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

by Ellyn, Court

  In all likelihood, Bano’en meant to take a neutral stance during this round of bloodshed as well. He had incurred neither debt nor obligation for which Rhorek could demand reparation. All scores were even. Alovi only hoped that Bano’en owed Shadryk nothing either. If Alovi’s people fought against her family, she would disown them forever, despite the love she bore her brother.

  Smearing traces of heartache from her face, she said, “I can cry about it, or I can do something about it.” She climbed to her feet, knees and back protesting more than she expected, and requested, “Esmi, help me pack my things. I’m taking a trip west.”

  “West?”

  “Aye. To Wyramor.”

  That evening, after Alovi ordered Yorin to take her trunk downstairs, a light fist tapped her door. Etivva’s stiff linen robes rustled as she entered. Her black eyes were as direct as Alovi had ever seen them. She said, “I am going with you.”

  ~~~~

  During a confidential council within the king’s pavilion, Kelyn learned he had passed the test. The War Commander laid out the official plan of attack for the highborns in attendance, and to Kelyn’s surprise, every major stage of the assault on Nathrachan echoed his suggestions. When the king dismissed the council, Kelyn approached his father. “Maybe this isn’t such a good plan after all.”

  Rolling up the map, the War Commander looked bewildered. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well … if we devised identical plans, Da, might it be the most obvious plan of all? Maybe the Fierans have devised the same plan and the best plan to counter it.”

  “Probably.” Keth smiled at his son’s puzzlement. “There are only so many ways to take a fortress or rout an army. Like you yourself said, it’s all a matter of timing. If the Fierans don’t see us coming, then whatever plan they’ve devised will be less effective, yes?”

  “If they do see us coming?”

  “Then it becomes a matter of what you’re willing to sacrifice.”

  Leaving the pavilion, Kelyn longed for his brother’s company, but Kieryn was farther away than ever. The Black Falcon’s host had mobilized at last and marched three days southeast to Whitewood. The squires had erected the tents beneath stands of oak and andyr and set up a rope fence for the horses. Kelyn wended through the twisted old trunks, making for his own tent and trying to feel happy about his accomplishment, but, damn it, he seemed incapable of putting anything into proper perspective until Kieryn had offered his insight. Or maybe Kelyn just wanted to gloat. Surely his brother would congratulate him for impressing the commanders. Perhaps, Kelyn thought, he should’ve sent a letter to Kieryn, too. Bah, Kelyn hated “should haves”—you should’ve kept your pants on, you should’ve gone easy on the wine, you should’ve written a letter to your brother before you got your arm hacked off. What good did that sort of thinking do anyone?

  “Long face,” he heard. Leshan sat outside a tent, giving his sword a few licks with a whetstone. “Wanna tell me about it?”

  Leshan certainly wasn’t Kieryn, all smiles and no sarcasm, but what had the foster-brothers not shared? “I miss Kieryn is all.”

  Leshan mused a while, then said, “Huh, twins,” as if that explained the longing, which, Kelyn decided, it pretty much did.

  Giving in to the need to brag, Kelyn explained the strategy in whispers and lines drawn in the damp earth. He was sure to add the little white lie that he had helped plan it all. Kieryn would’ve caught on and set him straight.

  Leshan, however, was vastly impressed. “Good for you. That oughta lift your spirits.”

  “I’ll be happier when we get to the fighting.” He happened to glance back toward the king’s pavilion and saw Lieutenant Lissah among a gathering of the Falcon Guard. She directed men and women to their posts, assigning the night-watch. Something about her stony exterior caused Kelyn to suspect that her confidence didn’t come as easily as she wanted everyone to believe. A second suspicion was confirmed when the lieutenant saw Kelyn beyond the tip of her finger, and the order died on her mouth.

  “Aye, she wants me,” he said.

  “What? Who?” asked Leshan. He located the lieutenant as the Guard began to disperse. “Are you kidding? She’d as soon cut your throat as look at you. It’s said she did just that to the first man who tried to court her. First and only, I might add.”

  Lissah and a pair of Guardsmen started for the field where the blues were corralled; their path led them past the young knights’ tents. Despite the straight cut of her surcoat and the bulkiness of her armor, the motion of her hips and the sway of her arms were enticingly feminine. Casting Leshan a conspirator’s wink, Kelyn called, “Lieutenant! Have you found the man to hide that silver from yet?”

  Lissah and her companions paused. “Pardon me?” she demanded, as if Kelyn had asked her the distance between the moons.

  “Your winnings?” he clarified.

  “Of course, I know what you mean,” she snapped. A flick of her hand sent her companions scurrying out of earshot. They did not, however, abandon their lieutenant to Kelyn’s taunts, but scowled at him from the edge of the trees. Lissah crossed her arms over her chest and put on a derisive smirk. “You think you are worthy of me?”

  “Maybe I am,” Kelyn said, taking a step forward. Lissah took a step back. Kelyn pretended to be offended. “Do I make you nervous, Lieutenant?”

  She snorted. “Not in the slightest.”

  “No?” He moved in another step.

  Lissah planted her feet firmly enough, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. “What adolescence,” she muttered.

  “I make you nervous,” he stated, now close enough to feel her breath, short and fast, on his face.

  “You think you’re the first to make a fool of yourself? You’re the same as all the others.”

  “Others? What others?” he asked, but he didn’t really care. He wasn’t the same, and he would prove it if she let him. In the least, she wanted him to kiss her. He could see it in the way the stubborn line of her mouth softened. The thought of her façade crumbling fast made him grin, and that proved his mistake.

  “Bastard,” she snarled. With both fists to his chest, she hurled him back a step, then drove a backhand across his face.

  Kelyn gawked at her, blinking away the stars. When he recovered his wits, he grabbed the falcon on her surcoat and rammed his fist into her belly. The chain-mail bruised his knuckles, but did little to protect Lissah from the blow. She doubled over, and Kelyn growled in her ear, “You wanna play rough, Lieutenant, let’s play rough.” A shove with his knee sent her reeling into an andyr. She caught herself and used the trunk to stand straight. Kelyn’s cheekbone throbbed, but he refused to touch it while she was watching.

  The two Falcons hurried to her side.

  Lissah sucked in a breath and managed, “Stand … down.”

  They backed away, looking uncertain. Should they rush Kelyn? Should they send for Captain Jareg? “Lieutenant,” one whispered, shaking his head, but she ignored him and said, “Very well. We’ll play. Draw, damn you.” Steel hissed from its sheath before he could refuse.

  If the other knights camped nearby had overheard the exchange, they had tactfully pretended to be about their own business, but with the open challenge, Lord Morach and Lady Ulna, with half their comrades, gathered to investigate.

  “Lovers’ quarrel?” Ulna asked.

  Morach snorted at the notion. “Kelyn maybe. Not Lissah. She’s as rigid as that steel she’s holdin’.”

  Ulna laughed. “Oh, Morach, that steel flexes just fine.”

  The onlookers kept a safe distance, detecting the difference between this challenge and the one at Bramoran. Gyfan joined Leshan and asked, “Is she serious? Didn’t she see the pounding Swiftblade gave me?”

  “I can’t believe the lieutenant cracked like this,” Leshan whispered.

  “Aye, it’s serious,” Gyfan replied. “Jareg sees fighting in the ranks as near as bad as desertion. She’ll get herself demoted yet.”

  Stan
ding close enough to hear, Kelyn said, “Not on my account, she won’t. That would be too flattering.” He unsheathed the falcon blade.

  Leshan tried to dissuade him with a tiny shake of the head. Kelyn gave him a subtle wink, then stepped into the circle. “First draw?” he asked.

  “First draw,” she agreed. As the offended party, the initial move was hers. Kelyn cracked the bones in his neck, flexed his shoulders, then poised the blade over his head, ready for the attack.

  Lissah wasted no time. Orange light from the setting sun sparked in the sweep of her blade. Kelyn deflected it, extended his left hand, and slid it over her blade’s edge. He disengaged, lifted a bloody palm for all to see, and said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant. Sound victory.”

  “You son of a whore,” she cried. “Too afraid to fight me fair?”

  Kelyn did not deign to reply, only slid away his sword and retreated into his tent. Peeking through the flaps, he saw Lissah pursuing. Yes, follow me inside. Perfect excuse to be alone with me …

  Morach stopped her with a big hand to her shoulder.

  “What’s this now?” Lissah demanded. “Kelyn of Ilswythe is suddenly king of the wood and you his personal guard? I’ll be damned. Protect your boy, then. I’m finished here.” She flicked away Morach’s hand and about-faced for the center of camp. The two Falcons flapped after her, questioning and advising in frantic whispers.

  Leshan came through the flap instead. “She wants you, huh?”

  Kelyn closed his bleeding palm about a kerchief and fell onto his cot. “Some take more persuasion than others. You’ll see.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  Kelyn grinned. “Aren’t I?”

  ~~~~

  Lissah cursed herself for being drawn in by that conceited child. For noticing the blue and gold of his eyes, for imagining the taste of his skin, for hoping he owned one tender bone in his body. She should’ve known. Life was a joke to him and Lissah’s feelings were no exception. How could she have lost her self-control? She dismissed the two Falcons who tried squawking sense into her ear, then set a course for Captain Jareg’s tent. She would beg for some distant assignment to get her away from this camp and away from him.

  Beyond the last of the tents, the sentries sent up a cry of alarm. Hurrying toward them, Lissah saw an old swayback mule galloping through the trees. A pair of Falcon Guards tried to intercept the animal but dove aside when it didn’t stop. The rider was a youth in threadbare homespun. Mud from a lengthy run spattered him and the mule both. Lather dripped white from the nag’s muzzle, the youth’s eyes were white with fear, and they raced straight for the king’s conspicuous blue pavilion. Lissah called the youth to halt, but he seemed unable—or unwilling—to heed. Lissah still carried a bare blade. She grabbed for the mule’s harness, pulled the animal to a dancing stop, and poised the tip of her sword at the youth’s belly.

  His hands flailed before his face. “No, no, please,” he cried. “I have … for the king … a d-delivery. Please.”

  “Dismount!”

  The youth more or less fell off the mule, a bundle clutched under one arm. The stench wafting off him was enough to gag an ogre. Flies lifted in a buzzing cloud.

  “Who in hell are you?” she demanded. “How did you find us?”

  “I’m nobody, lady. I plow the sir’s fields … at Midguard Tower, that way.” A quaking hand pointed north, but Midguard Tower was far to the west, a river fort in the Shadow Mounds. He was either confused or lying. His manner indicated the former. “I rode as far as Tírandon and the lords there tol’ me the king were here in Whitewood. Oh, please, don’t hurt me.”

  Lissah lowered her sword and forced her expression to relax. “No one will hurt you, lad.” But, she decided, she might hurt some great loudmouth at Tírandon for revealing the king’s position to anyone but an official courier. Helwende’s infantry had been deployed to Tírandon, she mused, and she didn’t know the integrity of Galt’s sons. “Give this delivery to me. I’ll take it to the king.”

  The youth lifted the bundle reluctantly, as if he couldn’t quite to part with it.

  A velvet bag, drawn closed with gold cord, hung heavy from the boy’s fist. The velvet had been white once, but the contents had stained it brown-red. It must’ve ceased dripping days ago. Clearly the source of the stench, the bag drew the greedy flies.

  Her supper rising, Lissah asked, “How did you come by this?”

  “Workin’ sir’s fields, lady,” he explained. “A man, a soldier, not ours, rides from the river bottom and throws this at me and says, ‘Take it to the Black Bird. From King Shadryk the Third’. My da had to tell me who the Black Bird was, but I done like the soldier tol’ me. I … I took good care of him.”

  Lissah pried the bag free of the youth’s grasp. He looked after it with a confused mix of horror and longing. Carrying it to the pavilion, Lissah called, “Captain!”

  The tone in her voice brought Jareg from the pavilion without delay.

  Lissah extended the velvet bag. “For His Majesty.”

  “What’s for me?” Rhorek asked, emerging. Lord Ilswythe followed close. They surveyed the bag and the rider, then Rhorek waved a hand for Lissah to proceed. She looked to Jareg and managed a shake of the head. He took the bag from her, opened the drawstring, dipped in his hand, and pulled out a severed head by a tangle of dark hair.

  Lissah could manage no more than a glance. The War Commander swore. The king’s eyes clamped shut. “Burn him,” he ordered, “with all honors.” He said nothing else, but retreated into the darkness of the pavilion.

  ~~~~

  Only Keth dared to pursue the king. Rhorek leant heavily on a trestle table, listening to his orders being carried out and word of the delivery spreading under the trees. Yes, every warrior would be thirsty for blood now.

  “Rhorek,” Keth began, “these things are part of—”

  The king’s fist thundered on the tabletop. “If I had the decision to make over again, I would tell you all to rot in the Abyss! I should’ve been a tyrant, overruled you, denied you the vote altogether.”

  In a moment’s silence, Keth said, “Sire, if the king himself loses heart, then Aralorr has taken her first step toward defeat. We will win this fight.”

  Rhorek cast Keth a glare charged with a dragon’s ferocity. “You’re damned right we’ll win it. I’ll not let that man, or any other, die for nothing. Let that be Shadryk’s regret. If he owns the capacity for regret.” Staring at the silken wall and far beyond it, he added in the most quietly malefic voice, “I will see Shadryk’s head in a velvet bag before I die, I swear by the Mother’s sacred bosom.”

  The king’s determination reassured Keth; he waited in silence, watching the dragon’s face diminish and become Rhorek’s, sad and thoughtful. “Ah, my friend,” he muttered, “we highborns wage wars, our sons fight them, and the commoners suffer through them. I remember the villages around Lunélion burning. Do you remember?”

  “I do.”

  “Goryth of Machara led the burning parties. Shadryk’s warlord now. If the Fierans cross the Bryna, we know what treatment our people will receive.”

  “Yes, sire, but that’s only if—”

  “Don’t. We are not naïve, War Commander. The Bryna is as long today as it was yesterday, and Lander’s cavalry and Kassen’s dwarves cannot possibly defend every inch of it. Now listen to me and listen well. When we make our push toward Brynduvh, not one unarmed peasant is to be harmed, not one woman raped. The men have camp followers if they need to remind themselves of the good things in life. We will forage as we must, but not one cottage is to be torched. Let Fierans be Fierans, but Aralorris are not savages. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “You may go.”

  Keth bowed his departure, but Rhorek’s voice stop him at the flap: “Not long ago I envied you, Keth, for your sons. But tonight I am glad I have no sons old enough to send out there.” He descended slowly into a leather camp chair. “And yet … th
ey are all my sons—sons and daughters.”

  That evening, Keth lounged outside his tent, watching dozens of campfires flicker under the trees. The king’s words had left Keth in a pensive mood and he made for rotten company. Captain Jareg had talked to himself for half an hour before he realized Keth wasn’t listening and retired. Rhorek wanted nothing to do with his War Commander, or anyone else for that matter, and had turned down his lamps long ago.

  Two more days, maybe four, Keth calculated, before Lord Athlem’s infantry and Princess Mazél’s cavalry arrived at Nathrachan’s south gate. Boatmen from the Brenlach had been deployed to the edge of the Whitewood to build a series of ferries. When they were finished, Keth would lead his son into the circle of blood and fire. He would have to remind himself to be objective about Kelyn. He was a boy no longer, but a knight, and a knight’s duty was to charge headlong into that deadly circle.

  The laughter and boisterous conversation circulating under the trees assured Keth that the morale of the knights far surpassed his own. At a fire halfway across camp, Kelyn gave an order to his own squire, settled himself in his own chair. He laughed with his comrades, and Keth realized how odd it felt to have one son nearby and not the other. Where Kelyn was, Kieryn was often not far behind. But not tonight. A sharp pang of regret caused Keth to squirm. He remembered how he had reached out to his son—and how short he’d come.

  You love me despite my flaw, not along with any gift … Keth cringed. Kieryn was right. He had revealed a truth to his father, and Keth had hated him for it. Elven. Avedra. His blood or Alovi’s. Whichever. So be it.

  Until now, within the moonless dark of Whitewood, Keth hadn’t allowed himself to ponder the truth his son presented. Kieryn had left defiant, and now he was too far away for Keth to tell him …

  “Da?”