Cry of the Falcon (Falcons Saga Book 4)

by Court Ellyn

  “They’re not. They’re killing me. My toes are bleeding.” He raised a stained stocking.

  Bethyn clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “I’ll help him, m’ lady,” Arvold said. He whispered to his neighbor behind him, a chubby man whose sleeves were stained purple. Likely one of Da’s vintners. Together they shifted to give Andryn enough slack to crawl up to the wagon. Arvold and Lesha both had to rise into a crouch and raise their arms so he could untie the boots and tug them off the boy’s corpse.

  His sister made a gagging sound. “How can you?”

  “What do you care? It’s my feet that hurt, and he doesn’t need them.”

  A naeni peered around the side of the wooden slats, drawn by the voices. Small red eyes narrowed. Andy jerked the second boot free and offered a shaky smile. The naeni bellowed and pointed out the thief. Quick as mice, the captives scurried away from the wagon and tried to compose themselves on the grass. Screamface came running and spun the rawhide braid over his head. It swept down in an arc too fast to see. Arvold flung Andy to the ground and dropped down across him. The steward’s scream stabbed Andy’s ear. A second blow fell. The steward stifled another outcry behind clenched teeth.

  They waited for a third blow, but it didn’t fall. Andy peeked between the steward’s arms and found gray-green legs like chiseled pillars looming over him. Firelight revealed a clawed hand curled around the haft of a club. A broad baldric crossed a massive muscled chest striped with shadowy green blotches, and tucked into the baldric was Guardian, Andy’s dagger. The dagger Da had won in a race years ago; the dagger Andy had lost. The diamonds on the pommel and cross guard glistened in the firelight.

  The naeni called Lohg glanced between Screamface and the steward, at Andy’s bloody socks and the stolen boots clutched in his arms. On the other side of those chiseled legs, Lesha sobbed softly, and Mum clung to Andryn with large brown eyes alone.

  Lohg stooped and retrieved one of Andy’s cast-off shoes. Nostrils flared as he sniffed it inside and out. Blood, sweat, and agony, that’s what he ought to smell, Andy thought. The naeni shrugged and tossed the shoe into the back of the meat wagon. “Boy,” he grunted, voice like a mountain collapsing. A clawed finger pointed at his own naked ribs and the long, scabby gash that Andy had dealt him. Guardian’s blade was sharp. Then Lohg brayed laughter. What was so funny about a human boy trying to kill him? Didn’t he want to tear off Andy’s head for cutting him?

  As if nothing were amiss, Lohg started back to the campfire and beckoned Screamface to follow, but Screamface had other ideas. He reared back the whip. Arvold cried out and dived across Andy again.

  Lohg whirled, faster and more lithe than one of his size ought, and lunged with the club. The knotted hardwood head caught Screamface in the gut; with a breathless half-snarl, he doubled over. Saliva and bile dripped from his muzzle in thick strings. The club struck again, cracking across the knuckles of his hand. Screamface lurched away, leaving the whip on the roadside. Lohg snatched it up and coiled it slowly while Screamface staggered away into the darkness.

  When he returned to the campfire, Lohg’s underlings ducked their heads and reached out to touch his feet, his arms, and grumbled praise. Lohg looked over his worshippers carefully, then offered the whip to a pinch-faced naeni with bulbous yellow eyes.

  “I think he likes you, m’ lord,” whispered Arvold.

  Aye, for a tasty morsel, thought Andy. He knew better than to like Lohg in return. If he would beat up one of his own lieutenants, he probably had no qualms about squashing a worm. Besides, Lohg had stolen his dagger.

  “Andy, are you all right?” Mum leaned and stretched out a hand, but Andy was too ashamed to reach back. Master Arvold had taken lashes because of him and his stupid feet. The steward examined the gash in his doublet and the welt underneath but voiced no blame. “Andy?” Mum persisted.

  “I’m fine!” He plunged a foot into the new boot. Lots of room in the toes. “I want Guardian back, that’s all.” A knight never drops his sword. If he hadn’t lost his dagger he would cut everyone free.

  Eventually a naeni with an iron pot made the rounds. He scattered a handful of small flat cakes like chicken feed among the groups of captives, and the captives descended upon the food like fowl. Hungry as he was, Andryn scowled at his portion. The cake was nothing more than meal and stale water fried in rancid oil. He thought he saw the carapace of a mealworm inside. Luckily in the dark, it could be a flake of pepper. Or a leaf or sand or …

  “Eat it, son,” Bethyn said.

  He grimaced. “They taste bad.” The meat turning over the fires smelled more appetizing.

  “Doesn’t matter how it tastes,” Lesha bit, and Andryn leveled a hateful glare at her. A coddling mother was bad enough; a bossy sister was worse. “Give it to me if you don’t want it.”

  “Hush, Lesha,” Mum ordered and ducked her eyes as a naeni passed within earshot.

  Andryn shoved the whole cake into his mouth, but his mouth was so dry that the cake stuck in his throat. The naenis would bring a water bucket sooner or later, but they sure took their time about it.

  Captives from the next row were whispering, too. Some were green enough to conspire; they were clearly from Nathrachan. “Why don’t we just cut our ropes and slip away?” said a youth in squire’s livery. “There must be a sharp stone in the grass here somewhere.” He began rummaging through the trampled weeds.

  His neighbor, a matron in a crooked wimple, agreed. “Those monsters are too busy with food and fire to notice small groups slipping away.”

  The man tied in front of them shook his head violently. “You think you’re the only one who’s thought of that? Every night someone tries it. None have survived. Those bastards can see in the dark. And they run as fast as angry bulls. Look at how long their stride is!”

  “Somebody has to try,” the squire insisted. His hands had come up empty.

  “You? Do. I will sit here and watch the show.”

  The whip cracked. Captives stopped chewing and turned to see who was in trouble now. The yellow-eyed naeni stood in the circle of firelight, licking his lips and savoring the new power in his fist. But no one screamed. Instead, Lohg stepped into the firelight and bellowed, “Slaves! Hear dis naeni. Soon dis land rise up. Those mountains.” He pointed at the snowy peaks on the horizon. The warrior moon’s red light turned them dusky pink. “We go to Sky Rock caves. We do not wait for sick worms. Sick worms feed dis naeni. Be strong for Lohg. Be strong for Cap.” He dealt a shove to the naeni carrying the iron pot. “Feed dese worms again.”

  When a second cake was dropped into the grass beside Andryn, he stared at it in despair. Not because he dreaded the foul taste, but because of what the second helping implied. If he was wheezing already, what would thin, dry mountain air do to him? When he and his family visited Lord Drenéleth at his lodge last year, Andy had lasted only a few hours hiking around the slopes before the coughing overcame him. Mum hadn’t let him leave the lodge after that and made him drink hot elixir for two weeks. He’d missed all the hunting, and Jaedren got to stay behind as Kelyn Swiftblade’s new squire.

  He glanced at his mother and saw his fear echoed in her face. “Eat,” she said, with hardly any voice at all.

  “I won’t fall down,” he told her.

  Mum released a quivering breath and smiled at him. “New boots will help.”

  Sure they would. Andy nodded to make her feel better.

  Lesha caught the meaning in their exchange and lowered her forehead to her knees. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be,” she sobbed.

  Mum tried to hush her.

  “What did you expect?” Andy asked.

  “The Ballad.” Her skirts muffled her voice. “I thought it would be like the Ballad. I thought … but Da doesn’t know we’re missing, and Tarsyn is probably dead!”

  Andy stuffed the second cake into his mouth before he said something to make Lesha really upset. Aye, he preferred the cake’s fetid taste to his sister’s mu
shy longing for a boy. Eldritch mares and Lady Fairs and searching beyond sun and star? Ew, his sister had strange expectations of captivity. They’d be lucky if they didn’t all end up as naeni shit in a bush somewhere, and that wasn’t in the ballads. Stupid bards.

  A scuffle turned his head. Two naenis leapt up from the fireside and crashed into each other. One was Screamface. He was probably feeling grouchier than usual. Maybe he and his opponent had reached for the same cut of meat; a human thigh roasted on the spit. Maybe Screamface just wanted to hit someone and wasn’t brave enough to hit Lohg. The two naenis strained to overpower each other. Muzzles drew back, making their tusks appear to grow. Open mouths darted forward, aiming for exposed throats.

  The naenis sharing the fire with them scrambled to their feet. Others gathered from nearby campfires. The spectators roared and brayed and formed a circle that closed off Andy’s view of the battle. He crouched lower to the ground, trying to see between the shifting forest of legs.

  The smack of fists in flesh punctuated the shouts, the scrabble of claws on leather armor. Something popped and a small object like a pale wounded bird flew up over the heads of the naenis and descended into the darkness between Andryn and Arvold. A hush sighed through the naenis. An enraged bellow ended with a meaty thuck, and one of the combatants collapsed. Screamface shoved through the wall of naenis, one hand pressed to his muzzle, the other dripping with dark wet. His opponent lay beside the fire, throat torn open. It took Andy only a moment to realize Screamface was looking for his tusk.

  Arvold extended his leg and covered the pale object lying in the grass.

  The painted naeni kicked aside one captive after another, even tried to flip the meat wagon, which would have landed atop Arvold and Andryn, but he failed and moved on, crushing captives underfoot. Bones crunched. Andryn covered his ears against wails of pain. Other captives leapt to their feet, pleading for Lohg to help their wounded neighbors. But the commander sat beside the fire, gnawing on a bone, heedless.

  The frog-eyed naeni cracked his whip. “Down!” he shouted. “Dese slaves sleep now!”

  Andryn flopped down on his back, so did hundreds of others. He turned to Arvold. The steward lay curled on his side. The firelight danced across half of his face. His exposed eye winked, and his hands parted to reveal the tusk tucked safely inside. The broken edge was sharp as a razor.

  That night, Andy couldn’t sleep. Excitement formed a painful fist in his empty belly. He watched the stars, wide-eyed, listening. For a long time, he heard nothing from Master Arvold. The light from the campfires revealed not a fraction of movement.

  Lie perfectly still, he told himself. Don’t move a hair. Don’t give the naenis a reason to look this way. Guttural grumbling softened as bellies filled. Lohg stretched out beside the embers. Sentries strolled. Near the rear of the train, a whip popped. Someone screamed, but that was far away and didn’t concern Andy. The stars moved between fat ragged clouds, slipping slowly, slowly behind the far western hills. A soft breeze drifted from the Brenlach, stinking of mud and dead fish. Silver-bellied leaves of cottonwood trees stirred. The chill and the anticipation set Andy’s body to shaking, his teeth to chattering. Be still. Perfectly still. He convinced his shoulders and jaw to relax. The shaking stopped, but only for a moment.

  Master Arvold’s arm gave a sudden jump.

  Andy waited for more movement to follow, but nothing happened.

  The firelight waned to a dull red, casting barely enough light to throw the meat wagon’s shadow across the grass. The red warrior moon glowed with an angry flush behind a cloudbank in the east.

  Arvold rolled onto his belly. Usually, drastic movement caused a ripple in the rope, but Andy felt nothing. His right hand reached like a snail across his belly, found his left wrist and the rope knotted around it, and began to reel it in. The rope kept coming, a full yard of it, weightless and unattached. His fingers found the last loose inches. Fraying wildly, the severed end was black against the star-speckled sky.

  Beneath the whispering of the wind, he heard the muttering of men. Arvold consulted with the vintner, who was tied last in line.

  Silence. It drew out for hours, though the stars barely budged. The excited shaking grew so bad that Andryn clenched his eyes, his teeth, his fists to make it stop. He’d run. He’d run all the way back home. He wouldn’t stop for an instant.

  A hand touched his shoulder; a finger pressed his mouth. “Listen, m’ lord,” said Arvold, a scratchy whisper in his ear. The steward’s hand felt for Andy’s bonds. “Don’t move until I’ve cut your mum and sister loose. We’ll flee toward the lake. You can swim?”

  Andy nodded. When Mum took him into town, he sometimes stole away to swim in the Thunderwater. If Mum found out, he received a tongue-lashing and a mouthful of elixir. During the summer, the kids from the village held races in the pool below the falls. Andy never won. He grew tired before anybody else. But he wouldn’t grow tired tonight; he would keep paddling until the naenis were miles behind him.

  The steward glanced around for the nearest sentry, then the tusk went to work, biting into Andy’s knots. “There’s an island a short way out. Straight north from our campfire. When the naenis give up the chase, we’ll head downriver to Nathrachan and the bridge. We’ll find your da in Aralorr.”

  Andy gripped the steward’s arm. “No bridges. The falcon said no bridges.” It was the falcon who had told them about the massacre at Bramoran, the falcon who convinced Da to ride away. Before they could settle their escape route, the vintner jumped to his feet.

  “No, wait!” Arvold whispered.

  The vintner paid no heed. His low, scuttling crouch quickly turned into an all-out sprint. A sentry bellowed. Humans roused from restless sleep; a cheer welled and spread as the vintner raced through the crowds. He headed for the black flow of hills to the south. “Not that way!” Arvold cried.

  Two naenis thundered past, flinging stones and axes. Captives screamed and ducked the whirling blades.

  “Arvold?” Bethyn cried, sitting up. Her arms reached for her children.

  Andy scrambled to his feet, shook the rope. “Hurry!”

  The steward watched the vintner flee, then appraised the black gulf over the Brenlach. “No time, m’ lord.”

  “What? No!”

  To Bethyn, the steward said, “I’ll find Lord Laral. Goddess willing.”

  “Go! Run,” she cried.

  He ran. While the naenis chased the vintner south, Arvold broke north, toward the inland sea. The last Andryn saw of him was his whip-torn doublet and balding head descending the hillside. The dark swallowed him fast.

  Andryn sank to the ground. Left behind. Again. His mother’s arms wrapped tight around him. He sank into her warmth and sobbed. Knights never sobbed.

  ~~~~

  4

  Rhoslyn steeled herself as she rode toward the walls of Ilswythe. From the outside, the changes were subtle. The doors of the north gate were pale, new wood and wrought-iron plates. Dwarves still labored over them, adding what looked like spikes to the outside of each door. Rhoslyn could only imagine why a door needed spikes. Other dwarves walked the battlements, their shiny helms barely rising high enough to be seen through the crenels. No banner flew from the roof of the keep, though the lord of the house was in residence.

  Several days ago, Saffron had reported back to Drenéleth, a sudden flash of yellow light, and told everyone seated at the breakfast table that Thorn and Rhian had retaken Ilswythe and that Kelyn and Laral had joined them. All were well. More, it was Kelyn’s express wish that his wife and daughter remain at Drenéleth until he sent for them.

  Saffron returned yesterday afternoon with the summons. “How bad is it?” Rhoslyn had asked.

  The fairy lowered her lavender eyes and in her tinkling voice said, “None survived. Only those who escaped with you.”

  “Only” consisted of a handful of household staff and a few villagers who had raced across the river ahead of the onslaught. Those like Nelda, the hea
d cook, and Yris, the stewardess, had remained behind to take care of the garrison. And Maegeth … how bereft the gatehouse must be without its stalwart captain.

  Rhoslyn did not like to think about that flight underground, through the ancient mud and earth-pressed darkness. She ran the tunnel again and again in her nightmares. Often the ceiling collapsed mere feet ahead of her and the ogres snuffled in the dark behind, and there was no way out.

  As Kelyn requested, the duchess and her daughter set out from Drenéleth at dawn. Eliad had given them decent mounts, since Rhoslyn had fled to Drenéleth on a draft horse and Carah had arrived in a wine wagon. The exodus of people accompanying them was a long one. Eliad uprooted his entire household staff for the occasion, to fill the holes at Ilswythe, he’d said. His horde of highland warriors gladly followed, spoiling for a fight. Their women and children and herds of shaggy cattle tagged along behind, flanked by two hundred Fieran militiamen from Brengarra. Riding well ahead of the cloud of dust were fifty-some White Mantles, surrounding the Fieran king.

  “Are you sure it isn’t too soon?” Arryk asked. “A crowd this size will be a burden.”

  Rhoslyn smiled at the White Falcon. Had any king ever considered the comforts of inferiors more than he? “Kelyn would see you safe, sire.” And Ilswythe’s stone walls, though broken, were a good deal safer than the wooden palisade hastily erected around Eliad’s lodge.

  “Nothing looks wrong,” said Drona, Lady Athmar. What would she know? She had never slapped eyes on the place. Rhoslyn resented her hard glare scrutinizing every stone.

  “This is the War Commander’s castle?” asked Drona’s nephew. What did he expect? Given how enemies painted one another in an unfavorable light, Daxon must have thought he would find a monstrous place carved of razor-edged obsidian and surrounded by blood-red clouds rumbling with lightning. But the afternoon sun shone on a well-groomed arrangement of ancient, ordinary basalt blocks and ten white oblong stones set into the foundation of her curtain wall, all of it surrounded by seas of green meadows and the sparkling arm of the Avidan River.