by Ellyn, Court
The giant named Lohg grabbed the haft of Screamface’s axe and pelted him aside. Andy’s dagger scraped Lohg across the ribs. Damn it, it was Screamface he wanted!
A massive hand wrapped around Andy’s face, circling his skull and stifling his battle cry.
In terror, he dropped the dagger. Lohg shoved him into the dirt and laid fingers to his bleeding side. When he spotted the weapon that had stung him, his small red eyes brightened. The diamonds winked in the sun. Lohg stooped to one knee and swept it up. Andy scrambled up from the dirt and barraged that ugly face with his fists. “It’s mine! Give it back.”
Lohg caught Andy’s wrist and stood, lifting him off the ground as if he weighed no more than a twig. Andy’s free hand clawed at the monster’s arm while those red eyes measured him head to toe. Lohg’s tusks seemed to grow as his muzzle drew back in a rumble of laughter. He slid Guardian into a broad baldric across his chest and ordered, “Bind dese breakers.” He tossed Andy aside. The breath thudded from his chest as another giant snatched him from the air and knotted a leather strap about his wrists.
~~~~
32
As soon as the White Falcon was strong enough to venture downstairs, Thorn gathered Drenéleth’s guests into the cozy surroundings of the bear lounge. He closed the shutters against the sun and spying eyes, lit the lamps with a thought, and poured a round of brandy. Anything to make the lords and ladies comfortable, for the answers to their questions were like to unsettle them.
“This doesn’t bode well,” Kelyn said, taking a snifter from his brother.
“You’ve heard worse. Just back me up.”
The highborns settled themselves in the deep chairs and settees. Daxon preferred to sit on one of the brindled bear rugs. Carah offered a blanket to Arryk, which he refused, then she discreetly slid into a warden’s role at the door with Rhian. Of the Mantles, only Lieutenant Rance was present. The others were stationed on the grounds. This little meeting was not to be disturbed, Thorn told them. The highlanders had a habit of seeking Eliad’s opinion on every detail of the fortifications they constructed. The voices of mallet and saw sang off key beyond the shutters.
The lounge with its south-facing windows was too warm for a fire, so Thorn stood before a cold hearth. The weight of eyes and expectations made his palms sweaty and his mouth dry. His face still grew uncomfortably warm at the attention. The brandy worked too slowly to suit him, so he dived in without its aid. “To tell you what you need to know, I must break an oath that is very dear to me. I see now that keeping that oath all these years may have been a mistake. While it protects those I love, it also keeps you in ignorance. The world is not as it seems, and in the past couple of weeks, you have experienced a painful awakening. Things you consider myth are in fact real, and at this point ignorance will mean your demise. Undoubtedly our enemies mean to use that ignorance to their advantage, therefore we must dispel it.” He cleared his throat. “You saw the ogres at the lakeside.”
“Only the one,” Rance said.
Arryk raised his hand like a boy in a classroom. “I didn’t.”
Rance, Drona, and Rorin scrambled over each other to give the king a recapitulation on what they witnessed during the flight from the lake. Green eyes pinned Thorn with a heavy dose of incredulity.
“Believe it, sire,” Thorn said. “As children, we study the three points of the Triangle of Being, yet how many of us take it seriously? My father called it mysticism, which was a polite way of calling it nonsense. Many of us even discount the existence of the Mother-Father, though we all swear by her. My brother and I were blessed to receive tutoring by one of the Shaddra’hin, a once common occurrence, I’m told.” He dipped his chin toward a dark, secluded corner near the back of the room. There, Etivva permitted a small smile of forbidden pride. “As a result, I firmly believe that it is a terrible mistake for us to discount certain things as myth or old-fashioned and call it progress. Humanity has chosen to forget what it knows to be true, because it makes us uncomfortable. These truths are finally resurfacing to haunt us. Know this, my lords and ladies: this attack has been centuries in the coming.”
“Centuries… Then what is Valryk’s part?” asked Rhoslyn.
“The king is a pawn, and the board is upside down, Your Grace. There’s no way Valryk was able to contact the ogre clans in the first place, much less organize them. Nor was he able to shroud the minds of the soldiers and servants at Bramoran.”
“What about that other avedra?” Drona asked.
“A foreigner and a nobody. I suspect he wouldn’t be here at all if he had a choice.”
“You’re hedging, brother.”
Kelyn was right. How hard it was for Thorn to break his word, even to expose his enemies.
Tactfully Kelyn prompted, “This individual who led the attack at the lakeside, the one you said you recognized. He wasn’t ogre or human, I assume.”
Thorn raised his chin. “No. He was Elari. Or as you would call him, an elf.”
Murmurs made their rounds.
“I visit Ilswythe but once a year. The rest of the time I live among the Elarion. I will not disclose where, but it’s no great mystery if one puts a thought to it.” He let out a breath. “There, now. They will do what they will with me, but it’s past time you knew who shares the world with you.”
Arryk cleared his throat. “You’re saying that elves are behind this bloodshed.” His chuckle was nervous, brittle.
“Yes, sire. Ogres may be a little more intelligent than dogs, but Elarion are as clever as you and I. And what happened at Bramoran took many years’ worth of foresight and planning.”
“But what is their purpose, these Elarion?” asked Eliad.
“Given my best deduction? Revenge. The Elarion themselves may say it’s more complicated than that, but it amounts to the same thing.”
“Revenge for what?” demanded Drona.
“Pushing them to the brink of annihilation, for starters.”
“But the Elf War is ancient memory,” said Arryk.
“Not to them. Many alive now were there. Many witnessed the defeat of their people, and some still hold a grudge.”
“Some, but not all?” Rhoslyn seemed to cling to that notion with thin hope.
“Correct, Your Grace. Rhian and I would not be welcome in the Lady’s city if that were the case. The Lady herself and those who support her are concerned by what they see. They have been trying desperately to help us discover the answers we need. Had we been successful, Bramoran would never have happened.”
“Those murders were not your fault,” Kelyn said.
No, but the moment he stepped into Avidan Wood twenty years ago, he stirred a hornet’s nest. There was no mistaking that.
Drona pushed herself from her armchair and paced. “Surely these clever elves of yours understand that none of us were alive then. They have no cause to feel ill-will toward us.”
“M’ lady, when you marched against Aralorris, was it because you held a personal grudge toward each and every one? Or was it because they were simply and collectively Aralorri? And you, War Commander.”
Kelyn waved his hands. “Leave me out of this.”
Thorn pressed on. “Did you send your armies into Fiera because they dealt you a personal insult, or because they wore white falcons on their chests?”
Kelyn squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, swirled his brandy a measure faster.
“The Elarion leading these armies of ogres hate humanity collectively, generally. They believe you to be sordid, inferior, short-lived dogs who dwell in squalor and stupidity. And if humans are dogs, we avedrin are the curs, aberrations and perversions. For what Elari would lower himself to mate with a human?”
“But, Kingshield,” asked Rhogan of Mithlan, “why seek revenge now, after so long?”
“Why, this is the year one thousand. One thousand, After Elves. What more fitting year to right a great wrong.”
Drona huffed. “Don’t you dare imply that the massacre at Bramo
ran was our fault!”
Thorn offered her a sardonic grin. “All things have their consequences.”
Rorin shook his head vehemently. “My Barrin was an innocent boy. Bramoran was murder, not justice.”
“Oh, I agree. But to these Elarion, Bramoran was part of a cleansing. I might’ve thought otherwise had the attacks not continued from the Drakhans to the sea.” Over the past couple of days, one highborn after another came to him and asked if their holding, too, burned like Longmead and Lunélion. Too often he replied with a nod and a word of condolence. He kept Saffron and Zephyr busy searching for survivors, and he kept his eyes on the skies for the return of the messenger falcons. The birds probably had short memories, but he might be able to glean helpful information from their thoughts. If nothing else, knowing that Kethlyn and Laral were alive would provide a measure of comfort.
Drona’s nephew rose to a knee amid the brindled rug. “Why are we being kept here if the trouble is out there?”
“Kept?” exclaimed Eliad.
Thorn raised a hand to quell the argument before it became one. “You’re free to leave, Daxon. What will you do? Try and oust the ogres from Athmar all by yourself?”
“Just sit down and shut up, Dax,” snapped his aunt. Daxon shut his mouth, but he rose to his feet and poured more brandy into his glass, then turned his back to her.
“Thorn,” said Kelyn hesitantly, as if he didn’t know how to voice his concern, “how do we fight them at all? We can’t see them. Are we to sit here and let them slaughter us in their own good time?”
“This is my question as well,” he admitted. “As soon as I have seen to … other business … I mean to take a short journey and speak with a relative of ours.” He raised his eyebrows, hoping his brother would discern the meaning behind the vagaries.
Kelyn frowned, then light dawned in his face. “Ah. You think they will have answers?”
“If nothing else, I might be able to dig up an ally for us.”
“Ah, no,” Drona said, catching on. “I will not ally with an elf, not when they hate me for being born.”
Rhoslyn’s mouth pinched tight. “You didn’t know they existed half a moment ago. Are all your prejudices so easily come by? You heard Thorn. Some hold a grudge. And after everything that has happened, refusing an ally would be utter foolishness.” She turned to Thorn. “Do you really think they will help us?”
Her willingness to believe him, to trust him, made his heart rise into his throat. “I dare not make promises, Your Grace. All I know is that we stand no chance of survival if we are first divided among ourselves. We will face this scourge, with or without the help of the Elarion. But we must stand together. Evaronnan with Leanian, Aralorri with Fieran.”
Arryk bowed his head and pressed a smile from his face before it broke free. “I see no enemy in this room,” he said. “We became allies the moment we were attacked. We fought for our lives standing side by side, and we will do so again. Lord Ilswythe, my army, such as it is, is yours to command.”
Drona gasped and stared at him, sputtering.
Arryk lifted a hand of invitation. “Please. Speak your protests to the War Commander. Let your doubts be resolved now, rather than at a more critical time.”
“Sire, he … well, he … you can’t be serious.”
“Never more.”
“But he will send us to the front to die first, I’ll warrant it.”
Kelyn howled with laughter. “How ungracious of you. You’ll warrant it, will you? Ask Eliad, ask Lord Rhogan here, ask anyone who has followed my orders on the field. I would not risk victory nor waste resources for so petty a reason as personal revenge. Mother’s mercy, what tales do they tell south of the Bryna? No, Lady Athmar, I send soldiers where they are most needed. And I know how you fight. The front line may be exactly where I put you.”
However hard she might try, even Drona couldn’t miss the compliment in that. “I have your word, before all these witnesses?”
Kelyn stood and held out his hand. Drona stared at it a long while, then clasped it briefly but firmly.
“It’s an honor—and a relief—,” he said, “to have you at my back. Thorn, come teach us how to kick ogre tail.”
~~~~
Drenéleth was barely recognizable. The quiet, majestic lodge that welcomed Laral and his family last autumn was now hidden behind wooden palisades and watchtowers. A gate opened long enough to permit a cart to enter the grounds, then closed tight again. Highlanders in baggy woolen trousers and tangled, plaited hair patrolled the grounds. Hundreds more camped along the banks of the Avidan, entire families with their flocks and herds. The green hillsides were trampled to mud, and the place reeked like an army entrenched. Laral rode beside Captain Moray, ahead of fifty Mantles, twenty-five soldiers of his garrison and more than two hundred pikemen. They approached the lodge at a cautious pace.
Their arrival did not go unnoticed. Long before they crossed the valley and climbed the last winding stretch of road, highlanders stationed in the spruce trees alerted one another with bird calls. The whistles soon turned to shouts, and a scout broke from cover and raced up the hill to the gate.
Laral raised a fist. The column halted. When the trod of hooves and boots grew still, he heard the clash of arms inside the palisade.
“If this was some grand ruse,” Moray said, “I’ll cut you to pieces before any Aralorri can.”
“A long way to ask us to come, just to kill us, Captain.”
“So was Bramoran.”
Laral sighed. He was saddle-sore, muddy, and tired. The men following him more so. Eight days hasty march along rutted, narrow cart lanes, through dense woods and across fallow fields, all to avoid attention, had worn the company ragged. During the first couple of days out from Brengarra, Laral pushed his militia so hard that many a man collapsed on the roadside to heave their breakfast into the ditch. They complained and whined, bickered and resisted orders. But after crossing the Bryna, they settled down and got serious. They were in enemy territory now. Laral had had a hell of a time convincing Moray to bypass Bramoran. The Mantles’ captain longed to sneak in and investigate the Black Falcon’s dungeons, where he felt sure Arryk was being held. In the end, it was the locked city gates and strange guttural bellows coming from inside that changed his mind.
When the highland scout returned, he brought two more men with him. One wore a red-brown robe; the other riding leathers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. They inspected Laral’s company briefly, then the robed one ducked away inside the gate again. The other raised an arm and waved.
Laral managed a tired chuckle. There was no treachery here. If he was mistaken, let it come at the hands of a friend. At a touch of the spurs, his horse cantered up the hill to the gate. He didn’t care if the column followed or rested.
“The falcon made it, did she?” Thorn asked, taking Laral’s hand and throwing an arm around his shoulders. “We didn’t expect anyone for several more days. Honestly, I wondered if you’d come at all.”
“Then twenty years has addled you, avedra.” Though he supposed even his foster-brothers had cause to question his loyalties.
Thorn had become hard and lean, his face brown and lined, nothing like the shimmering bejeweled youth he had last seen. “What the hell happened?” Laral asked. “Tell me about my father. Where’s the king?”
“King, which one?”
“Mine!”
Thorn drew back from Laral’s bellow.
The three mastiffs darted through the gate so fast that he had no hope of catching them. His first thought was that Moray had sicced them onto the Aralorris inside the palisade. But they clustered around a single individual, tails wagging, excited yelps inciting laughter that Laral heard too seldom. Arryk straightened amid the circle of joyful dogs and waved. Had he smiled so happily and freely in years?
All of Laral’s fears lifted from his shoulders. He sagged and sighed and sank to a knee. “We thought you dead, sire.”
“Only for
a short time,” Arryk said, approaching. “But that’s no matter. Ah, Laral, get up. You’re embarrassing me.”
Laral hoisted himself to his feet and received an embrace from the White Falcon. “Kingshield said you would come. I tried to believe him.” The same Kingshield who had said he wondered if Laral would show up at all? Off to the side, the avedra grinned smugly. Even if Thorn hadn’t expected Laral to ride so far, he would happily lie to spare another. That much about him had not changed.
“And you brought my girls,” Arryk added. “I thought Brynduvh was besieged. How did you…?”
“Moray brought them. The Mantles escaped using the tunnels. He was ready to tear the realm apart to find you.”
Arryk winced. “That won’t do.” He stepped out the gate and raised a hand. The Mantles charged up the hill, drew up into formal ranks, dismounted, and saluted. Moray strode forward and bowed. “Your Majesty. What a relief to see you well.”
“And unshackled, eh?” said Arryk. “We are among friends, Captain.”
“As you say, sire.”
Arryk inspected the other Mantles. “At ease, men. By the look of you, you’re too tired to stand at attention. I commend you for risking your lives to find me. Come inside and rest. Laral, your troops?”
“Eliad can put them where he wants them.”
“Good, let’s talk. Kingshield, you will accompany us.”
They started for the lodge. One side of the butchered lawn was crowded with highlanders grunting and sweating in a rigorous round of swordplay. Half the men stood on high mounds, the other half in the ditches.
“Peculiar arrangement,” Laral observed, pausing to watch.
“Training them to fight ogres,” Thorn said. “Not sure how well it’s working, but it makes them feel better.”
“O-ogres?”
Arryk shrugged in reply, and Thorn grinned. “There’s a nice bottle of brandy waiting inside for us. You’re going to need it.”
A familiar voice bellowed an order. The highlanders exchanged positions. Kelyn inspected them from the middle of the sparring ground with his fists doubled on his hips. He leaned aside to speak with none other than Lady Drona. She nodded at whatever he said, then hopped onto one of the mounds and proceeded to give the highlander in the ditch a sound beating.
