by Ellyn, Court
“Part of their tactic, sire,” answered Captain Jareg. “A mind game.”
The tactic took a toll on the knights at the redoubt as well. During a charge, Gyfan of Blue Mountain loosed a madman’s scream and leapt into a knot of Zhianese. If not for Ulna and a handful of her comrades, the Zhianese would’ve put an end to his torment. They dragged Gyfan back to the summit, and he was ordered to tend the fires. He rocked on his haunches beside the embers, arms over his head.
Near dusk, the Zhianese charged again. “Surely they won’t continue this all night.” Kelyn couldn’t help voicing his concern aloud.
“No more,” Rhorek said and tried to break through the wall of Falcons.
Captain Jareg reached for him, but the king jerked his arm free. “Do not presume to handle me!” His voice rose above the high-pitched war cries and singing steel. “I have watched that row of bodies grow longer by the hour, and watched the injured hobble by without complaint. No more! Falcons! We are fresh reinforcements. We will aid our people and push the enemy back for the night.”
“Sire,” Jareg argued, “the Warlord may yet be unaware of your presence. If you’re seen, he will stop at nothing until he has you.”
Rhorek unsheathed his sword, a glittering piece of silver-plated steel, as beautiful as it was deadly. “Jareg, my loyal friend, that is the Warlord’s objective, whether he knows I’m here or not. And I, for one, will claim a little blood of my own before I die.” He slapped a heavy hand upon Kelyn’s shoulder-guard and led him toward the redoubt. “Well, Swiftblade,” the king said, watching the Zhianese scramble toward them, “will you watch my back?”
Kelyn bared white teeth in a feral smile, fingers tightening about the haft of the falcon blade. “My sword is yours, sire.”
Frozen corpses littered the slope, icy slicks of blood beneath them. The Zhianese ran over the bodies as if they were steps or stones, the muscles in their bare legs straining. What an exquisite release to swing the falcon blade at last, dig it deep. Battle had been a temptress today, so close that Kelyn could smell her and taste her breath. Finally, he could reach out and seize the bloody bitch.
~~~~
38
The Warlord reclined in a camp chair and held his hands out to the fire. His squire lifted an iron pot from the embers and filled a cup with hot ale. Goryth accepted it gratefully. In the distance high-pitched shrieks tore at the wind as the Zhianese charged the hill again. The resolve of this border patrol surprised him. He had expected them to surrender by now. Dusk approached on grim, icy feet, and Goryth was not pleased with the delay. Lord Jast would expect him and his half of the invasion force to catch up sometime tomorrow. Wouldn’t happen now.
Goryth should never have agreed to this farce. This little detachment of Aralorri troops wasn’t worth the trouble or the lives it would cost to annihilate them, but Saj’nal had made such a fuss, declaring that his men would burst if they didn’t get the chance to engage, that Goryth decided to humor them. The other half of the Zhianese, those sent on with Jast, had groaned like dying men. No glory for them, and no chance to win cloaks or warm woolens either.
Goryth had urged the outlanders to make use of the garments and woolens they found in Rhyverdane’s village, but most had refused, saying these were not won in battle. The Zhianese had wanted to slaughter Rhyverdane’s household and burn the walls to the ground, but Goryth had convinced them that the Leanians were not the enemy. Perhaps he should’ve let them have their way. When Lady Rhyverdane had gone missing, he decided the pigeon had flown.
Another couple of days and Lady Rhyverdane would reach Bano’en and report the violence done to her household. If Bano’en truly valued his realm’s neutrality, he might overlook a combatant host, here today, gone tomorrow, but he might feel inclined to avenge crimes done to his people.
On the other hand, Bano’en’s own niece and nephew were attacked by that fool of a Foreign Minister, and he’d chosen to do nothing. Perhaps he valued peace more highly than justice.
As long as Goryth didn’t have Leanian troops riding up his arse in a few weeks, he would be happy.
He shivered inside his armor and drank deeply of the fast-cooling ale. Wearing iron mail and steel plates in this weather was like being locked in a meat-house.
He paused, listening, cup poised at his mouth. Something had changed in the sound of the fighting. A roar went up from the hilltop. The Zhianese struggled a few moments more to gain the summit, then a horn blew. Saj’nal had ordered fallback.
About time, Goryth thought. With all this cloud-cover, night was falling fast. He expected a positive report and word that the Zhianese were willing to travel on in the morning, but Saj’nal looked anything but pleased as he approached the Warlord’s pavilion. His short quirt lashed randomly at nearby slaves. “Incompetent swine!” he bellowed. “Motherless dogs!”
He swept into the pavilion without a word. Goryth followed and stood silently, arms crossed, until the prince felt inclined to speak. He looked like he might spew fire, like the dragons on his devices. “Who knew?” he exclaimed at last, drawing the wolf-skin cloak tight about his shoulders. Ice clung to the fur. “We saw them up there all day, but they did nothing. Only stood there like fatherless goats. Who knew they would attack now, after we had wounded so many of their brothers?”
Goryth frowned. “They had troops they hadn’t utilized? How many?”
“Forty, sixty, I don’t know!” the prince cried, gesticulating wildly. “Many. Men and women—all in black.”
Black? Goryth searched through his mental roster of current Aralorri houses and military orders. He nearly choked. “Silver falcons on their chests?”
“Yes, yes, silly silver birds.”
“By the Goddess, man,” Goryth exclaimed. “The bloody Falcon Guard! You know who’s up there? The Aralorri Falcon himself!” So, the sparrow hawk was headed to Leania to beg for aid. Goryth howled with laughter. He couldn’t have hoped for anything better. And to think, he almost passed up this opportunity.
He summoned a squire, sent him running for the lieutenant that Wess had left in charge of the infantry division. When he arrived, Goryth told him the situation, then asked, “How’s your supply?”
“We exhausted barely a quarter of our arrows, sir.”
“Good. Divide your archers into groups and position them around the hill. They’re to loose randomly throughout the night. We’ll keep the Aralorris on their toes. No sleep for the sparrow hawk and his brave band of warriors. Tomorrow we finish him, and in a week, the Falcon Crown will sit on Shadryk’s brow.”
~~~~
Several weeks before, near Ulmarr, a soldier no older than Leshan had thrown down his pike and tried to surrender to him. Leshan killed him anyway. The man had gray eyes. A few days later, he led a few squires in a foraging party to the surrounding villages. When a handful of crofters took up pitchforks and attacked the squires, Leshan ran after them and cut them down. Morach said he was a good knight, protecting those squires. And what of the crofters, he’d asked, protecting their winter stores of meat and grain? “That’s war, lad,” Morach replied. Leshan had hoped for a different answer. An answer that would help his ghosts sleep.
Though their faces haunted him, he refused to allow the deaths of his king and comrades to do so as well. He rode hard, stopping only when he encountered the border patrol. He hoped Arqueth and his men had arrived in time. Sleet pelted his face, stinging like needles, and more than once his horse slipped on the slick grass, causing Leshan’s heart to hammer in terror of a broken neck. But he didn’t slow. By dusk, the walls of Tírandon rose from the plain. Guards in the watchtower heralded his arrival, and the gates swung open to admit him. The household and garrison gathered in the courtyard.
Springing from the saddle, he called to a stableboy. “Get me a fresh mount. Fast!” He commanded the officer of the garrison, “Prepare your troops. Half will ride with me to Slaenhyll. Keep the rest on alert.”
His mother pressed through a clucking c
rowd of laundry maids, worry a strange mask on her face. “What’s the trouble?”
Leshan took her gently by the shoulders. “Fierans are marching into Aralorr. Rhorek intends to counter them.” The news traveled as fast as a flame in a wick. A knot of Helwende’s men approached from the barracks. Lord Geris followed, a timid lamb on a leash. “Fierans, here?” he asked.
“You and your cavalry are coming with me and my garrison immediately. Your infantry will remain—”
“But the War Commander ordered us to stay here in reserve.”
Leshan seized the man’s collar and flung him into the nearest wall. His soft, round face broke into a sweat, just like a slug. “Listen, you son of a cur,” Leshan hissed, “the War Commander needs his reserve now. If you will not lead your men to your king’s aid, then I relieve you of command. His Majesty has no use for men who give in to their fear.” He shoved Geris for the stables and issued the order to Helwende’s men.
Lady Andett sent her household scurrying to make preparations, all too aware that iff Rhorek’s small army couldn’t hold them, Fierans might appear on the horizon at any time. When Leshan was ready to ride, he found his mother in the foyer, counting supplies with her steward and butler. “I think we have enough sheets for bandages,” she was saying. “We’d better bring the sheep in. Fighting men will eat lots of mutton. How is our silverthorn supply?” Before she could get an answer, Leshan led her aside.
“Mum, if the worst should happen—”
“It mustn’t,” she said gravely. “All three of you are there. I can’t lose all three of you. Make sure your father doesn’t do anything rash, and look out for Laral.”
Leshan wondered if he ought to send her to Bramoran. “You have two hundred soldiers here at your defense.”
She smiled. “We will be all right. And we’ll be ready to take care of you when you return.”
Within the hour, over one hundred men rode from Tírandon’s gates. Neither moons nor stars shone. The night would be long and the going slow.
~~~~
39
Someone handed Kelyn a strip of roasted horse meat. All the flavor was burnt out of it, he was glad for that. Early in the night, one of the Falcon’s blues caught an arrow in the throat. When his bugling finally stopped, some of the knights began carving off the best portions. Kelyn hoped the smell of cooking meat would waft down into the Fieran camp and send the message that the Aralorris trapped on the hilltop were not only alive and kicking, but feasting. Not that burnt horse was much of a feast. Still, the defiant thought made him grin, despite the fact that his face was half frozen.
Captain Jareg permitted the Falcons short shifts to stand up, move about, and try to warm their blood. Kelyn’s shift had come and gone; his body had gone numb again with the cold. His body heat melted the ice clinging to his helm, and the water dripped down his neck, soaking his surcoat and undershirt. In the middle of the circle of Falcons, the king huddled close to a struggling heather-and-gorse fire; the flames did little to warm Kelyn’s back.
In spite of the ice and wind, he had slept, or at least thought he did. The Falcon on his right elbowed him and he found that his shield had dropped out of formation. No one could predict when the next arrow would fall, or where it would land, though more than once Kelyn heard wagers muttered against the wind.
He was halfway through his portion of meat when a new cry of pain tore across the hilltop. Kelyn gripped his shield tighter and ducked his head. But instead of the familiar whistling of arrow shafts, he heard steel on steel. At the southern section of the redoubt, Da’s knights scrambled to counter blades in the dark. A Zhiani war cry drowned out the howl of the wind, and the Falcons leapt to their feet, the cold suddenly forgotten.
Kelyn ran for the redoubt, trying to draw his sword, but the blade had frozen inside the scabbard. He bashed the first Zhiani in the head with his shield. He kept hitting until the outlander went limp and rolled down the hill. Beside him, Lady Ulna fell away with a cry, clutching her face in both hands. Kelyn shouldered aside the Zhiani bearing down on her, then planted the shield’s rim in the warrior’s skull. He spun for the next, but four Zhianese lay dead on the hilltop, and four others fled into the dark.
At Kelyn’s feet, Lord Gyfan sat up groaning. He removed his helmet and rubbed his scalp. “That bastard nearly had my head for a trophy,” he muttered as Kelyn hauled him to his feet. He found Ulna huddled up in the center of the hill and ran to her. Kelyn followed. A Zhiani blade had almost claimed her head, too. It had sliced her across the forehead and left eye. The apple of her cheek flapped loose. “Ah, hell,” she said. “My mum always said I wasn’t too pretty anyway.” Gyfan pulled her close and held her for a moment, then cut the hem from his undershirt. Ulna tied it around her head to help hold her cheek in place. “At least my nose won’t get frostbite, like you sorry bastards,” she added.
“So the Zhianese are sending raiding parties now, too,” Kelyn mused aloud.
“That does it for any chance to sleep,” Gyfan said.
“Aye, one hell of a night.”
“Kelyn,” called Captain Jareg. “Resume your post.”
The other Falcons had returned to their circles about the king.
“Yes, sir,” he said grudgingly. “Just stretching the legs.”
Jareg clapped him on the back, chuckling. “You might want to hold your scabbard over the fire for a bit.”
Kelyn surveyed the damage done to his new black shield. “Yes, sir.”
~~~~
Lady Briéllyn forbade the squires from building a fire. Instead, the boys and girls held their hands to the tiny flame of a single lamp. Even that shined like a beacon in this cloud-shrouded darkness, and that made Briéllyn nervous. “As cold as it is,” she told them, “it can get colder still, so no complaining.” Anywhere from eight to sixteen, they argued over spaces closest to the lamp and huddled together on a south-facing slope. Briéllyn had counted twenty-four before the sun went down. She had supposed they could take care of themselves—they were being trained for battle, after all—but looking at them clenching their cloaks under their chattering chins, she saw how young and vulnerable they were, like lambs turned out of their fold to risk a countryside prowling with wolves. And they looked to her as their surrogate shepherd.
She didn’t understand children. Nor had she ever considered herself maternal material. Her older brother and his wife hadn’t any children either, none who had lived past the first few weeks of life, and when he had disappeared into the Gloamheath four years ago, Briéllyn was his only heir. She envisioned herself spending her days overseeing her lands and household, and was resigned to leave Rhyverdane to Leania’s king, to do with as he pleased. She needed order in her life, she told herself, and children tended to disrupt that order.
The boy sitting next to her was one of the youngest. Too young, in her opinion, to be dragged out into this weather. The knight who brought him along might not have been able to predict battle, but he should’ve seen to the weather. By the light of the lamp, she found the boy smiling at her. He squirmed closer, and Briéllyn opened her cloak long enough to wrap him in the crook of her arm. “You’re nice,” he said. “And pretty, too.”
“You’re forward.” The boy’s fingers were icicles. Briéllyn chaffed some warmth back into them.
“My mother says the same thing. ‘Gentlemen shouldn’t be so forward’.”
“And what would your mother say about you being out here on a night like this?”
“ ‘Do what you’re told, no grumbling, bring your father honor.’ Something like that.”
“You’re your father’s squire?”
“No, I’m squire to Kelyn Swiftblade, the War Commander’s son.” Pride amplified his voice.
Ah, the sentry who tackled her and dragged her into camp. She had many a bruise to thank him for.
The boy rattled on, “ ‘Cause of him, I don’t have to be ashamed anymore. Mum said that, too.”
“Ashamed? What cause have yo
u to be ashamed?”
“ ‘Cause I’m the king’s bastard.”
He said it so matter-of-factly. “You are King Rhorek’s son?”
The boy nodded. Yes, Briéllyn could see it, perhaps in the shape of his face, certainly in the set and color of his eyes.
“My mum’s one of his mistresses. He’s got eight of them. And eleven other bastards. I’m third from the youngest.”
Briéllyn recalled how the Black Falcon had looked at her, spoken to her, rushed to help her from the icy grass, and her face burned with anger. She wanted to toss this child away, but it was hardly his fault he was the son of such a wanton man.
The boy was ranting about his half-siblings. “They’re all pretentious.”
“That’s a big word,” she said, hugging him tighter in defiance of her unjust aversion.
“But it’s true. They squabble like chickens. And all for nothing. They want to be princes and princesses, but they can’t. They’re all spoiled.”
“And you’re the only practical one?”
“Yep. I’m disciplined. All knights are disciplined. And I’m going to be a great knight, because I can’t be a prince. And I’m going to fight beside my father and maybe be a Falcon someday. M’ lord Kelyn is a Falcon. Kalla says he’s got intuition. Unnatural intuition. That’s why he can protect the king so good. But he hasn’t been a Falcon very long, just a few days. Still, if something goes wrong, Kelyn won’t let anything bad happen to my … to the king, I mean.”
