Cry of the Falcon (Falcons Saga Book 4)

by Court Ellyn

“You heard right,” Gyfan replied. “We held off the ogres for two days before we decided it wasn’t worth it.”

  “Armor trees wielding sticks stood on the wall for us while we took to the tunnels and fled into the mountains,” Ulna added.

  “They had ransacked Zeldanor by the time Maeret and me reached it,” Drys said. Laral glanced at a dour young lady with large brown eyes and straight, mousy brown hair. She wore a mud-spattered breastplate and shoulder guards that looked too big for her. Laral had heard that after escaping Bramoran, Drys had struck out on his own with Lady Lunélion’s daughter in tow. “But they abandoned it for some reason,” his friend added. “Took half my people prisoner, so say these poor sods who were left behind.” Behind the uniformed garrisons, the lines of civilians tapered off between weedy rye fields.

  “I warn you, Ilswythe’s larders are already empty,” Laral said. “You should’ve left the civilians at Zeldanor.”

  “I did!” Drys insisted. “These are the fighters. Well, they want to be. They’re loggers, mostly. A few miners. Strong men. You’ll see.”

  Laral considered them, sure he’d be the one stuck training them. “Kelyn will happily take them. There’s ground available on the west side of the wall. Camp them there.”

  Ulna nodded and wheeled her mount to deliver the order. The column heaved into motion again and clanked toward the river crossing.

  Laral eyed young Maeret. “Lady Lunélion—?”

  “And Lady Vonmora, it would seem,” she said, voice monotone, with grief or habit Laral couldn’t decide.

  “I’m sorry for your loss. Your parents were kind people. You look like your mother. Do you fight like her, too?”

  “I don’t know.” Her weapon of choice, a wickedly spiked ball of iron on a chain, dangled from her saddle horn.

  “Your Aunt Maeret used a morning star as well.”

  “And shrieked like a banshee, yes, I know the stories. I’d hoped to reclaim hers from Lunélion, but ogres still held the place. Drys gave me this one from Zeldanor’s armory.”

  “Had to drag her away from Lunélion, tooth and nail,” Drys chortled. “But she finally grew some sense and decided she weren’t no one-woman army.”

  Maeret rolled her eyes and failed to hide the humiliation reddening her face.

  “You’ll get your chance, Lady Maeret.”

  About that time, the supply wagons trundled past. Laral peered into the beds and found cages full of moody, clucking fowl.

  “Chickens!” Laral exclaimed. “Goddess bless you.”

  “And ducks,” Drys said, pointing. “I prefer a duck egg myself. We raided every storehouse we came to, brought everything that wasn’t nailed down.” Two nanny goats were tethered beside the birdcages, and the wagon that brought up the rear was loaded with bags of flour and meal. “We always been good foragers, ain’t we, Kalla?”

  “It won’t get us far, I’m afraid,” she said, her feet ever on the ground.

  Drys tsked in agreement. “And not ten miles back we saw them ogres pulling several wagons of supplies.”

  “Hoarding,” Laral muttered. Yes, this corroborated the glassblower’s account and Kelyn’s suspicions.

  “They were right out in the open,” Drys declared, “visible to the Goddess and all.”

  “They had to have seen us passing with our war banners,” Kalla said. “But they didn’t seem to care.”

  “Why should they?” Laral said. “They know they have the advantage. Why fear us?”

  “Wish we’d had the guts to charge them and take their spoils.”

  “They’d just disappear and slaughter you.”

  “Aye, Drys,” Kalla said, “most of us don’t see shimmers, remember.”

  He glared red-hot pokers at her and splashed off across the ford.

  “What was that about?” asked Laral.

  “He let it slip that he can see what we can’t. You’d think he’d be proud of his bloodline, wouldn’t you?”

  Laral and Kalla pursued their friend up the hill and into Ilswythe’s courtyard. Kelyn and Eliad had arrived to greet the newcomers. Drys was telling them about the ogres he’d seen. Ulna and Maeret nodded in agreement. “I got me an idea though,” he was saying. “You have enough dwarves here, Commander, to send out an ambush party.”

  A grin spread slowly across Kelyn’s face. “It’s worth a try. Dagni!”

  The dwarven matron poked her head through the crenels over the gatehouse, then disappeared again.

  “I … I think I’d better lead the squad, Commander,” Drys stammered. “I know where the ogres are … were. I mean I can track them.”

  Kelyn failed to catch the slip. Or he didn’t care one whit that Drys was part dwarf. “You’ll have to intercept the supply train before it comes within sight of Bramoran.”

  “Move fast, then, aye,” Drys agreed.

  Dagni emerged from the base of the gatehouse tower; Kelyn told her to find twenty volunteers. “Have them ready to march in an hour.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Maeret said. “Send me.”

  “No, you’re green,” Kelyn replied. “You’ll stay here and train under Laral.”

  He started to turn away, but Maeret stopped him. “It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it!”

  Eliad winced. Ulna guffawed. A narrow-eyed grin turned Kelyn’s face into a dangerous leer. He was contemplating lengthy, but constructive, retribution. His voice was soft. “It’s because you’re green. As you just proved, soldier. Report to the melee grounds. Eliad, escort her. Help her work out some of this … rage.”

  Eliad shrugged through a salute. “With pleasure. M’ lady, after you.”

  Teeth grinding, Maeret whirled for the gate.

  Dagni headed for the barracks to select the squad. In tow, Drys was downcast and more contemplative than Laral had ever seen him.

  “Be careful,” Kalla called.

  Drys turned with a wave. “We’ll eat good tonight.”

  ~~~~

  The dwarves didn’t return by suppertime, however. Nor were they back by midnight. Kelyn walked the wall with the sentries, calculating losses. More dwarves than necessary peered through the crenels toward the eastern horizon. Some of them played a dwarven version of Skull ‘n Rose, on tiles instead of dice, but they bickered instead of laughed. They worried for their sisters and brothers, too.

  Dagni emerged from the gatehouse tower with a steaming hot flask and offered Kelyn a mug. “Maybe mead will help you sleep, Commander.”

  “I doubt it, but thank you.” He sipped. The chill in the night wind cooled the mug fast.

  “How do you know?” Dagni asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “When to issue an order and when not to?”

  “Sometimes I don’t. It’s a gamble. You calculate, you weigh odds, you take a step. Sometimes it’s the wrong one. If you hesitate, you miss an opportunity. If you jump too soon, you lose lives.”

  “You could lose lives anyway, even if things are well-planned.”

  “True. Unknown variables.” And what could be more unknown than an army he couldn’t see?

  “In the mines we have a saying. ‘No rock is as solid as you think.’ ”

  Kelyn stared over the wall, into the gulfs of darkness under the stars, and nodded.

  “Get some sleep, Commander.”

  A heavy fist pounded the door of Kelyn’s sitting room. He’d nodded off in his armchair. Through the narrow window, the sky paled toward dawn. A few stars lingered.

  The fist pounded again. Kelyn stumbled from the chair. Rhoslyn poked her head from her bedchamber. “Is everything all right?”

  It was a sleepy, thoughtless question. “I’ll let you know. Go back to bed.” He slipped into the vestibule, opened the outer door. Laral stood on the threshold, lamp held high. His eyes were bloodshot. He hadn’t slept either, fearing for his friend.

  “They’re back. Some of them.”

  “The supplies?”

  “Success.” The announcement should’ve soun
ded joyful, but it carried a grim note.

  Four large wains lined up beneath the granary towers. Mismatched numbers of oxen and mules pulled them. The beds were mounded with bags of meal, grain, salt, and potatoes, crates of jarred preserves, and racks of smoked meat. Dwarves rolled barrels of ale down a ramp. Several sheep were packed into the last wain. All Kelyn could see were their wooly backs.

  Dagni stood with her hands on her hips, shouting orders. “What happened?” Kelyn asked her.

  “We lost half,” Dagni replied. “But ten ogres are dead, and only one wagon lost.”

  Seven bodies and parts of three others were carefully unloaded from the ale wagon and laid on a canvas tarpaulin. Dwarves gathered round, weeping and making the sign of sorrow with their fingers. “Where’s Drys?” Kelyn asked.

  A sandy head poked up from the back of a wain. Drys gave a bag of potatoes a toss. Blood flecked his face. “Dwarves are maniacs. I barely had time to swing my sword more than twice before it was over.”

  “What delayed you?”

  “Banners. We saw banners on the highway. Had to take the long way around.”

  “Whose banners?”

  “Couldn’t say, sir. It was too dark, but the ground rumbled. It was ogres, all right, headed north from Bramoran.”

  On their way here. Kelyn’s nape tingled with certainty. “Right. Dagni, sound the alarm. Laral. Where’s Laral?” He stopped moving supplies into the granary tower when he heard his name. Kelyn told him, “Drag Eliad away from his mistresses and have him get his highlanders inside. They’re to bring as many cattle as will fit in the bailey. Drys, wake Ulna. She’s to position her militia atop the battlements. Yours, too. Laral, yours are better rested. You’ll form up outside the gate.”

  “Outside it?” His gray eyes blinked wide, but he wasn’t one to question. “Yessir.”

  People dispersed. Kelyn hurried upstairs to put on his Elaran armor. Rhoslyn stood at the sitting room window watching the meager army mobilize. That trouble loomed was plain enough to her. “I asked the dwarves to clear the tunnel to Bransdon,” she said. “They’re not finished yet. Do you think…?”

  “It’s possible. But we’ll worry about one thing at a time. Help me with this?” Solandyr’s armor hung on a stand in the corner. The dark scales glistened in the early-morning shadows. The dwarves had sized it to fit him and shaved a hair of weight from the magnificent sword.

  Rhoslyn’s fingers fumbled with the buckles. “Where is Thorn when we need him?” Her jaw clenched tight with old resentment.

  “He’ll be here,” Kelyn said. “He knows to hurry.”

  “Do you think he’ll bring help?” In time, she implied.

  “We can’t rely on that.”

  When she had secured the buckles, she laid a hand tenderly on the breastplate, where he couldn’t feel the warmth of her fingers, only imagine it. “Don’t charge into anything you can’t see.”

  “I’ll be careful. Be ready to move.”

  By the time he returned to the courtyard, the castle was in a frenzy. Cattle and highlanders crowded the bailey, kicking up a choking veil of dust. The forge blazed. Smiths churned out buckets of arrows and sharpened blades at the whetting wheel. Eliad instructed the graybeards from Bramoran to take the wounded into the barracks. Humans raided the armory for bows and filed onto the battlements. Dwarves rolled barrels of pitch up the towers, to be dumped and set alight. Kelyn only hoped the dwarves had built solid gates. At both the main gatehouse and the northern, foot-thick oaken planks were banded in black iron and studded with close-set spikes meant to fend off rams and wild charges. Inside them, new portcullises were practically warm from the forge.

  “M’ lord!” Bryden came running, chubby face flushed. “Where do you want me?”

  Far away from battle. “Fill quivers. Mind the steps, you’ll be running up and down. We don’t need broken necks.”

  Kelyn climbed the main gatehouse to inspect Laral’s militia. The Fierans in gray tabards lined up across the hilltop, bows bristling on their shoulders, pikes bristling in their hands. Haldred sat a horse beside his foster-lord. In his fist, Brengarra’s banner snapped in a quickening morning breeze. The banners of Blue Mountain, Zeldanor, Ilswythe, and the White Falcon rustled atop the walls. None flew for Mithlan or Athmar or Ulmarr; there had been no chance to snatch one’s colors from Bramoran. “Is that Daxon sitting the horse next to Laral?” On a stained white surcoat reared Ulmarr’s red towers. His aunt was there too, the green boar of Athmar snarling on her back.

  “They insisted,” Dagni said.

  “Did Laral tell them they’re out there merely for show?”

  “For show, Commander?”

  “On my order, they will loose a volley at the oncoming host, then withdraw inside. Make sure they’re aware. See to it yourself.”

  She snapped a salute and ran down the tower.

  Kelyn found Eliad in the courtyard and beckoned him with a wave. “I have another task for you,” he said, when his former squire joined him at the crenels.

  “Kelyn, some of those men aren’t happy being turned into nursemaids.”

  He had no time for men with injured pride. “Set your women to stitching up the wounded, too.”

  Eliad made a face. “Lyana won’t mind, but Narra will fuss.”

  “She can cook, then. See to it.” His former squire started off, but Kelyn hauled him back. “That’s not why I called you up here. Listen. We need an illusion.”

  Eliad spread his hands. “Kelyn, I’m good, but I’m not that good. What kind of illusion?”

  “Numbers. Intimidating numbers.”

  “I doubt ogres are intimidated by numbers. They probably only feel hungrier.”

  “We have to try. Pass the word. Tell everyone that as soon as the dwarves sound the horn, they’re to drop what they’re doing and file onto the wall and make a lot of noise. Highlander, smith, housekeeper, man, woman, child, everybody. Bang pots and pans together or something.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “Then get started.”

  Grudgingly, Eliad set off down the steps.

  Kelyn hoped to claim a moment to breathe, to focus his thoughts, but a sentry cried, “Commander! Incoming. Dust cloud in the west.”

  The west? Kelyn detected the long, faint smudge of dust rising over the treetops beyond the river. Likely a second host of ogres deployed to meet those marching from Bramoran. Surely they meant to swarm over the walls like rats over a carcass. How long could the gates keep them out? Brother, where are you?

  But it was a sleek black carriage, not a host of ogres that broke from the trees and raced into the village. Twenty men escorted it. They rode matching horses and wore dark uniforms, blue maybe, or black. In the van, two heralds carried banners aloft. One was bright Aralorri blue bearing the crowned black falcon of Bramoran; the other bore wavy blue lines on a rust orange field. Rhyverdane.

  Kelyn swore. “It’s the queen mother.”

  “Queen Briéllyn?” squawked the sentry and moved to give the order to open the gate.

  Kelyn gripped the dwarf’s shoulder. “No! Remember whose mother she is.” He rushed down the tower and out through the sortie gate.

  Laral, too, had recognized the banners. He turned his horse and asked, “Sir, what do we do?”

  Kelyn didn’t like the answer to that question. “Valryk could’ve sent her to negotiate, or maybe that’s her army coming to aid the ogres.” He gestured at the dust beyond the treeline. “Prepare bows. Loose on my order. No feint, understand?”

  For the first time, Kelyn thought his former squire might argue with him. But Laral let out a heavy breath. “Yessir.” He relayed the order. Bows filled hands; arrows slid free of quivers.

  Kelyn eased through the lines of Fieran infantry and stood amid the road that led to his front gate. The carriage splashed across the ford, slowing not a hair, and sped up the hill. One of the queen’s heralds charged ahead, reined in hard, showering Kelyn with dust. “Move aside for Her
Majesty!”

  Kelyn stood his ground, laid a hand to the pommel of the Elaran sword. “She’s to state her loyalties first.” Valryk said he had sent his mother home to Rhyverdane. Understandably, the young king wanted to spread his wings, but had his mother known what Valryk planned for his guests? Had her absence from the Convention been against her will or not?

  The carriage and its escort halted amid the road. The queen’s handsome face peered out the window. Her wind-whipped auburn hair was topped with a velvet hat and billowing plume. “Ever the bold one, Kelyn,” Briéllyn said, eyebrows pinched in anger. “This isn’t the first time you’ve met me with a blade.”

  Kelyn’s fist squeezed the pommel harder; he was determined not to remember the night he had discovered her spying on King Rhorek’s camp. Memories resulted in sentimentality and skewed judgment. “Whose summons do you heed, Your Majesty? Thorn’s or Valryk’s?”

  “If I sympathized with the Black Falcon I would have gone to Bramoran.” She flung open the carriage door and bailed out before her footman could aid her. An irate flush crept up her neck as she marched up the hill, skirts hiked past her ankles. “Put those troops to better use and rescue my men.” Her finger jabbed toward the dust rising over the trees.

  Had Valryk sent her to lure him out? Kelyn grit his teeth. “We hold position.”

  “Listen to me! Something attacked our rear guard as we passed Avidan Wood, and it’s been harassing us for two days. I can’t count how many men we’ve lost. Some died where they stood, some disappeared altogether. My guard brought me ahead, believing I’d be safe with you. Were they wrong?”

  Kelyn glared in reply, taking a measure of her guard. They watched him warily in return. Were they really Leanian? Orange sunrays splayed across the shoulders of the dark blue surcoats. But uniforms meant nothing. He had learned that the hard way.

  Sorrow softened Briéllyn’s green eyes. “What has my son done to you, Kelyn? Will you no longer save a friend?” Her hand rose to touch his cheek. “Tell me the truth. Are the rumors true? Is this Valryk’s doing?”

  Gaging her reaction carefully, he told her the unvarnished truth. “He locked us in and loosed his new and improved Falcon Guard on us. We were unarmed. If it weren’t for my brother, none would have escaped.”