Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga)

by Ellyn, Court

  “But Mum—!”

  “Hush! We’ll find shelter, don’t worry.”

  Carah crawled into the bed of the wagon and paused to inspect Aisley’s scalp. “One of the Falcons struck her and left her for dead,” Lord Rhogan said, cradling his granddaughter against his shoulder. Though he was nearly sixty, his thick hair was as blue-black as ever. “She’s never been ill-treated before. I can’t bear the sight of it.”

  Carah’s fingers detected a bruise on her brain, but no internal bleeding, despite the blood drying in her hair. “Keep her awake, m’ lord.”

  She turned to Daxon. The three red towers of his device had darkened with the blood that feathered across the chest. “Keep those hands off my nephew,” Drona said.

  “Shut up, Aunt. I could be dying here.”

  Carah pressed a palm to his chest. Daxon winced. The sword’s tip had cut only as deeply as the breastbone. “Nothing pierced, nothing broken,” she said, wishing she had salves for infection. Sewer water inside gaping wounds couldn’t be good. “Try not to move too much. I’ll see if I can stitch it up later.”

  Lieutenant Rance supported the king’s head on his lap. Arryk’s color hadn’t improved. Too much blood lost. One glance was all it took for Carah to convince Drona to move aside and let her sit close to him. Odd to see mean-as-swords Lady Athmar give ground as Carah had earlier. Her fingers sought the White Falcon’s pulse.

  “Will he live?” asked Rance, suspicion lingering in eyes as dark as molasses.

  Brother to Arryk’s queen, thought Carah, feeling out of place squeezed between him and Drona. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’ll be dead before I let him die.”

  “Why would you bother, Aralorri?” Drona snarled.

  “Because he did not try to have me killed. He danced with me instead.”

  Da climbed onto the bench beside one of the Mantles, grabbed the reins, and slapped the drays hard. Jouncing along the stone-strewn moor, the fugitives watched Bramoran and its horrors slowly recede. The thunder of battle had grown silent, and no one else leapt through the breach.

  ~~~~

  23

  Jaedren slumped at the writing table, tapped his quill irritably on the parchment, and stared longingly out the library windows. A sentry with a pike on his shoulder and a crossbow hanging from his belt ambled past, headed toward the north gatehouse. Jaedren preferred to be out there in the chill wind with a practice sword in hand than in here wielding a quill. He hadn’t looked for ogres in two whole hours, ever since lunchtime.

  His tutor showed no sympathy. “Are you still thinking about your answer?” Etivva prodded. “Jaedren! Look what you are doing.”

  Black ink had splattered from the tip of his quill all over the parchment. He grabbed the blotter and dabbed up the spots, but the parchment was ruined. That didn’t deter Etivva, however. Her white eyebrows pinched together, the wrinkles in her cinnamon-colored skin deepened, and she asked again, “Was Tallon the Unifier a good king or a bad king? Defend your answer.”

  Usually Jaedren didn’t mind history lessons, but today was different. He had more immediate concerns than philosophizing about kings long dead. “Thorn says Tallon was the only human to have the aid of the Elarion since the Elf War made them our enemies. That’s not in the history books. Can I write that down?

  Etivva waved a brown hand, permitting it. Halfway through his scribbling, Jaedren glanced up and asked, “Have you ever seen an elf?”

  She huffed. “No. Now concentrate. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can go.”

  “If humans and elves hate each other, why would they help Tallon?”

  “You reason it out, my lord. Speculate.”

  “But I don’t know what elves think.”

  “Then write down what you read in here.” Her finger tapped the leather cover of History of the Falcon Kings.

  Jaedren dipped his quill again and wrote what would please her, that Tallon was a man of honor, that he stood up to a king who had none. “I’ll bet that’s why the Elarion helped him,” he said, glancing up thoughtfully. “It was because King Mathonryk roasted people alive and ate dinner while they screamed.”

  “That is why most of his people abandoned him in the end, but why should Elarion care? Mathonryk was not the only evil king of Bhodryn’s dynasty. King Haegeth supposedly fed his own daughters to a pair of dune lions he kept in the dungeons.”

  “Really? Why would he do that? Wait, what’s a dynasty?”

  Etivva chuckled. “A dynasty is a succession of rulers from the same bloodline. King Valryk is of Tallon’s dynasty, as Mathonryk was a descendent of Bhodryn. The Fieran kings still come from Bhodryn’s line.”

  “Do dynasties always end in war?”

  “Not always. Sometimes a bloodline simply dies out and a new king is elected. But when a dynasty ends in war, it may be because people believe their kings have failed them, that the line is become evil or weak and must be replaced with new, strong blood.”

  “So Tallon’s people thought he was good, or they wouldn’t have elected him, right?”

  “Did they think he was good, or just the strongest among them?”

  Jaedren growled in frustration. “Can’t there just be an easy answer?”

  “Rarely. Now, you have stalled long enough. Write your answer.”

  He was sure he left out all the good evidence for his argument, but Jaedren’s mind was out on the wall already. He wrote big letters, so maybe Etivva would think he’d written more than he really had, then he flipped the parchment down in front of her. “Can I go now?”

  She eyed the results of his efforts, her jaw askew, which meant his ruse wasn’t as convincing as he’d hoped. She was going to make him start over, he was sure of it. “Hnh, go,” she said, flicking a hand at him. “I supposed boys cannot excel every day.”

  He raced from the library, jubilant, before she changed her mind. A cold damp wind hit him in the face as he topped the wallwalk and peered through the crenels. Veil Sight revealed the clear white azethion of the townspeople across the river. A break in the rainfall had brought them out in droves. In the middle of the muddy fields, women crouched on their knees, planting peas in the furrows. Jaedren wished they wouldn’t plant peas. He didn’t like peas. The rye, planted on the ridges, had started to sprout, a bright green fuzz. Between the cottages, he glimpsed the town square. There, a woman carried a basket. It was piled with eggs, he saw. That was better. He liked eggs. The wheel of the mill spun in the floodwaters, churning up a pink froth. The wind carried the ting-ting of the smithy’s hammer, the shouts of men, the whinny of a plow horse, and the laughter of children. Three boys carried poles and nets to the river’s edge; a couple of girls tagged along behind, but the Avidan was too swift and brown for fishing today. Didn’t matter to them. They made a game of how far they could toss their hooks. Jaedren decided he was younger than most of them, but he had no time for games. He had duties. The notion made him feel taller and broader in the shoulders. He tucked his practice sword into his belt and strolled along the walls like he’d seen Rhian and the sentries do a million times. Every third crenel, he paused and peered out along the Highway that receded into the rain-hazed west. For the best view, he had to hoist himself up between the merlons because the wall was too thick for someone who had so little leg under him. After he passed the garden tower he heard the grunts and shouts of the garrison soldiers drilling in the bailey. Swords rang against shields, and bowstrings twanged. Captain Maegeth supervised from atop the north gatehouse. A sergeant shouted down orders while another walked among the rows of sparring men berating them for their incompetence.

  “Back again, Master Jaedren?” Maegeth said as he approached. The wind whipped her silver and black hair loose from under her helmet.

  “Thorn will blast me if I don’t keep watch.”

  Maegeth drew away from the sergeant and cleared her throat in a hesitant fashion. “He, er, expects trouble, does he?”

  Jaedren swaggered. “I’m the on
ly one who can see it coming.”

  “Yes…,” she said, pondering while a gloved forefinger rubbed her lower lip. This morning when he told her what he was doing on the wall, she smiled in that way that said grown-ups don’t really believe you. Her glance settled on the soldiers at the archery butts. One of Kelyn’s parting orders was to drill the garrison heavily and take stock of the armory’s supplies. Near the stables, His Lordship’s own smith was busy pouring molten iron into arrowhead casts. “Any idea what this trouble might look like?”

  Nobody had told her? “Um, I don’t know if I should …”

  She waved away her curiosity. “Never mind. Just keep me informed, eh?”

  What good would that do? Even if a thousand ogres passed, she wouldn’t be able to see them. How much noise did that many ogres make? he wondered, continuing on his rounds. They were quiet, he bet, as quiet as mice stealing into the pantry, or else people would have heard them before.

  He walked from tower to tower, around and around the entire wall. He took extra time to inspect the foothills to the north and the high moor to the east because they looked wild enough to conceal companies of ogres, but Veil Sight showed him only human azethion in those directions, too. Far away, tucked among trees and along streamlets rolling down to the river, chimneys in villages sent up pale wisps of smoke. A shepherd and his dog prodded a herd of sheep along a hilltop, then out of sight.

  Around and around. After an hour or so, his belly started griping and his feet hurt and his eyes glazed over when he looked out between the merlons. He could see why sentries dozed off on the job. Maybe he’d head to the kitchens for bread and butter and come back after supper. He hadn’t tried Veil Sight after dark yet, but Rhian told him he could see lifelights even better in the dark.

  He started down the garden tower, hoping Nelda would let him have some buttermilk, too, but Aster stopped him with a sharp tug to his hair. The fairy blazed bright blue, and she pulled that lock of hair until he yelped. “Hurry! On the Highway, love,” she shrieked. “They approach!” He raced back up the tower and along the parapets, jumping like a circus dog to get a view through the crenels as he went. The western stretch of Highway looked clear. Not even a human driving a cart. “Where, Aster?” he cried, breathless.

  Blue tracers of light led him to the main gatehouse.

  He ducked under a sentry’s elbow and threw himself onto the battlements. He scraped his arm and bumped his knee, but he couldn’t care about that now. He had counting to do.

  “Hey, now! Get down from there, m’ lord,” said the sentry, dragging Jaedren down from the wall by the back of his tabard. He was a chubby fellow, round and hard like a barrel. His pike looked twig-thin in his grasp. “You fall, don’t blame me.”

  “Where’s the captain?” Jaedren demanded.

  “Busy. What d’you want?”

  “Trouble. She wanted to know if I saw anything.”

  “What kinda trouble?”

  “Just get her, please.” Jaedren tried pushing the guard in the ribs, but he didn’t budge.

  “Not till you tell me. I will decide if it’s worth bothering the cap’n about.”

  Jaedren gritted his teeth and returned to the wall. Along the Highway that cut through town, he saw only the white azethion of humans. Nothing had changed. The children with the fishing poles had abandoned their game and left the riverside. Near the ford, the miller loaded bags of seed or, Goddess forbid, more peas into the back of a two-wheeled cart.

  His fairy had never lied to him, but he was starting to feel angry with her. “Aster, what—?” She hovered at his shoulder, staring southward so intently that she appeared not to hear him.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Cap’n,” he heard the sentry say.

  Maegeth climbed the wallwalk toward them. The garrison soldiers, sweaty and tired after their drills, filed toward the barracks for mess. The scent of roast mutton wafted from the chimney. She dismissed the sentry and turned to Jaedren. “Well?”

  “It’s the green men, I swear! Aster says they’re coming.” Maegeth raised her eyebrows, skeptical. He wished she could see the fairy. She would know something was wrong, then.

  Out in a muddy field, two women gained their feet, their rows of peas forgotten. Leaning together, they gazed south. A dray pulling a plow pranced aside, shaking his head; the man behind him shouted some curse at the horse for messing up the furrow, then he too turned to gaze south. What did they see that Jaedren couldn’t?

  A low rumble built in his ears. It was hard to make out over the angry rush of the flooded river, but when he glanced at Maegeth, he saw her tilt her head and her eyes go all glossy. She was listening, too. “A stampede,” she muttered. “No. Marching.” Yes, Jaedren recognized it now, a thunderous rhythm, the occasional gruff shout muffled beyond the rise in the southern stretch of Highway. From over the hill, a banner rose into view: on undyed, roughly woven linen was painted a bright orange axe. Stones … no, skulls! … swung from the cross-pole, and another, painted orange, adorned the top of the main pole. Jaedren gaped at the creature carrying it. In his nightmares the green men hadn’t been so huge. Though the ogre was far away he already looked bigger than the people in the town square. Crowds gathered on the street corners, in cottage garden plots; the people pointed, shouted, confused. Others whisked up their children and slammed their doors shut.

  “M’ lord!” Maegeth shook Jaedren by the shoulder. “What do you see?”

  Row after row of ogres rolled over the hill, following the Highway toward town. Their lifelights were dull and murky gray, just as Thorn said they would be. Their skin was gray-green, painted or tattooed with darker splotches, or maybe it was naturally striped and spotted. Thorn said ogres had been made from toads and other slimy things from the Mahkahan swamps. Where they got their tusks Jaedren couldn’t guess, but every one of them boasted wicked yellowed scimitar-shaped teeth jutting up from his lower jaw. Some wore untanned cuts of hide, others boiled leather armor. The ogre leading them, however, directly behind the flag-bearer, was a juggernaut in a shiny, dark chest plate, shoulder guards, and grieves. His horned helm gave him the look of a black bull walking upright.

  Fear numbed Jaedren’s wits so much that he almost forgot to count them. Five ogres to a row. Five rows, ten, twelve, fifteen, no, sixteen, twenty. After that he lost count. It was the blazing, golden lifelight that appeared on the hilltop that distracted him. Long pale hair flowed around armor of the same stormy-gray plate. Male or female, Jaedren couldn’t tell. The figure sat a tall black horse that looked just like Thorn’s and reined in on the lip of the hill to watch the ogres advance. “They’re not turning aside,” Jaedren said.

  “Damn it, boy! Who’s not?” Anger pitched Maegeth’s voice.

  “Ogres!” he cried, pointing. “I told you.”

  Sentries, garrison soldiers, and members of the household gathered along the parapets, worry creasing their faces. Still, a few snickered at Jaedren’s claim.

  The rhythm of feet stopped. The lines of murky lifelights grew still. One of the ogres raised a curling black horn banded in silver and blew a long, low, ululating note. As one, the ranks of ogres unslung axes from their backs and slammed them into shields on their forearms. The thunder of it broke against the castle walls and rumbled back. The people in town screamed and started scrambling like scattering chickens. The horn blasted a short note, and the ogres charged.

  “No! Run!” Jaedren screamed, but the townspeople were too far away to hear him. Thorn never said the ogres would attack Ilswythe’s shopkeepers, shepherds, and farmers, only that he was to mark which way they went. They dispersed through town swinging those axes, and humans collapsed amid red ruin. Young or old, man or woman, the ogres didn’t care. Their axes were hungry and they bit deep. Even those inside houses weren’t safe. Ogres shouldered the doors aside as if they were made of kindling and ducked under the lintels. The miller ran out of the mill wielding an axe of his own, but he didn’t get the chance to swing it befor
e an ogre opened his bowels. The mule pulling the two-wheeled cart bolted straight toward the river, turned too late, and sent the cart skidding down the bank. The heavy load dragged the mule down into the floodwater. Jaedren watched a woman in a yellow dress run across the Highway reaching for a man in muddy boots, but an axe lodged under his ribs and he spewed blood and fell at her feet. Shrieking, she turned and fled straight into the arc of a second axe that hewed off her head. They couldn’t see which way to run. Two little girls running hand in hand fled straight into a line of axes.

  Jaedren didn’t want to see either. He let go of his Veil Sight, hoping the horrors would diminish, but he was wrong. People he thought might get away across this field or through that orchard suddenly fell and the ground under them turned red. It was better if he knew where the ogres were, so he would know when to look away.

  Maegeth was calling the garrison to arms. Archers raced up the wallwalk, poured from the gatehouse towers, and lined the southern battlements. A sentry in the courtyard demanded to know if he ought to shut the castle gate. A few townspeople dared the flooded ford, trying to reach the safety of the fortress. The churning waters reached past their waists, slowing them down. A man carried a little girl on his shoulders and a baby in his arms. A woman lost her footing and was swept downstream. A boy jumped in after her, hands reaching to haul her back, but the waters swept him away too. The woman managed to catch hold of a tree limb and drag herself onto the bank, but the boy kept going. He went under once, twice, and didn’t come up again. The woman screamed his name, but it didn’t help.

  “Run!” Jaedren called again, beckoning wildly with his arm for them to hurry. The little girl on the man’s shoulders looked up and saw him. Maybe two dozen people made it across the ford, but the ogres followed right behind them. The water climbed as high as their muscled thighs, troubling them not at all. A man with a gray beard shoved two children up the bank ahead of him, then fell with an axe in his back. The ogres pursuing them brayed, driving them, taking pleasure in the terror of their quarry. The man carrying the girl and the baby scrabbled up the hill and collapsed inside the gate, panting, and hugged his children tight. A handful of others followed him in, screaming for family they left behind. A youth turned back. Jaedren saw him dash out the gate again and run toward the ford calling, “Matty?” He died with the name on his tongue. Red. Red on the wind, red in the water, red on the road.