by Ellyn, Court
“The walls of Nathrachan are strong, love,” he countered. “If the Aralorris have the gall to attack us, we—”
“Shut up,” she hissed, “and listen well, you miserable idiot. Without our forces assembled within the walls, those walls are just stone, and stone can be broken. Our guards number ten, our garrison fifty, barely a force sufficient enough to repulse a full-fledged assault. Do you wish to suffer a siege and starve, hmm? Have you heard that Lord Locmar has crossed the Upper Bryna and is laying waste to every village along the Brenlach? When, love, did you intend to rally our vassals and their armies?” She gave him no time to reply. “Rest assured, your wife has done it for you. Tomorrow our people will begin arriving, and I suggest you encourage—in the fewest words possible—Lord Karnedyr to drive the Aralorris off my brother’s land. Do that, and I may forgive your oversight. In the meanwhile, my love, pray that—”
A blast from a sentry’s horn snatched the prayer from her lips. On the ramparts and in the courtyard, the garrison rushed to the gatehouse, drawing swords and stringing bows.
A sentry thundered into the dining hall. “Your Highness, my lord, Aralorris! Captain Raeg says the banners belong to Lunélion and Locmar.”
Birél looked fearfully at his wife and seemed smaller than ever in his oversized tunic. His face lost all of its sparse color. “It’s too late,” he squeaked. “What should we do?”
“You look to me for guidance?” Ki’eva sneered. “You’ll go to the gatehouse, that’s what, and speak to their commanders. Your ineptitude, my love, has left you but two choices. You can surrender, which may buy us our lives, but disgrace your worthless name for all history. Or you can bolt the gates and wait for my brother’s competent vassals to come to our rescue.”
From the battlements, Ki’eva watched blue-clad riders on dapple-gray warhorses assemble in the pastures. A blue banner blazoned with a white tower snapped over their helmets. Phalanxes of dusty infantry approached behind the red andyr tree of Locmar. The ruddy light of sunset glimmered fiercely on the armor of riders and horses, and from the points of pikes like blood.
Upon a magnificent charger, a commander rode from under the white-tower banner, accompanied by a guard of knights. Wearing a white plume atop a black falcon helm, the commander called, “I am Lady Maeret, daughter of the Princess Mazél, Lady Lunélion. In the name of his most noble Majesty, King Rhorek, the Black Falcon of Aralorr, I demand your surrender.”
Ki’eva jabbed Birél in the ribs. “Do it!”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you, wife? See me disgraced?”
“Can’t you see?” she said with a sweep of her hand. “You’re already a disgrace. You were born a disgrace. The history pages will be the worse for remembering you at all.”
A strange look of awakening came into Birél’s eyes. “Aye,” he said, making a pathetic attempt to puff out his chest. “If I lead one sortie, I may reclaim my honor.”
“Fight? You?”
Birél ignored Ki’eva’s remark and called down the tower, “Thank you for your most gracious offer, lady, but we must decline.”
Ki’eva shoved Birél back from the crenels and started to revoke her husband’s statement, but a forceful grip on her wrist took her by surprise. “Don’t,” Birél said.
Lady Maeret accepted the decision with a formal bow of her head, then wheeled her mount and returned to her banner. Aralorr’s host divided right and left to surround the castle. Watching the infantry slide into a quick march, Ki’eva burst into laughter. The sound rang off the stones of the keep. Birél’s grip tightened and he tugged her closer. “You mock me here, before friend and foe?”
“I laugh for more reasons than you can comprehend,” she retorted. “I laugh to mock you, yes. I laugh at the situation you’ve gotten us into, and how suddenly Birél finds his dignity. I laugh to celebrate, for very soon I will be a widow. If this war doesn’t kill you, my brother will. If he doesn’t, I will. I will no longer be bound to a fool of your magnitude.” She caught a fleeting glimpse of something crazed in Birél’s eye, like that of a hound who’s been whipped once too often. Fearing Birél’s new-found courage might prompt him to pitch her from the battlement, Ki’eva snatched her arm away and descended to the courtyard. Birél’s voice followed her:
“Captain Raeg, spare two guards and have my loving wife escorted through the tunnel to the river. Put her on a boat and get her out of my sight.”
~~~~
Cries of battle echoed across the sliding black waters of the Bryna. Rhythmic thumps like a muffled drum shook the blood in Kelyn’s veins. Locmar’s battering ram knocked at the castle’s front gate. Kelyn couldn’t wait to get across the river. Hiding in the moonshadows of Whitewood Forest was more than he could bear.
That morning, the Black Falcon’s army had set up camp a quarter mile from the Bryna, their canvas tents shrouded under boughs and uprooted bushes. Da’s order had been to lie still until Lord Athlem and Lady Maeret turned Nathrachan’s eyes to the south gate. Kelyn had expected a couple of dull days of hiding in his tent, but at sunset, Da sent Laral to shake the flaps and deliver the order to prepare. Dusk revealed the flickering of campfires against the Fieran hills, and just after dark, the thudding of the ram began.
The War Commander had divided his host into small platoons, numbered according to order of crossing, and now he stood upon the north bank supervising the manning of the first ferry. Following orders given by hand signal alone, the soldiers piled onto the raft. Dismounted knights, common cavalry, and Vonmora’s archers were grouped together in a random fashion, and when Kelyn asked his father why he sent knights and archers together, Keth explained that should one of the ferries founder or a few of his soldiers be discovered before the whole army was across, well, Keth wouldn’t risk losing too many archers at once, or too many knights. Kelyn supposed he couldn’t outguess his father every time.
Keth raised his fist to order the first ferry to shove off, but across the river, a boat disconnected from a pier below the fortress and slipped into the water. “Wait, Da!” Kelyn cried, pointing. The current swept the boat, a small, flat-bottomed barge, toward the ferry crossing.
The War Commander whisper-shouted, “Down!”
The troops aboard the ferry and the men waiting on shore dropped to their bellies. Black clouds like fox tails swept about Thyrra’s face and dulled the silver light glinting off mail and plate-armor.
“Do we attack it, sir?” whispered Lord Davhin.
Keth debated while the boat approached. “Women and children likely. No. Let it go. Secrecy is primary, and we haven’t the means to sink her.” The vessel slid past, as silent as an unspoken thought. When the darkness hid it from sight, Keth motioned the ferry forward.
A heavy rope, secured between the banks, guided the ferries far more quietly than plunking, splashing oars. With each crossing, Kelyn searched Nathrachan’s towers. He feared his comrades would be discovered before he could join them. They would fight without him. Da must’ve considered this as well and taken the cautious approach where his son was concerned, placing Kelyn in one of the last groupings. Fortunately, the ferries moved more quickly than Kelyn had anticipated; several hours before dawn, the rafts returned for him. Kelyn paced, willing the ferry to move faster. His hand jumped to the pommel at his hip and away. Figures darted about the shadowy towers, silhouetted against a blue-black sky, but the only sounds of battle rose from the gatehouse far away. “Just let me get across,” he prayed aloud.
Someone grabbed his arm, and he spun like a whirlwind. “You’re sprung tighter than a cornered snow cat, lad,” Morach said. “A case of fear, is it?”
“Get me across that river, and I’ll show you how afraid I am.”
“Aye? Well, at present you’re proving nothing to no one. Just making the rest of us nervous.”
The men who were to cross with him waited calmly near the bank. Leshan seemed as quiescent as the veterans. Even the squires who were to cross, carrying their lords’ shields, wer
e calmer than he. Kelyn chided himself, “Grace, damn it.” He planted both feet squarely in the trodden weeds and breathed deeply.
“It’s expected from new meat,” Morach said, smirking. He sobered quickly, however, and added, “Look lively. Your da.”
Keth edged through the alders and beckoned Kelyn and Leshan to him. He took them around the nape and said, “If it comes to it, fight back to back, as I taught you.”
Kelyn glared at him. “We won’t forget, sir.” He hoped to remind his father that he was, indeed, a knighted soldier who was expected to know his business.
But Keth added, “Battle can do strange things to a man’s mind. Keep your wits about you.”
Leshan nodded. Kelyn ducked away from his father’s grasp.
“I’ll keep my eye on ‘em, m’ lord,” Morach said, giving them claps on their backs that sent them forward a step.
Keth motioned them onto the ferry. Kelyn claimed a forward corner of the swaying planks for himself and found Morach leeched to his side. “I don’t appreciated being coddled,” he asserted.
“For his reassurance, not yours, lad. If he’s to command us effectively, he can’t be worried about the likes of you.”
How many times had Morach’s words put Kelyn to shame? What a time to realize how self-absorbed he was. Of course his father would be concerned for him, however much Kelyn resented it, and probably no amount of time or escaped danger would lessen Da’s worries. No man should be expected to regard his children objectively under these circumstances. Even Lord Lander had pulled Leshan aside earlier in the night and spoken privately with him.
Kelyn watched his father and the northern bank recede. The War Commander handed Laral a broad shield, then bid farewell to Lander, whose troops were to guard the Aralorri bank. Surrounded by a circle of the Falcon Guard, Rhorek took Keth’s arm and said something that looked like ‘see you inside.’
The thumping of the ram grew more distinct as the span of water lessened. Shouts of archers in the towers and commanders on the ground soon rose out of the thunder. At last, the ferry bumped softly into the muddy shore, and Kelyn was the first of his squad upon Fieran soil. He followed the trail through the reeds and brambles that his predecessors had beaten low. Leshan and Morach stayed close behind. He knew he’d found his rendezvous point when a hand reached from a thicket of foliage and seized his ankle. He stifled an outcry and saw Lord Rand grinning up at him from a muddy ditch. “About time you boys arrived,” he said and slid to the side, making room. The Evaronnan archers continued past to join their ranks farther upriver. The infantrymen had gone the other direction, making their way south, closer to Lord Athlem’s position.
From the ditch, Kelyn could just make out the jutting curve of the gatehouse tower. Moons and campfires provided enough light to see teams of orderlies in white tunics carrying wounded Aralorris away from the gate and fresh troops jogging in to replace them at the ram. The thunder at the gate now shuddered deep through the ground and into Kelyn’s bones.
Several feet hurried past. Peering through the brush, Kelyn saw the War Commander, Laral, and a number of others make their way to the archers’ position. Finally, Kelyn thought. As one great spiked animal, the archers rose to their knees, bowstrings taut, and loosed. The arrows caught the faint red light of campfires before descending over the walls. A new shout rose from inside the fortress, and a dozen Fieran archers raced to the northern wall and loosed arrows into the darkness.
At Kelyn’s side, Lord Rand howled, then lay still. An arrow stood up from his back. Whether the shot had been random or the Fierans could see them, the foliage had given everyone a false sense of safety.
Kelyn gave Rand’s shoulder a shake. No response. He put his hand to the embedded arrow.
“Leave it,” Rand demanded, startling him. “Pull it out and I’ll scream, and they’ll know where we are for certain. Your shield, boy!”
Kelyn slung the shield off his shoulder—his own squire too young and inexperienced to accompany him—and planted it firmly in the ground. Drawing up his knees, he rolled himself into as small a target as possible. He nudged Leshan on his right.
“What!” Leshan shouted, fear plain.
“Shield, damn it.”
Leshan followed Kelyn’s example just as another volley drove an arrow into the earth between them.
“Goddess,” Leshan panted. He swore again when he saw Rand and his arrow. And again when he heard the cries from Vonmora’s archers, who were exposed every time they rose to loose. Fieran arrows found easy targets, toppling Lord Davhin’s men down the bank and into the river. The knights could hear the bodies splashing. “Kelyn!” cried Leshan, but he had no need to follow up with the obvious: they were no longer playing at the war games of boys or the training missions of squires.
“Rest easy, son, and hold onto that shield,” Morach urged. Leshan grew quiet after that.
Kelyn’s anger far outweighed his fear. “I didn’t think I’d be hiding in a hole once I got here.” An arrowhead thunked through his shield, and Kelyn’s chosen invective was far fouler than Leshan’s appeal to the Goddess.
A vast crunch, like a giant’s bones breaking, came from the gatehouse, and a triumphant cry rose from the Aralorri camp. The gate had given way and Athlem’s infantry charged headlong for the breach.
“Damned if I’ll let them do all the fighting,” Kelyn said.
“We should wait until—” Leshan began, but Kelyn dashed from the underbrush. “Shit! Morach,” Leshan cried.
Kelyn vaguely heard the man bellow after him, but he couldn’t turn back now. He raced over open ground, shield held high on his left, sword unsheathed. Fortunately, the Nathrachan garrison couldn’t afford to spare more than a half-dozen archers on any one side of the fortress, and Kelyn made a fast, elusive target. He glanced back only once and found most of the other knights, Leshan and Morach among them, loping after him. Lady Ulna tore an arrow from her thigh as she ran.
At the gatehouse, the infantry bottlenecked between the broken doors and paid dearly in numbers as the Fierans loosed arrows from the murder holes overhead. Kelyn raised his shield like a roof and shoved through the press. The cobbles were treacherously uneven, he thought, tripping up one man and another as he shoved past, then Kelyn realized he was stepping on bodies. Aralorri and Fieran alike.
The gate funneled him into a broad courtyard. There, a green-smocked Fieran ran at him with a reddened blade. Kelyn barely had time to lower his shield. The clash drove him back a step and jolted something in his brain: he had crossed swords with his father, Captain Maegeth, Laral, countless numbers of his own countrymen, but he had never encountered the raw urge to kill as he witnessed in this stranger’s face. It terrified him, enraged him. Even the arrow in Rand’s back hadn’t awakened him to the fact that he was in a battle for his life, that this was the moment he’d been preparing for since his earliest memory. He struck with desperate fury. The Fieran stepped back under the onslaught, failed to keep up, and the falcon blade sliced across the softness of his gut. Kelyn felt the steel sink deep into wet flesh, and his stomach turned. But another man ran at him, leaving him no time to indulge in sickness.
The second man wore not the uniform of a Fieran guard, but a tunic of rich gold silk, too large for his frame. He hefted a two-handed greatsword and bellowed like a mad snow elk. The man struck with a force that felled Kelyn to his knees. But after the initial attack, the man seemed unaware of what to do next and retreated back a step to recharge his swing. Kelyn lunged forward and drove the falcon blade through the man’s belly. The greatsword fell from the man’s grasp, and he slumped into the black falcon on Kelyn’s chest. Appalled, Kelyn kicked him away, freed his blade, and spun to receive another man upon it, but something had changed. The roaring frenzy paused, seemed to take a breath. The Fierans along the wall and clustered at the gate and guarding the keep’s door dropped sword and bow and raised empty hands.
Aralorris poured through the gate unchecked. They gathered up weapons
and surrounded Fierans and carried out casualties. “Clear a path!” a boy cried, and the War Commander emerged from the gatehouse, Laral close on his heels.
“Let it be known,” Keth announced, voice thundering inside the stone walls, “Nathrachan falls at the word of King Rhorek of Aralorr. The Black Falcon is merciful. Your lives are to be spared. For purposes of treaties, I, His Majesty’s War Commander, demand to know the whereabouts of Nathrachan’s master.”
A Fieran with a crooked, bleeding nose pushed his way through his captors. “I am Raeg,” he said, “captain of the garrison. Lord Birél lies there, dead.” He indicated the man draped in gold silk.
Kelyn looked at the man he’d slain, his bloodied blade, his blue surcoat blotched black with Birél’s blood.
“And the lady of the house,” asked Keth, “the Princess Ki’eva?”
“Escaped,” Raeg replied, smug.
“Down the river on a barge?” Keth assumed.
Raeg regarded him with a measure of surprise.
“M’ lord Athlem,” Keth called. “The princess may have left through the River Gate, but my guess is, there’s a tunnel. Choose a dozen men, find it, and seal it.” They’d have no Fieran host sneaking in to cut their throats while they slept.
Captain Raeg and his garrison were ushered into the dungeon under the gatehouse, then Keth crooked a finger at his son. “You hurt?”
The blood on his surcoat was nearly dry. “No, sir.”
Orderlies carried away Lord Birél and laid him in a long row of bodies.
“Care to explain yourself?”
Kelyn tried to appear both apologetic and defiant at once.
“You want me to treat you like any other knight, yes? Do you know what I’d do to Morach if he disobeyed orders?”
Kelyn noticed Leshan approaching and felt some gratitude that his friend was coming to defend him. Too late did he recognize a heedless rage on Leshan’s face. A mailed fist clubbed him under the chin. Kelyn’s head snapped back, and he struck the flagstones with a breathless thud.
