by Ellyn, Court
“Lose yourselves in the towns and hamlets,” Kelyn suggested. “As far as I know, they’ve escaped notice.”
“And who are you to know, sir?”
“I’m Lord Ilswythe.” Da’s voice rang loud over the heads of the murmuring townsfolk.
The smith’s eyes popped. “The War Commander?”
“Aye, and you must consider yourselves at war.”
“Have Fierans done this? Was it the Convention what done it?”
Carah started to glance down at the White Falcon, then stopped herself.
“Fiera is not at fault.”
“Who then?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“But you’re the War Commander,” cried an old woman with a sack of mewling kittens on her back. “How can you not know?”
“What I know is that we flee Bramoran because mercenaries attacked us, Aralorri, Leanian, and Fieran alike. You must spread the word. Militias are to muster and be ready the instant they receive notice from me.”
He did mean to fight! Pride swelled into Carah’s throat, nearly choking her. She glanced at Drys seated on the bench and Lady Drona on her right. The one roared in triumph, shaking his fists; the other stared at Da, her mouth open before it closed with a grin.
“Lord Kingshield!” cried Aisley, pointing back along the road.
Carah sighed in relief at the sight of Thorn and Rhian trotting over the hill on their Elaran blacks. Blood splashed Rhian’s face. She leapt out of the wagon and ran to him. “It isn’t bad,” he told her, pressing at the gash over his eyebrow.
“Hnh,” Thorn grunted. “That axe bit an inch deeper and you’d be singing a different song.”
“Aye, to Ana-Forah.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?” Carah demanded. “Must I drag you down or will you clean it yourself?”
“I think I better—”
“Oh, get off the bloody horse, eejit.”
Rhian laughed at the sound of his word in Carah’s mouth. He dismounted and perched on the back of the wagon so she could tend to the wound.
Longmead’s people began to disperse. Aisley’s outcry hadn’t gone unnoticed. As the townsfolk passed, they stared and whispered and tipped their hats in Uncle Thorn’s direction. He leaned on his saddlehorn, deep in thought, but when he noticed the attention, he waved a tentative hand, eyebrows high, as if he wondered why he merited their regard.
“Hnh,” Rhian said, “sometimes he’s actually capable of humility.”
Carah chuckled and used a hem torn from her undershirt to clean away the blood dried on his cheek and down his neck. It was caked in his eyelashes. Their party hadn’t much water to spare; the wineskin was almost empty. But Carah was starting to think like an avedra. She suspected how they might procure more. “What did you do with the dew?” she asked. They tried to avoid looking each other in the eye. It wasn’t easy.
“Saw that, did ya? Impressed?”
“Don’t you dare start flirting with me now,” she whispered. “People will get suspicious. Hold still, or I’ll stitch it crooked.”
By the time the gash closed under her fingers, Da and the rest were demanding answers. They stood around the wagon like conspirators. All but Daxon, who moped off by himself. “I expected the Falcon Guard or proper soldiers,” Lord Rorin cried. “Those things weren’t even human! It’s like the Abyss broke wide open.”
“Nothing like,” Thorn said. “The ogres came from your backyard most likely. But the other. The one leading them. I knew him. He vanished years ago. Seeing him here this morning was the last thing I expected.”
The word ‘Elari’ screamed from Uncle Thorn’s head, but Carah found it interesting that he avoided using it aloud.
“Maybe they were just after you,” Lady Drona taunted.
“That’s why the one came running after the wagon, I assume,” he retorted.
“On the night of the Greening Festival,” Da said, “you told me you knew who led these ogres. You didn’t suspect Valryk. Is he giving the orders or not?”
Uncle Thorn pondered, shook his head. “No, I doubt it.”
“Then who leads them?” Drona demanded. “Who is Valryk in league with?”
“I will have to seek answers elsewhere before I can confirm anything.” Thorn turned and mounted up before they could ask more from him. “We’ll make for Drenéleth.”
“But that’s leagues away,” Rorin complained, pointing east instead of north.
Of course, Drona didn’t like the suggestion either. “Why not Nathrachan?”
Thorn glanced away, not inclined to explain himself.
“I’m not going anywhere with you people,” Daxon exclaimed. “I’m going home.”
“You won’t make it,” Kelyn said. “The bridges will be covered. And Valryk will expect the White Falcon to make for one of them.”
Daxon’s dark eyes narrowed. “Do not address me again, Lord Ilswythe. Lay aside that sword long enough and I’ll show you what I’d like to do with it. Aunt? Are you coming?” He expected her to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, but she hesitated.
“You’re not leaving my side,” she said at last. “Where I go, you go. Your father would’ve wanted it that way.” She glared at Kelyn, who returned a guileless lift of the eyebrows. He didn’t seem interested in acknowledging events that took place twenty years before. “So? I’ve never heard of this Drenéleth.”
“It isn’t a stronghold,” he said. “It’s just a lodge. We’ll do what we can to change that, but for now, it’s too small and out of the way to be of notice.”
“My concern is Lord Eliad,” said Rhogan. “Pardons, but he is the king’s bastard brother. Are they close? Lord Drenéleth avoided the conference. Might he have been privy to the Black Falcon’s plan?”
Drona took up that note with fervor. “Aye, he might’ve struck a deal in exchange for royal favor.”
“He would never—” Carah began.
“I raised Eliad,” Da insisted. “He’s like my own son.”
“Aye?” Drona drawled. “And where is your son, by the way?”
King’s business, Valryk had told Carah. She nearly choked. Impossible, she thought and kept her fear to herself.
Kelyn reined in his anger and turned to his brother. “Has Eliad betrayed us?”
Thorn shrugged in an exaggerated way. “I can’t know a man’s thoughts from afar. We’ll see when we get there, won’t we? If he has, I won’t care whose son he is.” He dug in his heels, and the Elaran black darted off at a quick trot.
Drys cleared his throat. “If it’s all the same to you, m’ Lord Commander, I’ll strike out on my own. If Zeldanor is under attack, I need to be there.”
“I’m going too,” said Maeret. “If I’m Lady Lunélion now, I must see to my people.”
The two of them exchanged a glance that hinted they had planned this earlier, perhaps last night among the trees. “I’ll see Lady Maeret home safe, then strike east,” Drys added.
Da let out a heavy breath. “I wouldn’t advise it, but I can’t stop you. Goddess go with you both.”
As Drys and Maeret started across the hillside, Carah called after them, “Be safe!”
Maeret glanced back. “I don’t mean to stay safe. I mean to dig my aunt’s morning star from the ashes. Save a brigade for me, War Commander.”
The wagon trundled down into Longmead Valley to a crossroads that branched south for Lunélion and north toward the Silver Mountains. Taking Kelyn’s advice, a majority of Longmead’s people chose the north road. Fewer holdfasts and more villages lay across the high moor. The people hoped to disappear there. They bore their children on their backs and a few precious items, snatched from burning houses, in their arms. Rain had turned the road to soft mud that squelched under their feet and clung to the wagon wheels in black clumps. Carah despaired at the sight of the ruts. More ogres were sure to track them down. But the villagers who parted to let the wagon pass closed behind it again. Some of them drove carts, too, and soon the
tracks of the wine wagon were lost among those of the refugees. Surely Da and Uncle Thorn had planned it that way. Yes, they might make it to Drenéleth after all.
~~~~
27
The bags of coin jingled as Lothiar passed them into the hands of the Doreli mercenaries. They had tossed off their black surcoats and looked like proper swords-for-hire in their studded leather and mismatched armor. Only a third of the original fifty remained. The rest had been piled into the King’s Hall with the highborns and burned. Their comrades wasted no tears on them.
“You performed better than I hoped,” Lothiar told them, sinking into the oversized chair behind the desk. The headquarters of the guards captain was spacious and rich, though lit poorly, having no window of its own. “There’s a bonus in there for you.”
The cockiest man among them bounced his pouch in his palm and grinned. Rows of small round bruises from a dwarf’s hobnailed boot were imprinted on his cheek. “People-a back home-a,” he said in his Doreli accent, “they not-a believe us when we say we worked for an elf-a.”
“Be sure to tell these unbelievers that they’re about to see a good deal more of us.”
“Eh?” said the Doreli.
Lothiar flicked a hand. “Goddess go with you. Now get out.”
Other than a couple of terrified cooks, a surgeon to tend to the wounded, and a handful of servants to wash and run errands, the Dorelis were the last humans to be expelled from Bramor. The exodus of an entire royal city took all day yesterday and half the night. Now the streets were littered with treasures the humans couldn’t carry and the bodies of those who had argued with Lothiar’s orders. Mongrels, rats, and naenion would grow fat on the pickings. Eerie, riding through those silent streets lined with empty windows like eye sockets. Plenty of rich villas to divide among his commanders, though, Lothiar decided.
The ogre chieftains complained about Lothiar letting the townsfolk go. They expected slaughter rights, like those Lothiar had granted in the dwarven caverns. But he saw no point in executing all these humans. They were beaten, or soon would be, and why should Elarion cook and clean for themselves? Once the strongholds had fallen, raids on towns and farms would provide more than enough slaves.
The last of the mercenaries filed from the office, then Captain Dashka said, “I did not think you would let the Dorelis go either.”
Lothiar closed the small chest of silver coin and turned the key. “If they stick to the main roads they’re liable to run into an ogre war band. If they do make it home, however, we will have occasion to work with them again. I’m not worried about the Mahkah-pi. They’re reclusive and disunited. Conquering them will cost us little. But the Zhianese are fierce fighters. It will pay to have a few faithful recruits waiting in the wings, and I hear that Dorelis are no friend to the painted kings of Zhian. Of course, our mercenaries won’t like it when we turn our war machine toward Dorél. And Dorél is the real prize for us. Their land takes its name from our first Lady, and the ruins of our oldest city hide somewhere in their mountains. I mean to rebuild it. Worthy goal, yes?”
The avedra’s pale gaunt face remained wooden. “Yes.”
“You commanded them well, but with them gone the illusion of your authority vanishes. You’re just ‘Dashka’ again, so lower that nose and get rid of that disdainful eye or I’ll pluck it out.”
The avedra lowered his chin. “Yessir.”
“Your reward is staying out of the pit, don’t forget that.”
“Never, sir.”
Lothiar had exchanged the heavy steel plate for supple gray leather and silk so soft it might as well be water. The chair was deep and supple and cool. Goddess, he was tired. Three days after the cleansing, and he still hadn’t slept. Too many details kept him moving. In the rare moments he managed to sit still, his mind raced, and he was up and running again before he knew it. He still had a certain emperor to visit. Valryk had languished for two nights in his cell under Paggon’s watchful eye. The ogre chieftain reported that the ‘little king’ had panicked and beat on the door, but now his anger had given in to despair. Almost time to talk him into writing that letter to his cousin.
More, each of the Elaran commanders had to be contacted for updates. Of all the strongholds under siege, only Tírandon still resisted. Which meant it was time to move some of the pieces on the board.
He had hoped to assign at least one Elari to each division of naenion. Ogres were not talented improvisers, after all, and if things went wrong for them, they were more like to break and reform to attempt Lothiar’s order a second time rather than adjust their strategy to new conditions. But his efforts to recruit more of his own people had largely failed. Tréandyn commanded the Thunderstone and Shadow Clans against the Fieran strongholds; their main camp was drawn up outside Brynduvh’s gates. Solandyr led the Red Axe Clan at Ilswythe; Elyandir and the Broke Blade ogres attacked Tírandon. Neither Sky Rock nor Fire Spear had Elarion leading them, and Lothiar dared not send one to command Black Marsh. That clan belonged to Korax Elfbane, and though the ogre agreed to fight for Lothiar, he refused to abide the presence of an Elari. A small price for such a fierce ally.
There were a few other Elarion on hand. Ruvion raked the countryside for avedrin. But most were smiths and carpenters or grunts recruited from the Regs. These were not able leaders. But dispersed among the ogre regiments, the craftsmen helped the lieutenants maintain order and kept the fighters supplied. Once he had dealt with Valryk, Lothiar would spend the next few hours smelling marsh water in a basin as he relayed new orders to each division.
“You must rest,” Lasharia had told him half a dozen times over the last couple of days. She was right, Lothiar knew, but there was no time, not yet. Twice he caught himself nodding off, and both times the whisper had startled him. “Azhdyyyyr…” Nightmares, too close to the surface. What else could it be?
Lothiar rounded on Dashka. The avedra stood staunchly in the back corner of the office. The sudden motion startled him. Determined to prove himself loyal and indispensable, he had declared himself Lothiar’s bodyguard. But he was also a trained mind reader. Might he be manipulating Lothiar’s thoughts in hopes of driving him mad? “Don’t stand behind me. Get out,” Lothiar ordered. “But don’t go far. Stand watch outside the door.” The avedra might be useful, but Lothiar wasn’t ready to consider him trustworthy.
Shortly after Dashka stepped from the office, he poked his head in again. “Captain, Iryan Wingfleet has returned. He’s headed to the infirmary.”
The human had acted as King Rhorek’s physician and Valryk’s after that. He attended to his duty objectively, keeping his eyes down and his recriminations to himself, but his pale age-spotted hands trembled as they lifted the glass bottles from the apothecary cabinet. Lothiar suspected it was the presence of two ogres in the corridor that unnerved the old man. Even though the naenion bled and stank of burned flesh, Lothiar ordered them to leave. The physician relaxed after that and began cleaning Iryan’s face.
He was missing an ear, and the skin had been seared from his cheekbone. What flesh was left was on the right side of his face was blistered black and raw. A similar burn blackened his ribs. Iryan reeled with pain, gripped the side of the physician’s table to hold himself upright. When he opened an eye and saw Lothiar standing on the threshold, he muttered, “Whips made of lightning. Never read about that in the chants. Have you?”
No, Lothiar had not, but he wasn’t surprised. He had known many an avedra in his lifetime, and like Dathiel, they were wont to get creative. The results had been as devastating a thousand years ago. Floods of ice, rocks that walked, armies of ravens that went straight for the eyes. Imagination, will, execution. Wasn’t that the avedra way? “I’ll flay Dashka myself for sending so few ogres with you.” Only three of the twelve naenion had made it back alive, a fourth had died on the return to Bramor, and one of the others had carried Iryan over his shoulder.
“The avedrin were aware of us before we got into position, sir. We’d hoped—�
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“You’d hoped, you’d hoped! When you’re dealing with avedrin the caliber of Kieryn Dathiel, you have to do more than hope, Wingfleet.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lothiar snorted. “It’s not you I blame. I should have sent the entire Dragon Claw regiment. That might have made a mark. Do you know which way Dathiel and his party went?”
“East, as before.”
“Longmead was raided in the middle of the night. They’ll find no refuge there. Lunélion is ours. Blue Mountain burns. What else is there?” He paced, calculating. “Zeldanor maybe, but half of Sky Rock is bound to break its gates while the rest are down south rounding up slaves. It may be ash by the time they get there. And if Dathiel leads the survivors north to Ilswythe he’ll be gravely disappointed.” He grinned, jubilant and having a hard time restraining it. “Solandyr contacted me first thing this morning. Ilswythe is ours.” At last, at last. Of all the human holdfasts that Lothiar hoped to smash, Ilswythe topped the list. Not only because it belonged to the Sons of Edur, but because Amanthia herself had raised those ten white stones and measured the heavens from atop that hill. Lothiar had joined her every spring in her house beside the river. Until Edur caught her eye. That didn’t change who the hill belonged to, however. Once details were settled here, Lothiar intended to visit Ilswythe and congratulate Solandyr in person.
“I’m happy for you, sir.” Pain and habit made the word ‘happy’ sound hollow in Iryan’s mouth. “I know how much that means to you.”
“No, you don’t. Not really.” He patted his lieutenant’s shoulder. “Don’t talk anymore. Go into the trance and rest.”
“Yessir.” Iryan shoved the doctor aside, then breathed deeply and focused his eyes on nothing. When his chin lowered and his eyes dilated, Lothiar waved the doctor to proceed. “No worries, he feels no pain now. I’ll return later to check on him. I need voice no threats, I trust.”