by Ellyn, Court
The courtyard became a pool of fire. Black, greasy smoke and the stench of burned flesh wafted through the barracks. The stone wall became too hot to touch. Kelyn and Rhian took refuge on the far side of the mess hall. Bones littered the tables. A moment passed before Kelyn realized they were not those of pigs or sheep or elk. “Goddess’ save us,” he muttered and hid his face behind a hand. “All of them, Rhian?”
After a silence, the avedra said, “Yes, m’ lord.”
Kelyn wept unashamedly. His people. In his care. Maegeth, Yris, Nelda, they stayed and fought because of him, believing that’s what he would have wanted. Was it? Would he have fought and died alongside them had he not gone to Bramoran? Probably. Just like Morach of Longmead. Died a brave and stupid death on an axe he never saw.
Angry that he allowed himself to consider useless possibilities, he smashed the sorrow from his face with the heels of his hands.
The fire in the courtyard diminished. Once the heat waves cooled from the cobbles, they ventured out of their hiding places to find piles of ash drifting in and out of scorched armor.
Thorn remained on the landing, staring down at the waste, hands heavy and limp at his sides. “Kelyn!” he bellowed, but his expression quickly softened. “What are you doing here?”
Shoulders hunched, Kelyn admitted, “Disobeying orders. I’m sorry, brother. You know I had to come.”
“Did you find my boy?” Laral asked, approaching from the gatehouse. His boots left tracks in the ashes.
Thorn raised empty eyes. “No.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
Thorn shook his head. “He’s not here, Laral. They will have taken Jaedren where they took the other avedrin.”
“But you don’t know where that is. You don’t know what the ogres have done to any of them. You don’t know shit!”
Thorn didn’t feign a defense. “You’re right, Laral. We may never find them. But we have one ray of hope. We captured their commander. An Elari named Solandyr.”
“He might know,” Laral said.
“He might. And he might not tell you.”
Kelyn cleared his throat, glanced between Rhian and his brother. “Will you question him out here or … in there?”
Thorn raised his chin in a supremely arrogant fashion. “You had to follow, War Commander. Why should I spare you anything?” With that, he about-faced and strode away into the keep. An open invitation.
Kelyn looked at Rhian. The young avedra’s face was full of doubt, but he raised a hand. “After you, my lords.”
The ogres had turned the keep into their den. The stench was enough to gag a maggot, like someone had splashed the contents of the middens about and left the leavings of a hunt to rot in the sun. Little was left intact. Mother’s fine furniture had been broken up for firewood. Her rugs and tapestries, too. Campfires smoldered in the middle of parlor floors. The stained-glass lamps that lined the Great Corridor had been smashed. Ogres saw well enough in the dark, apparently. The avedrin conjured little balls of light to show them the path between corpses littering the floor. The battle appeared to have been as fierce within the keep as it was without. “Stay to the middle,” Thorn said.
Just past the ring of light, heads lined the walls. Human heads. Kelyn stopped and stared. He couldn’t help it. Bled out, they had turned yellow-gray like faces carved from wax. Faces he knew. Villagers, household staff, soldiers. Everyone who hadn’t fled with Rhoslyn. Kept as trophies of victory and displayed where highborns paraded to launch the Assembly. The statement was a bold one. At the foot of the great stair he found Yris. He barely recognized the steward, her fair hair matted black with blood, features sagging.
“Unforgivable,” he muttered.
“M’ lord?” said Rhian, catching up. “Please.” Keep moving. Don’t look. You’ll get sick, too. All implied in that one word.
Kelyn stared awhile longer. He owed it to his people to see and to remember. Farther ahead, the globes of avedra light provided a brief glimpse into the family dining hall. A mountain of something that looked like discarded clothes had grown where the table once stood.
Thorn waited at the doors of the Great Hall. Some sick son of a bitch had tied Maegeth’s head to one of the lamp sconces by her long black-and-silver braid. Thorn unsheathed his dagger, cut the knot and tenderly laid it on the floor. He whispered tender words Kelyn couldn’t understand.
“Where is this Elari?” Laral asked, voice gruff. Maegeth had trained him, too, and thrilled him with the same stories of ghosts in the dungeons. Ghosts were everywhere now.
Thorn stood and pushed open the doors to the Great Hall. Sunlight poured through the stained-glass windows to either side. Kelyn soon wished for darkness. Rows of chains were draped over the ceiling beams and secured to the walls. The bodies had been prepared like deer carcasses. Uneaten portions hung from meat hooks and turned black from rot. Flies swarmed. Compared to this, what did it matter that Ilswythe’s banner had been torn from the wall, that some of the windows bore cracks like spider webs, that ogres had gouged a fire pit in the middle of the tiled floor?
On the steps of the dais lay a figure neither human nor ogre. Kelyn ventured closer, cautious. Oh, if Da were alive … a true-to-life elf in his feast hall. He’d die of apoplexy. Kelyn struggled with a dose of loathing and revulsion himself. How could such evil live inside such beauty? Fair skin shimmered like a pearl in the slanting sunlight. Golden hair splayed across the steps. Long, lean limbs had stiffened in unnatural positions, as if he suffered from a seizure. Pale lavender eyes stared at the ceiling.
Alarmed, Kelyn asked, “He’s not dead?”
Thorn glared at the Elari. “No. Paralyzed. All dardrion have an arrest spell in their arsenal. I used it on him. He can breathe and his heart beats, but that’s all. Some even wet themselves, as poor Solandyr did. Can’t be helped, but it does hurt the dignity, and Elarion value dignity above all else.” He leaned close and shouted as if at a deaf man, “Don’t they, Solandyr?”
A fly crawled across the Elari’s unresponsive eye.
Kelyn flicked a hand at the prisoner. “Well, get rid of it. Let’s get this over with.”
Thorn unbuckled Solandyr’s belt, rolled him onto his face, and bound his wrists. A sign made with curled fingers, a whispered word in a foreign tongue, and the Elari fell lax with a grunt. He coughed and squirmed and raved at the floor. Thorn answered him in the same language, forcefully, as if issuing an order. Solandyr snapped off something that sounded like a curse. Rhian even cringed.
A spark of lightning jumped from Thorn’s fingers and prodded the Elari in the ribs. “Yes,” he insisted. “In duínovan, please, so my friends can understand you. I’m not in the mood to translate for them.”
Solandyr flopped around ungracefully on the steps until he righted himself. “Fuck your bones with an ogre’s tusk, Dathiel! Better?”
“Oh, lovely. Do show them how uncouth you are. Methinks you’ve been living among ogres too long. I doubt the Lady would’ve stood one with such manners among her guard.”
Solandyr glared at each human face and spat, then his glance fell heavily on Kelyn, chilling him. “Friends, is it, Dathiel? Ah, no. The Sons of Ilswythe, here together, and Rhian too. Regards. We wondered where you had run off to, War Commander. I didn’t expect you to show up here, however. My mistake.”
Thorn waved away the notion. “Never fear, Solandyr. You won’t be around long enough to make another one.”
A low chuckle rose from the Elari’s throat. “I’m not sure why you ever thought yourself clever, avedra.”
“Clever? Did I? Awkward, I remember that one, but not clever. Tell me, where have you been keeping yourself?”
The Elari’s grin turned sly. “Here and there. Until we decided to take up residence here.”
Kelyn wished the Elari would look at someone besides him. Nothing colder than an elf’s eye… Where had he read that? He saw that it was true.
“We broke through your gates in a m
atter of hours, War Commander. If we had known it would be so easy, we would not have waited a thousand years. We never found the duchess though. I’m still not sure how she slipped out.”
Relief washed through Kelyn. If an ogre scouting party had found the tunnel and followed it to Bransdon, the rest of Ilswythe’s people would surely have suffered the same fate as these. The chains swayed in a breath of air, clinking, creaking on the beams. Kelyn paced, raked a hand through his hair, uprighted a chair, anything to drown out the sound.
Thorn let Solandyr go on talking, taunting them. Perhaps he hoped to glean something useful from his thoughts. Rhian, too, listened with eyes half shut. “You never would have retaken the place had three-quarters of my ogres not been removed to Tírandon. You mean to hold Ilswythe, do you, the four of you?” He laughed and shrugged. “We’ll just take it back.”
“The hell you will!” Kelyn roared.
“We’re a flood you can’t stop, Commander.”
Kelyn lunged and drove a fist across the Elari’s cheek. Solandyr struck the floor, laid there spitting blood, then rolled to his knees again. “Typical brutish behavior, dwínovë.”
“Brutish?” Kelyn jabbed a finger at the bodies hanging from the ceiling. “You accuse me of brutality? Thorn, how long will you stand for this? He’s mocking us.”
Laral pushed past Rhian. “Where’s my son, curse you!”
Solandyr replied with a guileless lift of the eyebrows. “Lose your cub, did you? Was he the avedra child living here, perchance? Not my job. That task belongs to Ruvion. And he succeeded, I hear.”
Laral sprang forward, wanting a taste of flesh himself, but Rhian held him back. “Wait, m’ lord! Listen.”
Thorn eased in like a serpent stalking a rat’s nest. He sat on the step near Solandyr and examined his fingernails in casual fashion. “You know where the avedrin are being held?”
The Elari grinned at Laral. “Who says they’re being held?”
“What’s the pit, then?”
“Pit? First I’ve heard of it.”
Thorn nudged his ribs with a toe. “You’re a lying sack of shit, Solandyr. Who leads you?”
He looked genuinely confused at that. “That’s not even an intelligent question. What do you mean?”
“Who gives the orders? It isn’t you. Tréandyn, maybe? Lasharia?”
The elf’s laughter rang from wall to wall. “You have got to be kidding. Does Aerdria not know? Or did she simply not tell you? You must be the blindest avedra who still has eyes.”
Thorn’s hands lashed out and clenched Solandyr’s skull. The Elari shrieked and convulsed, kicking, twisting, flailing. Kelyn feared his brother meant to kill him over a petty insult before they learned anything, but Thorn suddenly released him and staggered away. He stood over a pile of bones, panting, trembling, as terrified as if he had run into a dead-end alley where a nightmare waited. “Lothiar.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Kelyn couldn’t place it.
Rhian shook his head. “Sure he’s lying, Dathiel. He has to be.”
“Lothiar is dead!” Thorn bellowed, rounding on the prisoner. “He was slain by an ogre in the Gloamheath.”
Solandyr recovered from the brain-search slowly. When he found his tongue again, he asked, “Is that what you thought? No wonder you’ve troubled so little all these years. Blind, I said, and so you are, Dathiel. The Captain paid us a visit only a few days ago. Right here in these halls. I must admit, he seemed to find the halls of the Sons of Ilswythe greatly lacking. When he returns he means to tear down your walls and erect the ring of white stones again.” How smug his smile. “In the meantime, you can be assured he’s watching you, Dathiel, and your niece.”
Raw terror left the gateway open for that feral creature inside Thorn’s skin. At mention of Carah, it broke loose. A hand swept forward.
“No!” Laral cried, but too late. Thunder shattered against the stone walls, and a blade of lightning tore through Solandyr’s armor. The body danced with sparks, then fell still.
A short while later, Kelyn found his brother atop the gatehouse, high above the ashes and the stink. The view from the battlements proved just as grim. Charred ribs of a desolated town crumbled to dust across the heedless waters of the Avidan. In the fields, weeds grew alongside rye and peas. Thorn saw none of it, only the horrors in his head.
Kelyn leaned on the crenels, breathing the clean southern wind, and asked, “Who is this Lothiar?”
Thorn didn’t bother with pretenses. He was scared, and he let his brother see it. “He sent the rágazeth. I thought I was free of him.”
“Is it possible Solandyr lied?”
“No, I saw Lothiar myself. In his mind. Recent memories. Lothiar was here, all right. A pair of ogre chieftains trailed him into the courtyard. He looked like hell, like he’d been run through the wash too many times, but it was him.”
Kelyn nodded, resolve building stone by stone. “So be it. Our enemy has a face at last. There’s comfort in that.”
“Much good may it do us.” Thorn paced wildly, in as much turmoil as the wind crashing against the towers. “It’s all a ruin. Look at it! We couldn’t save anything. Lothiar is so many steps ahead, we’ll never catch up. It’s all over, Kelyn. Lothiar has all the advantages. The steel, the magic, the numbers, the walls, the invisibility—”
“He doesn’t have you.”
Thorn paid no attention to that. “If I go to Lothiar, maybe—”
“No.” Kelyn seized him by the shoulders. “We won today. You won. Don’t lose sight of that. We are building an army, and we will fight, but we cannot do that without you.” How odd it felt, comforting him, bolstering his confidence, like when they were boys. “You are not who you were then. You vanquished the demon. You’ll do the same to this Lothiar. You hear me? We are not giving in. Everything starts from here.”
Like the slow breaking of dawn, calm crept back into Thorn’s face. He nodded.
Kelyn clapped him on the back. “Come. We have bodies to burn.”
They descended the tower together, their feet scattering ashes.
~~~~
The Falcons Saga continues in Fury of the Falcon
Look for it in 2014
Appendix A
Character Index
Aralorr and Evaronna
At Ilswythe:
Kelyn, Lord Ilswythe, War Commander
Thorn Kingshield/Kieryn Dathiel, his twin brother, avedra
Alovi, their mother, daughter of Wyramor in Leania
Keth, their father, deceased
Rhoslyn, Duchess of Liraness, married to Kelyn
Kethlyn, their son
Eliad, Kelyn’s squire, one of King Rhorek’s youngest illegitimate children
Etivva, tutor and member of the Shaddra’hin, a holy order devoted to the Mother-Father
Maegeth, captain of the Ilswythe garrison
Esmi, Alovi’s handmaid
Lura, Rhoslyn’s handmaid
Grieva, Kethlyn’s nurse
At Bramoran:
Rhorek, King of Aralorr, the Black Falcon
Briéllyn, his queen, Lady Rhyverdane, of Leania
Valryk, their son
Lissah, commander of the Falcon Guard
Tullyk, captain of the Bramoran garrison
At Windhaven:
Halayn, Rhoslyn’s aunt, also maternal aunt to King Rhorek
Drael, captain of the Windhaven garrison
At Tírandon:
Lander, Lord Tírandon
Andett, his lady, deceased
Leshan, their oldest son, deceased
Laral, Kelyn’s squire, Lander’s heir
Ruthan, Lander’s peculiar daughter
Other Highborns of Aralorr:
Brugge, a dwarf, foreman of Thyrvael and its silver mines; Dagni, his wife
Degany, Lord Zeldanor
Drys, his son
Kalla, a knight from Blue Mountain
Princess Mazél, Lady Lunélion, paternal aunt to Kin
g Rhorek
Genna, her daughter
Davhin, Lord Vonmora, married to Lady Genna
Maeret, their daughter, named after Genna’s older sister, deceased
Galt, Lord Helwende
Garrs, his son
Rorin, Lord Westport
Barrin, his son
Princess Rilyth, Lady of Brimlad, sister to King Rhorek
Drem, her sickly son
Fiera
Princess Ki’eva, governing regent, sister of King Shadryk, deceased
At Éndaran:
Eritha, Lady Éndaran
Raed, her son
Rance and Istra, his son and daughter
Prince Nathryk, crown prince of Fiera, ward of Leania, Eritha’s grandson through a daughter now deceased
Princes Arryk and Bhodryk, his half-brothers
Other highborns of Fiera:
Bethyn, Lady Brengarra
Drona, Lady Athmar, one of the infamous “river twins”
Degan, her twin brother, Lord Ulmarr, slain by Kelyn
Johf, Lord Haezeldale, uncle to Prince Bhodryk
Leania
Bano’en, King of Leania
Pa’ella, his queen, aunt of Alovi
Prince Ha’el, their son
Da’yn and Da’era, the prince’s son and daughter
Allaran, Lord Wyramor, brother to Alovi
Athna, Ni’avh, Islinn, his daughters
Lassar, his grandson, son of Ni’avh
Rhogan, Lord Mithlan
Aisley, his granddaughter
Avidan Wood
Aerdria, Lady of the Elarion, whose palace is in the city of Linndun
