Falconburg Divided (The Falconburg Series Book 1)

by Sarah Waldock

  “Let me pull on some dry breeches under my skirts at least,” said Annis, “and get my sword.” Her eyes sparkled as she opened the door and pelted up to the turret room to kick off slippers and pull on her second pair of breeches and kilted her gown up over her girdle that it hung no lower than her knees; and ran down again to meet Elissa as she buckled on her practise sword over the kilted gown that would hold it more securely.

  “Ready? Good” approved Elissa “You don’t hang about.”

  “He might yet need us,” said Annis. “And I don’t want to be too late to help him; he is too splendid to permit anything to happen to.”

  Elissa laughed as they went to the stables to saddle their horses.

  “Funny child you are,” she said. “You’re not supposed to admire your captor you know!”

  “I shall if I like,” said Annis, “and I still have hopes of serving him you know, officially!”

  She felt shy suddenly of confessing to Elissa that she had made a kind of proposal of marriage to Gyrfalon; who had not said yet if he took it seriously or not, so she said nothing.

  And she drew ahead on Rowan so Elissa would not see the colour that seemed so easily to come to her face these days.

  Following Gyrfalon was not easy; the warlord had set a breakneck pace, adding verisimilitude to his supposed agony.

  “Our spy will be hard pushed to get there first!” Annis called to Elissa. The older woman nodded and grinned.

  “Methinks he’ll make it naytheless,” she called back chuckling. “For every time he remember who be on his heels he’ll spur his horse on that he not fall into the hands of Gyrfalon in a state of, er, infernallier angrier.”

  Annis chuckled.

  “What it is to have a reputation eh?” she said.

  “Oh it be deserved,” said Elissa dryly. “Just because he treats you as he was wont to treat his adoptive son you’ll see evidence of his ruthlessness in the woods soon enough.”

  “What happened to his son?” asked Annis curiously.

  Elissa shrugged.

  “He overstepped his abilities – as usual – and tried to please his father in a clumsy and stupid way – as usual. He managed to antagonise my lord’s enemy, Lord Falk, by slaughtering a village just as an example. Lord Falk was already displeased for my lord was holding an abbess hostage for church monies. Only unlike you, he had her closely confined.”

  “I expect she was douce and reasonable at him,” said Annis sagely, “as would infuriate him methinks. What then of this Buto? He died?”

  “Aye, you have Gyrfalon’s measure,” said Elissa. “Buto thought to decoy Lord Falk and kill him, by his brutality, but he was such a posturing little … fool that it was a foregone conclusion that Falk would cut him to pieces. Fortunately Buto did not trust any woman warrior, so I was not one of his bodyguard.”

  “Ah; another score against our lord’s brother, even though it were Buto’s own fault,” said Annis, half to herself. “You didn’t like Buto.”

  Elissa shrugged.

  “He tried to please Gyrfalon but he had not an idea how to do it. He was as stupid as a stump and took violence as the only solution to a problem. Where Gyrfalon would purr low in threat and menace, Buto would bluster and shout and lose his temper. Art a better son to my lord by far.”

  Annis grinned.

  “I’ll take that as compliment,” she laughed.

  If he wanted to adopt her she would at least get to stay with him.

  They soon saw the reminders of the warlord’s ruthlessness that Elissa had spoken of as they found themselves in the dark woods; skeletons hung from nails in their wrists from trees. Annis shuddered slightly; then stopped as she reminded herself that from what gossip she had heard from the men, these fellows had been bandits who had fallen in with travellers by dressing as monks. To crucify them might be cruel; but it had a degree of appropriateness and well in keeping with Gyrfalon’s black sense of humour.

  The woods thickened as the light faded, making progress difficult; but there was a definite path and here and there twigs showed white to mark Gyrfalon’s precipitate passage which had broken them off. The women picked their way more cautiously, trusting to the instincts of the horses until the moon rose high enough to shed a golden harvest light over the scene

  “We’ll be hard put to catch up” muttered Elissa.

  “He can’t have ridden at that pace all the way,” Annis countered prosaically. “Even Nightmare has his limitations, and Gyrfalon won’t kill the best horse he’s ever had,” she added, referring to Gyrfalon’s big black steed. “Besides, he’ll have slowed up to give the spy time to get ahead.”

  Elissa nodded dubiously; then stood in the saddled, peering ahead.

  “The forest is opening. Look, it is open moorland before us. And our horses are fresher for having to go slow earlier.”

  They urged their mounts into a ground eating canter; and Annis was glad that Rowan was a good natured steed that cared not that she held the reins with only one hand; for all the salve there was yet soreness in the one that was burned that reins would rub cruelly. And then the girl was pointing as her quick young eyes caught a glimpse of Gyrfalon, his cloak flowing out behind him, silhouetted briefly atop a rise ahead of them.

  After another hour’s riding in silence it became apparent that Gyrfalon was making for the high bluffs of a massive tor that rose threateningly like a natural castle from the moorland. The top was apparent from miles away, but the full size of the feature did not become evident until they breasted the final rise. It was breathtaking; and the view from the summit must be commanding: but the greater part of the tor itself lay hidden in the folded terrain. As they approached, watching Gyrfalon disappear into the shadows at the base of the tor, there seemed within that dark shadow a patch of even darker gloom; and as they stared, eyes fixed on it to recall the position, there was a green flare deep in the blackness.

  “Witchery!” whispered Elissa, fearfully.

  “Well we knew that anyway,” said Annis, practically. “Remember, Elissa, they say that witches fear cold steel and we have two feet of that each.”

  “You have no nerves at all, girl,” said Elissa disgustedly. Annis chuckled.

  “Oh I have plenty of nerves; but I won’t do myself, you or Gyrfalon any good by letting them rule me. At least we not have to climb to the top of that thing; for ‘tis heights leave me shaking with illogical fear and I fear the fear that might make me freeze. Ready?” Elissa nodded, swallowing hard. If this chit could face it so could she. “Then forward,” said Annis, urging Rowan on.

  Gyrfalon had given the shadowy figure of the spy time to lead his horse into the cleft ahead of him. The flickering green light of the necromancer’s arcane experiments lit the way eerily; and he hung back briefly, lest he be seen by the wizard’s man too closely on his heels. He dared not wait too long; for who knew what means the wizard might have at his disposal for knowing who lay without! Gyrfalon hitched Nightmare to a rocky protection and strode in, leaving the stallion whickering discontent. Even Nightmare did not like this place much.

  Annis and Elissa approached the tor as quickly as they might with caution. The horses flinched and tried to head away; they liked it not. But their riders were implacable; and hitched the sweating mounts near Nightmare. But not too close; the horse had as wicked a temper as its master. When he was unsettled, the big horse had a propensity to bite other horses, and the intelligent beast sensed the unnatural, and rolled his eyes at the approach of others, even those he knew well. Elissa drew blade; but it was Annis who entered first, grimly purposeful, determined to find and stand beside Gyrfalon.

  The slit in the rock ran straight a short way, then turned and finally opened into a chamber. There was a conversation going on; and the voice that Annis first heard gave her the shivers up and down her spine.

  “But my dear Gyrfalon,” it said, in a chiding whisper, that were almost androgynous in tone rather than being high pitched as such “My dear Gyrfalon, I
own you. I really find I have to reprove you for seeking alternative aid. Only I can truly aid you. You will come to acknowledge this.”

  “I acknowledge only that you have lied, that you have set your creatures to cause me harm such as to prompt me into killing the healer,” Gyrfalon’s voice was angry, but controlled “And her gentle ministrations with herbs have given me more relief than your numbing burning; that she told me I should hang one so inefficient as you!”

  The other voice cut like a whiplash though it scarcely raised above a dry whisper, like the sibilant crackle of the passage of a snake’s scales on dry heath.

  “Enough! Has not my magic dragged you from the gates of Hell when you have been wounded? You belong to me and to my Dark Master, your own Master!”

  “I belong to no-one!” growled Gyrfalon.

  There was the scrape of steel that heralded Gyrfalon drawing his sword. Annis and Elissa held hands in the darkness; but that sound that was a sound they understood galvanised them into action and they ran forward into the cavern. Gyrfalon stood, almost at bay, no common thing for the mighty warrior, as the wizard launched a seering bolt of energy at him. The spy, whom Annis now recognised as one of the ostlers, was, the girl noticed, stealthily drawing a sword of his own, his eyes fixed on Gyrfalon’s broad back.

  “Get the spy!” she hissed to Elissa. The warrior woman sprang forward, glad of an objective she understood, action that did not paralyse her with terror as the thought of fighting magic did. She forced the man to turn, to defend himself.

  The wizard, briefly distracted, lost control of a spell and Gyrfalon sprang in; but a sudden wall of energy deflected his blade, that smote upon it with a shower of sparks and a dull ‘TANG’ sound.

  “Fool!” hissed the wizard “Do you not think I am immune to your puny sword blows?”

  “That was what I was afraid of,” Elissa muttered to herself, as she rained an onslaught of blows on the spy, who was not immune to them. “I hope that crazy wench has a better plan that that.”

  Gyrfalon swung again; this time there were more sparks and something of a buzzing hum as the sword struck the magic shield that seemed to waver. The warlord gave a smile of grim satisfaction.

  “We shall see who is the most puny and who tires first,” he said; glad that fighting Annis and engaging in passage of arms with Elissa too that the female warrior’s faults be corrected, had made sure he had not let his own stamina diminish in soft castle living.

  The wizard was gathering himself for a counter attack.

  Meanwhile, Annis had sheathed her sword and found what she was looking for. Gyrfalon was fencing and thrusting, feinting and weaving, watching the magician’s fingers ready to thrust for the face of the wizard to disrupt his spell.

  Annis moved stealthily with her find, working her way behind the magician.

  BONG!

  Annis brought the heavy iron crucible that had been heating on the brazier down on the wizard’s head. Green sparks flew from it as she let go of the handle and jumped back with alacrity. The wizard had gone down.

  Gyrfalon blinked, momentarily frozen.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded harshly “Never mind. Help me cut his head off – and bury it and his body in separate graves.”

  Annis nodded. Gyrfalon sounded, if not exactly rattled, at least disconcerted. She recognised it. She felt much the same herself.

  With her mouth drying and bile rising bitter in her throat, Annis stretched the stringy throat of the unconscious magician for Gyrfalon to sever head from body; and both head and body twitched horribly as he did so and continued to do so after severance was complete. Elissa, having long since finished with her prey, retched as she came over to see what went on.

  “Underground and overground, through water and in air,” muttered Annis.

  “What?” said Gyrfalon, his eyes on the faintly twitching skull in fascinated horror.

  “Old superstition; and maybe worth nothing. But it will not harm to bury the head in the bed of the stream and hang up the body for the crows – if they’ll touch it.”

  Gyrfalon nodded.

  “Superstition may very well be based on reason; it will not harm to follow it, for that thing like not the idea by its twitches.

  “Also,” said Annis, “dear God I feel sick … my lord, I pray you to open that horrid mouth; hast gloves on.”

  Gyrfalon shot her a look; but did so. Annis shook in some salt she had found on a shelf; and lifted her crucifix from around her neck and laid it on the tongue.

  The head gave a thin scream and shifted as the flesh shrank, crumbled, and fell away in blackened shards.

  The body too was crumbling into dust and Elissa cried out in terror.

  Annis sat back heavily, clutching her crucifix to her. Her head swam and her ears rang and roared; and her sight was blurred.

  “But I don’t faint,” she muttered, swaying where she sat.

  Gyrfalon unceremoniously thrust her head between her knees.

  “Be ill on your own time, girl,” he said harshly, shocked and frightened himself. “We have to deal with this thing and your initial suggestion of how to do so still seems good to me.”

  Elissa was pressed back against the cave wall.

  “What did you do, Annis?” she whispered.

  Annis raised a white face, her eyes huge and dark in it.

  “I think,” she said carefully, “it is what my crucifix un-did. I think,” she shuddered, “that he had been dead already for a very long time, sustained in the semblance of life by spells and rituals the like of which I do not wish in any wise to contemplate. Excuse me,” she scrambled to her feet and ran outside to empty her stomach.

  The stream was pure and clear; and Annis dipped her crucifix in it before rinsing her mouth in its chill waters, to be sure no taint of evil magic touched it. After all a lich or whatever the necromancer had been needed no water.

  There was no reaction to the cross; and she rinsed and spat, and then cautiously drank. There seemed to be no ill effects.

  When Annis returned within she had regained some of her poise.

  “I dug a hole in the stream bed” she told Gyrfalon “to purify that thing with running water.”

  They did so, Gyrfalon holding the dessicated skull from him at arm’s length in repugnance; then returning for the body, that he nailed by the wrist bones into the soft rock.

  Annis ran to him when it was done and took his hands.

  “Has he harmed you?” she demanded.

  “No,” he said, and firmly disengaged his hands. “To horse; we should return as fast as we may.”

  The ride back to the castle was accomplished in silence. As they neared the walls Gyrfalon spoke.

  “Maybe your God is not so weak as I have thought him.”

  “Maybe, my lord, you are not aware that he belongs to you too,” said Annis quietly.

  Gyrfalon snorted.

  “You are both disobedient wenches,” he changed the subject “Extra sword practice for both of you. You will learn that long handled crucibles are not generally accepted weapon’s of war.” He put heel to Nightmare’s flank’s and rode ahead to the castle gates, ignoring Annis’ reproachful comment,

  “Nor too is magic an accepted weapon of war, and I thought but to fight magic with magic!”

  “He ain’t listening,” said Elissa.

  Annis screwed up her face in a horrible grimace and startled the gate guard that she was gurning and sticking out her tongue at the warlord.

  “Did that make you feel better, brat?” said Gyrfalon without looking back.

  “Yes, thank you my lord,” said Annis.

  “He can see out of the back of his head?” Elissa whispered.

  “He guessed, silly; he know me too well,” said Annis.

  Gyrfalon grunted something that, were he still not so unsettled, would have been akin to a laugh; for Annis was ever pragmatic.

  Chapter 7

  Gyrfalon brooded all night on the extrao
rdinary events of the evening. He thought hard about the way Alys’s cross had seemed to fill with fire as she cursed him, fire that recalled to him the burning beam which had fallen on him as he dragged his lieutenant from the house where the barbarians had trapped them. It dazzled and provoked the same fear and pain when Falk wore it, in memory of Alys, to taunt him whenever they met and fought, neither able to achieve ascendancy over the other. He considered how Annis looked so like – yet so unlike – his dead betrothed. He acknowledged that the incident had frightened him; not merely the fear of the magic of the undead necromancer, but perhaps fear as well of the power that Annis seemed to wield.

  At first light the warlord summoned Annis. She was prompt; she had not slept either, but had spent most of the night praying in the castle chapel. Elissa had got quietly drunk outside the chapel door.

  Annis came into Gyrfalon’s chamber with her light tread and ran to his chair and knelt beside it burying her face against his leg.

  “Please tell me you were scared too, my lord,” she begged, “then I won’t feel such an awful coward. We talked about it so calmly while it was happening but I cannot get the horror from in front of mine eyes!”

  The heavy lines running down his face softened slightly.

  “Oh yes, girl; I was scared,” he admitted quietly “Magic is a frightening business to those of us who cannot use it.”

  She shuddered.

  “I suppose there must be white witches, but creatures like that…” she left the sentence unfinished and leaned against him closer. “Some have said I use magic when I heal, but … I could not imagine using it save when concentrating on helping others.”

  He touched her head lightly and came close to caressing her pale locks. She was frightened and had come to him for reassurance; and that had been why she had taken his hands the night before. She was not about to threaten him with a power that she even seemed unaware of. She still called him ‘my lord’; though she had been free enough with his name when she was so shocked about the adulterated salve. The girl had disobeyed him …no she had not, he had said he would take no escort; she had not been forbidden exactly. And she had doubtless talked Elissa into following a vow to the letter, to not let her out of her sight or near the troops. Little sophist! And she had courage and fortitude.