Warrior Scarlet by Rosemary Sutcliff

with the sun well up and the level light streaming across the Marshes, he knew that it would be no use waiting any longer.
    He left his hiding place, slipping along in the lea of the sallow bushes. Maybe he would be able to flush something and knock it down before it got out of range. But though he hunted far and wide as the shadows shortened, he never got within spear-throw of a bird; and something was growing in him that was frightened and a little desperate. There would be other days; Talore would not sell the cub away from him at once, because he failed on the first day of all. But last night he had said, ‘I will pay the price tomorrow.’ And somehow for him there was only this one day; that was the bargain. Somehow, in his mind, the thing was mixed up with his Warrior Scarlet; he must earn the price of the cub today, he must keep his bargain perfectly and completely, and give proof of his skill with a throw-spear
today
, if his mother was ever to weave scarlet on the loom for him.
    It must have been noon or later, when, as he came crouching down the fringe of a long straggle of alder trees, he heard the rhythmical creaking sound, half eery, half musical, of a swan in flight, and turning, saw the great bird flying low towards himacross the level of jewel-green turf between two spreading sheets of water. The sun was on its feathers, and its shadow flew beneath it like a dark echo along the ground; a bird of snow and a bird of shadow . . . Drem saw the proud spread of shining wings, beating with slow, almost lazy power and beauty, as it flew with outstretched neck; he heard louder and louder the half musical throb of the wing beats; and the great swan swole on his sight. It seemed rushing towards him, blotting out the world with the white spread of its wings. He was caught up in a piercing vision of white, fierce beauty that was like thunder and lightning and an east wind, like a sun-burst. He was scarcely aware of rising to his feet as the great bird swept towards him, climbing into the sunlight, scarcely aware of his spear-arm swinging up and back in its own perfect curve of movement . . .
    The spear went thrumming on its way. It took the swan in the breast, and the great bird pitched in the air, half turning over its own length, and dropped.
    Drem started from cover of the alder trees and ran towards it. The swan was still alive, and threshing where it had fallen, with a dreadful, broken struggling. Drem ran in among the flailing wings that could have broken his leg even now, if a blow had landed square, and finished the work with the knife from his belt. The struggling ceased with a last quiver.
    The swan—a big cob—lay dead, its neck outstretched as in flight; and Drem pulled out the spear which was still embedded in it. There was blood on the white feathers. Blood on snow, Drem thought, standing over it; blood on his own hand, too; and the living, flashing beauty was gone. Desolation as piercing as the moment of vision had been stabbed through him. How could a little spear that he had thrown almost without knowing it, blot out in an instant all the power and the swiftness and the shining?
    But the desolation passed as the vision had done, and he was left with the fierce hot pride of his first real kill. He stabbed his knife into the turf to clean it, and thrust it back into his belt; then stood to think what he must do next.

IV
The Price of Whitethroat
    THE FIRST THING he realized was that he could not possibly get his kill back to Talore alone. He had seen himself proudly walking into the steading with a teal or a widgeon hanging from his hand; how much more proudly with a swan on his shoulder, the huge white wings drooping all about him! But those wings must be as far from tip to tip as the height of a man. And when he tried, he found that he could not even get the swan on to his shoulder without help, let alone carry it all the way back. The only thing to do was to hide it, and go and tell Talore.
    He