Page 16 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)
It was over within moments. Oswald and Wyman launched themselves at Pingot as one, but so intent were they upon him that Solar and Bear were able to easily overcome them. Pingot then advanced cautiously on Cal, evading the apprentice’s first blow before taking him out with a merciless sword thrust.
Binns gave a snort of disgust and strode off to his tent without a backwards glance. Cal made to get up, but he found a sword point at his neck and Solar glaring down at him.
‘Let me up!’ he snarled.
‘Oh, I don’t think so. Not until I have what I want.’
‘I have nothing for you, witch!’
‘Your days of bullying Pingot are over. If he suffers so much as another bruise at the hands of you or your cronies then one day you’ll find yourself again flat on your back, and I will be standing above you with a real blade in my hands.’
‘What dark witchcraft have you worked here today, hag? Why couldn’t we strike him?’
‘That’s none of your business. In future bouts the three of you will do nothing more than disarm Pingot or pat him with your blades. Do you understand? ’
Cal struggled again, but Solar increased the pressure at his throat.
‘Do you understand?’ she repeated.
Cal’s eyes glowed with a dangerous rage, and he spat the word ‘yes’ with as much venom as he could muster.
‘I have your word that Pingot will suffer no more?’
‘You do.’
‘Good,’ said Solar, satisfied. She walked briskly off to join Bear and Pingot at the campfire, leaving Cal sprawled in the dust.
*
As the weeks turned into months, Solar, Bear and Pingot learned to fight as a unit.
Solar and Bear came to Pingot’s aid whenever he was struggling, and on the rare occasion that one of their adversaries was the first to fall the trio closed in on the two remaining foes with precision and seamless co-ordination.
When they lost, which was often, their opponents went easy on Pingot, their wooden blades tapping his skin or ring mail rather than clobbering or clouting.
Their sparring matches were also helped by the fact that Solar, fed properly for the first time on a diet of roasted meat and vegetables, was no longer the scrawny girl she had been back in Falcontop, and her morning workouts had toned her body and lent her movements a certain grace.
Off the training ground the three of them ate their meals, studied and practised manipulation together.
Solar and Wyman had still not managed to influence their surroundings in the slightest, but Bear, Pingot and Oswald had all managed feats such as raising the winds and changing the course of a small stream.
Once or twice Solar caught Bear looking at her with something more than friendship in his eyes, something she could not quite put her finger on.
Was it respect ? She knew that, despite his initial protests, his sense of honour had been deeply touched by the way in which she had stood up for Pingot in their combat training.
She now considered the two of them possibly the firmest friends she’d ever had, and this played no small role in easing the pangs of longing she sometimes felt for her mother, Tolan, Muck and Pepper.
Cal now channelled all of his fury on the sparring ground at Solar in particular. Gone was any hint of him sharing in the delicious tension she felt whilst fighting him, leaving behind only ferocity, pure and unadulterated.
It was not difficult to work out that this change had been brought about by his utter humiliation at her, Bear’s and Pingot’s hands.
But what was surprising to Solar was the way she felt about it, as if a special connection had been lost. Desperate to try and renew it, she had made a few tentative attempts at civil conversation away from the training ground.
All were swiftly rebuffed, and eventually Solar made a promise to herself to ignore any pull she felt towards the older boy.
The sheer animosity within him was too fierce for her to ever overcome, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
Cal had nothing more going for him than a combination of chiselled good looks and graceful movements, she told herself – an alluring combination, but nothing more.
She kept her promise close to her, wearing it like armour. But the armour counted for little when, in those precious moments between wakefulness and sleep, it was Cal who appeared before her closed eyes.
There was no sign of Earl Archdale or Captain Grubber nearby.
Solar concluded that they must have returned to Falcontop, and she and Bear resolved never to tell Loveday about their run-in with them.
Doing so would mean admitting that they had been roaming the forest at night, and then they would be in terrible trouble.
Grubber’s scorn at Solar claiming that Loveday had recruited her due to her talent had set Solar’s imagination alight, though not in the way the captain had likely intended.
She did not doubt for one moment that Loveday was telling the truth when he said that he had selected her due to her unique skills honed through years of petty crime; after all, what aristocratic boy could claim to have such useful experience?
But she thought Grubber might be onto something, in that there was likely more to Loveday’s motives than the wizard was letting on.
Did he have plans for her beyond her training?
Had he singled her out for some kind of … greater purpose?
Solar had come to deeply admire Loveday. She replayed over and over in her mind’s eye how he had stared down Grubber outside Falcontop’s walls, and the heroic way in which he had whisked her from the captain’s clutches in the Inn of the Fickle Friend.
The wizard had an air of mystery about him that Solar found captivating.
Every afternoon, whilst the students trained with Binns, Loveday would retire to his tent.
Smoke of various colours could often be seen rising from a hole in its roof as he brewed potions, and sometimes his voice carried to them on the breeze as he shouted incantations.
The trainees continued their brewing lessons three mornings a week, and they had progressed from brewing theory to actually foraging for ingredients in the woodlands and making potions themselves.
Pingot, who was the clear best at this branch of magic, often spent his evenings poring over old potions books.
He brewed one concoction that made Oswald’s tongue stick to the roof of his mouth – ‘A definite improvement on the quality of his conversation,’ Pingot remarked to Solar – and created a store of potions for him, Solar and Bear to take each night so that they woke up the next morning without muscle pain from sparring.
He also made a number of medicines to fight everything from colds to infections.
There were a number of other fields of magic that Solar and the others all yearned to study: reading the future in animal bones, controlling other people’s emotions, deciphering others’ thoughts through mind raiding – which Solar was particularly excited about – and the fiendishly difficult art of mind roosting.
Loveday promised that these, and other subjects besides, would all be covered in due course, but for the trainees it could not be soon enough.
One cold winter morning, on a sparsely vegetated hilltop, Solar awoke to hushed voices outside her tent. Loveday and the master-at-arms were already up, sitting by the campfire. She pulled back her flap and went outside, hovering just outside their field of vision.
‘… received word from the king’s Magic Circle last night. There is a town not far from here, Ravenbridge, where there has been a series of unexplained deaths. A very unsettling affair,’ said Loveday.
‘Our students are far from ready for fieldwork, as far as I’m concerned,’ grumbled Binns. ‘As I keep trying to tell you, the urchin girl shows little promise with the sword. She doesn’t keep her cool and lets her guard down too readily.’
Bloody liar! thought Solar. Nonetheless, she felt her heart jump in excitement.
Was this going to be their first adventure with Loveday on the road?
She could not wait to see the wizard in action against evil foes.
She imagined him smiting dragons and bringing down minotaurs, light flashing from his staff.
More importantly, this could be her first opportunity to play a part in one of Loveday’s missions, the first of four that she would have to excel in before carving a magic staff, leaving Loveday’s encampment and searching for her father.
‘They’ll have to be ready, the girl included. Besides, they’re with us – it’s not as if they’ll be in any danger,’ said Loveday.
‘Hmph. The girl will attract danger whether we’re there or not. A girl learning witchcraft, I never thought I’d have the damned luck to see the day.’ Binns prodded at the embers with a stick. ‘Do the victims’ corpses display any symptoms?’
‘None, apparently, other than that they all have wide smiles on their faces. In fact, the one thing they have in common is that, immediately prior to their death, all of the victims seem to have been in rude health and perfectly happy. My best guess is there is a Devoratrix in town.’
The master-at-arms looked at Loveday questioningly.
‘An ancient creature that wines and dines its victims to death with the most exquisite food and drink imaginable,’ explained Loveday, ‘so that they die in a state of complete contentment. They say contentment enhances their flavour for the Devoratrix. But as yet, it would appear that none of the corpses have been touched, let alone eaten …’
‘Leave it to terrorise Ravenbridge, I say. The people there are about as welcoming to travellers as a merchant to the penniless, and as cheerful as a funeral procession.’
Binns turned his head to spit and noticed Solar standing at the entrance of her tent, listening breathlessly. He scowled at her. Loveday must have sensed Binns’ distraction, for he looked up and smiled welcomingly at Solar.
‘Good morning, young Solar. Do not worry, I am not going to scold you for listening in on us. It is only natural to be curious when hearing for the first time of the gluttonous Devoratrix. But you should be more than a little afraid, too, if you are as bright as I think you are, for we are heading straight for the beast’s hunting ground. ’