Page 59 of Silver & Smoke
‘I’m aware...’ Torj handed over the wine, his gaze fixed on Wilder. ‘Though I didn’t expect to be celebrating it while crouched in the bushes like common thieves.’
‘Those are baby shieldbearers down there,’ Talemir said, nodding towards the arena. ‘Wouldn’t do for them to see their superiors drunk on duty.’
‘We’re noton duty,’ Wilder protested, but there was no heat in it. Just that same stupid, happy smile that looked foreign on his battle-hardened face.
‘Speak for yourself,’ Cal muttered, still focused on whatever he was scratching in the dirt. ‘The bloody weapons master has some of us calculating catapult trajectories.’
Malik reached over and carefully, deliberately, drew his boot through Cal’s calculations.
‘You utter—’ Cal started, but Kipp shoved a bottle into his hands.
‘Tonight,’ he announced, ‘we’re not strategists or Warswords or whatever the fuck else. Tonight, we’re just...’ He waved his hand vaguely, searching for the word.
‘A bunch of idiots getting drunk?’ Torj finished for him, his knees clicking as he bent to take a place beside Malik with a groan.
Kipp’s grin only widened. ‘Exactly!’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Talemir said, lifting a flagon.
‘You’ll drink to anything,’ Wilder quipped.
Talemir smirked. ‘Here’s to you, apprentice.’
‘You don’t think you could let that lie for one evening?’ Wilder rolled his eyes and accepted a bottle of wine from Torj.
‘Not a chance. Not as my not-so-young-any-more apprentice readies for his big day,’ the winged Warsword teased.
Wilder gave Talemir a flat look and drank straight from the bottle. ‘I rescind your invitation.’
Torj laughed, the sound startling Dax. It had been years since Torj had last seen him and his owner... Dax had grey whiskers around his maw now, and Malik had similar streaks of silver through his otherwise dark hair.
‘How are you, Mal?’ Torj asked quietly.
As always, Malik simply smiled. He had been non-verbal for decades now, ever since he was injured during a wraith battle in Naarva. He had been known as Malik the Shieldbreaker before then, Wilder’s indomitable older brother, a giant among men.
‘He’s causing as much trouble as always,’ Talemir answered with a fond smile at his friend. ‘He’s managed to come out to Ciraun once or twice, mainly to cause chaos with Ryland and leave Drue and me to pick up the pieces.’
Wilder laughed into his drink. ‘What are friends for?’
Torj surveyed the group of men with affection and took a sip of fire extract. ‘I think we’re focusing on the wrong Warsword, given the point of this... celebration.’
Wilder groaned. ‘Can we not make a big deal—’
But his protests only encouraged Torj. ‘Is it true that when you first met Thea, you shot an arrow at her head?’
Talemir choked on his drink. ‘What?’
‘Ah, yes,’ Kipp said fondly, taking a swig from his half-empty bottle. ‘How every sweeping love story begins...’
‘She still agreed to marry me,’ Wilder replied smugly.
‘Only after she knocked you on your ass several times during the years in between,’ Kipp added gleefully.
Wilder shrugged. ‘And what a privilege it was.’
Cal made a retching sound as he scanned the grinning faces of Wilder, Torj and Talemir. ‘You’re all insufferable.’
Kipp shot him a look of outrage. ‘How dare you—’
