“Jesu. Jesu . . . Kyrin.” Her mother’s breath warmed her cheek like soft summer. Then she sighed and her head dropped against her. There was pain, and nothing.
§
Kyrin opened her eyes on light shining through strands of darkness that trapped the warmth of her breath. She tried to lift her head and whimpered. Her neck was afire; her head pounded. Something heavy lay across her. She wriggled away, pushing back handfuls of hair.
Her fingers brushed cool skin. She struggled free to crouch on the floor. Flames licked a dropped torch near her mother’s feet. She lay on her side near the wall, her cloak tangled about her.
Kyrin’s hand brushed the front of her tunic, stuck to her in a wide wet patch. Her fingers came away dark. Her stomach surged. Her mother was not sleeping.
A low cry tore her. If she had fought for her as a falcon defends its nest, her mother would not lie so pale and still. She dropped to her knees and clutched her mother’s crooked hand. She should have thrown her rock sooner; she should have leaped at the man. Her mother fought for her, then, when the sword fell . . . she did not. Kyrin lifted her mother’s head onto her knees, smoothing her hair with shaking hands, her heart twisting on itself. The torch flickered, beating at the dark.
A fallen raider’s callused feet extended through the doorway. Dust caked the cracks in his heels. Kyrin swallowed, her dry eyes aching. The raiders would come back for the last of their dead. They must not find her.
She laid her mother on the floor and stood. Her legs were full of needles. So Esther and Myrna despised her for hunting in her high valley. It did not matter.
Mother said her bow was useful. And she would be useful—against any man with a weapon. She gritted her teeth on a shudder—part tearless sob, part anger beyond heat or cold. She would shoot until she could hit an ash leaf at a hundred and fifty paces instead of forty. No matter. She would bring down any man who raised a blade to harm. She would get the strength to swing her mother’s sword . . . But the floor was empty—the sword was gone.
She lifted the edge of her mother’s cloak to make sure the blade did not hide beneath. The cloak tightened, pulling at a long, slender shape near the bronze cloak clasp. She unfastened the red oak leaf and laid back her mother’s cloak.
A sheathed dagger lay on her breast, tangled in her hair. She reached for this when she fell. Kyrin freed the weapon and slid the blade from the leather. She opened her hand, and blinked. The brazed dagger was a cunningly shaped falcon.
Torchlight played over the bronze feathers. Beak open in a defiant scream, the falcon’s eyes penetrated hers, amber lurking in the ebony depths. The falcon’s body and shoulders formed the haft, etched wing-tips brushing the reddish blade. The reaching talons and fanned tail formed a down-swept hand guard on either side. The blade was straight, sharp and clean. Kyrin shivered, drawn again to the falcon’s far-seeing eyes.
It saw her ugly shrinking, her fear. Where was the hunter of the woods? But unfaltering warmth enfolded her: the falcon gently called her to fly higher. Kyrin’s tears came in a rush.
Sometime later, she wiped her face and slid the falcon dagger through her girdle. Faint hope made a nest in a corner of her mind. Maybe Lord Fenwer was beating off the raiders—but he did not know where she was. She had to get away, to get to him, and then to her father. But she could not leave her mother so, twisted on the floor like a downed deer.
She pulled her straight, coiled her hair into her hood as best she could, and tucked her cloak about her softly. She could not cover her face: somewhere else her mother lived. The torch flickered and went out.
Kyrin sneezed at the bitter smoke. She leaned against the wall, biting her lip against a sudden bloom of pain. “Jesu, help me.”
Clutching the falcon dagger, she staggered toward the door, feeling her way over the dead man. The dark felt full of hands, ready seize her. Her feet on the stone were loud as Aart’s. If he was free outside . . . But raiders prized horses. She must find her godfather, anyone.
She stumbled along the silent passage, feeling her way. Mustiness pressed in on her, tainted with blood; everywhere she smelled it. The floor slanted down. At the end, a wood door was rough under her fingers. The line of light under it shone steady. All seemed still beyond.
She pushed through slowly. The door scraped. Her arms prickled.
She pulled back inside the passage and listened so hard to the emptiness that her ears rang. Torches guttered in crude iron brackets on the opposite wall.
If there was a draft, there was another door. Perhaps a well-used servants’ passage? She left the door as it was, stepped around tunics strewn on the passage floor, and peeped inside a plundered room. She saw no bodies. She looked in seven more rooms, all empty. A sudden scuttling was a raider’s rush at her back.
She whirled, slamming her elbow into the wall. Her numb fingers almost lost the falcon. A rat scurried away between the angle of wall and floor, ears pinned and tail whisking behind. Kyrin gasped in a breath and rubbed her tingling arm.
A whisper of damp air blew from a doorway at the bottom of a stair. Long and windowless, the chamber smelled of grain, candles, and wood. Light from the passage did not reach far within.
Clutching the falcon, Kyrin crawled past jars large enough to hold her. Jars of wine and pickled meat, and smaller jars of spices. She skirted stacks of dry hides looming above bundled arrow-shafts, and ventured into the shadows. Her fingers found a heap of empty sacks, the rough kind her mother used for grain. Kyrin rubbed her throat and jerked back at the sting. Her head hurt so. She climbed up the mound and curled under the cloak.. She would rest a moment, then she would find her godfather.
§
Light spread like moonrise over the chamber ceiling. Kyrin stared past the top edge of the sack pile, pain pounding through her. Someone spoke in a quick rill of words. Kyrin rolled over—and stifled her cry of pain. She must get away without the voice’s notice. Crawl. She eased around a jar.
Near the first bundle of arrow-shafts a stray bit of wood cracked loudly under her knee. She flattened like a rabbit gone to earth. Feet rushed across the stone behind her, and many voices murmured. Silence.
She peered between the hides and bristling shafts. Across a stretch of floor, before barrels and a blacksmith’s pile of raw-cast pigs of lead, two hands of raiders stood in a circle, their swords drawn, facing outward. They guarded a man behind them. Kyrin glimpsed a turban above a fish-belly pale face.
Three raiders left the wary circle and spread out across the chamber, stepping through the goods, their heads turning, eyes quick, faces fierce as eagles’. The sword of the man in the center chinked against a stone jar; then his blade tugged at the sacks she had left.
A jet-skinned man with a wide, heavy sword went to bar the door. His nose was strong above a generous mouth, and his slightly bared teeth gleamed like his robe, white and startling. His eyes narrowed, and he thrust his head forward with a deep sniff, as if he would smell her out. His head near touched the door lintel; his tree-trunk body filled it. Kyrin swallowed. No escape that way. She tucked the falcon inside her tunic.
The nearest searcher cursed under his breath and stabbed at a hide. Trapped midway between her hunters and the door, Kyrin looked down. Father said light-gleam in the eyes gave rabbits away.
Pain spiked, battering her; for a moment she could not move. Five paces away, the nearest raider grunted. Kyrin’s huffing breath stirred the dust; it tickled her nose. She pinched hard. The man turned away. She sighed.
Someone landed on her back, pinning her to the floor, smashing her cheek into the stone.
Fool! She strained to reach the falcon dagger but could not move for the weight crushing her. Her girdle pouch was jerked away. Iron hands dragged her wrists behind her and bound them. Her neck protested when she turned her head.
A man with tawny skin, dark eyes, and a wide mouth grabbed her cloak, sna
gging her hair. He dragged her up. Her cloak choked her; her fish necklace broke, and fell.
With a chuckle, the raider scooped it up before it reached the floor and tucked it into his sash with her girdle pouch. He pulled her, struggling, toward the waiting raiders. The circle parted.
Kyrin fell where her captor dropped her, hitting her chin on the floor hard enough to lose sight a moment. The falcon bit into her chest. She blinked back tears, gulping for air.
In front of her nose, the edge of a white robe swayed above crimson shoes. The pointed toes were embroidered with stylized vines of gold. Thread so costly she had seen it once: among a trader’s stolen goods. Goods stolen from a Saracen. The mushroom helms.
Her Arab captor kicked her in the side. “Look up!”
Kyrin obeyed. The owner of the shoes had snapping black eyes. The white-soft skin of his cheeks was high but well-fleshed, and his brown hair curled loosely to his neck. He was not ill-looking. His dark eyes sifted her, chill with disdain. She swallowed back a sob. His thin lips smiled.
Her captor nudged her with a hard toe. His pale robes on his tanned body could belong to any of her mother’s murderers, but she did not recognize the tight-pressed generous mouth below his flowing head-cloth, a cloth like to her mother’s hair-wrap but bound about his brow with a black cord.
He watched her with an enmity she did not understand, with the intentness of a cat eyeing a fly buzzing about a closed window. He the cat, about to swat her down. “The last of the whelps. One of the unbelievers.” He stepped on the hem of her cloak as she tried to roll away, and she struggled against his scornful hand, which shoved her flat again.
“She had this.”
Kyrin raised her head. Her oak necklace lay over his palm; he closed his fingers and shook his fist.
Father bored those beads with a burning rod, and with love.
“Peace, peace, Umar. By Allah, this one is older, but she is young enough. I will take one for my service from this house.” The black-eyed man turned to run his hand over the pile of rectangular lead pigs, then said over his shoulder, “Have the healer see to her.”
Umar let her go. His hand dropped to his sword hilt. She gathered herself, whimpers in her throat. He cocked his head, his mouth eager. Waiting for her, the fly, to flee and draw his wrath.
Kyrin did not move. Umar growled and yanked her to her feet. Encouraged by his cuffs, she stumbled across the room and past the black giant, who moved aside impassively, and up the stairs. In Lord Fenwer’s kitchen she passed bunches of herbs, crushed fragrant on the flagged floor among scattered bronze cauldrons. She pattered across the bit of yard behind the servants’ wing and into the great hall. Lord Fenwer had kissed her and her mother in greeting, and lifted the wide-bowled guest-cup in salute, grinning at her, glad to see her again.
His carved seat lay broken on its side, the long benches overturned. Bodies were piled upon the oak board, tumbled over scattered eating knives. She did not see her godfather’s white hair in the grisly heap. Shivers shook her. The tower stair lay across the hall.
Her knees wavered. A wind roared in her ears.
Umar struck her hard. “Stand!”
She was first-daughter of Cierheld, Lord Dain’s daughter, she was of Cierheld. A falcon, and she must fly. . . . Kyrin fell, gasping. Mother stood against them.
Umar dragged her over the great hall doors of nailed oak, splintered on the steps. The tree that had rammed them lay to the side, deserted.
Umar yanked, and Kyrin stumbled to her feet again. She felt her tower rising behind, empty. The yard, hours ago holding children, servants, and contented hounds, was wind-swept, dark and slick with puddles. Umar forced her through the yard gate, the oak bars yet whole, and over the endless killing ground to the forlorn, flapping side gate. Without the great out-wall, the sea growled. Kyrin looked back, wind thrumming in her ears.
Against the grey clouds tipped with dawn her godfather’s stronghold crouched like a powerful beast, fallen, its heart ripped from it. Umar cuffed her again; her head rang. At the cliffs’ edge she faltered.
Pink from the east blanketed the fog spreading away at her feet. A thin path went down into the mist, toward the thundering ocean. Muddy and scratched from falls, she at last reached the bottom. She scrambled down to gravel and the sea that swirled inside a protecting curve of rock. A gaggle of boats rocked and spun on the foam-flecked swells. Round marsh-boats.
Umar tossed her inside the nearest and stepped over her to the woven withe bench. Seawater slapped over the side and soaked Kyrin, cold and bitter on her lips. There was nowhere to run—water left no tracks for Father.
She levered herself up on her bound hands, panting. She could not swim. Her wool cloak pulled on her aching throat, and she wriggled her shoulders until it eased.
Mist fenced her in on a spinning island of skin and wood. It beaded on Umar’s black hair. She stared at his back while he paddled. By his breadth of shoulder and cast of face he had at least twice her summers.
A wave welled toward them, and the skin boat rushed up it and fell, to swoop up another mountain and smack down at the bottom with a jolt. Kyrin rolled, and shoved her feet wide, wedging her toes against the boat’s curving sides. Thin hide rippled under her shoulders, the cold water outside squeezing her against Umar’s bench. She gulped.
Umar paddled harder. The boat spun, and her stomach with it. Kyrin closed her eyes, swallowing. A solid thump against the boat and raucous hails roused her from stupor.
She squinted through gouts of spray at the wall of a ship, and up, and up. Grinning brown-skinned men, many beardless, peered down at her through patches of mist from a deck above. A fat man with a silver hoop dragging at his ear bawled an order. Men tossed ropes to Umar.
He knotted a thick rope around her middle, and his gesture sent her sliding up the slimy side of the ship. Batted by the waves, she swung and bumped to the top, her middle sawn near in two by the prickly rope. They dumped her on the deck.
Kyrin lifted her head. The last breaths of the storm chilled her. Her bound hands were stiff, her skinned elbows and stomach burned. She rolled over and laid her cheek on the wet wood. The mist wisped away. Dawn spangled the deck with red and silver drops, as with blood and water.
3
Slaves
They . . . bow down . . . are gone into captivity. ~Isaiah 46:2
A sail rippled with a loud pop above Kyrin. It could wrap the ship around with canvas to spare. Near the far end of the deck squatted a small structure, so rough-hewn the cracks showed. She turned her throbbing head. Behind her rose another shelter of weathered, tight-joined planks with a low door.
Boisterous men called excited questions down to Umar. With his feet braced against the hull, he climbed the side of the ship and stepped over the rail to the deck. Shouts of triumph rose.
Kyrin shrank back from the edge, straining at her bonds. Any moment Umar did not see her was a good moment. The rest of the raiders arrived with more noise, fending their boats from the heaving swell that sought to drive them against the ship’s side. They passed sacks of dry goods, furs, weapons, and small handbags of gold and silver jewelry up to their companions who pulled the goods over the rail, across the deck, and through a hole into the ship’s belly. The pigs of cast lead swung in their coarse sacks, giving the men trouble. Their curses made Kyrin’s mouth curve. Her mother’s blade was solid and warm against her under her tunic, and she drew a breath. The falcon had stayed with her.
Umar slapped the back of the man with the silver hoop earring and walked toward Kyrin, smiling. She gripped her cold fingers together. Please, not the dark hole. Father would never find her there. Umar slung her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of barley. Her head pounded as with an anvil inside. Kyrin clamped her lips shut. She must not be sick or he would kill her.
Gripping her ankles in a large hand, he bore her through the cargo hole, stepp
ing down a ladder, his lamp shining on wood wall. It fled past her face as he moved down the passage. The ship squeaked around her with the high pitched voice of a sea creature. Blackness and pain crowded out her vision.
Umar stopped, and a stench of old sweat and pain coiled around Kyrin. Hoarse breathing echoed around them, impossible to tell where it came from. Umar shrugged his shoulder from under her and dropped her.
Kyrin landed on a body that twitched with a hissing grunt. She bit her tongue on her own cry, twisted about—and jerked back from a man’s face a hand-span from her nose. Pain dizzied her. When she could see again, he grimaced, but made no further move, staring at her.
His rye-dark, round face was stark measured against Umar’s paler length. His short hair of straight black bore the first frost of years.Sweat-beaded skin crinkled around his almond shaped brown eyes. He gasped a gentle word she did not understand, and his full mouth tilted at the corners.
Thin ropes tied to posts stretched him an armspan above the floor, racking his wrists and ankles with his weight and hers. Blood wove down his arms from his purple hands.
Choking, suddenly aware of her weight against his wrists, Kyrin twisted to roll off him, but he pulled up on one side and heaved his shoulder in the way. She slumped back, without strength, and the man clenched his jaw, slowly letting himself pull on all four limbs again, breathing hard, his eyes briefly closing. Slanted eyes—and bows—a nomad Steppes’ archer. If they did this to one of them, what of her?
Through a terrible ringing in her ears, Umar laughed. “She is yours to keep alive, one of the people of the Book, an unbelieving Nasrany. Filthy hwarang—fighter for flowers and undying spirits! See if you can obey our master in this. Keep her life.”
A knife rasped on rope. The man’s feet thudded to the floor beneath Kyrin. She slid and opened her eyes, grasping with her bound hands at the man’s tunic. The cloth pulled through her weak fingers. He raised his knees with a grunt, halting her fall.
Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times Page 3