Chapter 1

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 8: "A Symbol of Your Valor"

ARI

The minute Ari stepped out of her chamber, Sir Oliver awaited. He looked like he had been waiting for a while. A smile forged on his face the second he saw her.

"What?" Ari asked, with a slight snarl.

Sir Oliver did not mind the sass. "Your hair. It looks... manly."

A couple of the ladies in hijabs, Sisters they were called, cut Ari's hair the night before to make the squire appear more like "he" should. The frizzy bush was plucked, pulled, teased and trimmed into a flat, straight mop.

"It should look... manly," Ari said. "Right?"

"Indeed," Sir Oliver said. "Let us walk, Jason. The Order might have sent an eagle for us with our armor."

As they walked across the bailey, Ari ran her fingers through her shorter, boyish hair. The air outside was brisk, more so than it usually is in the late summer. Ari did not mind. Most of her life was spent in unbearable heat. The heat made people evil, too. Or maybe people are just evil, she thought.

"What armor look like?" Ari asked Sir Oliver as they climbed the spiral stairs to the aviary.

"The Order of Cambria always paints their breastplates white," the knight answered. "Mine will have an outrageously garish lion on it. Yours? Who knows? I did my best to guess your chest size but, well... I guessed."

"Thank Osha," Ari said. Raster would not have guessed, she remarked. This fleeting thought of her old master made her wonder about Hana and Zani. It made her feel a little guilty too. Bathed, given a bed, fed; these were all luxuries that Ari received that they would never get.

When they reached the top of the stairs, a guard opened the heavy metal door and a cacophony of bird chirps, squawks and coos filled Ari's ears. There were all kinds of birds housed in the wooden cages, and more of them flying in from across the land. A couple birdmasters were attaching notes to pigeons and a few tame ravens. At the top of the aviary, however, perched a raptor so enormous that Ari wondered how the beast managed to fit through the arched window. It seemed to stare at her with its ominous eye.

"There's our eagle," Sir Oliver noted. The knight then made a shrill sound with his own voice. Ari wanted to laugh at this absurdity but did not. The eagle turned its head, fidgeted a little, then squawked back at Sir Oliver. The bird then flapped its gigantic wings and fluttered out the window, off into the afternoon sky.

"The eagles stay and guard their payload until they know it is received," Sir Oliver explained.

"About time that infernal creature left," cut in one of the birdmasters. "That damn bird scared off half the others. Could have been carrying important letters, they might have."

"Aye, apologies," Sir Oliver said, but Ari knew him enough to know that he did not truly feel sorry. Oliver walked over to a large sack bundled up by a thick rope. He pulled a knife from under his tunic and cut the rope. The sack fell out into a mess of metal armor with breastplates, wrist guards and all. Sir Oliver held up the lion breastplate and grinned like he was greeting an old friend. He turned back to the pile and found the other breastplate. He turned to Ari and handed it to her.

"For you, my squire," he said.

Ari grabbed each side of the white breastplate and examined it. Though Sir Oliver's had an elegantly chiseled lion crest, Ari's was not as... majestic.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I..." Sir Oliver began, "I knew not what to tell the smiths. They requested I choose a creature that represented my squire's valor, but... well, I have yet to see you really fight. They must have chosen another creature often attached to a knight's spirit."

The crest was a lanky bird with a fat body, a thin neck, and a tiny, coconut-shaped head with a few atrocious feathers protruding from the top.

"It so ugly," Ari groaned. "A featherbelly?"

"We can get you new armor once you've had your first fight," Sir Oliver promised. "I'm sorry if it's--"

A horn echoed in the far distance, kilometers away, at least, Ari thought it was a battle horn. She had heard one once before. She thought for a second that maybe it was insignificant, but Sir Oliver's eyes were wide. That was no horn.

"What that?" Ari asked her mentor.

"That..." Sir Oliver began, "was a dragon. Put the armor on. Now."