Cry of the Falcon (Falcons Saga Book 4)

by Court Ellyn

  “I’ll give you orders,” Lothiar bellowed. “Stop bellyaching, damn it, and let me think!” He paced beside the twin fireplaces and the matching set of chessboards. Never did he dream that the Sons of Ilswythe would be able to pull this off. He had no countermeasure. Not yet.

  Dashka stood well out of Lothiar’s path, warily watching the two Elarion argue. Watching, always watching, and there was no knowing when he was gleaning thoughts and when he was keeping his damned avedra mind-reading to himself.

  “The veil unraveled, you said?” Lothiar asked.

  Ruvion nodded, disconsolate.

  “Does that not ring a bell? You yourself stole the Book of Barriers from Aerdria’s vault, Ruvion, did you not read it?”

  “The only thing I cared about was getting out of Linndun unseen. I didn’t give a damn what was in the book. You’d tell me what I needed to know, if I needed to know. As always.”

  Blind trust in his captain. Lothiar might’ve been proud if he wasn’t so irritated. “There’s a spell called Unraveling. The problem is that we’ve had the book with us for fifteen years. There’s no way Dathiel or anyone else could’ve gotten their hands on it. Unless we have a traitor among us.”

  Ruvion glanced up from the rug. Dashka stood a little straighter. “Who has access to the book?” asked the avedra.

  “I have hidden it well.” Or Lothiar thought he had. Family library, corner shelf, top row, sixth book from the left. It blended into the rest of the neglected volumes. One needed the sliding ladder to reach it. Was the book still there? The day of the Cleansing, when he’d been faint from maintaining wards for hours, he had stowed the book away. He’d had no need to check it since. No one had seen him hide it. But what if he was mistaken? Who was with him that day? Not Ruvion. He was no threat. But Iryan Wingfleet had helped Lothiar when he passed out from exhaustion. And there was Lasharia, keeping tabs on the king. And Dashka.

  Maybe Lothiar hadn’t kept a close enough eye on the avedra. Maybe he’d kept the avedra too close. How easily could Dashka glean the book’s location from Lothiar’s mind and hand the secrets to an accomplice?

  “Stay here,” he told them. The family library was set apart from the grand royal one, which was open to courtiers and visiting highborns. The one reserved for the king and his family lay upstairs in a quieter wing of the keep. Lothiar closed the heavy door behind him, and the shutters over three tall, skinny windows. Only then did he slide the ladder into place. One, two, three, four, five, six … the Book of Barriers was still here. He slid it out to ensure a thief hadn’t substituted a false copy. The binding was crafted from thin sheets of pale thelnyth wood, aged to gray over the centuries. Intricate scrollwork in silver paint gleamed in the scant light angling through the cracks in the shutters. Inside, Lothiar found the original Elaran text, and there on page one hundred forty-three, among the other Spells of Impediments was the spell titled “Unraveling.”

  Unless someone had copied the spell and smuggled it out of Bramor, there was no way Dathiel or any other caster could’ve slapped eyes on it. How had they done it?

  A chuckle echoed from the shadows. A silvery chuckle like a breeze shivering across moonlight.

  Lothiar tucked the book under his arm and climbed down the ladder. “Damn you, dragon. Did you do this?” He searched the library but caught no glimpse of the youth, not even the faintest trace of silver light.

  Rashén’s voice slid around him in slow coils, “Your confusion is entertaining, Azhdyr.”

  “Has someone betrayed me?”

  The voice darkened. “Why should I tell you? I’m not your ally.” The coils of avë receded, leaving Lothiar’s knees quivering. Was he never alone? Did the dragon see everything he did? Lothiar needed a new hiding place for the book, but where could he put it that Rashén would not see? Goddess curse it, why bother? The disaster was done. Lothiar picked the closest shelf and shoved the damn thing between two cloth-bound books on horse breeding. Fourth shelf up, eighth from the left. Damn, he’d never remember that. Sod it. He had other concerns.

  The avedra and the Elari must have heard him stomping back; they were waiting tensely at attention when he turned through the door. “Ruvion, go to the Dragon Claw camp and fetch Da’ith. Tell him he’s been promoted.”

  The lieutenant scurried from the parlor.

  Lothiar grinned at the avedra. “Dashka, my friend, pour yourself a drink.”

  The invitation was too oily, even to Lothiar’s own ear. The avedra gulped. “I gave the enemy nothing.”

  “Was I accusing you?”

  “Yes.” His forefinger tapped his temple.

  Damned mind-reader. “My suspicion is at rest. I know who helped our enemy, and it wasn’t you.”

  Only then did Dashka relax and pour himself that candy-sweet brandy he preferred. “You will replace Elyandir with Da’ith? Isn’t he a bit, um…”

  “Frightening?” Both the Dardra and the Dranithion had refused to add Da’ith to their ranks. Too bloodthirsty.

  “Eager, I was going to say.”

  “What’s wrong with a commander being eager?”

  “Might he be rash?”

  “Probably. But if you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many Elarion to choose from.”

  “I had noticed.” There was blunt criticism lurking there somewhere.

  Lothiar reclaimed his goblet, swilled the wine, studied one of the chessboards and moved a pawn. “In Valrosk, did you ever use your skills in battle?”

  “Only once.”

  “You were not a prized warrior?” That would explain how Dathiel had overpowered him on the day of the Cleansing.

  Dashka cleared his throat. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow. “Mostly I used my skills in … in the circus.”

  Lothiar choked on the wine. It burned his nose. He laughed so hard he had to sit down.

  “I was a soldier first!” Dashka exclaimed. “I never lied to you about that. But my comrades discovered what I was. I had to flee.”

  “So you changed your name and joined the circus. Let me guess. Spitting fire? But, oh, so carefully disguised that it looked like anything but magic.”

  Dashka looked at the floor. “Something like that. I received much training from competent avedrin, yes, but I only used fire in battle on the day the ogres raided our caravan.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Lothiar’s raiders had rounded up dozens of avedrin from the Dawn Lands. Few had known how to defend themselves, yet some had inflicted quite a sting before being subdued. It was these that Lothiar had interviewed, seeking an ally. “I think I’ll send you with Da’ith.”

  Dashka set down his snifter. “What?” Let me out of your sight? implied his astonishment.

  “I expect you to report back and tell me how he performs. And, if you like, prove to yourself that you’re more than a beast in a circus.” Lothiar eased out of the chair like a shadow sliding. “If you run, I will hunt you until I catch you, and when I catch you, your screams will shatter your own ears. But if you follow orders, I will consider giving you your freedom.”

  Lothiar could almost feel the avedra’s mental fingers probing his brain, seeking the truth behind the lie, but Lothiar meant every word. One had to compromise to maintain alliances, after all. Still Dashka had trouble believing. “You would let me go? Back to my family?”

  “Back to the circus, you mean?” Lothiar snorted. “To entertain children with sticky fingers and empty pockets? Or … stay and help me make history.”

  Dashka turned away, braced his hands on the sideboard. Crystal in the wine service tinkled. After a long moment, he stilled his breathing and drew himself up. “Yes, I will go.”

  Lothiar hadn’t exactly asked, but no matter. “Use whatever means you prefer. Harass, thwart, annoy, wound the War Commander. Fire, choking plants, birds of the air. Whatever inspiration you can find in your darkest dreams.”

  ~~~~

  36

  Don’t fall down, Andy told himself. The mine shafts were narrow, too narrow f
or two men to walk abreast, their ceiling too low for naenis or grown men to stand upright. So it was up to the women and youngsters to haul the ore and the broken rock from the tunnels. The weight of the basket on Andy’s back might as well have been the weight of the whole mountain. The straps, woven from strips of leather, gouged grooves into his shoulders. His spine ached and his neck and his legs. Every tiny breath wheezed in his chest, like a bellows with a hole. He held his breath as he passed the oily black smoke belching from a torch. Mother had told him to. She’d whispered through her teeth, holding her broken jaw shut with her hand, so she wouldn’t be tempted to open it while she spoke. The smoke was his enemy. The fumes from deep inside the mountain were his enemy. The cold dry air was his enemy. He had to breathe sometime.

  His cough was getting worse again. The bitter leafy tonic Lohg kept pouring down his throat had helped ease the insatiable tickle, but a couple days had passed since the naeni had bothered with him. Now his chest ached all the time, and he was always out of breath, as if his lungs had shrunk to the size of knight’s ash pouch.

  By the time he emerged from the shaft and into the sunlight, his lips were tingling. Don’t fall down. Force of habit kept him on his feet. A deep cavern had been carved from the mountain’s face. By naeni, dwarf, or time, Andy didn’t know. The slanted ceiling sheltered the smelter, the cook fires, the supplies for smith and carpenter, the bedding space for the miners. Beyond the cavern, the road wound down the mountainside into a barren valley of rock and snow. Half a dozen naenis patrolled the road, to ensure their slaves didn’t take a walk. Past the road stretched the gulf of blue sky, the white sun, the mountains marching forever. Andy no longer took note of them. For several weeks he had resented every slope, every stone. Then he lost the energy to sustain resentment. He felt nothing, like the mechanism inside a water wheel, turning, turning, because it knows nothing else.

  He slung the basket off his shoulders and dumped the rock over the ledge. The pile of scree fanned wider, grew taller, every day.

  An empty cart topped the road and rattled into the cavern. The two naenis who pulled it dropped their harnesses and started bickering with each other. Tusks clacked. Fists swung. Andy suspected one of the naenis had pulled faster than the other and irritated his partner. Some days ago, the carpenter, abducted from Nathrachan, joked that the naenis hauled their own carts because they had eaten the oxen. Andy had wanted to laugh, then decided the joke wasn’t funny after all.

  The smiths stopped pounding out nails, picks, and hoes to pile iron ingots into the cart, then the two naenis harnessed themselves up again and started back down the road. Where they took the iron was anyone’s guess. When the humans first arrived at Sky Rock, Lohg had told them, “Mine good. This iron for Cap. Cap make great weapon, great steel skin, like dwarf. Mine good.” Andy would’ve given his big toe to know who Cap was, so he could kick him in the shin.

  He was just so tired. Oh, for the chance to sit down, to curl up and go to sleep. But if he sat down, he’d not be able to get up again. Don’t think about it. Keep moving.

  Near the back of the cavern a whip cracked. A woman howled.

  The welt from the whipping Andy had earned yesterday tingled at the sound. One moment’s rest, that’s all he’d wanted, but the naeni came around the corner and had no way of knowing how long he’d been sitting. The whip had left an oozing, burning streak under his shirt, but the basket covered it well. Neither Lesha nor Mum knew about it.

  Andy turned from the sunlight and faced the long dark of the tunnels. As he was heading in, his sister was coming out. Soot and dust masked Lesha’s face. Her eyes clung to the ground a step in front of her. To look up, to look around was to risk grabbing the attention of the naenis—or worse, glimpsing horrors done to people she knew. There were no tear streaks through the dust. She hadn’t cried in days. When forced to feed her mother with her own teeth, something had changed inside her. Andy watched it happen, and he hadn’t known what to think of it. His sister stopped being a little girl. Crying was what little girls did when they had hope of receiving something they didn’t have, be it comforts or love or kindness. Tears were lost on the naenis. They were lost on the mountains. Lost on the pain that clung to the body like a parasite.

  Her skirts and petticoats, too, had proved impractical. Ingeniously, Lesha had split the skirt up the middle and used strips of her petticoat to lace the halves of velvet up her legs to form baggie trousers. Once they saw, other women had done the same.

  Passing one another, Andy had time to ask, “Where’s Mum?”

  “Cooking,” she had time to reply.

  The last time Andy had seen his mother, she was hauling ore to the smelter. Mum was a woman of all trades. The ogres decided she was young and strong enough to haul ore, but responsible enough to handle the cooking and stir the pitch for the torches, and dexterous enough to weave baskets and rope. Andy hated seeing her agile fingers, accustomed to flying over lute strings, put to such menial tasks. But, like Lesha, she never uttered a word of complaint.

  Some days ago, one of the humans tasked with stirring the soup pot was caught stuffing a potato into her pocket. The naeni who saw the theft twisted her head right then and there. Turned out, the woman’s daughter was three months pregnant and the food had been for her. People wanted to help, Andy wanted to help, but after witnessing the woman’s swift demise, no one dared. The pregnant woman could steal her own potatoes.

  Several bodies rotted at the bottom of the scree pile. Andy didn’t know what offense most had committed, or if they had just died. Ravens bickered down there, and once he’d seen an eagle alight on its great gray wings with something in its talons. He didn’t want to think what it might’ve been. Or that he himself would soon be food for birds.

  The darkness of the shaft swallowed him. Speaking to his sister had been a mistake. Talking led to coughing. The rattling bark echoed inside the shaft, scraping his ears. It hurt the other miners, too. “Goddess’ sake, boy, can’t you stop that!” one of the men shouted. Andy swallowed the urge until it went away—or became so strong that he coughed anyway. Damned if he would approach Lohg to beg for more tonic.

  Once he passed the miners, Andy found himself alone in the shaft, so he indulged. His eyes swam, his chest squeezed, and the brick in his lungs kept him from sucking down enough wind to satisfy the tickle. He dropped to a knee, caught himself against the wall, and scrambled to his feet again. Don’t fall down. Keep moving.

  He neared the sound of water. No torches were set in this wet curve in the shaft. A steady trickle of water oozed from the ceiling and gathered in a dip in the shaft. A rivulet ran from the pool in a slick silver trail, like snail slime, along the sloping floor. Every time he passed the drip, Andy raised his face and opened his mouth, like a chick begging for flesh. Cold, gritty water filled his mouth and cooled the fever in his cheeks. The trick was to avoid getting water in his shoes. Slogging around in wet shoes for hours would rot his feet, or so said one of the miners.

  He tried to hop the puddle, or meant to, but his feet shuffled right through it. Slosh slosh went the water inside the purloined boots. Damn, now his toes would turn green and fall off. He’d never heard of such a thing happening, so he half suspected the miner was full of shit.

  At the bottom of the shaft a cavern widened out. Torchlight flickered. A bonfire piled against the far wall gave off rank smoke. A ‘chimney’ was supposed to suck the smoke out through the side of the mountain, but black haze filled the cavern anyway.

  A naeni’s bellow shook the cavern. “More brace!”

  A whip cracked, and a boy bolted past, intent on delivering the order as fast as his feet could carry him. Andy staggered out of his way. The basket on his back crunched against the wall. If it broke he’d need to trudge to the surface to fetch a new one, and with an empty load. The naenis wouldn’t like that.

  Torchlight in one of the new shafts shone on dust sifting down from the ceiling. The naeni who oversaw the delving of new shafts looked
around for someone to blame, as if it were the slaves’ fault the mountain might collapse. Screamface, one-tusked Screamface, seemed to relish his reputation as the naeni the slaves feared most. Andy remembered sprinkling salt on a slug in the garden once; he’d laughed when the slimy thing bubbled and writhed and turned yellow. When it was dead, he’d gone his merry way. That was Screamface. Only, the naeni didn’t do much laughing. The white paint on his face had smeared and mixed with gray dust and rust from the ore; if anything, the effect was more grotesque than a freshly painted skull. Miners scuttled out of his way. One of them tripped over a shovel handle, which seemed, in Screamface’s mind, to make him the culprit. The naeni hauled back a leg and kicked a miner in the side. Bones crunched. Andy slunk into a shadowy alcove and smashed his hands over his ears. Like the last four times, the beating didn’t stop until bones were crushed to pulp. Better to disappear into the rock-face until the naeni’s rage was spent. Only when the frantic ting-ting-ting of picks on rock resumed did Andy uncurl himself from the dark.

  He grabbed a hoe and crawled into the nearest gallery. The space was too low to stand up, or even sit. The miner lay on his side, chipping away at the rock with a hammer and chisel. The smoke from his torch turned his eyes red and puffy, but the man didn’t dare stop. Andy heard Mum’s voice warning him, Don’t breathe the smoke, but if he held his breath he feared he would faint. The oily smoke chafed his throat with black fingers. He extended the hoe and scraped the stone chips that had piled up between the miner and the wall. “Thanks, lad,” the man grunted.

  Once, while he munched his greasy crackers, Lesha told him to be grateful. His job could be worse; he could be forced to break rock. But he knew the truth as well as she did: he was too small for that. Too weak. Weakling. His da had left him behind because he was a weakling. He was a slave because he was a weakling. He could’ve fought back, could’ve cut his ropes and fled into the night with Arvold. He carried rock because he was a weakling, and why should his da come to save him? Da wasn’t coming. No one was. Everyone had more important things to do than rescue a bunch of slaves too weak to save themselves.