He suspected the same feelings had kept the other acolytes awake, talking long into the night boasting how they would prove their bravery, if only they had the chance. But Halcyon's warrior monks did not send children to war, even if those acolytes were due to become monks this spring cusp with the responsibilities of men.
War with Merofynia…
Fyn didn't understand how it had come to this. His father's betrothal to King Merofyn's daughter had heralded thirty years of peace. When Myrella's younger brother had died in suspicious circumstances, her cousin had seized the Merofynian throne. This meant Fyn's eldest brother could become betrothed to the new king's daughter, and it should have ensured another thirty years of peace. But, early yesterday, a message had arrived from King Rolen asking the abbot to send the warrior monks. So the weapons master had marched out with every able-bodied monk, leaving only the frail and the lads in Halcyon Abbey.
At nearly seventeen, Fyn and his fellow acolytes thought themselves men and had railed against being left behind.
Unable to lie still Fyn rolled over again and, once again, his hand went to settle on the absent foenix symbol. He felt its phantom presence, its shape, its weight… and the niggling sense of wrongness solidified with an uncomfortable jolt of fear. The seal on the king's message had been a fake. The foenix symbol was too small to belong to his father.
Fyn sat up in bed, nauseous with the realisation that the weapons master and nearly six hundred of Halcyon's finest warriors were skating into a trap.
He sprang out of the bunk, heart racing.
'Bad dream?' Feldspar whispered. 'Don't worry, your sister will be — '
'I'm not worried about Piro.' Fyn crouched between their bunks. For a heartbeat he considered telling Feldspar his fears, but decided against it. He'd creep upstairs to the abbot's chamber, light a candle and check the seal. If he was right, they could send someone to warn the weapons master. A single skater could travel the frozen canals faster than hundreds of warriors. If he was wrong, he'd come back to bed and put it down to a vivid imagination and no one would be any the wiser.
'Go back to sleep, Feldspar. It's probably nothing.' Fyn kept his voice low so as not to disturb Hawkwing on the other side.
Already dressed in his breeches, Fyn slipped on his indoor shoes, soft-soled slippers, and tugged his saffron robe over his shoulders. The abbey was built into the side of Mount Halcyon and warmed by her hot springs, but even so the night was cold.
Leaving the sleeping acolytes, Fyn entered the hall leading towards the spiral stairs. He was already beginning to doubt his memory of the seal and wondered if he should simply go back to bed, when an odd noise made him stop. It sounded like the distant pattering of rain. The abbey had been unnaturally quiet since the warriors set off, its empty halls and chambers magnifying every sound.
Fyn tilted his head, straining to hear. The sound made no sense. It was too cold to rain. Silent on his indoor slippers, he ran to the window which looked down into the courtyard.
Illuminated by brilliant starlight, the courtyard rippled with life. Hundreds of warriors hurried across the stone flags, their boots making a soft susurration. Fyn's mind refused to accept what he saw, even as the men crept across the courtyard, flowing into the abbey's formal ground-floor chambers.
How could the enemy have penetrated this far without sounding the alarm? The old monk on night duty must have been tricked into opening the gate. The abbey was defenceless!
Alarm made his heart race. Fyn's feet hardly felt the ground as he ran back to the acolytes' chamber, waking Feldspar. 'To arms! We are under attack!'
Feldspar threw back the covers.
Hawkwing rolled out of bed, reaching for his boots. 'Merofynians?'
'I didn't stop to ask,' Fyn admitted.
'Did you have another vision?' Feldspar asked. 'Is that why you woke?'
His last vision had been of his brother's betrothed, Isolt. What manner of king would promise his daughter in marriage then make war on his future son-in-law's kingdom?
An unscrupulous man, a cunning man. The kind of man who would send a fake message to lure Halcyon's monks away from the abbey, leaving only acolytes and old men to defend it.
The boys… they didn't stand a chance!
'What's going on?' an anxious voice asked.
'We're under attack,' Hawkwing answered. 'Get everyone up.'
Word spread like a forest fire.
Their surprised exclamations made Fyn impatient. They had no time for this. He grabbed Hawkwing's arm. 'Wake the abbot, tell him the abbey's been breached.' Fyn turned to Feldspar. The boys, aged six to twelve, were on the floor below, between them and the intruders. 'Feldspar, take the boys down to the inner sanctum and bolt the door. Do it quickly, before the Merofynians find the great stairs.'
'This would never have happened if the grucranes hadn't left us,' Feldspar muttered, putting on his slippers.
He was right. The god-touched beasts had lived in the abbey for generations. One of their flock always stood guard ready to call a warning, but…
'No time for ifs,' Fyn snapped, thinking of the day the grucrane leader had been injured, the day the old seer had foreseen this very attack. When she'd spoken of Halcyon Abbey in ruins, he'd laughed. The seer must not be proven right. 'Hurry, both of you!'
Hawkwing and Feldspar darted away.
Fyn turned to the others. They'd tugged on boots and robes and faced him. 'The rest of you, come with me.'
He snatched a lamp someone had lit and ran out the door and down the corridor. Behind him, he could hear the acolytes' boots slapping on the tiles, hear their hurried explanations as the younger acolytes poured out of their sleeping chambers. He couldn't possibly lead thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds against grown warriors. Fyn stopped in his headlong race for the armoury and spun to face them.
'You.' He pointed to a youth of fourteen, whose name escaped him. 'Take the younger ones down to the sanctum, the rest of you come with me. We must defend the abbey.'
There was muffled shouting as boys of thirteen insisted they should stay and take up arms. The thought made Fyn sick to his stomach. True, they'd been studying weapons since they were six, but experienced warriors would cut them down like chaff. Besides, the best weapons had gone with the warriors, which meant the abbey's defenders would have to make do with blunted practice swords.
Furious, he signalled for silence. The acolytes obeyed, watching him expectantly, hopefully. Who was he to decide who lived and died? Who had elected him their leader?
'I need the youngest acolytes to go down to the sanctum where they can protect the boys and Halcyon's Sacred Flame. Can you do that?'
Put that way, they nodded and ran off. He only hoped they reached the sanctum in time. 'The rest of you come with me.'
Down one flight of stairs and along the corridor, Fyn flung open the armoury, hung the lantern high on a hook and began handing out padded chest protectors, swords, long knives and pikes, whatever he could find.
'I don't understand,' a youth muttered, 'the abbeys have always been sanctuaries in time of war. Why would the Merofynians attack us?'
'Booty,' Fyn guessed. 'Both the abbeys contain great wealth, gold icons, jewelled chests — '
'Fyn?' The abbot hurried in, with half a dozen elderly monks. Hawkwing brushed past Fyn, intent on grabbing a weapon.
'Abbot.' Fyn gave an abbreviated bow. 'The message from Father was a fake. The foenix was too small to be the king's seal.'