And then, abruptly, her target was close, rushing towards her, the world around her lurching into speed and motion, and everything faded away, the world reduced to the tip of her spear and its target, one seemingly drawn unerringly to the other.

An explosion of straw and she was letting go the shaft, galloping on, leaning back and shifting the pressure on her reins. A spray of turf as her horse slowed and stopped.

Riv looked back to see her spear still juddering in the head of the straw target, felt the thrill of a blow perfectly struck, a grin splitting her face. She saw Jost raise his good arm to her, a salute; the two of them had become closer since their failed attempts at their warrior trial. It still hurt to see her other friends training as White-Wings, although she had a fierce pride in them as well, sword-brothers and sisters whom she had grown up with, trained beside for over three years. Except for Vald. She still felt a simmering resentment for him, though putting her boot in his stones had helped to dim that a little.

Riv patted her horse’s neck and praised him as she rode him to the paddocks adjoining the weapons-field. She dismounted and set about removing his tack and rubbing him down before she handed him over to the grooms.

Abruptly, she was stumbling into the fence, a pain shooting through her back, snatching her breath away and turning her legs to porridge. She hung onto the paddock rail, eyes screwed shut as the pain stabbed through her torso, radiating out from her shoulder blades, and then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, only a dull ache remaining, the faintest echo of the pain.

‘You all right?’ one of the paddock grooms asked. She stood straight and rolled her shoulders.

‘Fine,’ she grunted, though she wasn’t: an ache in her back and, come to think of it, in most of her joints as well, a throbbing in her wrists and knees.

I must visit the healers about this. When I have some time.

She headed towards Jost and the training mannequins. Along the way a noise drew her attention, a square of warriors, fledglings from another hundred of White-Wings, training in the shield wall. She stopped and stared at them. There was some kind of disruption going on, voices raised, the shield wall splintering, a figure pushed and falling to the floor, another stepping forwards, standing over the fallen one.