Riv did, though, and saw the first slam into the chest of the same target Riv had selected, with her arrow still protruding from its leg. The second arrow took it through the throat, the third piercing what would have been a shoulder, the straw man rocking on its base with the impact of the arrows.

‘You should close your mouth, it is not a becoming look,’ Jin said to her.

Riv just stood there, torn between admiration and respect for the feat of skill she’d just witnessed, and a bubbling anger that didn’t take too kindly to being humiliated. An image of her fist connecting with Jin’s disdain-set jaw flashed through Riv’s mind. It was very tempting. But even through the first tendrils of red mist seeping through her she knew that it was a humiliation she deserved.

Israfil is watching. Show him you have learned a lesson. Show him you have control of your anger.

‘That was . . .’ She hesitated, her jaw tight and clamping on what she knew she should say. ‘Good,’ she ground out, not quite what she intended, but better than a host of other responses that were filling her mind.

‘Pah,’ Jin said. ‘It is no more than any child of the Cheren could do. Our warriors do the same from the back of a galloping horse. To my shame I am a little out of practice.’

Riv searched for words to answer that, but couldn’t find any, so she just nodded stiffly and walked away.

As she stepped onto the flagstoned road that led from the weapons-field she stopped and looked back. The field was alive with activity, as it always was: different cohorts of troops training in shifts throughout the day. There were giants upon the field, now, sparring with wooden hammer and axe, making the ground tremble, and Ben-Elim swooping and diving in mock aerial combat.

And there was Vald, her friend and, until recently, training partner. He was with the others who had passed their weapons-trial and Long Night. He stood proudly amidst a unit of White-Wings, being drilled on shield wall formations and flanking manoeuvres.

No, not amongst the White-Wings. He is a White-Wing now.

The sight of it twisted a knife in Riv’s gut and she wrenched her eyes away, back to Jin and the others. It looked as if Israfil was showing the two lords from Arcona something of warrior training and life at Drassil.