Rowan Greenwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Rowan reached the capital by midday. Gray walls rose above clustered rooftops, and a wide gate let the crowd through. Candidates for the guard trials filled the square. They stood in loose groups, trading stories, sizing each other up. Rowan found a spot near a fountain and waited. His fox pressed against his boot. He did not know a single face here. A tall man broke from a knot of candidates and walked straight at him. He wore a scarred vest and moved like he owned the stones. Rowan had seen his kind in the village square, the ones who talk loud so others listen. "Look at this," the man said. He flicked a finger at Rowan's bow. "A backwoods boy with a shiny stick. Did your mother buy you that?" Laughter rippled through the nearest group. Rowan kept his face still. "I shot my way here. Same as you." "You smell like a farm." The man turned to the others, grinning. "He'll waste a slot a real hunter could fill. Watch him break on the first test." The candidates drifted after the man, leaving Rowan alone by the fountain. Rowan's jaw tightened. He thought of the lord's words, nobody with a borrowed bow. The same insult, new mouth. He wanted to shout that this bow was his father's gift. But words had never won him anything. Then a horn sounded. A guard officer climbed the fountain steps and raised a hand. "First trial," he called. "A white wolf runs loose in the lower quarter. It has bitten two children. Bring it down or drive it out. The guard watches how you do it." The candidates surged toward the alleys. The scarred man ran at the front, shouting orders no one followed. Rowan did not chase the crowd. He crouched and set a hand on his fox. "Find it." The fox shot off down a quiet lane. Rowan followed through narrow streets, away from the mob. The fox stopped at a dead end. The white wolf stood cornered against a wall, ribs heaving, one paw torn and bleeding. It was starving, not hunting. The others would have killed it on sight. Rowan drew a gold-tipped arrow and nocked it. The steel bow felt warm in his grip. He breathed, the way the goddess once taught him. Then he lowered the point. He stepped aside and left the mouth of the alley open. The wolf bolted past him, through a gap, out toward the open gate and the hills beyond. The fox watched it go. When Rowan returned to the square, the officer was waiting. He had seen the whole thing from a rooftop. "The others treed a stray and lost the real one," the officer said. "You drove it out without a corpse. The guard notices that." He wrote something on a slate. The scarred man stood nearby, mud on his vest, saying nothing now. The candidates who had laughed looked at Rowan differently. He had passed. But the scarred man watched him with a new, colder hate.