Cry of the Falcon (Falcons Saga Book 4)

by Court Ellyn

  He made a slashing motion with his hand. “No, I winna be beholden to you.”

  She cast a wary glance at the men around the fire, afraid she had insulted the lot of them. “Is that the way with highlanders? You cannot accept kindness from family without incurring debt?”

  “Not at all, we—” He stopped short, realizing his answer had trapped him. “This isn’t the same thing.”

  “Of course it is. Goddess’ bosom, mulish obstinacy does run in the family.” She might’ve been mistaken, but she thought she heard a chuckle from the other side of the campfire. “Are you always this easily offended? I’m not offering charity. Only my skill in mending your wounds, should you ever…”

  He waved the rest away. “A’ right!” Sheepish, he ducked his eyes and added, “I’m Alyster. This is my cousin Haim.” He was in the middle of introducing the rest of his kin when a cry echoed across the dark.

  “Carah! You tricked me!” Red rage colored Maeret’s voice. At least it wasn’t flat as stones anymore. She limped barefoot toward the campfire, fists balled, head thrust forward between her shoulders. If the sun had been shining, doubtless Carah would see veins bulging in her forehead, too. “I’m going to tell your mother!”

  Carah heaved a sigh. How young and helpless does she think I am?

  Azhien stepped out the dark, arm outstretched, startling Maeret to a stop.

  “That’s the bugle ordering me to withdraw,” Carah told Alyster. “Meeting you is worth the consequences. I’m glad you’ve come.”

  Her unabashed acceptance of him seemed to mystify him into silence. Carah left the warmth of the fireside and took up Azhien’s arm again.

  “I can’t believe you!” Maeret cried, keeping pace with them. “I’ll never trust you again.” The tongue-lashing continued halfway back to the fortress, but Carah dampened her ears to it. She had done the right thing, and she needed to marshal her arguments. It wasn’t Maeret she had to stand up to.

  ~~~~

  20

  At dawn, Kethlyn stuttered through an awkward farewell. Rain pattered on his plate armor and trickled in rivulets down his spine. At least the heat had subsided with the storm. “You can’t go home,” he told Lady Cait. “Please don’t insist on it.”

  She peered from a dark woolen hood beaded with rain, her eyes as troubled as the skies. “Is it as bad as it looks from here?”

  Kethlyn glanced over her head at the ruins of Endhal. “The gates are broken, the armory emptied. And it appears as if someone is occupying the keep. Someone my scouts can’t identify. ‘Not ours,’ was all they said with certainty.”

  “But some of my people are still in there.” My people. Yes, she wasn’t just Lady Cait anymore. She was Lady Endhal now. She seemed to have accepted the responsibility during the night.

  “A few scattered people aren’t enough to protect you if Lothiar tracks you down.”

  He was taking most of Cait’s protection home to Windhaven. Beneath drooping red banners, his regiment mustered on the bridge. The soldiers’ heads were bowed against the downpour. They faced the Evaronnan bank and the long march north. He had told them only, “Our orders have changed.” The troops grumbled but didn’t question. Unlike Kethlyn. He’d asked too many questions. He still hadn’t decided if he preferred knowing the truth or believing lies. The dilemma kept him awake all night. The unavoidable truth was that he was a fool, and his mistake would likely cost him his life.

  Rain had swept in from the sea while he paced his dingy room in the inn. Lightning lashed the windows, and wind churned the river beneath the bridge. Damp air and the stink of fish rose up through the floorboards and clung to the bed linens, but Kethlyn had no excuse to complain. The inn had sheltered him and his former prisoners, not only from the storm, but from Lothiar’s searching magical window as well.

  The two hundred townsfolk from Heatherton languished still in the dungeons below Brimlad, but only for a couple more hours. Kethlyn had ordered Lord Stormtyde to release them once he and his regiment had departed the city.

  Though Kethlyn had disobeyed the order to execute his prisoners, young Lord Carysio wanted nothing to do with him. They boy sat some distance away in the saddle of the horse he’d been given. A jerk of his head urged his sister to hurry up, before the Evaronnans changed their minds and marched them off to the block.

  Cait still had questions. She was soft-spoken and too timid to look Kethlyn in the eye for long. “I wish I knew what we’d done to earn that man’s spite.”

  “You were born noble, and he wants your lands. That’s all. And that’s why Endhal is not a refuge for you. The escort I’m sending with you will see you to Graynor. You’ll pass through Wyramor sometime tomorrow. My family. Tell them I sent you. They should help you.”

  “Is not Wyramor in ruins as well?”

  Kethlyn twisted his gloves between his hands. “I don’t know. If it is, don’t risk it. Give it a wide berth.”

  Cait’s fingers reached from under the travel cloak and laid upon his hands, putting a stop to his fidgeting. “I will remember your kindness, Your Grace. And your fight to save us.”

  He lowered his hands to his sides. Guilt made her touch and her forgiveness unbearable. “It was feeble. Too little too late, I fear.”

  Her eyebrows pinched in disagreement, but she refrained from arguing. “You are in danger, too, aren’t you?”

  It was more of a statement than a question. Kethlyn shrugged. “I’m a traitor to my mother and a deserter to my king—or to his commander, anyway. Sooner or later, one or the other will come for me.”

  “So you’re not going to Bramoran as he pleaded?”

  “I don’t know yet.” That was a lie. He had no intention of rushing off to Valryk’s rescue. While the storm raged beyond the slate roof of the inn, he had put the pieces together. Valryk wasn’t an ignorant pawn, he concluded. The king’s demeanor had been too confident, arrogant almost, as he’d presented his plan to his cousin, now over a year ago. At least, the plan he had wanted Kethlyn to believe. Valryk had to have known he was luring the kings and highborns to their deaths. I will not rescue a murderer. But what if he hadn’t known? What if the massacre had been Lothiar’s idea alone, conducted by this unseen host under his command? Until Kethlyn knew for certain, he meant to keep his army ensconced at home. His people needed protection, now that he had earned Lothiar’s disfavor.

  Cait cocked her head. Could she tell he was lying? That he was terrified? “If ever I can provide a refuge for you, or a witness in your favor, I will. We owe you that, for sparing us. The Goddess go with you, Your Grace.”

  “And with you, Lady Endhal.”

  She took the reins of the horse waiting for her, and Lord Stormtyde stood on hand to help her into the saddle. The castellan had chosen a guard of twenty men-at-arms from the city watch to escort Cait and her brother south. Kethlyn watched them ride the length of the bridge. Cait’s hood slid down around her shoulders, and Carysio cast one glance back, as if anticipating an arrow chasing him. The details mattered, Kethlyn told himself. If one day he found himself kneeling under a headsman’s axe, he needed to remember the sight of them riding away. It might provide a measure of courage. Innocents are worth dying for. He tried to convince himself, but he would rather live a long while yet.

  When the escort rounded the curve of Endhal’s wall, he called for his warhorse. Captain Leng held the reins while he made his feet comfortable in the stirrups. “Cenaidh,” he called, “remember what I said. Get Brimlad’s people inside the walls and keep them there.”

  He didn’t wait for a salute or an argument but put spurs to flanks and cantered to the head of the column. His regiment passed through Brimlad’s streets, double-time. It was only as they emerged from the north gate and turned west onto the King’s Highway that Kethlyn raised a fist to slow them down. Hurrying felt too much like fleeing.

  For three days, rain harried Kethlyn’s regiment. They skirted the western tail of the Silver Mountains in a downpour; a persistent d
rizzle pestered them as they crossed the pine-studded pastureland of Westhead Peninsula. Between bouts of rain, fog blanketed the sea and filled deep valleys like soup. The highway seemed to roll out a few yards at a time. Soldiers marched through a gray netherworld, like ghosts. Glimpses of towns, eaves, and fences drifted past. Disembodied voices of cottars and barking dogs were the only signs that inhabitants remained inside the villages. Were people afraid? Or merely disinclined to venture out in this weather?

  The perpetual blindness set Kethlyn’s nerves on edge. In camp at night, he posted twice as many sentries as usual. He sent scouts ranging ahead. He dared not tell them that they were on the lookout for the king’s own commander. Look for shadows on the ground that shouldn’t be there, he wanted to tell them, remembering Angelyn’s warning. But no sun meant no shadows.

  The scouts reported nothing amiss until the morning of the fourth day. By then, the rain had cleared; sunlight broke through weary scraps of cloud. Mud turned the road into a mire, and there was no crevice it didn’t invade. Even ahorse, Kethlyn felt the mud chafing inside his armor. He spat grit from between his teeth and swatted at gnats swarming over puddles. The links of his chainmail and the buckles securing his plate showed signs of rust. The column marched along the coast, only fifteen miles south of Windhaven. Cottages became more frequent; women and children worked in muddy gardens as if nothing were wrong in the world. Merchants rumbled past in heavy-laden wains. They greeted their duke with fingers tapping sweaty foreheads. Kethlyn’s heart lifted.

  Then he heard one of the merchants address Captain Leng, who followed a couple of horse-lengths behind. “His Grace returns to put out the fires?” He sounded cheerful.

  Kethlyn reined in hard and turned in the saddle. “What did you say?”

  Abashed that his duke had overheard, the merchant’s rotund face flooded red.

  “What fires?” Leng demanded.

  The merchant whipped off a flat woolen hat. “P-pardons, Your Grace. I had to turn back with me goods. Windhaven’s fit for neither tradesman nor alley rat, not since yesterday. It’s the riots.”

  “Riots? Inside Windhaven?”

  “Yessir.” The man gulped, as if he might be blamed for stirring the unrest.

  There hadn’t been riots in Windhaven since his grandfather’s time. Prolonged war against the Fierans had raised the price of bread. Grandfather Harac eased the burden on the commons by turning prime pastureland for his own flocks into grain fields. While that first harvest grew, it was said, the duke ate no bread.

  “Sir? What are your orders?” whispered Leng. His saddle creaked as he leaned close. Incredulity must have been obvious on Kethlyn’s face.

  “To proceed, of course. We will see for ourselves.” Kethlyn swept a hand, urging the column to pick up the pace. Half a mile farther on, the man riding point announced the return of the scouts. Kethlyn cantered ahead, a herald bearing a banner racing before him, and caught up with the vanguard. Three scouts in mud-spattered livery reined in and saluted. “Your Grace, you won’t believe it!”

  “Riots?”

  His foreknowledge caught them by surprise. “Smoke everywhere! City watch has barred the gates. Man on duty says that, so far, they’ve kept things under control.”

  “Under control? The city is burning.”

  “Just some warehouses, supposedly. And a block of houses in the slums, I think the watchman said.”

  “Did the watchman explain why? Is it about the fish?” He couldn’t very well bribe the sea to allow fishermen to do their job. Nor could he order the moons to stop feuding. Forath reigned at night, full and bloody; Thyrra preferred the sun’s company. Her silver crescent would set soon, though the day was not yet old.

  “We didn’t hear nothing about fish, Your Grace,” said another of the scouts. “Watchmen reported people clamoring about ashes, whatever the hell that means.”

  Ashes? Kethlyn recalled a man in Blue Company named Branyr. He’d refused to march, risking a flogging or worse, and demanded to know what had happened to the duchess. “Where’s her ashes?” he had shouted. The cry had spread through the ranks of infantry drawn up in the plaza. Only Valryk’s decree, tucked away in Kethlyn’s pocket, had quelled the outburst and convinced Branyr to march. What if Branyr had been the boldest voice of a larger movement stirring in the taverns and back alleys? If rumblings had escalated into full-scale riots, he doubted a slip of paper would quiet the people.

  Inwardly, Kethlyn groaned. A terrible soldier. A worse duke. This isn’t the time to indulge in self-loathing, fool, he told himself and pushed the column toward Windhaven. He had no choice but to face the inferno. Only, did he carry a water bucket or a bellows?

  Pillars of black smoke appeared over the pine trees. Dozens of disgruntled merchants and frightened townspeople cleared off the highway to the let the column thunder past. The road descended toward the coast and the shining blue waters of Windy Coves. Windhaven clustered against the sea behind yellow sandstone walls. Gusts from the bay pushed the smoke across crowded rooftops, and surely carried embers that spread the fires with plague-like swiftness. The heralds raced to the city gate to announce Kethlyn’s arrival. The wardens asked no questions. The gates lurched open so fast that Kethlyn’s warhorse didn’t need to break his stride.

  Rivers of chaos flooded the streets. People ran in every direction, some with buckets, some with torches, some with goods stolen or rescued, who could say? Furniture, books, clothes flew from windows. Men piled the things onto bonfires. Others paraded, shouting, “Give us her ashes! Give us her ashes!”

  Kethlyn led his regiment straight through the irate crowds. People scattered like startled deer. Some tossed stones, broken furnishings, the contents of gutters. A small painted vase struck Kethlyn on his breastplate and shattered. He didn’t slow down to look for his assailant.

  Smoke turned the sky yellow and filled the streets with choking darkness. Between rows of houses, Kethlyn glimpsed the sea and a burning ship. The galleon risked the tides to escape the docks, but orange fingers crept up her masts. On a street corner, four men surrounded a woman. She raked with her fingernails until one of the men struck her down. Packs of children hurled stones at street lanterns or filled their arms with food stolen from overturned stalls.

  As soon as Kethlyn reached the piers on the Liran, he reined in for a long look back. “Brainless sons of bitches!” he shouted at no one in particular.

  Captain Leng reined in beside him.

  “They love my mother so much, do they? Yet they destroy the city she holds dear!”

  “Do not look for sense in a raging mob, Your Grace. You’re bound to be disappointed.”

  Kethlyn made a fist, but there was no one to strike. “My own people are doing things in my city—my city, Leng!—that I forbade you to do in the Leanian countryside. I know your men are tired, but put a stop to these crimes by nightfall. Set up bucket chains, people stretching from the piers to the fires. Enforce a curfew. Anyone on the streets after dusk is to be tossed into the dungeon. Arrest rapers and looters on the spot.”

  Leng thumped a fist to his chest. “We’re on it, sir.”

  Weary to his bones, Kethlyn rode to the bridge, his heralds in tow. The middle section had been raised, though no ships sailed the river. A man ran from the winch-house. He carried a spiked club as thick as his muscled arm. Kethlyn reached for his sword. He recognized the master winchman, but was he still a friend?

  The man paused a few paces away, squinted through the brown haze, and grinned. “Is it really you, Your Grace?”

  “Why would you doubt it?”

  He lowered the club. “Plenty of angry folk been trying to cross the river, they have. Some tried to convince me they was you, hiding in a carriage or whatnot. But I know your carriages and your horses, so I do. Me and the boys barricaded ourselves in the winch-house, had to fight off quite a crowd last night. Luckily, the place is made a stone and didn’t burn.” Half-burned crates and barrels lay piled around the foundation of th
e winch-house. Black soot reached as high as the slate roof.

  “But why lie to cross?”

  “Damn fools wanted to torch the palace. Still do, I guess. I sent word up the hill. Men from the garrison patrol the far bank.”

  “I’ll see you’re rewarded for this,” Kethlyn vowed.

  “Just set it right, Your Grace, that’s reward enough. You’d better not tarry. I’ll lower the bridge for you, then raise it quick, soon as you’re safe on the other side.” The man jogged back to the winch-house. Massive chains clattered. The middle section slowly descended.

  From the cliffs across the river, Kethlyn had a spectacular view of the nightmare. Smoke swirled up the cliff-face, stinging his eyes. One of the heralds doubled over in the saddle coughing. The burning ship lost the battle against the tides. Wild waves and currents had swept her against the piers. Stone jetties staved in her ribs. She listed heavily to starboard. The fires dwindled on the docks but reached long fingers into finer neighborhoods. The villas of wealthy merchants and highborns on the hilltops had yet to feel the heat, but Kethlyn saw a mob gathering outside a tall iron gate. The lights in their hands, he feared, were torches rather than lanterns. Fire had spread to the main market as well. If the plaza burned any wares or food left behind, the people would have more than the price of fish to complain about. “Damned if I’ll feed them,” Kethlyn muttered under his breath. “They brought this on themselves.”

  He spurred his warhorse through the palace gate. Captain Drael rushed from the gatehouse to take the reins. “It’s a relief to have you home, Your Grace. The city is a madhouse!”

  “Not for long.” Kethlyn ran up the nearest tower. A long sandstone wall sped him across the palace complex toward three mighty towers that reared up from the seaside cliffs. The central tower, taller and broader than the two flanking it, doubled as a lighthouse. The great fires burned day and night; vast mirrors amplified the light across Windy Coves. The heat touched Kethlyn’s cheek as he approached the smaller southwest tower. A large brass spyglass was mounted upon the crenels. It would show him Leng’s progress in quelling the violence. Someone already occupied it. Lady Halayn’s black taffeta skirts rustled in the smoke-strangled wind. She hunched over the lens, gazing toward the city. Her silver-headed cane leaned on the wall beside her.