Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga)

by Ellyn, Court

  He lurched to his feet. The ogres stood between him and the main doors, and that older one with the big hands was crushing bodies under clawed feet as he approached. Valryk fled through the side door, past his secret parlor and the privies, and down the stair into the kitchens. A shrill call from Lasharia chased him down the corridor. The kitchens were empty. The ovens had gone cold; fish and vegetables laid on the chopping tables gathering flies. Where was everyone? These weren’t the servants who had been herded into the ballroom. Was the Captain holding them somewhere else? Were they already dead?

  A plan, he needed a plan. Get word out of Bramoran, yes. He dashed up a service stair, and heard a crash behind him. An ogre’s bellow echoed across the kitchen. Valryk ran the steps two at a time, three, tripped and struck his shin on the landing. He cursed. No time for pain. Run. What floor was he on? Didn’t matter. He shoved open an access door, found himself in a parlor in the old part of the castle. Feet pounded and claws scrabbled on the stairs. Valryk raced into the corridor, collided with a Falcon guardsman. The two of them tumbled, and for an instant relief sang in Valryk’s belly. But this was no Aralorri. No, he had ordered all fifty of his Guard banished or slain. He wouldn’t risk betrayal, especially among those who should be guarding his back. The irony seared. This Doreli mercenary who wore the silver falcon dropped a sword as they fell, and the dozen household servants he had been herding to the stairwell scattered, screaming. Valryk swept up the sword, rolled to his feet, and lunged, burying the blade deep before the Doreli could rise. He had never killed anyone with his own hand before. He watched the Doreli curl up in a ball of agony, then go limp. The sight of it was bewildering, empowering.

  The crash of furniture in the room behind him spurred him on. He dived through the nearest door. The queen’s wing, he realized. Yes, his mother’s entertaining parlor with the harp standing in the corner and the round tables for dice and tiles. Two doors down, her study had been emptied of the small, sentimental brick-a-brack that she had collected over the years. She had taken those things with her back to Rhyverdane. But there were still parchment, quill, and inkpot in the desk drawers. In his haste he dipped the quill too deeply. Black ink smeared his fingers, splashed and puddled on the parchment as he wrote: “Cousin. We are betrayed. Bring your army to Bramoran. Rescue—”

  The study door banged back on its hinges. Valryk whirled, poised the sword between him and the ogre, crumpled the letter behind his back.

  The ogre’s flat nostrils twitched and snuffled. When he was sure he had found the right human, a grin stretched tight over the yellow tusks.

  “Well done, Paggon,” Lothiar said, shouldering past the ogre. “Disarm him. Gently.”

  Valryk feinted right, stepped left, and brought the sword down in a hissing arc. The ogre raised an arm, and the blade crashed into an armguard shaped of that rippling magic steel. The sword burst. Shards of metal rained down around them. One bit Valryk’s cheek as it spun past. The ogre’s hand cuffed him upside the head, no more than a casual swat, but Valryk found himself face-down on the rug, his ear ringing, his jaw numb, the taste of blood in his mouth.

  “Valryk,” Lasharia cried, crouching next to him, “stop fighting. Please, just do as he says.”

  With a roar he surged up from the floor and drove a fist across her face. She staggered back, and how dare she look startled.

  Lothiar seemed untroubled by the exchange. He had snatched the ink-smeared parchment off the floor and examined it. “Hmm, this won’t do. Does your cousin recognize this hen scratch of yours?”

  Valryk wiped blood off his cheek. “Yes! Kethlyn will know if you forge something in my name.” If his cousin had done as he order, Kethlyn was busy assembling Windhaven’s militia. Seven days from today, he would send letters to each of the holdfasts in Evaronna, raising their militias and garrisons as well, “in response to a new Fieran threat.” The plan was to blame Valryk’s Fieran guests for starting a quarrel at the convention, a quarrel that ended in bloody battle and the deaths of two of the three kings. The Aralorris would have no trouble believing it. They would demand war. Valryk would oblige them. With the help of the Elarion and their “infantry,” Lothiar promised, the war would be short, indeed. But if the plan was a lie, what did Lothiar really intend to do with Kethlyn and his army?

  “Yes, that’s unfortunate,” Lothiar said. “Then write to him you shall. A different letter, to be sure.”

  “I’m finished helping you! Never again.”

  Lasharia’s hand dropped from her swelling cheekbone. “You murder your father for him, but you won’t write a letter?” She sounded desperate, afraid.

  “That was for you! Everything was for you! I killed my father for you! For a lie! You’ll get nothing more from me.”

  Lothiar wagged a finger at him. “That had better be a bluff, emperor. You have only so many uses left. If those are played out, well, I’ll give you to them.” His thumb jabbed at Paggon. “I’ve seen them … dining, and they’re very thorough. If that prospect isn’t frightening enough, we have other ways to convince you.”

  “Even torture is no inducement.”

  Lothiar chuckled. “Men have a tendency to say that until they feel the pain.” A sweep of his hand ordered Paggon to carry on. “Take him to his cell. I will join you shortly. Lasharia, have the Falcons dispatch the rest of the prisoners.”

  The ogre’s hands around Valryk’s arms were as strong and unbreakable as shackles.

  ~~~~

  The banners of the kings still hung from the wall in the King’s Hall. They lifted feebly in the breeze wafting through the hole in the wall, like hands of the dying. Lothiar tore down Aralorr’s black falcon, then the orange sun of Leania and the white falcon of Fiera. He wadded them up and tossed them down with the bodies.

  Hollow. The victory was hollow without the Sons of Ilswythe lying at his feet. The perfect ruse, the most elaborate lure, an opportunity wasted.

  The Doreli mercenaries dragged dead servants and squires from the ballroom and piled them up alongside the bodies of the highborns. Fogrim and his denmates helped. Whereas two humans carried one body between them, each ogre dragged two at a time and dropped them into heaps upon a growing mountain of chairs, bureaus, tables, velvet drapes, and rich tapestries gathered from the new wing. A pair of Dragon Claw ogres wrestled an armoire into the Hall and dumped it unceremoniously atop the corpses. Drawers slid out and crashed onto the tiles. Linens spilled in fragrant cascades.

  The stink of blood and shit had started to sicken him, but Lothiar didn’t trust his ogres enough to leave them alone with such a fresh and delectable smorgasbord. He turned the high table upright and made himself comfortable in one of the thrones. Here he could keep an eye on them, tend to a headache, and consider a different kind of war than he had anticipated.

  Though the White Falcon and both Sons of Ilswythe had escaped, Lothiar didn’t expect the humans to offer much of a fight. They would try, no doubt, but what could they do? The strongest of their walls would soon belong to the Elarion, leaving them no refuge, no arms, no granaries. Lothiar suspected it would be a matter of sniffing out their hiding places, flushing them like quail, and netting them in.

  A breath whispered against his cheek. Azhdyyyyyr…, it sighed. Lothiar turned, saw nothing. The back of his neck tingled as though fingers had brushed him there. This wasn’t the first time he had felt that touch tonight or heard that word. After rousing from his swoon, he had sat with a cold, damp cloth pressed to a throbbing headache, and that word whispered past. Azhdyr. Exile.

  Perhaps maintaining wards over so many minds for so many days had taken an unexpected toll. His efforts had exhausted him physically, and doubtless, mentally as well. He suspected the voice would fade, given time, along with this unnerving feeling of a presence at his shoulder.

  Warding the servants’ minds hadn’t really been necessary, but he feared the Doreli mercenaries might talk and rumor spread among the household; servants were notorious rumormongers, after all. V
alryk had commanded them to keep a still tongue, but minds racing with suspicions and fears were another matter. Iryan Wingfleet had relieved Lothiar on occasion, taking up the warding chant, so that he might eat and drink, but after an hour or so Lothiar took over again. Too much. The strain had been too much. Lothiar finally lost count of time and may have lost himself entirely to the spell had not Iryan shaken him and announced, “It’s done.” The instant the chant died on Lothiar’s tongue, the room with its dim firelight and draped windows turned black and he felt himself hit the floor. Undignified, fainting like that. Worse, his hours of unconsciousness had given the Sons of Ilswythe a detrimental head start; neither had his sleep been peaceful. He wished he could remember the damnable nightmare he’d had. The words had been terrifying but important.

  “Captain?” Lasharia stood at his right hand. “The townsfolk have been gathered in the Green.”

  “Good. At dawn, escort them out the gate. Not the men of fighting age, though. They stay here.”

  “We separated them, sir, according to your orders.”

  “Ah, yes, that’s right.” He was more exhausted than he realized if he couldn’t remember orders he’d given and orders he hadn’t. Or maybe the reek in the Hall was clogging his ability to think. He pushed himself to his feet, seeking a current of fresh air.

  “And Tullyk?” Lasharia asked.

  Lothiar stepped through the breach in the wall. Ah, here was a brisk, cold nightwind. He breathed deeply. His head cleared. “We’ll keep the garrison captain and a hundred of his men in the dungeons. They’re not the best ransom, but they might serve if needed. The rest of the soldiers are to provide fodder for the ogres. Don’t tell the naenion that, though. They’re liable to get excited. The humans will be a treat given at my discretion.”

  “Yessir.”

  Lothiar studied her. Her expression was a disciplined, emotionless blank. He’d worried often over the years that she had grown too close to her lover and her prey, but somehow she managed to maintain her focus and her allegiance. Lothiar had too few loyal soldiers to lose them to passion and heartbreak.

  “Amanthia,” he whispered. That’s who he had seen in his nightmare. The sudden vision of her weeping blood tears shook him. He reached for the broken wall.

  “Sir?”

  Heartbreak … in his nightmare the pain of it ached afresh, though she had been gone for a thousand years. What had she said to him? Turning away, he ordered gruffly, “You’re dismissed.”

  Lasharia saluted and descended the dais, paused, turned. “Dashka has returned, sir. Shall I—?”

  “You have your orders.”

  Lasharia about-faced and departed. Lothiar let the avedra linger in the doorway while he gathered his wits. Twenty years since dreams of Amanthia had troubled him. But dreams of her didn’t feel like regular dreams. She was so close and tangible that when he woke he expected to feel her breath on his face.

  He beckoned to the avedra. “Did you deploy your hunters?”

  Dashka approached sharply, perhaps hoping Lothiar might overlook his blunder in letting the Sons of Ilswythe escape. “I did, sir. A dozen Dragon Claw ogres. Wingfleet leads them, as you commanded.”

  “A dozen? Is that all?” Lothiar glanced over the swaths of dead mercenaries and the size of the hole in the wall. “One might suspect you want Dathiel to escape a second time.”

  “Sir?” Fear crouched in his gray eyes. Sweat slicked his upper lip.

  Lothiar extended an inviting hand. “Let’s talk, Dashka. Somewhere that does not stink of dead human.”

  As they strode from the King’s Hall, Fogrim dragged another body from the ballroom. He carried a second in the curl of his great arm. The child looked tiny in his grasp. “Cap?” he asked. “Dis naeni eat jus’ dis little one?”

  Lothiar paused to glare at the ogre. Fogrim’s eyes weren’t small and red and vacant like those of most ogres. His were green, the pupils slit top to bottom, and cold. Lothiar suspected that the avedra woman who had fashioned the naenion in the deeps of time had experimented with water dragons as well as toads. “Have I ever given you a child to eat?”

  “Baerdwin babes—”

  “Enough. Put it with the rest, Fogrim. After I light the pyre, we’ll feast. You on horse, me on … something else. I won’t be long.”

  “Plenty of children eaten in the pit, sir,” Dashka said as they left the King’s Hall behind. The avedra was one to know. He had languished, chained to the wall, for some months before he accepted Lothiar’s offer of escape. Perhaps he hoped to convince Lothiar to order a stop to it.

  “But we’re not in the pit, Dashka, for which I’m sure you’re thankful. What the Fire Spear ogres do is their business. As long as they don’t kill my avedrin prematurely, or satisfy their hunger when I’m visiting, they’re welcome to whatever cuts of meat suit them.”

  Several doors down from the King’s Hall was a parlor meant to accommodate men exhausted from talks and dances and diplomatic masks. Lothiar liked this room. He had set it aside, ordering his ogres to leave its furnishings alone. Lamps burned dimly on lacquered tables. Chessboards occupied pedestals before two magnificent hearths. Untended fires dwindled to red embers. Crystal decanters glittered darkly on the sideboard. The scent of woodfire mingled with that of brandy and leather and rest. “Pour yourself something,” Lothiar invited.

  Crystal sang against crystal as the avedra poured himself a brandy. His hands trembled.

  Lothiar grinned, accepting a glass from the avedra. The brandy was achingly sweet. He longed to sink into a cool, deep leather armchair and stretch out his legs and let the brandy do its work, but the weight and stiffness of his armor forbade it, and sleep had to wait. Too much still to do. “Do you think our emperor is of a strong will?” he asked.

  “He will write your letter, Captain.”

  “You’re so confident?”

  “You can convince a man to do anything.”

  “Can I? I’m not so sure. I haven’t had much luck with you.”

  “Sir?”

  “Cap,” said Fogrim, ducking through the door. “All dem sweetmeats been moved now.”

  “Well done.” Lothiar waved the ogre to join them. Watching the ogre trying to ease his way through the furniture without oversetting anything was like watching a hound at a tea party. Eventually the wagging tail knocked over a cup or two. “Fogrim, did you know that there are still hundreds of avedrin we haven’t found yet?”

  “Hundred ‘vedri in de pit, Cap.”

  “Yes, but there are more.”

  “Dat’iel?”

  “Besides him. And do you know who knows where these avedrin are hiding?”

  Fogrim shook his head. The dwarf’s beard wagged behind him.

  “Our friend Dashka here. He knows. But he won’t tell me.”

  “Dis naeni pull off dis ‘vedri arm. He squeal for Cap.”

  “Yes, but avedrin need their hands, you know.”

  “ ‘Vedri need dem ears?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Fogrim’s fingers started for Dashka’s ear, but the avedra raised both hands in a placating gesture. “Captain, please. You would be wise to forget the school. They are an enclave of trained avedrin. Leave them alone.”

  “Protecting them is fruitless.”

  “I’m protecting you.”

  That gave Lothiar pause. “Why, Dashka, that warms my heart. But if I could read your mind, I fear I would detect a lie. I’ll take my chances. The school really does exist, then?”

  The avedra grit his teeth. “Yes.”

  Lothiar poured the man another drink. “Is it in Dorél?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it near the ruins of Dan Ora’as?”

  “Yes.”

  “Underground?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Very good. My ogres are good at sniffing out things underground.”

  Dashka’s eyes closed as shame swept in.

  “Don’t worry, it won’t trouble you for
long. Guilt fades. Come, we have a funeral pyre to light.”

  Dashka seemed unable to follow. He stood holding his drink in a boneless hand. “You’ll kill me anyway. One day.”

  “Will I? My brother, of all people, told me something once. He said I should have given the avedrin living in Linndun the chance to fight alongside us instead of having them all assassinated. My brother is a fool, but he was right. If all those avedrin had joined their strength to ours, we might have gained the upper hand. Our history might be drastically different. Remain loyal, dwínovë, and you have no need to fear my blade.”

  ~~~~

  26

  The wine wagon left deep ruts across the hillsides. Even the narrow cart lanes had turned to mud in the recent rain, and though the wagon rumbled faster along the roadway, a child could track it. Carah sat in the back beside the sleeping king and watched the signs of their flight stretch out behind them. Someone was sure to come after them.

  Da and Drys had taken turns driving the wagon through the night and the following day. They didn’t dare stop as long as the four drays had strength to keep going. None dared hope that Valryk would let them escape without pursuit. Eyes remained open and on the horizon.

  Sunset turned the low clouds crimson. Plumes of black smoke dotted the horizon. “Maybe the commons found out what happened to us,” Lord Westport proposed earlier in the day. “Maybe there’s rebellion.”

  “Unless your king is doubly mad and burns his own villages,” Drona argued. “And why not? He murdered his own lords. Why not the people, too?”

  Either explanation sufficed, but Carah hoped Rorin was right.

  After a brief consultation on their first night out from Bramoran, the party decided to make for Longmead. Drona had argued with that too, preferring to head south to the Bryna. Longmead wasn’t far, so it won the vote. It was a small holding, Da said, but well-fortified. Lord Morach would take them in. He might bellow at the sight of Fierans seeking refuge in his hall, but he was a loyal soldier and a good friend. He would do as his War Commander asked.