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It was as they carried the baskets of kindling back to the main keep that Vaelin dared ask a question of Master Sollis “Why can’t Master S but Sollis confined his rebuke to a sharp glance They trudged on in silence for a few ue out”

Vaelin shivered involuntarily He had heard of the Lonak, everyone had At least one of the swords in his father’s collection had been carried through a caainst the Lonak They ild men of the mountains to the far north who loved to raid the far with gleeful savagery Sorew fur and teeth and ate the flesh of their enemies

“How come he’s still livin’, Master?” Dentos enquired “My uncle Tain the Lonak an’ said they never let a lance at Dentos was markedly sharper than the one he turned on Vaelin “He escaped He is a brave and resourceful h” He lashed his cane against Nortah’s legs “Pick your feet up, Sendahl”

After chores it was more sword practice This time Sollis would perforot it wrong he round At first they seemed to , but eventually they got it right

Sollis called an end when the sky began to darken and they returned to the dining hall for an evening meal of bread and milk There was little talk; they were too tired Barkus made a few jokes and Dentos told a story about another of his uncles but there was little interest Following the meal Sollis forced the, drained, exhausted

“Your first day in the Order is over,” he told them “It is a rule of the Order that you can leave in the et harder fro in the candle light, thinking of the s for breakfast?” Dentos wondered

Later, as Vaelin squirmed in his bed of straw he found he couldn’t sleep despite his exhaustion Barkus was snoring but it wasn’t this that kept hie in his life over the course of a single day His father had given his and lessons in death It was clear his father hated hiht Well he could hate too, hate was easy, hate would fuel hith He snorted a silent laugh of derision Let loyalty be your strength, father My hate for you will betears on their straw pillow Was it Nortah? Dentos? Caenis? There was no way to tell The sobs were a forlorn, deeply lonely counterpoint to the regular woodsaw rhyth Vaelin wanted to cry too, wanted to shed tears andin self-pity, but the tears wouldn’t co so hard with alternate hatred and anger that he wondered if it would burst through his ribs Panic made it beat even faster, sweat beaded his forehead and bathed his chest It was terrible, unbearable, he had to get out, get away from this place…

“Vaelin”

A voice A word spoken in darkness Clear and real and true His racing heart slowed instantly as he sat up, eyes searching the shadowed room There was no fear for he knew the voice The voice of his mother Her shade had come to him, coain, although he strained his ears for another hour, no further words were spoken But he knew he had heard it She had come

He settled back into the needle disco him The sobs had ceased and even Barkus’s snores seemed softer He drifted into a dreamless, untroubled sleep

Chapter 2

It was a year into his time in the Order when Vaelin first killed a man A year of hard lessons i routine They woke at the fifth hour and began with the sword, hours of swinging their wooden blades at the posts on the practice ground, trying to fend off Master Sollis’s attacks and copying the increasingly coht the Sollis’s blows but the Master frequently found a way past his guard to send him bruised and frustrated to the dirt The lesson of not allowing oneself to be fixed by his eyes had been well learnt but Sollis knew iven over entirely to sork but Ildrian was the day of the bohen Master Checkrin, aarrows at the butts with their boy sized strong-bows “Rhythm, boys, it’s all in the rhythm,” he told them “Notch, draw, loose… Notch, draw, loose…”

Vaelin found the bow a hard skill to h to draw and difficult to ai and his ar et or ether He came to dread the day he would face the test of the bow, four arrows sunk into the bullseye at twenty paces in the tiround It seemed an impossible feat

Dentos quickly proved hi to find the bull’s eye “Done this before, eh boy?” Master Checkrin asked hiht me, he used to poach the Fief Lord’s deer till they cut his fingers off”

To Vaelin’s annoyance Nortah was second best, his arrows finding the bull with grating regularity The tension between therown since the first ance He sneered at the failings of the other boys, usually behind their back, and spoke constantly of his fah none of the others did Nortah spoke of his fa and riding with his father who he clai It was his father that taught hibow of yew like the Cubows Nortah thought the longbow a superior weapon, all things considered, his father swore by it Nortah’s father seemed to be a ht them by Master Haunlin, the burnthall They sparred ooden staffs of about four feet in length, later they would be replaced with the five foot pole-axe used by the Order when they fought en masse Haunlin was a cheerfulHe would often sing or chant as they practised, soldier’s songs e precision and clarity that re’s Palace

He took to the staff quickly, liking the way it whistled when he swung it, the feel of it in his hands At times he even preferred it to the sword, it was easier to handle and more solid somehow His appreciation for the staff deepened when it became clear Nortah had no ability with it at all His staff was often snapped out of his hands by an opponent’s blow and he was ever sucking nurian was a day they quickly came to dread, as it , dodging iron shod hooves and sharp teeth then cleaning theon the walls Master Rensial was ruler of the stable and his liking for the cane made Master Sollis seem positively restrained “I said clean it, don’t tickle it lackwit!” he spat at Caenis, his cane leaving red wheals on the boy’s neck as he tried to work polish into a stirrup Whatever his harshness to the boys Rensial was all tenderness to his horses, speaking to the their hides Vaelin’s dislike of the man was tempered by the blankness he saw in his eyes Master Rensial preferred horses to people, his hands twitched constantly and he often stopped inunder his breath The eyes said it all: Master Rensial was mad

Retrian was a favourite with most of the boys, the day when Master Hutril would teach theh the woods and hills, learning which plants were safe to eat and which could be used as a poison to be sht fires without flint and trap rabbits and hares They would lie for hours in the undergrowth, trying to remain hidden as Hutril hunted them down, usually within a few minutes Vaelin was often second last to be found with Caenis rerown up ast woodland and fields, he proved theSoht and it was always Caenis who brought in the first meal

Master Hutril was one of the few masters who never used the cane but his punish Nortah and Vaelin run bare arsed through a copse of nettles for bickering over how best to place a snare He spoke with a quiet confidence and rarely used e soue-less Master Smentil when he coned for use when enemies or prey were near Vaelin learnt quickly, as did Barkus, but Caenis see the intricate shapes with uncanny accuracy