Blood of the Falcon, Volume 2 (The Falcons Saga)

by Ellyn, Court

“I can’t believe you’re saying these things.” He glared at her as if she had grown the scorpion’s tail. “You want me to fold? Tell Rhorek, ah, but it was an admirable try? No hard feelings? Sister, if we take those measures, we lose. My enemies will lose all fear of me. My word will mean shit. No, it’s all or nothing. If you can no longer stand with me, leave. Leave and do not come back.”

  She considered for a moment, then nodded and kissed him tenderly. “Your vision may get us both killed. But I’ll stay.”

  ~~~~

  That evening, Saj’nal received his payment. A jewelry box brimming with gold ingots. Though his eyes glittered with avarice at the sight of it, he soon cast a distrustful glance in Shadryk’s direction. “You would not dare lie to Osaya’s son, O king. This is half?”

  He longed to slap the princeling’s face for challenging him; instead, Shadryk sighed and said, “I lost nearly sixty men for a box one foot square. Was it worth it? I don’t know.”

  “Yes!” Saj’nal declared, tucking his portion under his arm. “It is a noble sacrifice. The Father-Mother has a special place for those who die for causes so noble as this.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  Afterward, the prince was so happy that he became his old, obnoxious self again. He hadn’t squealed with laughter or told ridiculous lies all year, not in Shadryk’s hearing, but that night at supper, he stuffed his face with goose and elaborated on his exploits at Stonebrydge and Gethmar, none of which Shadryk believed; he had far more accurate reports from Goryth. During the dessert course, uneasiness twinged in Shadryk’s belly; glancing up, he found Cuinn on the threshold, holding that damned silver tray. Receiving the letter, he glanced at the seal. The mountain and lightning bolt of Brengarra. “From Lord Jaeron,” he muttered.

  “Maybe he says he pushed the Black Falcon from Ulmarr,” said Saj’nal, popping a puffed pastry into his mouth.

  Shadryk left the table to read the report in private. He was sure an outburst awaited him at the end of it.

  ~~~~

  Three Thyrran Months Later

  Old snow had turned to slush in the roadside ditches when Shadryk at last journeyed east to survey the damage done to Ulmarr. Before now, the trip hadn’t been safe. Throughout the coldest months of winter, outriders reported a continual Aralorri presence at the castle. Dwarves mined it for every usable chunk of stone they could find. Not much was left. A few jumbled piles of red sandstone, charred beams where the wooden structures had been torn down and burned. One tower remained, and that had been sealed off.

  Lady Drona ordered a ladder set against that tower. She herself climbed it and removed her twin brother’s skull from the pole, placed it in a box for proper burning. Searching the turret, she loosed an outcry. Degan’s lower jaw was missing, likely whisked off by ravens or fallen to the ground and carried off by mongrel dogs.

  “This does not look like Rhorek’s kind of warfare,” Shadryk said, tugging a fur-lined cloak snug about his shoulders. The north wind was brutal today, the sky grim. Spring might as well be months more away, rather than weeks.

  Goryth seemed impervious to it, standing in light leather armor, fist on his hip, as he watched Drona descend the ladder with the box. “Maybe Lander. Avenging Tírandon.”

  “Drona kept him too busy around Athmar. Rhorek hasn’t named a new War Commander, has he?”

  “Not that I heard, sire. This could be Leanian work. That chicken hawk has a full regiment of Leanians with him. Or maybe it was the dwarves’ idea.”

  In revenge for the loss of their gold? Shadryk kept the question to himself. Even Goryth didn’t know the size and worth of the treasure.

  The Warlord crouched, claimed a broken bit of stone, and absently rolled it around in his palm. “Keth was too squeamish to raze Karnedyr on this scale. He left the walls and towers. Somebody had the gumption to burn the Brambles and expose the riverland.”

  “And destroy Nithmar,” Shadryk threw in. “Not one of my commanders thought Nithmar within Aralorr’s reach. Not even you.”

  Goryth’s lip curled. He glanced sideways at Shadryk but didn’t dare defend himself. “Pretty sure we have a new player on the field, sire. Leanian or not. New player, new tactics. Whoever he is, he’ll keep us on our toes next season.”

  The man sounded hungry for the challenge. Shadryk’s appetite had waned; the thought of another battle season, with all its uncertainties, filled him with cold dread. How much death and destruction was a vision worth? “It has to end, Goryth. Westervael must be reborn. This year. Not the next. Not the one after that. This year.”

  Goryth stood, tossed the stone at a raven circling the tower. “You want peace? Then offer it.”

  “Have you lost all sense?”

  “Call a peace conference. Invite the chicken hawk to a neutral bit of ground, here at Ulmarr maybe. Discuss resolutions, agree to whatever he demands, and give him a glass of your best wine.”

  Shadryk chuckled dryly. “When Rhorek dies at the table, his people will know what happened.”

  “Aye, but the Great Falcon can pick his bones. Aralorr will be thrown into chaos, just as you planned in the beginning.”

  How simple it sounded. But. “He has an heir now, don’t forget.”

  “Assassins are cheap, sire.”

  Shadryk didn’t trust assassins. They were entrusted with too much, were too far away, surrounded by too many enemies who might sniff them out. And he recalled what happened to the last assassin he’d hired. Rumors. Had to be rumors, sent south to scare him. Or make him laugh. He couldn’t decide. Regardless of how that assassin died, he’d failed to meet his objective, and all this fighting and uncertainty was the result.

  Still, Goryth’s idea might be the best option. Plant an assassin in Bramoran, with orders to strike on the same day the conference took place.

  “What of the Leanians?” Shadryk asked.

  “What of them? Bano’en knows he can’t fight us alone and win. If he tries, you’ll surpass Bhodryn the Great and rule not only Westervael, but all the northwest.”

  Shadryk took a walk about the ruins of Ulmarr, considering. On the broken steps of what once had been the keep, he called for his horse. He had letters to write.

  ~~~~

  Part Six:

  AVEDRA

  62

  Thorn emerged from the shadows under the trees, his step almost as light as an Elari’s. Snow lay thick about the roots. He slid a foot carefully into a drift, eyes locked on his quarry. A small cyclone of fire gathered over his palm. None the wiser, the ogres tore apart the carcass of the doe they’d snared in the night. The faintest of breezes wafted into Thorn’s face, heavy with the stink of ogre flesh and fresh blood, allowing him to stalk in close.

  A pair of red eyes rose and pinned him. The ogre bellowed, gray muzzle dark with the doe’s lifeblood. He dropped the haunch he’d been gnawing on and reached for the axe harnessed to his back. His companion lumbered to his feet, startled.

  Thorn flung the twisting fireball. The first ogre leapt aside, but the second caught the flame full in the legs. Staggering and bellowing, the ogre was soon engulfed. Thorn conjured another. He was practiced enough that he rarely needed to speak the word to help his mind focus on the energies.

  At the sight of his denmate writhing in the fire, the bold ogre dropped his axe and fled into the trees. Thorn let the flame in his hand disperse. Too soon. A shout descended from the branches overhead. The third ogre made no attempt at stealth. His footfalls thundered through the ground; deadfall cracked under his weight as he barreled free of the trees. The beast reared an ugly axe. “Shoot him!” Thorn shouted.

  No arrow.

  No time to think. Panic. “Eshel!” A fireball built. The ogre was too close. Heat seared Thorn’s hands as the flame struck the ogre in the belly. The beast reeled, slapping at the pain of his innards cooking. Thorn unsheathed his sword; the blade sang a deadly note before it bit deep into the ogre’s throat, felling it with a wet gurgle. Thorn tried to still his breath
ing so he could hear more of them coming. A light step on his left. He whirled. Laniel Falconeye grimaced at the sight of the huge corpses steaming in the snowdrifts.

  “Thanks for the help,” Thorn groused.

  “You had it covered. Besides, I couldn’t get a clear shot.”

  Thorn dug a dagger from a sheath on his belt and stooped for the tusks. It was hell cutting them out of the thick skulls. “If I’d known you were going to watch, Elari, I’d have sold you admission.”

  “You wouldn’t rather take more stripes instead?” The disgust was clear in Laniel’s voice.

  “I’m out of arm room.” True, green stripes climbed Thorn’s arms, halfway to his shoulders. He’d even had a couple applied to each ankle.

  “Taking their teeth is barbaric, aurien.”

  Thorn ignored that, tugged, and a yellow tusk snapped out of the ogre’s lower jaw. He stuffed it into a pouch he carried just for this purpose. He’d have four, this trip. He had half a dozen more back in his suite in the Lady’s palace.

  “What do you mean to do with them?” Laniel asked as they made their way back to the rest of the troop. The Dranithion Quethiel were to report to Sheridath Tower, the northernmost of the watchtowers positioned near the edge of the Wood. With spring hovering on the doorstep, the Highway would soon be busy with travelers, soldiers, and the odd hunter down from the mountain villages. There were always some who dared risk the shadows under the trees. If nothing else, they hoped to collect firewood. The dranithion forbade them even that much. Laniel’s troop had almost reached their destination when a scout sniffed out this hungry band of naenion.

  “Do with them? The teeth?” Thorn asked, puzzled. “Nothing. What do you do with your stripes? They’re a boast, nothing more.”

  “Sometimes you trouble me, aurien.”

  The troop continued on to their post, arriving near midnight. Like all of the watchposts scattered throughout the Wood, Sheridath consisted of a single, centralized tower surrounded by four long walls, laid out in the shape of a lozenge. The gates were set deep, at angles perpendicular to the walls, so that enemies had to pass under rows of archers along the parapets before they had the chance to break in. None tried. Not anymore. Ogres stayed well clear of the towers. Humans, peering in from the Highway, saw only twisted trees, trunks wide as houses. But from the parapets and the turret atop the tower, Elarion were blind to nothing that passed on the road. Sheridath was placed specifically to watch over the wide, trodden camp the humans used when traveling between Helwende and Thyrvael. Even tonight, a fire or two flickered on the grounds north of the Highway. The trees, meanwhile, were full of Elaran lifelights. Dragon Eyes.

  From the wall, Thorn watched the campfires glint orange in the night; he counted half a dozen legs passing before the flames; man or horse, he couldn’t tell, but the Elarion could. At last, he remembered that he had no interest in the world beyond the trees and left the wall for the warmth of the tower’s great room. “Slanta,” he greeted the few other Elarion who were awake at this hour. Most were regulars, with red marks on their cheeks like tears of blood. Thylannis, the captain of Sheridath, abandoned her goblet of mead to welcome him. “Nyria said you saw action on the way in.” She spoke in her own language. Thorn insisted on it. He rarely required a translator anymore.

  “Action, shit. She tell you Falconeye almost got me killed?” He shrugged out of his bow, quiver, and cloak.

  Thylannis laughed. “Nyria mentioned you were hot as a hornet the rest of the trip. Have some mead. It’ll help you forgive him.”

  Thorn accepted the offer. A flask sat near the coals in the hearth, and a sleepy squire woke long enough to pour for him. The mead steamed in his goblet and warmed his hands. He sipped. Ah, spiced with clove.

  “How long you mean to stay with us, avedra?” Thylannis asked as he joined her at the table. As far as Elarion went, she was not lovely. A bit blocky in the face, her hair almost mousy in color. Thorn suspected a human somewhere in her family line. Maybe that’s why she never seemed bothered by his presence. Few Elarion posted on the outskirts minded him, however. Maybe it was because they saw humans almost daily, whereas the Elarion inside the city walls might live and return to the Light without ever seeing one.

  “Don’t know,” he replied. “Longer than last time, I hope. I’ve had enough of libraries for the nonce. There’s nothing for me to do in the winter but read. Did you know that master avedrin once learned to travel with their spirits alone?”

  “Hnh, you don’t say.”

  Thorn couldn’t tell if Thylannis mocked him or not. “Granted, most died trying, so I haven’t got the guts.”

  The captain’s brown eyebrow peaked. “But you’ll face down a boar ogre?”

  “Ogres I can see and touch, but who’s to say what’s … beyond?”

  “Ana-Forah, and that’s all you need to know.” She dismissed the matter with a wave, disinterested in philosophies and things she couldn’t fend off with a bow. With a pang of loneliness, Thorn missed his childhood mentor. Etivva might have liked to conjecture with him.

  Over the past couple of years, he’d studied the Elaran language and the letters; he’d absorbed ancient histories and lore; he’d gleaned spells from the grimoires that Aerdria allowed him to study; and he’d practiced what the books taught him about his avedra abilities, things Zellel hadn’t gotten to yet. When his eyes blurred and his brain ached, he fled the city to join Laniel and the dranithion. His request to learn their ways had amused the troop. At first, they laughed at his attempts, the scholar wanting to be a treewalker. True, he was unable to master their catlike sense of balance in the trees and nearly earned a broken neck for his trouble, but he soon learned the rest. While the dranithion stalked along, high in the branches, he kept pace below, quiet as a slip of sunlight on the forest floor. Of course, the Elarion were surprised when they learned they could not help him improve his skill with a bow. Still, he enjoyed the hours of practice with them. What had been soft and slow in him was soon hard and fleet. Laniel no longer ridiculed him for being out of breath on the hunt.

  “However long you stay,” said Thylannis, wagging a finger at him, “remember, we scare humans away. We don’t hurt them.”

  “I learned that lesson, Captain, never fear.” He’d nearly crossed the line last time he visited Sheridath. Last autumn, a scout announced that there were humans in the Wood. Wrapped in the Veil, Laniel had led Thorn and his troop half a mile from the tower where they’d found an old man and his grandson setting snares for deer and rabbit. Humans were free to take the game that ventured from the cover of the trees, but that which stayed in the Wood belonged to the Elarion. The dranithion had fanned out, showing off their lifelights. The old man armed himself with a pitchfork. The boy panicked, got turned around, and fled deeper into the trees. His grandfather pursued him. The Elarion followed, tried to get ahead of them to cut them off, and Thorn loped along on the grandfather’s heels. At last the boy tripped, and the grandfather caught him up. The Dragon Eyes surrounded them. Nowhere to run. Without laying a hand on them, Thorn pinched them both in a paralyzing grip. Their breath clogged in their throats. The pitchfork fell from the grandfather’s grasp. Their thoughts raced, panicked fragments, like scattering mice.

  The grandfather’s eyes widened the smallest fraction when he heard steel hiss from a scabbard. The Elaran blade hummed.

  On Thorn’s left, Laniel whispered, “What are you doing? Put it away!”

  “They’ve taken no vow of secrecy.” Thorn countered. “They’ll tell!”

  “Of what? They can’t see us. All they know is that strange lights speak foreign words.”

  “You said you would’ve killed me if I’d ventured into the Wood after my arrow.”

  Laniel sighed. “That was to entice you to keep your vow.”

  “You won’t really hurt any of them?” Thorn didn’t believe it, not for an instant. The Wood had a bad reputation for a good reason.

  “These are just cottars, Thorn. They�
�re hungry. We will not harm them.”

  Thorn sheathed his sword, but he didn’t release his prisoners. Crooking his index fingers, he tugged them along. Their scuffed, muddy boots gouged divots in the leaf litter, but they followed him from the Wood. The effort it took to move two paralyzed bodies this way exhausted him, almost as difficult as pulling a pair of contrary donkeys by halter ropes, but he wanted to make sure they found the proper route out of the Wood. Avidanyth was his refuge, too, and he wouldn’t see it endangered by these yokels.

  He released them only when they were past the last of the trees. They collapsed to their knees, gasping for breath, then scrambled up and ran back to wherever they’d come from.

  “Would you really have killed them?” Laniel asked, tossing their snares onto a campfire that evening.

  “It would’ve been your fault.”

  “Mine?”

  “Aye, for not explaining things. No one enters the Wood and survives. That’s the rumor. Let it die and so does the fear of this place. Then what will you have? Humans building hunting lodges left and right, my friend.”

  “Sounds like something my brother would’ve said,” Laniel muttered.

  Though it felt like a slap to the face, Thorn had to admit that his friend was right. “Odd to think that, now, Lothiar and I agree on some things. But have it your way, Captain.”

  Thorn drained the mead in his goblet as soon as it was cool enough, then refilled it himself. One dranithi and another drifted into the tower to get warm, shed their weapons and joined their brethren at the tables. Laniel himself pulled up a chair and asked, “You want to be included in the watch, Thorn?”

  “Only if I get to sleep first. Else you’ll have a drunk sentry. What’s the penalty for sleeping on the job?”

  “Dismissal,” Nyria replied, delivering a handful of goblets and passing them around.

  “Pretty steep. Good thing I’m just a scholar.”