The sky had been aglow for the past six nights. The students had become accustomed to the smoke, the bright infernos in the distance… the screaming. Rooiblas was really starting to live up to its name.

Nobody would claim they had slept well since the revolution begun, but there was a familiarity to the chaos now that was no longer so daunting. Gabriel would lie in his bed, less than one of his juvenile arm’s lengths away from his neighbours on each side, and watch as the night was painted with the soft glow of devastation. He’d given up wondering what it all meant. The teachers told them that it was just the peasants lighting fires and making a ruckus in the street, as they were wont to do, and that it was unbefitting of young nobles to dwell too long on the peculiar quirks of the serfdom.

So it went on. At night, the children watched the sky and chatted among themselves. During the day, the children went to class, as the prim pupils of the Rooibos Academy of Fine Education were expected to. Many years later, Gabriel would wonder why classes had continued as if their pristine bubble were not collapsing around them, and would conclude: what else could you do? A faculty of decrepit old men and women trained in the arts of decorum and courtly grace did not an army make, nor did the throngs of young children, embarking on their journey to become respectable members of society. Thus, the school carried on as if nothing were amiss, and waited and hoped that the insurrection would blow over.

On the seventh day, they were pulled from class. Gabriel and the other boys his age were marched from a lecture on local topography. They were told to leave their pencils and books behind. Gabriel felt his stomach lurch when he heard that. They’d never left their precious, ludicrously expensive materials behind. To arrive in class without them meant a beating. He felt sure that his math’s tutor for period three would see that they all got the belt.

They filed outside to the main courtyard and recreation area, where they were told to line up in their classes. It was the first time they had been outside since the sky had been scorched. The first thing Gabriel noticed was that the gates were open. That was clear even from this distance. The gates were never open.

“Thurent! Stop dithering like a slack-jawed peas-ah, vagabond,” the head mistress said, stopping herself before using one of her tried and tested favourite insults.

Gabriel thought little of it. He replied with an automatic, “Yes, ma’am”, the same as he did every time he was scolded. Not that he was scolded any more or less than the other boys. That was simply the way Head Mistress Lecheuvre communicated; she seldom had a kind word for anyone, bar maybe the parents of prospective new students.

“What’s happening?” one of Gabriel’s classmates asked in a hushed whisper.

“We’re probably going to be made to clean the grounds again,” another groaned, equally quiet.

The head mistress was doing the rounds. She moved down the line from class to class, throwing an instruction here, an insult there, ordering her teachers to marshal their students lest they embarrass her terribly. The kids liked to call her the peacock, because she was always clucking and posturing. Gabriel hadn’t been popular when he pointed out that female peacocks, or peahens, don’t actually puff up in the same way as the male peacocks. He wasn’t sure why they didn’t want to know that. Besides, it made more sense to him, she always flapped around like one of the nobles whose children were under her care, but everyone knew she was of questionable stock. No amount of makeup and colourful petticoats could hide the fact that she was drab and dull, like the peahen.

Gabriel felt a tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. He peered behind him to see who would dare defy the mistress’s orders.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, “This is the Emerald class, you’re in Pearl!”

“Well today I’m in Emerald. How about that?” Natasha said through an exaggerated, wyvern-wide grin.

“Emerald is a boy’s class!” Gabriel said as urgently as he could using half his face.

Natasha made a show of thinking about this, and then tied her bright red hair into a tight bun, and covered it with Gabriel’s cap.

“Hey!”

“There, now I look like a boy!” she smiled at her little brother, punching him on the shoulder gently.

Natasha was at that awkward gangly phase where puberty was starting to hit. Her body was yelling, “grow!”, but lacked any real direction. It had left the girl overly limby, like one of those wispy spiders Gabriel often found under his bed, but with a puffy face that reminded him of that really badly painted dragon that was in Messer Jean’s history class. She still looked like a girl though, as Gabriel was quick to point out.

“You’re wearing a skirt!”

“Skirts,” Natasha replied, miming a ‘bleurgh’ sound, “It’ll be okay. I’ll hide behind you.”

The boy behind her tugged at her sleeve, “Oi, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“And you’re not supposed to talk back to your elders. Didn’t you learn anything from Etiquette class,” she hissed.

“But teacher will…”

“Forget about what teacher will do. I’ll give you a flipping slap!”

The boy coloured like a pomegranate, but astutely kept quiet. That actually made Gabriel smile a bit, even if his sister was going to get them into trouble.

“He’s right. The peahen will be really, really mad,” Gabriel counselled his rebellious sibling.

Natasha’s voice was suddenly devoid of all of its normal playfulness, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem anymore, little brother,” she squeezed his shoulder, “Just remember that I’m right here and I’m not going to leave you.”

Gabriel thought that was a silly thing to say. He had maths next, and she had etymology.

Almost as soon as he finished the thought, a chorus of shushing bloomed throughout the courtyard, led by the Head Mistress. There were people coming through the gates, and they were expected to be dutifully silent little peachicks. This wasn’t entirely unprecedented. Last semester a Garan laird came to visit the school, to survey the institute before sending his son there for a term. They had lined up then in much the same way, and anyone found with their hands in their pockets or a finger up the nose was yanked away by the ear and given a few sound clouts. The laird later decided to send his son to Badanis, to trade with one of the guilds, but Gabriel had heard from the older students that Lecheuvre was always on the hunt for wealthy foreign candidates, in the hope of boosting the school’s profile. He guessed that was what was happening now.

As the contingent ate up the ground between the gate and the school’s entrance, Gabriel started to doubt his previous assessment. These men and women were not rolling up in carriages and coaches, they were on foot. They didn’t wear fine velvets and silks, they were dirty. They were, if he had to choose a word, ordinary. They looked like the butchers and grocers that he had seen whilst shopping with father, before he was sent to boarding school, of course. They were not all smiles and shouts of, “venison”, “beets” and “spuds”, though. These people had tight lips, dark eyes, and hard faces. They looked angry.

Head mistress Lecheuvre detached herself from the other lecturers and approached the visitors’ representative.

She struggled to find one.

Eventually, the avianesque woman settled upon loosely addressing the entire front row. She spoke to them with the same obsequious deference that she used whenever a new parent came to visit. That was comforting in a way, but Gabriel doubted the school had room for all of the visitors’ children, there were scores of them.

The head mistress was too far away for Gabriel to tell what she was saying, but it didn’t seem to be landing well. The peas- no. Commonfolk? Gabriel couldn’t remember the approved terminology now. Anyway, they didn’t look happy.

Lecheuvre only managed to squawk out a few toadying sentences before the crowd got impatient. They booed at first, then they threw insults, and lastly they threw stones. They were small pebbles, picked from the grounds, but the head mistress cowered from them like they were boulders hurled from catapults. She was just as powerless in the face of them.

The dissent was short-lived. Lashing orders were whipped throughout the gathered citizens, and the smallfolk parted to make way for a small band of people who commanded a respect that the Head Mistress was not afforded. These people were very different indeed. They were no less craggy, no more cheerful, but they were hardy, broad, and armoured. They looked like the soldiers who stood sentry at the halls of the senate, but they were mismatched, and sported an assortment of facial hair and skin markings that were forbidden as part of the guards’ uniform.

The armoured retinue spoke amongst themselves briefly and then formed a haphazard line, not dissimilar to the lines the classes were arranged in. Then, once they were in place, the first of the group, a towering man of black hair and beard, stepped forward. At her beckoning, the gentleman followed the head mistress up and down the ranks of students.

With snorts and grunts of disapproval, the black-haired man surveyed the kids like livestock. Here and there he would ask a question, which Lecheuvre dutifully answered, and every now and then he would point at a child and command them to step forward. At one stage he stopped in front of Emerald class, and even from halfway down the line, Gabriel could smell the sweat wafting around him. He smelt like a gym class all by himself. It was a relief when he carried on without calling any names from their form, Gabriel didn’t think he wanted to step any closer to that man then he had to.

Before long, five students had been instructed to come forward. Then, at a word from the mistress, they followed the tall soldier and descended through the sea of serfs. They walked all the way out of the school’s gate, for what would be the last time.

The process was repeated again. Then again. Then again.

Each time a different armoured individual would walk down the rows of children, some stopping to inspect teeth or muscles, pick five, and then leave the grounds.

The fourth time, the man stopped at Emerald class. He stopped, and he raised a perfectly crescent-shaped eyebrow all the way to his neatly cropped hairline.

“Something appears to be amiss with one of your young boys, madam,” he said in an unreadable monotone.

Lecheuvre was mortified, “Natasha! Get back to your class this instant.”

“I think I’m alright here, ma’am,” Gabriel heard his sister reply, and winced for her.

“How dare you disobey me! You will be the death of me child,” Lecheuvre said, and then clapped her hand over her mouth as she did when she let a curse slip. It was an odd thing to do. She had said the phrase many times before, but something about her expression made Gabriel wonder if this was perhaps the last time.

“It’s quite alright,” the man said, barring the head mistress with a forbidding arm.

Lecheuvre ruffled visibly, but she still spouted inane apologies as she excused herself from his sight.

“What’s your name, girl?” the man asked, his voice as severe as his appearance.

“Natasha.”

“Just Natasha?”

Gabriel didn’t see his sister cast her eyes over the assembled mob, he just heard, “I think it’s just Natasha now,” she said, a barely perceptible shake to her breathing.

The man snorted through his nose. Then he nodded to the head mistress.

The peahen looked disappointed when she dutifully stepped forward and called to the girl, “Natasha, come here now. You’re to go with this fine gentleman.”

“Go where?” she answered quickly.

Lecheuvre was mortified, “Do not answer me back, girl. I’m terribly sorry, sir. She is strong willed this one, but she is normally very obedient, I assure you,” she said for the man’s benefit.

“Somehow I doubt that,” he replied curtly.

“You know how it is with these dreadful nobles,” Lecheuvre gushed, “They think they can walk all over us regular folk.”

“Regular folk?” someone scoffed from behind her, to some malicious laughter.

A woman from the crowd poked at the head mistress’s dark blue skirts with a stave that may once have been a chair leg, “Oh yeah, looks right regular, this one,” she jeered, to more of that sinister laughter.

Lecheuvre was backing away from them like she had just discovered the water was shark infested.

The stern man held up a hand for silence, “Natasha, you are to come with me. We are going far away from here,” there was weight to his next words when he said, “You will be safe.”

Gabriel could hear Natasha fiddling with the hem of her uniform before saying, “Okay,” and grabbing Gabriel’s small hand in hers.

“Leave your brother, Natasha,” the Head Mistress warned.

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” she gasped.

“Gabriel and I go together,” she turned her attention to the man when she said, “That’s the deal.”

A long silence followed, during which the man remained impassive.

Gabriel didn’t want to go with the man. He didn’t exactly love school, but he was supposed to stay here. He was supposed to finish. Mother and father would be angry if he didn’t finish, and so would his teachers. Then again, it was always hard to say no to Natasha. She was just as scary when angry as the grownups. He’d have to tell them that it was all her fault. Surely they’d understand.

Just before the silence grew absurdly long, the stern man nodded.

“Very well. Both of you are to come with me,” he turned to the Head Mistress, “That will be all.”

“But that is only four,” she blathered.

“Which is one more than I need.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

And so, Gabriel and Natasha followed the man. The two others he had already selected joined them: one of the older girls, and a boy from the class above whose name might have been Gavin. They followed behind him like a trailing cape as he walked them through the line of waiting peasants.

Gabriel watched his feet as they followed the armoured man into the street. He couldn’t look at the commonfolk; he didn’t dare. He could feel their fury. He could feel their hate. Maybe they were jealous because he was going somewhere really nice, he reasoned.

Once they were out of the grounds, past its sentinel trees and trimmed hedges, Gabriel got his first look at Rooiblas in nearly two years.

It was transformed.

The opulent houses that had overlooked the avenue out front were now defaced and scarred. Men and women ran in and out of the dwellings, carrying handfuls of cutlery, or helping each other hoist carved furniture and paintings. In some cases, they simply chucked the items out of windows, or, by the sounds of it, smashed them to bits where they stood.

The small segment of the city that Gabriel’s young eyes could see looked like a swarm of giant caterpillars had munched their way through it, leaving holes in the houses and halls. The streets were littered with wood and ash, and fire and smoke still plumed in the near distance.

And there was screaming. Not as much as there had been, but short sharp bursts of it, that sounded pained. They sounded hopeless.

The stern man led them to one of several groups of rough looking individuals, all carrying weapons, and all looking like they knew how to use them. One of them, a man with salt and pepper hair, was holding a chestnut horse by its reins, which the stern man mounted swiftly and easily. Once astride, he looked at them for the first time since the selection.

“Do you understand the situation in which you find yourselves?” he said without preamble.

All of them but Natasha shook their heads.

He breathed heavily, “I am Diomes, of the newly established, White Fangs. You have been offered up to me as part of our payment for our services in aiding the revolution here,” he looked at them each in turn, “You belong to me now.”

“What about our parents?” Maybe Gavin asked.

“Dead,” then as an afterthought, “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Natasha asked instantly.

“Presumably because they had everything whilst others had nothing. It matters little. Least of all to me,” was Diomes’ reply.

“You just helped kill them,” she said venomously.

“Yes I did.”

“Why?”

Diomes looked impatient now, “Because that’s what I was paid to do. We are sell-swords. We work for whoever pays us. Get used to it.”

“And we’re your gold and silver?” she challenged.

“A few children? Hardly. Offering up prisoners of war to freelance companies is an old tradition. They can either be sold as slaves or kept to bolster the ranks of the aiding army,” he leaned forward in his saddle, “Count yourself lucky I do not believe in the former. Your fate, young lady, could have been much worse indeed.”

Gabriel felt Natasha’s hand shrink in his own. Clearly she had gleaned some meaning that he had missed.

Satisfied that there were no further questions, Diomes sat upright again and declared, “Congratulations, you are now members of The White Fangs. You will assist around the camp, help the men, help with the horses, and, if you are capable and lucky, you may one day fight with us. Come,” he said, and put a heel to his horse.

The members of The White Fangs formed a ring around the children and ushered them forward with words or hilts. Just like that, they were marching away from Rooiblas, never to return.

They walked with their heads low, and their hearts in their throats. Gabriel could hear the two others crying, and Natasha’s fingers were like ice in his own.

“Hi!” a young boy, of an age similar to his own, said.

Gabriel didn’t recognize the boy from school, and he hadn’t noticed him before. Still, the boy who had appeared at his side spoke to him like they were old friends.

Gabriel looked to his sister for guidance, but found her vacant. He chose to leave her to her thoughts.

“Um, hi.”

“My name’s Archimedes. What’s yours?”

“Gabriel.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Gabriel! It’s good to have a new friend. I normally have to spend time with the old men!”

The man with the salt and pepper hair growled at Archimedes. The boy giggled in response, and Gabriel guessed that the ‘old man’ was not really mad.

Gabriel studied his new ‘friend’, “Why is your hair so white?”

“Do you like it?” Archimedes asked enthusiastically.

“It makes you look like one of the old men.”

“Oh,” the boy’s face fell, “I suppose I spend too much time with them!”

Gabriel laughed along with the boy.

After a street or so had passed in silence, with more of the same desolation and destruction to be seen, Gabriel asked, “Where are we going?”

“Wherever we’re needed!” Archimedes said with a glint in his eye.

“What will we do”?

“We’re to be mercenaries,” he made the last word sound as gruff as his childish voice would allow.

“What’s mercenaries?”

“You don’t know? Mercenaries are the best! They fight monsters, rescue villagers, and beat the bad guys!”

“’The bad guys,’” Gabriel repeated, looking back in the direction of home.

Archimedes sensed his new friend’s discomfort, “Sometimes it’s complicated,” he said, parroting one of his elders, and then quickly changed the topic, “I can’t wait for you to meet everyone. They’re really nice!”

“Nice like him?” Gabriel asked, burning a hole in Diomes back.

“Oh, ha, um,” Archimedes scratched the back of his head, a gesture he had also earned from one of the men, surely, “Father is very strict, but he’s fair. And he’s a lot nicer when he’s not working!”

“Father?” Gabriel said, suddenly alarmed.

Archimedes laughed, “Don’t worry, it will be our secret,” Archimedes skipped ahead a few paces, “Tomorrow, you and I can start training together!”

Gabriel felt a familiar pit in his stomach that normally accompanied words like ‘sport’ and ‘team’, “Training?”

“Yeah! You can’t be a mercenary without training, isn’t that right, Raymond?” Archimedes said, swiping at the salt and pepper haired man with an invisible sword.

“Get out of here, you,” Raymond growled, but tussled with the young boy playfully.

When they reached the edge of the city, Gabriel looked back at Rooiblas.

He felt nothing.

It wasn’t that Gabriel didn’t understand. He could see the destruction, and he had plainly heard that his parents were dead. He was not stupid; he knew what that meant. He knew what all of it meant. He was sure of that.

It was just far beyond him to process it all.

This morning he knew that he had a full day of classes ahead. He had maths, which he hated, and dance, which was pointless. He knew that there were eighteen other boys in his class, of which he liked four, thought six were okay, and loathed the other eight. He knew Natasha would bring him half her bread at lunch time, which he knew he wouldn’t want, and, most importantly, he knew that mum and dad were at home, reading, having tea with the neighbours, or going over the books for the estate.

Now, he knew nothing.

Or, rather, everything he knew was different, and it didn’t match what he used to know.

It was confusing. It was as confusing as when they had started science classes for the first time that year, only to be told by Messer Rient to forget everything they had learned the year before!

He wasn’t sure he trusted what he knew anymore. After all, it only ever seemed to change. If it was going to change, it could change back, or to something completely different again!

If that was the case, why bother thinking about it at all?

So, as the others sobbed, bawled, prayed, swore, or, like Natasha, went deathly quiet. Gabriel looked at the arse of a horse wiggling in front of him, its rider too high above for him to comfortably see, and said, so quietly that only he could hear:

“Mercenaries?”