Winterskin (Book One of Wrath & Winter)

A Mother's Will: Part Two

The guardhouse stood below the longhouse, to its right. All three stories of it sloped to the left like a mountain on a sandy foundation. A bevy of wood boards made up the structure, promising that it would be warm and toasty without a cloying cloud of smoke constantly wafting through its interior. Compared to the rest of Montbereau, foot traffic here was scarce—on the front side at least. Toward the back, the guttural grunts of sparring shieldsiblings and the metallic tang of axes smashing shields and hitting sparring puppets warned of a crowd.

I figured it wasn't customary to knock and went around the back.

Armies of straw dolls pulled themselves through cracked stone and frozen turf. Shieldsiblings in full armor collected around screaming voices—sparring shieldsiblings, I guessed. On the outside of this circle sat five near and around a stone bench that were somewhat similar to me; no weapons, civilian cloaks, wide-marble eyes that stuck themselves to the bestial growls erupting from the cheering circle.

A man with gold in his hair cleared his throat as I approached the bench. Then stood and moved farther away.

So it begins.

Crossing my arms under my cloak, I waited for the rest of them to start whispering. Maybe toss a couple of insults my way. Heavy eyes found mine. Questioning glares sized me up. But, for the most part, they ignored my presence as we waited.

What was the point of arriving here on time if the Commander—or whoever was training newjoins—was going to be late?

A slamming door was my answer.

And I groaned—trying hard to keep it contained in my throat.

"Get up." At her words, everyone tensed. Sprang up from their places on the bench or uncrossed their arms. "Some of you have been reporting every morning, waiting for Giroux to choose his final three," her eyes alighted on the boy with the gold-dusted hair and another with the grin of a fox, "Your stubbornness has netted you these younglings." Hagen pursed her lips to the side, "Best thing about shieldsiblings is that they're practically family. You know them like your Gram knows when it's going to rain, cause of her bad hip." That earned a few chuckles. Nervous ones. "Nows the time to quit if you aren't ready to give your life for Montbereau. You may see a lot of us patrolling the town, but more of us go out into the woods—Baate Noir." Her eyes flashed as she changed topic. "One of you recently caught a vamp. A low tier one, but you've seen them. Haven't you, Maeva?"

Shieldsister Hagen was beautiful in the only way a masterfully crafted ax could be, with lifeknots threading around the heavy end and a master blacksmith's signature crawling along the sharp side. Hagen was the only woman in the village who could proudly show griffin scars raking both sides of her face like she was born with them. Like she loves the fact that they cut right through both eyes.

"Yes, ma'am." I said, figuring she'd like that.

"Tell these greenbloods what it was like," a fetid smirk spread her lips, "a vampire, younglings. First of its kind in years."

It was something we should have been nervous to talk so openly about. Those north of the forest and the border had singlehandedly took care of the vampire threat centuries ago. But with last night's attack it was obvious that that had been a lie. The threat still existed and if we weren't careful, history would repeat itself.

But the others seemed excruciatingly...bored.

"It was fast," I offered. Realizing how terrible I am at this. "It looked like one of us...just...badly beaten. Hungry."

"And the only reason why Maeva isn't missing this morning." Hagen said, eying the others, "A high vampire—god's bones—even a master or a novice, would have bloodied the snow with the lot of you." She looked us up and down, disgusted by weakness we hadn't even shown yet. "No quitters?"

Silence. Save for the sparring shieldsiblings in the circle. Their screams.

"The pyres will burn brightly, then. For those of you that won't make it." And she turned on her heel. Disappeared the way she came.