Page 17 of Witchcraft and Fury (Chronicles of the Divided Isle #1)
RAVENbrIDGE
There is little to say of Ravenbridge, but that the stone is drab, the men dour, and its whores sour.
They set off towards Ravenbridge after a breakfast of scrambled eggs.
The imps were wildly excited about the upcoming adventure.
They predicted loudly that the students would give a dismal performance and even composed a foul-mouthed song of inordinate length about them, which featured countless jokes at their expense.
After the twentieth stanza or so Pingot commented to Solar that it wasn’t so much the barbs he minded but the dreadful attempts at rhymes. A passing imp overheard him and thwacked him on the nose with the stick with which he’d been conducting the others.
‘OW! Geroff me!’ shouted Pingot, swatting at the imp with both hands, but he was too slow. The imp flew high out of reach, cackling with his chums, and Pingot’s nose shone like a bright cherry for the rest of the morning.
Whilst on the road Loveday worked spells on the trainees’ swords in turn, so as to imbue them with magical properties. He worked on each one with his head bowed in concentration, trusting his horse to keep moving unguided.
‘Whenever you face an enemy physically stronger than yourselves, as you often will before you are fully grown men and women, these swords will absorb the strength of your foe and pass it on to you,’ he said.
‘The strength of your sword arm will then match that of your opponent. They may still be taller than you, and perhaps quicker, but in terms of brute force you will stand on equal ground.’
When he handed Solar’s back to her she felt a warmth emanate from within the sword’s hilt and sensed a faint, regular beat, almost as if it had a pulse.
Solar was amazed by the powerful spell, and she made a silent vow to herself with her hands still on the weapon’s hilt: I’ll spend every waking hour in Sir Gaderian Loveday’s encampment dedicating myself to learning all that he knows, to mastering all magic that he has mastered.
He saw that I have the talent to become a great witch, and I’ll not disappoint him.
Her heart thumped passionately as she made the pledge, and a name for her sword sprang unbidden to her: I shall call you Fury , she thought.
‘Now you are suitably armed with magic-imbued blades, en route to your first mission in King Algar’s name, it strikes me as a fitting time to introduce you all to the encampment code.’
‘Wield justice. Honour the code,’ Binns and Cal both murmured in unison.
‘There’s an encampment code?’ asked Bear, eyes lighting up.
‘There is,’ Loveday affirmed. ‘One that every student, of every royal encampment in the country, is expected to live by. Commit these lines to memory, and swear never to stray from them, for they will be your guiding precepts both now and after qualification. Cal, perhaps you would like to recite them?’
‘ To serve the kingdom. To protect its people. To never use my skills, martial or magical, against those I am sworn to defend. ’ Cal said without hesitation.
‘Thank you, Cal,’ said Loveday. ‘You will find, trainees, that ‘ Wield justice. Honour the code ’ is a phrase commonly stated by and echoed between magicians when in the field.’
At Loveday’s prompting, the trainees repeated the code in full, followed by the shorter ‘Wield justice. Honour the code’, each of them finishing at a different time and with varying levels of confidence behind the words.
‘You’ll get it soon enough,’ Loveday said with a smile. ‘Hearing you say it makes me nostalgic for the first time I did so. Cal, repeat if for them a couple of times, why don’t you?’
*
Ravenbridge came into sight in the day’s final hour. It lay nestled on the side of a hill, lights twinkling merrily from windows and laughter and song carrying on the breeze. Fires could be seen blazing in town squares with tiny figures dancing round them.
‘We’re in luck!’ declared Oswald. ‘It seems there is a party in town!’
‘I’ve a bad feeling about this, Gaderian,’ said Binns, ignoring Oswald. ‘I must have passed through Ravenbridge a hundred times on my travels and not once have I seen so much as a bloody smile. It isn’t normal for the folk here to be in good spirits.’
Before the town a wide river snaked its way across the land, a bridge made from stone as dark as night connecting its banks.
As they approached the bridge a group on the town side of the river caught sight of them.
They were feasting by a fire on the bank.
Three of the men stood up and strolled to meet the travellers in the middle of the bridge.
As the two groups drew closer to one another Solar saw Binns’ fingers curl round his sword hilt.
Loveday held up his hand to signal a halt, and Solar drew her horse to a standstill alongside Bear and Pingot.
The wizard called out to the approaching trio, ‘Greetings, men of Ravenbridge. We are travellers who come in the name of friendship. We wish to pass and find beds for the night at The Cantankerous Mule.’
The shortest of the men stepped forwards. He was a thickset young man with a fluffy blond beard. He spread his arms wide and said, ‘Greetings, gentlefolk. All who come to Ravenbridge in peace are treasured friends of the town.’
Binns coughed loudly, and Solar could have sworn she heard the words ‘likely story’.
The stranger continued, still smiling broadly, ‘Whilst you are within our town walls, just ask and your needs shall be met. The citizens of Ravenbridge are alike in their love of merriment and friends old and new.’
Oswald and Wyman were trying hard to keep their faces straight, so over-the-top was the man’s welcome. And yet, Solar thought, there was no mistaking the sincerity in his smile. He looked as though receiving their party on the bridge had made his evening.
‘I know you must be tired from your journey, but my friends and I would like nothing more than to share our food and drink with you.’ He gestured to the far riverbank, where women and children continued to feast and make merry.
‘Thank you, but we must be heading on,’ replied Loveday a little gruffly, taken aback by the stranger’s friendliness. ‘We bid you a pleasant evening.’
Loveday spurred his horse into a gentle trot and the others followed. The three men stood aside to let them pass, took off their hats and gave sweeping bows.
‘Well, they were nice,’ said Pingot in a cheerful undertone to Bear. ‘Wish Loveday had taken them up on their offer, though – I could do with a bite to eat.’ He looked longingly at the feasters.
‘Too nice. Creepy, if you ask me,’ muttered Bear, frowning.
As they made their way through the town gate and into Ravenbridge, Solar began to see Bear’s point.
Everywhere they looked people were drinking, laughing, singing and dancing.
Their horses couldn’t take five paces without some new generous stranger calling out to the travellers to offer food, drink, beds for the night, directions or anything else that they might require.
Loveday and Binns declined all offers with curt nods, and after some time they reached their destination in the heart of the town.
The Cantankerous Mule was a vast inn that occupied one whole side of the town’s main square.
A huge statue of a cloaked wizard stood in the square’s centre, his foot pinning a terror-stricken witch to the ground and his staff grinding the fragments of her shattered crystal ball.
A plaque named him ‘Harold the Hag Slayer’ .
Solar looked up at him forlornly as they passed.
The other sides of the square were taken up by shops closed for the night, fine mansions that rose majestically into the purple twilight and an imposing town hall.
The hall and The Cantankerous Mule were both constructed from the same black stone as the town bridge, and this lent the square a foreboding feel that made Solar shudder .
A warm and inviting light glowed from the inn windows.
Groups of people leaned over balconies to shout salutations at the newcomers, their tankards sloshing with beer.
The taproom inside was filled with a crowd that spilled out onto a terrace raised slightly above street level.
Those in the throng shouted drunkenly at one another, tore roasted meat off skewers with their teeth and sang in tuneless shouts.
The wizard’s party dismounted, and Binns instructed Cal and Wyman to lead the horses and mules to a stable at the back of the inn. The rest of the students trooped inside after Loveday and Binns.
The taproom had wooden pillars, beams and floorboards, and a roaring log fire threw out welcome heat.
Bright lanterns hung overhead, suspended from the ceiling.
Every stool was taken, every table’s benches fully occupied with clientele crammed elbow to elbow.
More townsfolk stood around the tables, drinking ale and eating meat from the bone, so that it was almost impossible to see through the throng to the other side of the room.
Stag antlers and crossed magician’s staffs – the latter of which even Solar with her inexperienced eye recognised immediately as fake – adorned the walls above the heads of the revellers.
Fresh straw was strewn over the floor, but neither it nor the meat could mask the sour stench that pervaded the place.
‘Good evening,’ said Loveday, straining to raise his voice above the clamour of raucous chatter to be heard by the landlord and landlady standing behind the bar.
‘Good evening, gentlefolk,’ replied the landlord. ‘What can my wife and I do for you?’