Blood of the Falcon, Volume 1 (The Falcons Saga)

by Ellyn, Court

  Thick white mist slipped down from the peak, shrouding a collapsing white wall. The drivers slapped the reins. The two handmaids dug in their heels. One of the horses reared, throwing its lady from the saddle.

  “Maeline!” shouted Rhoslyn, voice barely audible over the roar of the rushing snow and the pelting wind. She leapt from her filly, dodged a fleeing wagon, and ran for her handmaid.

  Kieryn jumped down after her, grabbed her around the waist, and dove with her into the lee of a boulder. Rhoslyn cursed and fought him, but he pinned her inside his arms and legs, just as the force of the wall struck them like a thousand fists of ice. Kieryn felt his body flung forward and tumbled like a leaf in a flood. The snow filled his mouth, his ears, his arms. Rhoslyn! Where was Rhoslyn? He heard a brief scream close to his ear, then nothing but the shushing roar of the snow.

  ~~~~

  Someone shook him and shouted, “Dig faster!” A man’s voice, familiar. “Kieryn! Lad. Can you hear me?” Kieryn grunted in response. “Do you hurt? Can you move?” Opening his eyes, he found Lord Davhin’s face twisted with fear, snow clinging to his beard.

  One of the drivers dug dog-like, heaping up mounds of snow nearby. “She coulda been washed down the cliff, m’ lord,” he said, breathless.

  As if memory were a second avalanche, Kieryn kicked against the snow, frantic, but its weight on his legs was too much. “Rhoslyn! Where—”

  “Easy, son.”

  “I’m here.” Fingers stroked his face. Rhoslyn sat on her knees beside him, her hair a sodden tangle about her face. Fear nestled in her eyes. She watched the driver dig.

  Sure that no bones were broken, Kieryn raised an arm, and Davhin tugged him out of the drift. He felt as if he’d been stoned half to death. Gingerly, he breathed in a chestful of air and sank onto the snow next to Rhoslyn. “Thought I’d lost you,” he said.

  “For a moment, I thought you were … well … you didn’t lose me.” A smile flicked across her lips. “Davhin had to pry me out of your arms. I think you crushed me more than the snow did. But one of the wagons went over. Both its horses. And the driver. And we haven’t found….” Rhoslyn’s lip trembled from cold and grief. Holding the reins of the horses, only one handmaid.

  Though his head still spun, Kieryn scrambled across the snow and dug alongside Davhin and the other driver. A handful of guards dug farther back along the pass. One of them shouted, “Here! She’s here!” Everyone converged on the spot, though it was perilously close to the cliff’s edge, and scooped snow away from the dark shape in the drifts. Davhin uncovered a face. Blue skin. Eyes open, though snow lay upon them.

  Rhoslyn turned away, hand over her mouth. Kieryn touched her shoulder and she sagged against him, sobbing. To hell with rumors, he held her close while she mourned.

  Glancing up the mountainside at the broken trees and muddy snow, he wondered if the same fire that had killed the assassin might’ve stopped the avalanche; in the least, diverted it. Where was this gift when he needed it? What good was it if he couldn’t spare Rhoslyn heartache?

  ~~~~

  10

  The torches of Bramoran Royal guided the king and his retinue through a dense midnight fog. A herald’s horn shrieked across the darkness, and the massive iron gates lurched open. In the past, the castle had seemed to float on the lazy current of peacetime diplomacy. Servants and couriers had gone about their business without urgency. Great feasts had been consumed over the course of many hours. Soldiers had drilled in the Green. And the fragrant gardens, where Kelyn had spent so many days of his childhood, had borne witness to schemes and counter-schemes unfolding as gradually as the roses.

  But tonight, the drawbridge shuddered under two lines of warhorses, and Kelyn saw that the gardens had become irrelevant. Even at this impossible hour, the Green—a half-mile expanse of lawn between the outer wall and the inner—teamed with a gathering host. Canvas tents sprang up along the thoroughfare as Bramoran’s militia assembled from the countryside.

  Huddling beneath the inner wall, the town was in a full state of wakefulness. Lighted windows and watchmen’s lamps flickered through the mist. A pair of guards had been posted atop each of Bramoran’s thirty towers. And rearing high over the wall, the keep squatted like a sleepless dragon.

  Excitement rippled up Kelyn’s arms and settled at the nape of his neck. Shortly after Kieryn rode out with the Evaronnan party, Da had sent out the call to rally his cavalry and militia. The fighting men from Ilswythe Village had assembled that afternoon, armed with seven-foot-long pikes. Knights from the closest holdings arrived with their retinues. The rest were given a fortnight to assemble at Bramoran or find themselves accused of desertion. Similar orders would, by now, have found their way across Aralorr, and within a month’s time, a mighty host would crowd the Green and the hillsides beyond. On this cold damp night, however, the War Commander rode at the head of only a handful of knights. King Rhorek rode beside him, surrounded by the Guard.

  As the newest of knights, Kelyn was relegated to the rear of the company, just before the squires on their racers. He found that he didn’t mind. The squires had ogled him since the company had ridden out from Ilswythe that morning, admiring him as he had once admired the knights riding ahead of him.

  Keth led them through the town and into the castle bailey, where the king’s smiths and armorers clanged over their anvils, repairing chain-mail and plate armor, sharpening swords, pikes, and axes, replenishing arrow stores, and shoeing horses. The household poured in and out of the castle on countless missions at once. The riders dismounted and handed off their horses to a sweaty crew of overworked stableboys. Many knights had already arrived; the stableyard swarmed with fine dapple-gray mounts.

  Kelyn won free of the press of horseflesh and found Leshan on the steps, smiling ear to ear. “About time you got here.”

  Kelyn greeted his foster-brother with an embrace. “I thought you’d be all the way to Tírandon by now.”

  “No sense in it. I’d just have to come right back. Mother was disappointed I didn’t go home, but she understood. Da argued for the sake of arguing. But come, I think I got here early enough to claim one of the better rooms.”

  While the War Commander followed Rhorek to the King’s Hall, a steward escorted the knights to their wing of the barracks. Kelyn had yet to fully grasp that he was, in fact, to be housed among knights, share in their talk and laughter and camaraderie, no longer subjected to the servitude of a squire. Within the next few days, Kelyn would be assigned a squire of his own. Too bad he couldn’t steal Laral away from Da. That boy was already trained to his liking.

  At the top of a wide stone stair, one of Bramoran’s knights welcomed the newcomers. Kelyn recognized the brawny, bear-shaped frame, the dark-bearded face. Morach, Lord of Longmead Manor, was a veteran of the last war against the Fierans. The wild mop of dark hair was rumored to conceal a dent in the back of his head where a Fieran’s mace had bashed in his helm. He liked to tease the wenches by daring them to feel for the dent, whereupon he would grab them and kiss them and send them away squealing. Morach directed the Ilswythe knights down either end of a long corridor to their accommodations. But when he clapped eyes on Kelyn and Leshan, his bear paws knotted on his hips, he threw his head back, and howled. “Ha, the new meat! The Fierans will have a grand feast on the likes of you green’uns.”

  Indignation flared from Kelyn’s gut to the tips of his ears. “Hold on, mate—”

  “I know who you are, Kelyn, son of Keth,” Morach said, sneering. The knights in the corridors snickered; those in their rooms poked scarred faces from doorways. “And I know you, Leshan, son of Lander,” he added. Eyes the gray-green of marsh water raked the youths head to heel. Leshan retreated a couple of steps. Kelyn climbed a couple more, puffing up like a mad dog.

  “I am the son of the War Commander,” he asserted, expecting the man to give way. Only Morach’s eyebrows twitched. “And Leshan is also the heir of a house more prestigious than your own. We are both knights and, l
ike you, we deserve—”

  “No!” Morach bellowed. “Saying ‘I swear’ makes you loyal to the king, but it makes you no knight. You must prove yourself to be counted among us, lads—no matter who your sires be.” Of every man and woman present, he asked, “And where does fresh meat spend their first night among us?”

  Half a hundred knights pointed at the far end of the corridor, and half a hundred voices sang, “In the Tower, in the Tower!”

  Morach laughed deep in his gut and lifted an inviting hand. “Follow me, noble knights.” At the end of the corridor, he climbed a narrow stair that wound up and up until it encountered a wooden ceiling. He shoved up a square door on rusted hinges and lowered a challenging grin.

  “To the Abyss with you,” Kelyn said and charged up the steps with Leshan close behind. A circular room, fifteen feet in diameter, greeted them. Mist-shrouded light from windows far below shivered through four arrow loops. Ancient powdered straw mortared the crevices of the floorboards, and the stone walls glistened with the wet.

  “There are no beds!” Leshan shouted.

  “Oh, c’mon,” Kelyn groaned.

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  Morach laughed. “Sleep well, noble knights.” He closed the trap door and bellowed a bawdy tune all the way back down the tower:

  “The errant knight, he moaned and cried—

  No bride he could afford.

  A fairy crone the knight she spied,

  Pled she, “Bed here, milord.”

  A sheath had she and he a sword

  And they by moons were wed.

  A good shag she, but, O, she snored,

  So back to war he fled.”

  “Bastards!” Kelyn exclaimed.

  Leshan burst into laughter. His dark eyes danced with the irony, and he raked a hand through mist-damp hair. Kelyn leveled a scorching eye on him, but Leshan was unable to sober himself. “Your face—!”

  “This is not funny!” Kelyn cried. He peered through an arrow loop at rooftops that looked like capsized ships in the fog; he even looked down on the sentries condemned to walking the curtain walls. “How high are we?” He shuddered with the creeping cold and cursed. “They could at least cover the loops with furs. I will not miss this war because of pneumonia.”

  “What good would furs do?” Leshan chortled, gesturing at the night-pocked ceiling. Holes dripped with condensing fog, and a pool collected in the middle of the sagging floor. Kelyn backed up to the slick wall, not trusting the creaking floorboards to hold his weight.

  Leshan slid down the wall to settle himself for the duration. “You have to admit, they have a point.”

  “A point, Leshan? Most of those noble knights down there are barely older than we are. No war has been fought in twenty years, which means most of them are as ‘green’ as we, certainly not ‘proved.’ I’d wager I could beat every last one of them in a sword match. Bastards.”

  “Why don’t you challenge them then?” Leshan suggested with a rare show of sarcasm. “That would get you a warm bed, sure enough.”

  “In the infirmary, you mean?”

  Leshan flung out his cloak, pulled it up to his chin, and curled up on the floor. He hadn’t bothered squirming out of the heavy chain-mail. Likely, both his hauberk and Kelyn’s would be rusted by morning. Didn’t Leshan care about that? How could he take this insult in stride?

  “Damn you,” Kelyn muttered. He doubted Kieryn was suffering as miserable a night as this. The Duchess’s party should have reached Vonmora today, if not Windhaven. Sleeping in the lap of luxury, Kieryn was, with a full belly, after a hot bath. Kelyn heaved a sigh and slid down the wall, braced his wrists over his knees, and stared glumly at the mists glowing ruddy with the torchlight.

  He felt as much a prisoner as Lady Bysana must. He wondered which cold, lofty tower the king had locked her in and briefly pitied her.

  “Who do you hope to be placed under?” Leshan asked from the dark, as casually as if he sat beside a hearth-fire.

  Kelyn shrugged and pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders. “I might request Princess Mazél. Have you seen how Lady Maeret sits a horse?”

  Leshan laughed. “Kieryn’s right. You have no shame. But I’m serious.”

  “Maybe your da,” Kelyn said, picking up a strand of straw and breaking it to pieces. “He sees more action than most, living near the Bryna. You?”

  Leshan didn’t hesitate. “I’d like to be under your father’s command, for a few years at least.”

  “You’ve been under his command since you were ten. Why not your own da?”

  With a clatter of chain-mail, Leshan rose onto an elbow. “Like you said, he sees a lot of action. Besides, who wants to be under their parents’ command all their lives?”

  “But you’ll inherit Tírandon, might as well learn how to run it. Besides, my da is practically a second father to you. Aren’t you ready to go someplace besides Ilswythe?”

  “No.”

  Frustrated with Leshan’s placid attitude, Kelyn barked, “Doesn’t matter anyway. Every knight will be riding south soon enough, and that’s fine by me.”

  Leshan had no reply for that, and Kelyn was satisfied. He, at least, unbuckled his sword belt before bedding down. Laying with the hilt of his prize in his hand, he tried to convince his eyes to close and stay closed. Leshan was right to laugh at the situation. For once, Kelyn had displayed very poor grace. He was a knight. A soldier. What did he imagine war would be like? All parades and palace feasts? If he couldn’t sleep in the elements and accept circumstances as they arose, he may as well saddle Chaya and return to Mother.

  This wasn’t so bad, after all. He hated to think of the poor bastards Morach had condemned to the Tower in midwinter. It was damp, true, but the ceiling might be letting in torrents of rain, instead of gentle drifts of fog. He was hungry for certain, ‘sent to bed’ with no dinner and no squire to bring him one, but Rhorek wouldn’t let his knights starve, and sooner or later he’d be fed. He could wait. He could endure it. With grace, he chided himself. With a smile.

  Sleep that night was as thin as a beggar’s underclothes. Several times Kelyn jolted upright, having dreamt the Tower was toppling. But near dawn, exhaustion got the better of him and he slept deeply—too deeply. His nightmares were of strangers’ faces, hissing whispers, and mocking laughter. When he woke, he found that the nightmares weren’t far removed from reality. His ankles had been tied together, and as he sat up, someone pulled a noose tight about his wrists. The chafe of the rope wasn’t half as infuriating as the tip of the blade at his throat.

  “Noble knights sleep soundly in the Tower,” snickered the man with the blade.

  Another said, “Not a good habit with so many enemies about.”

  Carefully, Kelyn peered to his left, found a second man holding a blade to Leshan’s throat. Kelyn recognized him. “Lord Gyfan, right? Invested, what, two years ago?”

  Gyfan returned a curt nod. “The prisoners are to come below,” he said. “Breakfast awaits them.”

  Trussed up like sows for slaughter, Kelyn and Leshan were dragged to the knights’ mess hall, a luxurious room of richly varnished andyr paneling lit warmly with candles perched in chandeliers made from elk antlers. For intolerably long moments, they endured rounds of taunting, but Kelyn remembered his smiles and obeisant bows. Lord Gyfan cut their bonds and directed them to the far end of the main table. Lord Morach himself occupied the other end like some bloody potentate.

  “You come to breakfast filthy and unshaven, lads?” Morach said with exaggerated disapproval. “Or do you even shave yet?” The diners roared anew.

  “Don’t fret it, lads,” said Ulna, Lady of Blue Mountain. “We ladies don’t shave either.” The scattering of female knights jeered as loudly as their comrades.

  “We had little choice in the matter,” Kelyn said. “We are prisoners, after all. But if this is how His Majesty’s knights treat a noble prisoner, I am glad I’m not Fieran.”

  “Aye, we’d have cut o
ff your heads by now,” said a knight at the next table.

  But Morach was no fool. Kelyn’s insult had not been sly enough to slip past him. Descent treatment of highborn prisoners-of-war was a matter of knightly honor. He started to stand and address the issue, but Kelyn squeezed in another punch. “Give me one year more, and I’ll own a beard to surpass yours, Morach.”

  “Oooo,” passed like a wind among the knights sitting between them.

  “We’ll see, lad,” Morach said, resuming his seat. “You’ve got to survive that year first.” More amiably he added, “I’ll tell you true, I only grew this beard to keep the ladies away. They hounded me to no end. When I looked as scary as a dwarven berserker they left off a bit.”

  Kelyn grinned. “Then perhaps I’ll forego the beard, and wear the ladies instead.”

  The lady knights rolled their eyes, even while the men laughed and pounded their fists on the table. Lord Rand, Kelyn’s neighbor at the table, clapped him on the back.

  Leshan cast him a congratulatory grin, but if they thought they had won their entrance so easily, they were sadly mistaken. The squires placed the dishes of food at Morach’s end of the table so that everything had to be passed down the two rows of diners. Tongue in cheek, the knights heaped food onto their plates. By the time the dishes reached Kelyn and Leshan, nothing was left. Kelyn gaped at the obscene mountain of food piled on Lord Rand’s plate, but the knight regarded Kelyn guilelessly and asked him to pass the decanter of wine. Reaching for it, Kelyn gave Leshan a conspiratorial wink, then let the decanter slip from his grasp. Golden morning wine splashed down the knight’s tunic, and he jumped to his feet with a yowl.

  “Pardons, lord. I’m so sorry,” Kelyn said, dabbing at the wine with a linen napkin.