Silence reigned. Dentos and Nortah glaring at each other fiercely and Caenis fidgeting in uncomfortable embarrassment. Finally Vaelin said, “It must have been a fine piece of bow work, brother. Putting an arrow in a bear’s eye. Was it charging?”

Nortah gritted his teeth, controlling his anger. “Yes.”

“Then it’s to your credit that you held your nerve.”

“Thank you, brother. Do you have any stories to share?”

“I met a pair of fugitive heretics, one with the power to twist men’s minds, killed two Volarian slave-hounds and kept another. Oh, and I met Brother Tendris and Brother Makril, they hunt Deniers.”

Nortah threw his shirt onto his bed, standing with his muscular arms on his hips, face set in a neutral frown. His self-control was admirable, the disappointment he felt barely showing but Vaelin saw it. This was to be his moment of triumph, he had killed a bear and Vaelin was leaving. It should have been one of the sweetest moments of his young life. Instead Vaelin had refused the chance of escape, a chance Nortah hungered for, and his adventures made Nortah’s look paltry in comparison. Watching him Vaelin was struck by Nortah’s physique. Although still only thirteen, the shape of the man he would become was clear; sculpted muscle and lean, handsome features. A son to make his King’s Minister father proud. If he had lived his life outside the Order it would have been a tale of romance and adventure played out under the admiring gaze of the court. Instead he was doomed to a life of war, squalor and hardship in service to the Faith. A life he hadn’t chosen.

“Did you take its pelt?” Vaelin asked.

Nortah frowned in irritated puzzlement. “What?

“The bear, did you skin it?”

“No. The storm was brewing and I couldn’t drag it back to my shelter so I hacked its paw off to take the claws.”

“A wise move, brother. And an impressive achievement.”

“I dunno,” Dentos said. “I thought Caenis’s eagle owl thing was pretty good too.”

“An owl?” Vaelin said. “I brought back a slave-hound.”

They bickered good naturedly for a while, even Nortah joined in with caustic observations of Dentos’s thinness, they were family once more, but still incomplete. They went to bed later than usual, nervous of not greeting the next arrival, but tiredness overtook them. Vaelin’s sleep was dreamless for once and when he woke it was with a startled shout, hands instinctively scrabbling for his hunting knife. He stopped when his eyes fixed on the bulky shape on the next bunk.

“Barkus?” he asked groggily.

There was a soft grunt, the shape immobile in the gloom.

“When did you get in?”

No answer. Barkus sat still, his silence disconcerting. Vaelin sat up, fighting the deep seated desire to snuggle back into his blankets. “Are you all right?” he asked.

More silence, stretching until Vaelin wondered if he should fetch Master Sollis, but Barkus said, “Jennis is dead.” His voice was chilling in its complete lack of emotion. Barkus was the sort of boy who always felt something, joy or anger or surprise, it was always there, writ large in his face and his voice. But now there was nothing, just cold fact. “I found him frozen to a tree. He didn’t have his cloak on. I think he wanted it to happen. He hadn’t been the same since Mikehl died.”

Mikehl, Jennis… How many more? Would any of them be left by then end? I should be angry, he thought. We are just boys and these tests kill us. But there was no anger, just fatigue and sorrow. Why can’t I hate them? Why don’t I hate the Order?

“Go to bed, Barkus,” he told his friend. “In the morning we’ll offer thanks for our brother’s life.”

Barkus shivered, hugging himself closely. “I’m scared of what I’ll see when I sleep.”

“As am I. But we are of the Order and therefore of the Faith. The Departed do not want us to suffer. They send us dreams to guide us, not to hurt us.”

“I was hungry, Vaelin.” Tears glittered in Barkus’s eyes. “I was hungry and I didn’t think about poor Jennis being dead or how we’d miss him or anything. I just looked through his clothes for food. He didn’t have any so I cursed him, I cursed my dead brother.”

At a loss Vaelin sat and watched Barkus crying in the darkness. The Test of the Wild, he thought. More a test of the heart and the soul. Hunger tests us in so many ways. “You didn’t kill Jennis,” he said eventually. “You can’t curse a soul that’s joined the Departed. Even if our brother heard you he would understand the weight of the Test.”

It took a lot of persuading but Barkus went to bed about an hour later, his tiredness now too acute to be denied. Vaelin settled back into his own bed, knowing sleep would evade him now and the next day would be spent in a fug of clumsiness and confusion. Master Sollis will start caning us again tomorrow, he realised. He lay awake and thought about his test and his dead friend and Sella and Erlin and Makril crying like Barkus had cried. Was there a place for such thoughts in the Order? A sudden, unbidden thought, loud and bright in his mind, shocking him: Go back to your father and you could think what you like.

He squirmed in his bed. Where had that come from? Go back to my father? “I have no father.” He didn’t realise he had spoken aloud until Barkus groaned, turning over restlessly. On the other side of the room Caenis too had been disturbed, sighing heavily and pulling his blankets over his head.

Vaelin sank deeper into his bed, seeking comfort, willing himself to sleep, clinging to the thought: I have no father.

Chapter 4

Spring saw the snow covered practice field darken into deep green as they laboured under Master Sollis’s tutelage, their skills growing with every day, as did their bruises. A new element was introduced late in the month of Onasur; studies for the Test of Knowledge under the guidance of Master Grealin.

Every day they were trooped down into the cavernous cellars and made to sit and listen to his tales of the history of the Order. He spoke well, a natural story teller conjuring images of great deeds, heroism and justice that had most of them rapt in attentive silence. Vaelin liked the stories too but his interest was dampened by the fact that they all related to daring exploits or great battles and never featured Deniers being hunted through the countryside or imprisoned in the Blackhold. At the end of every lesson Grealin would ask them questions on what they had heard. Boys who answered correctly were given candy, those who couldn’t answer were favoured with a sad shake of the head and a sorrowful comment or two. Master Grealin was the least harsh of all the masters, he never caned them, his punishments were words or gestures, and he never cursed or swore, something all the other masters did, even mute Master Smentil whose hands could shape profanity with remarkable accuracy.

“Vaelin,” Grealin said after relating the tale of the siege of Baslen Castle during the first War of Unification. “Who held the bridge so his brothers could close the gate behind him?”

“Brother Nolnen, Master.”

“Very good Vaelin, have a barley sugar.”

Vaelin also noticed that every time Master Grealin gave them candy he rewarded himself too. “Now then,” he said, his considerable jowls quivering as he worked the barley sugar around his teeth. “What was the name of the commander of the Cumbraelin forces?” He scanned them for a moment, seeking a victim. “Dentos?”