Victory of the Hawk

by Angela Highland

“How did we anger Her? We’re farmers, for gods’ sakes!”

  “They say it’s even worse in Dareli, and you’re all damned fools if you’re heading there. Turn around and go back where you came from if you know what’s good for you!”

  Close to the eastern edge of the province, where they had to veer north again to head for Dareli, the devastation that met their eyes grew direr indeed. Fields held nothing but ash and scorched earth, and the smaller towns became broken ruins, skeletons of buildings where prosperous squares and markets had once stood. The road grew more crowded, forcing them by necessity to slow their place, and giving them plenty of time to see the few bands of harried-looking Hawks who galloped eastward past them, as if charging to their own doom. None stopped to question them, a blessing indeed. But Faanshi grew worried that that fortune wouldn’t last, for the more people they passed on the road, the more her power began to stir into life.

  Broken limbs. Seared flesh. Lungs that still labored from the choking miasma of smoke. She sensed them all in the people who fled past them toward the west, and at first she forced herself to ignore the glimmers of pain that skittered along the edges of her senses. But the magic’s insistence grew stronger, filling her sleep with specters of the wounded and the dying, all beyond her reach. It refused to be contained by the hearth she’d crafted in her mind, and it ate away at the shields Kirinil had taught her to raise around her awareness, until at last she could sense even the smallest aches and bruises by her companions in hours on end of long, hard riding.

  When she began to hear echoes of Kestar’s thoughts, Faanshi begged the others to let her help the stricken ones they found. “Every ridah bids me heal them. Djashtet bids me heal them. Why else do we make this journey if not to save lives?”

  Kestar hardly needed to voice his assent, or much of anything else. Close enough to him to speak, she could feel his agitation and worry—the same things they all felt, yet coalesced and magnified in him—and she knew without having to ask that he was beginning to sense her thoughts in return. “The next time we find someone who needs it,” he promised, “we’ll stop so you can help them.”

  Twenty miles into the province of Karthald, on the road called the Queensway, Faanshi got her chance.

  The Queensway was in truth two roads running side by side, one to the northeast toward Dareli, the other back the way they’d come. Each was paved with cobblestones, mile after mile of them, clattering under wagon wheels and horses’ hooves. But many of the cobblestones were missing, and many more blackened by the same signs of fire that had swept through much of the land. To either side of the twin roads, the countryside lay blasted. Hillsides gentler than those of Kilmerry bore only the leafless trunks of trees rather than flourishing woodland, making it all too easy to see the ragtag assemblage of carts halted several yards to the side of the stone-paved road. A spike of agony from somewhere in the midst of the campsite made Faanshi shriek for Julian to halt Morrigh, and the sound of anguished sobbing made her break into a run.

  Before she could charge in amid the carts, though, a pair of hands reached out to seize her. “Oi! Who the hells are you and where do you think you’re going, then?” a hoarse voice cried.

  Faanshi whirled to find a young man gripping her, yet she couldn’t tell even at arm’s reach what he looked like or what he wore. All she could see of him was the ache in his bones, barely suppressed, yet standing out with blinding clarity to her inner sight. Three of his ribs were broken, and the tight binding someone had wrapped around his chest served only to compress his muscles into a column of dull red pain.

  Her magic howled within her, and she had barely enough time to murmur apologies and place a hand on his chest before the golden light leaped free. When it faded again, the young man was still holding her—but now his eyes were wide, his ribs were whole, and she knew his name was Tobrey. “You…what did you do?” he blurted, before abruptly hauling her in the direction she wanted to go in the first place. “Never mind! Come on, you’ve got to do that for my little brother!”

  Other voices shouted in all directions, unfamiliar ones in front of her, Kestar and Julian leading the voices behind. But none of that mattered when a tearful woman laid a small, limp body into her arms. Faanshi registered many bones shattered within the little body, growing bones splintered almost into dust. Something must have struck the boy with titanic force. Fragments of bone had shredded his lungs, leaving him a few breaths away from death.

  Already roused by the healing of Tobrey, her power flooded into the boy and didn’t let him go until every bone within him was whole.

  Then, seemingly only a few moments later, the child Markis was wriggling in her arms and calling out a name. His dog, Faanshi realized, even as barks sounded beside her and a furry muzzle poked her on its way to licking the boy’s astonished, laughing face.

  * * *

  “We only wish it could be more, miss,” Tobrey and Markis’s mother said, once the others had caught up and they’d all been welcomed to join the family of travelers around a meager campfire. “But I’m afraid we escaped with little more than the clothes on our backs when the Voice of the Gods attacked the city.”

  The stew was thin indeed, little more than a broth with a few scant fragments of chopped onion and carrot, and the slightest memory of meat and salt to enrich the flavor. Celoren and Jekke dipped into the company’s own stores to add bread and cheese, enough to make a sparse dinner for all. In the aftermath of the healing, it was still enough sustenance for Faanshi’s system to seize upon, and she smiled gratefully over the mug she’d been given. “You honor me, akresha, and I’m just glad I was able to help.”

  “You all came from Dareli?” Kestar asked. “What happened to you?”

  “Same as what’s happened to half the province,” she said. Her boy was playing happily at her feet with his dog, and every time the lad seemed inclined to move away from her, she cast him fervent glances even as she spoke. “The Anreulag, of course. She’s turned against us all, and the bloody—” She caught herself, looking ruefully once more at her child, and went on, “The Church won’t tell us why. They don’t even seem to know.”

  “They tried to sacrifice Princess Margaine,” said her husband. His dour expression was a stark contrast to little Markis’s bright laughter, and he clearly knew it, mustering only a wisp of a smile as the boy toddled in circles around his legs, chasing or perhaps being chased by the dog. “Not even that helped. Anreulag didn’t want her. Only thing the Voice seems to want, not a man, woman or child can give Her, and She’s been tearing up everything within ten miles of Dareli trying to find it. You lot look like you can handle yourselves, but what in the gods’ name is taking you there?”

  “Her name.” Faanshi drank down the last of her broth, but now what warmth it could provide seemed far too little to ward off the chill that slid through her as she stood up again. “She wants it back. The Church took it from her.”

  Duty against dread. She could see the tension still lingering in the others, the need in them all to be moving again warring with a nagging fear. They all felt it, Faanshi knew. But thank you, Almighty Djashtet, for letting me ease these lives before we must be on our way. As she held that prayer in the back of her mind, she had to nod, too, at the startled looks on the faces of Tobrey and his parents.

  “We know her name,” she said then, “and we’re going to give it back to her.”

  Chapter Twenty

  On the streets of Dareli, Jeuchar 24, AC 1876

  It had been many years indeed since Julian had last set foot in the city of Dareli, and many more since he’d done it as Julian Nemeides instead of as the Rook. When their company reached the capital city at last, the sight of it struck him uncharacteristically speechless—and all he could think was that Dareli had not been served well during his absence.

  The road out of the city grew more and more crowded the closer
they rode, and the people they saw were without exception fleeing as quickly as carriage, wagon, horse or feet would carry them. They stank of smoke; indeed, the reek of scorched earth, burned wood, and roasted flesh hung in the air in an almost palpable cloud, and he didn’t want to think how much worse the stench had to be for Tembriel or even Faanshi. The girl had enough challenges as it was, for she insisted on healing every maimed or ailing refugee they passed, and only judicious application of his, Rab’s and Semai’s most intimidating stares kept her charges from detaining her any longer than absolutely necessary.

  At the Queensway Gate into the city, however, he almost wished they’d dawdled.

  Half the gate was gone, leaving the rest standing up in a jagged, uneven half-arch of brick and mortar. A wooden platform had been erected where the gate’s missing half had once stood, tall enough to let anyone standing on it oversee the steady flow of humanity trickling out of the city, and wide enough to restrict access to only a few passing people at a time. On this platform stood seven armed Hawks, each one with slightly wild eyes and faces ravaged by far too little sleep. They, Julian thought darkly, were the faces of people willing to shoot at the slightest provocation.

  And they were riding into the city with at least half a dozen provocations between them.

  They dismounted to make it easier to pass the platform, with Kestar and Celoren in the lead, himself and Faanshi next, with the others following in their wake. Without a word, as they approached the Hawks, Faanshi’s hand shot out to clutch at his elbow. The girl didn’t say a word, but no speech was necessary when her gaze spoke volumes. She was staring at the Hawks, and it didn’t matter that not a single amulet among them had kindled into light to betray her presence, Kestar’s, or Tembriel’s. For putting that fear into her eyes alone, he’d have willingly joined the Anreulag in setting them aflame.

  “Julian,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear.

  He couldn’t draw her into his arms, there in the middle of a crowded gate that led into a city with a hundred ways to kill them all. He could only slide his hand up to meet hers and squeeze her fingers in silent reassurance, and hope that she’d understand the message.

  The Hawks on the platform gave him no chance for anything more.

  “You lot there, stand fast,” one of them called out, gesturing peremptorily to Kestar. Her gaze swept along the line they made, and suspicion flared in her eyes. “By order of the Bhandreid access into the city is restricted except by direct royal dispensation—and we have no orders pertaining to a large armed party. State your names and your business.”

  Faanshi’s grip turned frantic against Julian’s palm, while most of her color drained from her features. Glances shot between them all—his to Rab’s, Faanshi’s to Semai’s, Jekke and Tembriel both looking with far sharper attention now to Kestar. The she-elf’s hood was up, hiding her ears from immediate view. Beneath it, her eyes glinted gold, and her hand curled in a way Julian was coming to recognize as a warning that her fire was about to make an appearance. He thought fast, but before he had to distract her, Kestar pointedly shook his head in her direction. Then he looked back up at the Hawk who’d stopped them, his features settled into lines of solid determination.

  Bloody hells. He’s going to tell them who he is.

  Which was the plan. Vaarsen did have the papers the duchess had given him, after all, and despite debating for hours all the way across two provinces, they’d come up with no better course of action than honesty, even if it risked getting them all captured. Several of their names and descriptions had already roused every Hawk in Kilmerry to track Faanshi as well as Vaarsen and Valleford—Jekke Yerredes was reluctant proof of that. They’d had to assume the Hawks of Dareli had received the same orders that had mobilized Kilmerry. Yet Kestar had been willing to gamble that the greater crisis at hand would override any orders Dareli’s Hawks still had pertaining to them, and Valleford and Yerredes had backed him up.

  Julian and Rab had been less sanguine, and a lifetime of dissimulation made Julian’s every instinct balk now as Kestar said, “My name is Kestar Vaarsen, and my friends and I have come with urgent news for Her Majesty the Bhandreid. We have messages from the leaders of the army of Nirrivy.” His voice hitched with the slightest trace of hesitation, yet he continued nonetheless. “And we have a way to stop the Anreulag.”

  His words weren’t loud, but their effect was electric. Several passersby in earshot snapped their heads in his direction, and the cries only redoubled when Faanshi abruptly left Julian’s side and stepped forward. “My name is Faanshi,” she said, “and if there are any who are hurt or sick or dying because of what the Anreulag has done, I can help them. I’m a healer.”

  Shouts broke out in all directions, until at last the Hawk who’d addressed Kestar bellowed, “I will have order at this gate! If you’re heading out of the city, move along!” Then she leaned down to Kestar and Faanshi from her position on the platform and added, scowling, “Are you two trying to start a riot, or just get yourselves arrested? Do you have any idea what the people of this city have been going through for the past three weeks?”

  “We know very well, akresha,” Faanshi said.

  “Captain,” one of the other Hawks on the platform put in uneasily, “we’ve got orders pertaining to people matching these names and descriptions.”

  “I know, I know!” The Hawk captain jumped down off the platform, sending people scrambling to get out of her way. As her compatriots applied themselves to briskly hustling the nearest shocked members of the crowd out of range, she rounded on Faanshi and Kestar once more. Tense brown eyes studied them both for a long moment, and at last she said, “You’re serious. Bloody nine hells, you’re both serious.”

  “The rest of us are too,” Julian said. He moved forward between Kestar and Faanshi, and for all that his instincts howled against the very prospect, he grudgingly went on, “And as long as we’re flinging names around, you might as well have mine. Julian Nemeides. House Nemea. We all back up Vaarsen and Faanshi, and none of us have time to argue. If you want to keep what’s left of this city standing, get us to the palace so we can see the Bhandreid.”

  Kestar and Faanshi both started, which was no surprise—but then, with the sudden gleam of pleasure in Faanshi’s eyes, Julian couldn’t exactly regret the impulse to properly identify himself for the first time in more years than he could remember. His full name felt strange on his tongue. It felt good.

  More important, it was effective. He hadn’t dared hope for it—he wasn’t inclined to prayer like Faanshi or Semai or any of the Hawks in their company. But to his relief and satisfaction, the Hawk captain reacted to the mention of his House with a sharpness that not even Faanshi’s blatant admission of magic had prompted. The fortune of Tykhe’s right hand, apparently, was upon them.

  “Her Majesty’s indisposed, my lord, so you’re going to have to ask for an audience with Princess Margaine.” The Hawk captain spun back to the platform, beckoning for two of the other Hawks, and snapped orders up to them. “Goddingsen, you’re in charge, and for the love of the gods keep this gate clear. Brannach, you’re coming with me. We’re escorting these people to the palace.”

  The royal palace, Dareli, Jeuchar 24, AC 1876

  With Celoren at his side, Kestar had traveled the width and breadth of Adalonia, for the Order of the Hawk regularly reassigned its knights to different provinces. To be the Anreulag’s eyes to see—or so the Order had always preached—a Hawk had to keep his vision fresh. But he’d never before set foot in Dareli, much less the royal palace. He’d never before envisioned a need, with or without the premonitions that sometimes sprang up within his mind.

  That was to change now, along with everything else in his life.

  The city wasn’t entirely deserted, despite the steady stream of people hastening out through the Queensway Gate. Some hardy souls were out and about doing busi
ness on the streets, though what signs of life Kestar spotted were mostly anxious faces peering out from behind shutters and curtains, faces that vanished again as their company passed. No one seemed to want to be out from under protective cover for longer than absolutely necessary, and he couldn’t blame the people for hiding. Not when the damage to streets and buildings grew more and more pronounced the closer they got to the palace.

  High on a hill overlooking the rest of the city, the largest and oldest structure in all of Dareli had never had a name, so far as he’d ever been taught. It had always simply been “the palace,” from which the line of Bhandreids and Ebhandreids had ruled over Adalonia and all its territories for centuries. On the road leading up onto the palace’s vast grounds, Kestar finally saw where many more of the people of Dareli had gone. Many were camped in tents and improvised shelters in the shadow of the great sprawling edifice, watched over by both Hawks and soldiers of the royal army. But it was a wary camp indeed, for even from a distance it was clear that the home of the Bhandreid and her family had not gone unscathed. One of its wings stood shattered nearly in two, and the carefully sculpted harmony of the grounds had likewise been blasted by lightning and fire. Trees all along the hill were reduced to blackened husks, and in more than one place along the main road through the grounds they had fallen over entirely. Kestar and the others passed a group of groundskeepers hauling the trunk of one such tree out of the road.

  Not one, not two, not three, but six times in all they were challenged on their way into the palace, other Hawks demanding and receiving signs and countersigns out of the captain and subordinate who escorted them. They were challenged when they were separated from their horses, when they were instructed to give up their weapons before setting foot under the palace’s roof, when their escort called for a messenger to be sent to the Princess Margaine requesting an audience—and particularly vigorously when, under orders to halt in the antechamber they’d finally reached, Faanshi removed her korfi and Tembriel lowered her hood.