey with wings like a bat. The teeth, though.” She shook her head with a humourless laugh, eyes still roving the newly scraped tunnel. “One bite is usually enough to kill, and if it doesn’t, their drool is so loaded with foulness the wound will fester so fast you’ll be dead in a day. One of the Maw’s less dangerous children.”

  She sniffed, head tilting in faint satisfaction. “Stink’s not so bad now. Should hold us for another few weeks. Stow your shovels by the gate and fetch your weapons. Time to find out if you two were bragging.”

  Shamil’s feet skidded a few inches along the pillar’s summit as he landed, arms windmilling briefly to regain his balance. Once steadied, he unslung his bow and nocked an arrow, raising the weapon to loose at the target suspended from a rope a dozen feet above his head. He watched the shaft slam into the centre of the wooden circle, then turned, smoothly nocking another arrow to the string, then loosing at the target to his right, scoring another perfect hit. Crouching, he fixed his gaze on the neighbouring pillar, forcing himself not to dwell on the thicket of thorn bushes below. It was a ten-foot drop, but Shamil feared the thorns more than the fall.

  He leapt, this time achieving a less solid landing. One foot slipped as it connected with the pillar’s marble top, flailing in the air for the brief second or two it took Shamil to find his balance once more. Fortunately, his next pair of arrows were just as well aimed as the first, the wooden targets swaying as the shafts found their mark. His accuracy, however, failed to stir any appreciation from Tihla when he hopped from the sixth and final pillar to land at her side.

  “Too slow,” she said. “Next time don’t stop to admire your handiwork.” She jerked her head at Lyvia. “Get to it, fledgling.”

  After they had retrieved their weapons from their shared chamber, the Second Wing had led them to the northern flank of the Eyrie where a semicircle of marble pillars rose from a thick mass of thorn bushes surrounding the base of a tall mound of tiered rock. Above the pillars wooden targets dangled from a web of ropes.

  “Every battle fought by a sentinel takes place in the air,” Tihla told them. “The fear of falling is ingrained in every one of us, as well it should be, but to fight from a greatwing’s back requires that you master that fear. Your path lies before you.” She gestured to the pillars. “Built here and abandoned centuries ago by hands unknown. The thorn bushes we planted ourselves, a reminder to fledglings that falling has consequences.” As evidence she raised her forearm to display a pale, jagged scar tracing from her wrist to her elbow. “My first and last fall. The thorn cut so deep Shelka had to use her crystals to seal it else I’d have bled to death.” She fixed them with a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Is your mage friend so skilled at healing, I wonder?”

  When Lyvia’s turn came she proved to be swifter than Shamil, leaping on nimble feet to linger on the first pillar just long enough to whirl her sling and cast a stone at the nearest target. Her aim wasn’t as true as his, however, the stone smacking into the target’s edge and sending it spinning. Unlike Shamil, Lyvia took Tihla’s words to heart and didn’t loiter to watch. Slipping another stone into her sling, she whirled it and leapt again, unleashing the projectile in midair before twisting to land on the next pillar.