The true messenger pigeon is a variety of domestic pigeons derived from the wild rock dove, selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances. The messenger pigeon has an innate homing ability, meaning that it will generally return to its nest (it is believed) using magnetoreception.

  Flights as long as 1,800 km (1,100 miles) have been recorded and their average flying speed over moderate distances about 965 km (600 miles) long is around 97 km/h and speeds of up to 160 km/h have been observed for short distances. Because of this skill, domesticated pigeons are used to carry messages as messenger pigeons. They are usually referred to as "war pigeons" if used during wars.

  …

  Excerpt from Milburga Leah's Speculum universale - 'The Voltulian Philosophica', located on the coordinates 00.00.24.05.02; Udoris/Udoris/Zoology/Avians/Domesticated.?

  ???

  Faywyn, 13th Moon, 29th Day, 1623 Symfora Telos

  Verily, 'twas common knowledge the world was darkest before the dawn, or so the old women whispered in their croaking voices. Darkness clung to the fields like a shroud, the last tendrils of night giving way to a pallid grey. Shadows stretched long across the earth, broken only by the sullen crimson streaks that bled across the horizon, heralding the reluctant birth of a new day. Clouds hung low and heavy, sluggish in their drift upon the faint breath of a late-summer wind. The breeze wandered as it pleased, unbound and aimless, carrying with it the first faint stirrings of morning. The town slept still, wrapped in the quiet lull before the day’s clamour began.

  Donner stood among his fellows, the militia’s sorry lot arrayed in uneven rows. His heart thudded against his ribs, louder than the shouts of their instructors. Sweat trickled down his spine, his limbs leaden from the endless drills. He’d never held a weapon before he came here, not unless one counted a plough or a sickle. The pike they thrust upon him was no plough. It was a thing of iron and ashwood, long and unwieldy, tapering to a cruel steel tip. Slung over his back was a shield—large and light, though its weight seemed to grow by the hour. He’d been told it should be ready in hand at a moment’s notice, though his aching arms begged to differ.

  Around him, the others shifted uneasily, their pikes catching what little light the sun offered. The air was filled with the murmur of booted feet shuffling against grass, until the crunch of heavy steps behind them silenced all. Ser Liam, their instructor, was a hard man, with a face carved from old stone and a temper to match. Once a bannerman of House Hera, now a taskmaster to hapless farmhands turned soldiers. He prowled the line with his usual scowl, his voice sharp as any blade.

  “Raise your pikes!” he barked, his tone leaving no room for defiance. “Level them. Grip tight! Now thrust!”

  Donner’s arms obeyed before his mind could catch up, his hands trembling as he thrust the weapon forward. It wobbled in his grip, more a hesitant prod than the strike of a soldier. The weight dragged at him, and he stumbled, catching himself just in time to see Ser Liam’s head snap in his direction.

  “You there!” the knight roared, his voice cutting across the field like a whip. “What in the seven bloody hells was that? You call that a thrust? I’ve seen better from a drunken tavern-wench suffering from a bout of devil's feet!”

  The sniggers that followed were quickly stifled. None dared laugh too loud, not when Ser Liam’s wrath might turn their way. Donner’s face burned hotter than the sun yet to rise. He fumbled for words, his tongue leaden. “I—I beg pardon, Ser,” he stammered, barely above a whisper.

  “Pardon?” Ser Liam’s lip curled, the word dripping with disdain. “A week, boy. A week of drills, and still you can’t manage a proper thrust? What are you? Some even more useless variant of a sack of potatoes?”

  Donner flinched as the knight strode closer, his eyes like coals beneath his heavy brows. “Listen well, boy,” Ser Liam said, his voice dropping low, though no less cutting. “The good Lord Levi’s given me a charge to make soldiers of this sorry lot, or he’ll see my hide made into a rug for his fancy bed. And my hide, boy, is very dear to me. So if I tell you to thrust, you thrust! Do you understand?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Donner swallowed hard, his mouth dry as dust. “Aye, Ser,” he managed.

  “Good,” Ser Liam said, though there was nothing good in his tone. “Now—again!” He spun on his heel, his voice rising once more. “Raise your pikes, you cockless maggots! Thrust!”

  Donner forced his arms to obey, his muscles screaming as he shoved the pike forward with all he could muster. The effort left him shaking, but he dared not falter. This was a far cry from the humble toil upon the farm to which he was accustomed, and even further from what he had anticipated when he pledged to join the young lord's burgeoning army. Alas, it was too late to retreat now; the penalty for desertion, if captured, was nought but a proper hanging. The two desiccated corpses swinging from the bough of a distant tree bore testimony to the earl's callous resolve.

  Ser Liam stalked the line, his sharp gaze falling on each of them in turn. “Discipline,” he growled, “is the marrow of a soldier’s bones. Discipline is obedience. When I tell you to jump, you bloody well ask how high, and you jump. Do you hear me?”

  “Aye, Ser!” came the ragged reply.

  “Pikes!” he shouted. “March!”

  The line began to move, slow and stumbling at first, until Ser Liam’s voice cracked like thunder. “I said march! Gods give me strength, I’ll beat soldiers out of you yet—or bury you trying!”

  Donner tilted the wooden bowl above his head, letting the cold water spill down in a merciless cascade. The chill bit at his scalp and shoulders, a brief reprieve for muscles long abused by endless drills. He sighed, setting the bowl down and stooping to draw another from the pail at his feet.

  “Who d’you reckon the earl’s training us to fight?” came a voice to his right. Sawyer Trim, they called him—though no one ever bothered with the full name save for his mother, and she was long dead.

  Donner shrugged but said nothing, dunking the bowl into the pail again.

  “Could be no one,” Mob offered. Mob was short, wiry, and always talking. If he wasn’t speaking, it was only because he’d stuffed his mouth with bread. He leaned back on a low fence post, gnawing a dry stalk of grass. “I heard the young lord was spooked by that scuffle in Bycrest. Probably just wants to feel safer. Nobles, eh? Always worrying about some shadow that ain’t even cast yet.”

  “What else would you expect?” muttered a man whose name escaped Donner. He was pale, with a thin scar that bisected one cheek. His voice dropped, low and conspiratorial. “The lordling’s what? Eighteen? Nineteen? Barely old enough to properly sard a wench. Highborn boys like him get shaken by a crow’s shadow, let alone war. But if you ask me, there’s more to it than he lets on. A noble doesn’t part with coin unless he expects to get it back, thrice over. Promised us wages every month, aye? War or no war. You think he’d keep his word if he didn’t know something we don’t?”

  Mob snorted. “Maybe. If it comes to war, though, I’ll fight.”

  Trim raised an eyebrow. “You? Fight?”

  Mob shrugged. “So what? War means plunder, don’t it? Could be coin to make.”

  “Coin?” Trim’s laugh was incredulous. “How d’you figure that?”

  “Think on it,” Mob said, waving his grass stalk as though it were a sceptre. “We’re not real soldiers, not like his fancy knights. We’re militia. We’ll stay behind the walls, safe as babes in cradles. If there be a siege, we hold the keep. If the earl’s vassals come to our aid, we get to sit back and look brave while the knights do the bloody work. And who knows? Maybe some lucky bastard among us gets rewarded for it.”

  “Rewarded?” Trim asked, his scepticism thick.

  “Aye,” Mob said, grinning. “Maybe one of us lands a knighthood. All it’d take is shooting an arrow in the right arse—some lord’s, most like. Do it from the safety of the walls, and you’re a hero.”

  The men laughed, though their amusement was muted by thought. Donner listened, silent, as he poured another bowl of water over his head. Mob’s talk of rewards and knighthood rang hollow. A knight’s spurs weren’t given so lightly, and any war worth fighting left more corpses than heroes. Yet Mob wasn’t wrong about one thing: there might be opportunity in this. If they survived, that is.

  Still, there was no telling if war was even on the horizon. The Old Lord might return come spring with his knights, scattering the young lord’s militia like crows from a wheatfield. No plunder. No glory. Just another broken promise and a return to the same old life.

  Donner set the bowl aside and turned toward the barracks. The trampled ground within the wooden-fenced enclosure bore little resemblance to the green it had been weeks ago. Linen tents stood in uneven rows, their canvas streaked with dirt and weather. At the far end loomed the house master’s quarters, the only structure of wood and stone besides the keep itself. The well, shallow and brackish, sat in the centre, a grim monument to the militia’s growing thirst.

  Donner washed his worn tunic in silence, his hands chafing against the rough cloth. After wringing it dry and hanging it on the line, he trudged back to his shared tent, exchanging the tunic for a fresh one. Hunger gnawed at him as he joined the queue for breakfast, though the sun had already climbed high enough to scald the back of his neck.

  Training loomed ahead. Hours of sweat and barked orders, of thrusting pikes and aching arms. After that, literacy class—a rare reprieve, though even the thought of letters and numbers couldn’t quell the weariness in his bones. Dinner would come after, if the instructors didn’t find some new way to torture them first. Then a cold bath, a restless sleep, and the whole thing would begin anew.

  Donner sighed as he shuffled forward in the line. War, or no war, the days here were endless.