“Oh, she does.” Gwydion Navarne let fly, piercing the inner edge of the outer ring, then kicked the ground in annoyance. “Hrekin”
“Ah, a Bolgish profanity, if an uninspired one. Not bad.” The general’s face twisted in amusement. “Can’t imagine who you caught that one from.”
“Well, when you and I served with Sergeant-Major Grunthor as honor guard at Rhapsody’s coronation in Tyrian, he taught me many useful things, such as nit removal from private skin folds and how to clear the nasal passages of blockage while rendering an assailant momentarily sightless at the same time.”
“Ah.” Anborn cleared his throat as Shrike looked askance at the young duke-to-be. “Well, one can never have too many weapons in one’s arsenal, though that one was unknown to me until just now.”
Gwydion Navarne unstrung the weapon, allowing the bowstring to relax. “So are you going to share with me where you have been? Or am I committing a social misstep inquiring?”
“Both.” The ancient warrior looked him up and down, but with a different expression in his eyes than before; there was a sharper intensity in his glance that was tempered with another, deeper emotion, one that the boy did not see this time as he turned back to his bow. “I was looking for a Kinsman on the Skeleton Coast.”
Gwydion Navarne did not look up as he strung the bow again. “Oh?” He gave the bowstring a perfunctory pluck and, satisfied with the draw, glanced up finally. The serious expressions on both men’s faces made him blink. “Was this a kinsmen on your father Gwylliam’s line, or from your mother Anwyn’s family?”
Anborn exhaled deeply and looked out over the meadow, his eyes unfocused, as if seeing into another time.
“Neither. I don’t mean a kinsman who is merely a blood relation. I am speaking rather of an ancient society of men, a fraternity forged in the old world, from another time; brothers. Warriors. Dedicated soldiers who mastered the craft of fighting over a lifetime’s devotion to it, at the expense of self. Kinsmen were sworn to the wind and Seren, the star which shone over the Island of Serendair, resting now below the waves on the other side of the world. And to each other. Always to each other.”
Gwydion Navarne brought his hands to rest atop the bow respectfully, waiting to hear the rest of what the Lord Marshal, usually a man of few words, was saying.
He felt Shrike’s eyes on him, but he didn’t turn to meet the glance of Anborn’s man-at-arms. The intensity he felt in their stare told him that what the general was sharing was something he was imparting carefully, with great import. He resolved to be worthy of the telling.
Anborn looked out over the rolling hills to the high wall that surrounded the fields beyond Haguefort; atop the rampart guardsmen walked, patrolling the battlement, their shadows long and spindly in the afternoon sun.
“To some extent, all soldiers are brothers of a kind, relying on one another for their very lives. This kind of life forges bonds that can’t be formed any other way, not by birth, nor by the mere desire to do so—it is a commitment of the soul that transcends any other; the willingness to die to save a comrade, the participation in a cause greater than oneself.
“After a lifetime of such soldiering, two kinds of men remain—those that are grateful to have survived the experience, and those that are grateful that the experience survives.
“The first kind gathers his belongings and whatever pieces are left of himself at the end of his service and goes home to farm and family, knowing that no matter what befalls him thereafter in life, he was part of something that will never leave him, tying him to others he may never see again, but who remain a part of him until death takes him.”
He cleared his throat and looked back at Gwydion Navarne, studying him for a moment. “The latter kind never goes home, because to him, home is the wind. The wind is never in the same place for more than a moment, but is always there, around him, wherever he is; it is both ephemeral and stalwart; he learns to be the same way. And the more like the wind one becomes, the more one loses a sense of self. Of course, any soldier who serves, any man-at-arms who puts his life at risk daily for not only his comrades and his leader but for those he never sees, has little sense of self anyway.
“Kinsmen were the elite of men who lived this way. They were accepted into the brotherhood for two things: incredible skill forged over a lifetime of soldiering, or a selfless act of service to others, protecting an innocent at threat of one’s own life.”
He took the bow from the young man’s hand and turned it over, making adjustments to the grip and examining the string. “Your nocking point is too high,” he said. He made a motion with his hand toward Shrike, who wordlessly plucked a white longflight from Gwydion Navarne’s standing quiver and handed it to him. The general flexed the wood of the shaft, then raised his eyebrows.
“Good spine,” he said with grudging admiration. He nocked the arrow, then handed the bow back to the young man.
Gwydion nodded silently.
“When one has achieved the right to become a Kinsman, it is the wind itself that selects him,” Anborn continued, watching him closely. “Air, like fire, earth, water, and ether, is a primordial element, one of the five that make up the world, but it is often overlooked. Its strength is always underestimated, rarely seen, but formidable. In its purest form, air has life, and it knows its own: Kinsmen, who were also called Brothers of the Wind. Serendair was a highly magical place; the wind blew freely there, and strong. Alas, the birthplace of the element, Northland, is on the other side of the world from here, so wind is not as strong in this land as it was there.
“When a man becomes a Kinsman, whether he has earned the title through a lifetime of service or a moment of selfless sacrifice, he hears the wind in his ear, whispering to his heart, telling him its secrets. He can use those secrets to hide within it, to travel by means of it, to call for help on it. The Kinsman call is the most compelling summoning a man can ever hear; it ensnares the soul, reaches deeply into the heart, demanding to be answered. It is used only in the direst of circumstance, when the Kinsman uttering it feels he is on the threshold of death, when his death will have impact beyond itself. And any Kinsman hearing it would never think of ignoring such a summons; to do so would leave him haunted unto insanity for the rest of his days.”
“And you heard the Kinsman call from the Skeleton Coast.” Gwydion Navarne tried to keep his voice low and respectful, but the excitement in it boiled over, breaking the solemn mood in the meadow.
Shrike stared sharply at him, but Anborn merely nodded.
“Did you find him? This Kinsman, was he there?”
Anborn exhaled, remembering the sound of the waves crashing against the black sand, the steaming mist from the sea swirling around the wreckage of ships from the old world, broken fourteen centuries in the timeless sand. The wind had fought for dominance with the sound of the sea, had faltered and drowned in its roar.
“No,” he said.
Gwydion Navarne lapsed into silence again. He turned away from the Cymrian soldiers and drew back, then loosed his arrow at the popinjay suspended from a pole at one hundred and fifty yards. The straw bird snapped back at the force of the impact, then swung wildly, eliciting subtle sounds of approval from the two men.
Feeling somewhat vindicated, the young duke-to-be turned back to them.
“Perhaps he was answered by another Kinsman,” he suggested.
“Doubtful,” Anborn growled. “Kinsmen were rare in the old land; in this world they are all but imaginary. I have met but two in the last seven hundred years. One was Oelendra, the Lirin Champion, who led the First Fleet of refugees from the Island itself, and passed from this life after the royal wedding. The other—” His words broke off and he smiled slightly to himself.
“Who, Lord Marshal?” Gwydion Navarne could not contain his curiosity. “Who was the other?”