Blood of the Falcon, Volume 2 (The Falcons Saga)

by Ellyn, Court

  Others had tried prying the Aralorris loose as well. Troops from Arwythe and Ca’yndale mostly, while militias from the surrounding villages had taken to hiding in what woods hadn’t been ripped up alongside the roads, with intentions of cutting off Aralorr’s supply line.

  Troops from Athmar, however, had rarely made an appearance. Lady Drona was too occupied securing her lands along the river to ride to her brother’s aid. Reports stated that she had taken full advantage of the big gaps burned in the Brambles and sent her army north across the Bryna, just as Lander feared she would. Midguard barely held out against her assault while her infantry raided and burned half a dozen villages in the Shadow Mounds. Only heavy rains near midsummer had convinced her to fall back to Athmar, though Lander claimed he was giving her a good beating. Apparently, Drona made it home just before the river flooded and stranded her in enemy territory.

  Farther west, the Great Ford fell to Fiera a few weeks after the rain subsided. Rumor had it that the moment the Warlord Goryth appeared on the field, the Leanian troops withered and fled. No one dared face the man who possessed the mettle and the will to sever his own hand. Kelyn, however, suspected the Zhiani dragoneers had much to do with Leania’s crumbled resolve.

  All that was a world away. Kelyn’s concern amounted to a wall, a bit of stone. “Another winter is almost upon us, Master Brugge. In a week or so, Rhorek will withdraw north. Will you be through by then? If not, everything we spent our manpower trying to accomplish this year will be wasted.”

  “We’ll bust through, lad,” said Brugge, puffing out his chest. His gruff voice quieted, “For your ears alone. The boys and I mean to bring in the special khorzai. The picks crafted in our secret forges. The hutza. The unbreakable. Even the hardest stone stands no chance against them. It will take the boys a few days to bring them from … where we’ve stashed them. But if the tunnel should collapse and claim those picks, you’re not to tell a bloody soul, hear? No one digs them up and claims what’s ours.”

  Kelyn grinned and clapped the dwarf on the back. “How long once they arrive?”

  “Stretch your patience a bit more, lad.”

  A week later, during a cold drizzle, Ulmarr’s gatehouse towers tumbled down in a thundering cloud of red dust. Brugge had warned Kelyn that the day was at hand, and every knight and foot soldier stood ready. As soon as the dust cleared, the trumpet sounded, and the dwarven regiment led the charge over the debris. Morach led the knights. The shouts and clash of battle rang inside the halls for no more than an hour. When Morach himself tore Ulmarr’s banner from the roof of the keep, King Rhorek and his Guard climbed over the mountain of broken stone and took possession.

  “Where’s Lord Degan?” Kelyn asked when Morach came down from the roof.

  “My men are ferreting him out,” he replied, whipping out a stained kerchief to wipe his sword clean.

  “He’s gone into hiding? There must be tunnels. If he gets away, Morach—”

  “You’ll what, boy?” His aggression was still up, and he’d be damned if he’d be told he’d done a poor job.

  “His Majesty will be gravely disappointed.”

  Morach backed down, gathered his dignity and his wits. “Patrol the grounds outside?”

  “Good idea.”

  “Right.” He bellowed orders and in moments had a detail searching the streets of the abandoned village and the pastures beyond.

  The Guard checked out the safety of the keep, then ushered the king inside. Rhorek was interested in the study. While Kelyn, Jareg, and a handful of others searched the shelves and desks for papers revealing any plans that Degan and his sister may have had, Rhorek helped himself to a decanter of Fieran white. “Stop!” Kelyn cried, startling the king; the Falcons, too. “Not that I think Degan smart enough to poison the wine before fleeing, but…” He beckoned for the glass.

  “You are not my wine taster,” Rhorek declared.

  Jareg grabbed the glass, gulped before the king could stop him, handed it back. “Good wine these Fierans make.”

  “One day,” Rhorek said, wagging a finger, “that may get you into serious trouble.”

  “Better me than you, sire.”

  When Jareg didn’t turn blue, Rhorek passed around the decanter. The wine was nearly gone when Morach bellowed down the corridor, “We got him!”

  Lord Degan was a muddy mess, glowering at the indignity of having to kneel in his own courtyard. Master Brugge and several of Morach’s retainers stood over him. “He popped out of a sheep shed, quarter of a mile north of the castle,” Lord Longmead explained as Rhorek and Kelyn approached the prisoner. “Runs fleet as a rabbit, he does, but we ran him down, sure enough.”

  Kelyn cast the king a sidelong glance, and Rhorek returned a nod, though it pained him. Advancing on the prisoner, Kelyn unsheathed the falcon blade. Brugge and the knights scattered aside. Degan opened his mouth to beg or curse or pray, but he had no time to voice it. His head rolled and his body collapsed in a heap. “Gyfan, stake his head atop that tower,” Kelyn ordered. “The rest of the place comes down. Brugge, that’s your job. Tear down these walls, the keep, everything, and ship the stone north to Leshan. The people are to be spared, in accordance with the Black Falcon’s wishes. But Fiera no longer has a refuge in Ulmarr.”

  ~~~~

  That night in the king’s pavilion, Rhorek fretted over the things he would take north with him on the morrow. His indecision, however, was not over which suit of armor or which saddle would be least uncomfortable on the long journey.

  Standing at attention near the flaps, Kelyn watched him with indifference. He seemed to see everything these days through a haze of indifference. Living, dying; fighting, resting. When he reflected on it, it shook him a little. How could he feel next to nothing about everything? But in the end, he was indifferent about that, too. Either the haze would lift one day, or it wouldn’t.

  Rhorek, on the other hand, seemed to be struggling. Pouring himself a goblet of mead, he said, “Tell me, Kelyn. How were our measures today different from those Leshan took against the shavers at Bramoran?”

  “Our measures? Degan, you mean? They weren’t.”

  Rhorek nodded slowly, slipped into a camp chair, and sipped the mead.

  “Accept that Leshan wasn’t following orders,” Kelyn added.

  “Neither was I when I handed you those orders.”

  “You don’t follow orders, sire. But when you give them, they are law.”

  “Are you sure I decided rightly?”

  Kelyn shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.”

  “I would not have disobeyed you, either way.”

  Rhorek’s eyes narrowed as he took a careful measure of his confidante. “I think it’s a good thing that winter is upon us.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning there’s someone looking at me from your face that I barely recognize anymore. I knew who you were this spring.”

  “I can’t afford to feel things as you do, sire. Neither could my father. I learned that when Garrs returned from Nithmar.”

  Rhorek sighed, burdened with a surge of grief. “Do not lose yourself as Leshan did.”

  On his way back to his tent, Kelyn passed the mass pyre where the foot soldiers who’d died today gave up their ashes. He tried not to feel indifferent.

  ~~~~

  The next morning, the king and his Guard started the journey home to Bramoran for the winter. Cold rain plagued them until they were halfway through Whitewood, but Rhorek was in too great a hurry to feel concern for his health. On the few occasions that weather and fighting allowed him to ride home, he’d come back with boasts of how lovely his queen looked, glowing and more full in the belly than last time. But Briéllyn’s letters had grown less frequent as the year wore on. Rhorek worried for her despite her assurances that she was in good health.

  A light snow was falling when they reached Bramoran. Hurrying into the keep, Rhorek handed off his sodden cloak to Master Dinél. “The queen,
how is she?”

  “His Majesty will find the queen in labor at this moment.”

  Rhorek grabbed the steward by the shoulders. “It’s happening now?”

  Dignity not shaken in the slightest, Dinél replied, “Since this morning, sire. Three weeks earlier than expected.”

  Rhorek ran to Briéllyn’s wing. His arrival was announced, but the physicians would not let him in. “Sire, this is not the place for men,” said Master Curion, who saw to all the king’s aches and sneezes when he was in residence. “Even we must wait in the antechamber until the midwives have done their part.”

  “But how is she?”

  “Her Majesty is strong.”

  “The baby is early.”

  “Many babies are born early and live healthy lives, sire.”

  Rhorek refused to join the complacent physicians in the antechamber, but paced the corridor. Butlers brought food and wine for him, but he cared only for the latter. He forgot even the wine when the outcries began. Though he had heard the screams and groans of dying soldiers all year, the cries he heard inside the queen’s chamber raised his hackles and ripped his soul apart. When his mistresses had given birth, he’d continued with business as usual. The children weren’t princes and princesses after all, and were of little practical value. But this woman and this child were entirely different. He didn’t care that the future of Aralorr and all the western world revolved around what happened behind that door. The sound of Briéllyn struggling was more than he could bear.

  He fell into a chair and clenched his head between his hands. When the sounds stopped, he paced some more, expecting the physicians to fetch him, but no one came. Something was wrong, he was sure of it. Bursting into the suite, he startled the midwives and Master Curion, who conferred in the antechamber. “Well?” he demanded.

  The midwives curtsied, and Curion hurried forward to placate him. “Her Majesty wouldn’t see you until she’d had a bit of a bath.”

  “A bath? To hell with that. Stand aside.”

  Briéllyn sat up against a mountain of pillows. One handmaid swiped her face and arms with a cool, damp cloth while another brushed and braided her hair. Seeing Rhorek push his way into the room, she scolded, “You wouldn’t give me a moment to tidy up?” Though the words were spirited, they didn’t have much force behind them.

  “Silly woman,” Rhorek said. The handmaids bowed aside so he could sit next to her.

  Briéllyn’s cheeks were flushed, and her lower lip was swollen from biting it. “I shouldn’t have promised you he’d be waiting when you returned. He must’ve decided we ought not break our word.”

  Rhorek felt himself grinning like a fool. “He? Where?”

  “Here, sire,” answered an old woman at the foot of the bed. The midwife carried a bundle and placed it in Rhorek’s arms. A tiny red face glowed inside the white blanket, swollen eyelids closed and tiny fists knotted under a bump of a chin. This? A prince? A future king? Rhorek crowed with laughter, delighted to the bottom of his soul.

  “My father’s name was Valryn,” Briéllyn said. “I decided weeks ago that if it was a boy, I’d call him Valryk. If it pleases you.”

  “If it didn’t, would there be any changing your mind?”

  She laughed. “Not for a moment.”

  ~~~~

  Kelyn waited below the balcony with the rest of the court. For a hundred years, every royal heir had been presented to the Aralorri people in this portion of the gardens. Snow gathered atop hoods and hats, and servants brought around flasks of steaming mead. Kelyn warmed his hands around the mug and listened to wagers. Would the babe be a girl or a boy?

  Captain Jareg found him standing apart and dealt him a clout on the back, sloshing the hot mead. “Why look so grim?”

  “Do I?” How to tell the captain, whose faith in him was fragile anyway, that by now, he had a child somewhere, too? “Just hoping everything’s all right.”

  “Aye,” said Jareg. “My Sal lost two before she had a healthy one. Will you wager? Boy or girl, c’ mon, Ilswythe.”

  The balcony doors opened and Rhorek emerged. The people clustered below, eyes on the bundle tucked in the crook of his arm. Carefully, he raised the bundle high into the softly falling snow and announced, “Aralorr has her prince.”

  The people raised their mugs and cheered wildly. Their prince loosed a strident wail in response.

  Over the shouts of celebration rose a scream that severed their joy like a blade. The crowd grew still, looking for the source. Again it echoed across the gardens, “Nooooooo!” High atop a roof opposite the balcony, a ragged woman in a tattered dress and unkempt hair shrieked with a sorrow so deep it sent chills rippling up Kelyn’s neck. Who was this madwoman who interrupted Aralorr’s moment of triumph?

  Rhorek passed the baby off to a midwife and called, “Bysana! Come down.”

  A pair of guards clambered along the roof pole after her. One called, “Sire, deepest apologies. She got away from us.”

  “I’ll have your keys for this!” Rhorek replied.

  Bysana, too, carried a bundle. It struggled to free itself from her grip, but she held on tight. A cat, it appeared to be, trying to claw its way up her shoulder. Free fist knotted, Bysana cried, “May your heir be a curse upon you! Upon all your people! May he die young! And you with him!”

  The guards edged closer along the rooftop, slipping in the thin snow. Bysana saw them, gasped, and half ran, half slipped down to the eaves, and leapt. Kelyn tossed his mug; he and half the court ran to try to catch her, but she was too far away, too many walls and rose bushes between them. Bysana struck the cobbles and blood spread steaming in the snow. The cat yowled and sprang away, a gray streak that vanished among the wilted herbs.

  Kelyn knelt at her side. No need to feel for a pulse, the way those dark eyes stared past him. He looked for Rhorek, found him hurrying along the gravel paths. “Make way!” Jareg called, and the available Falcons pressed the people back.

  Rhorek stared down at this creature who had loved him, hated him, and Kelyn watched the joy and hope drain from his face. “How long will a man’s past haunt him?”

  Kelyn felt as if Rhorek asked the question for both of them. “Don’t think about it today, sire. Go enjoy your son.” He waved for Bysana’s guards to find a way down and help with the body. Rhorek steeled his expression before he turned and made his way back through the crowd.

  ~~~~

  Gold ingots, half the size of saucers, cascaded through Shadryk’s fingers. The chest was nearly as large as his desk and filled to the brim. Ki’eva stood behind a chair, glaring askance at the ingots, as though they made her nervous, and rightly so. Scores of men, Fieran and Zhiani, under Captain Wess had died getting their hands on this chest. While Rhorek’s armies bashed against the walls of Ulmarr, and Goryth fought Leania over a bridge, Shadryk had sent a special team east into the Drakhan Mountains, to see if the rumors of the dwarves’ discovery of gold were true. He hadn’t had a choice, really. The ransom he’d been forced to pay for Goryth’s release had depleted his treasury dangerously, and all summer long Prince Saj’nal threatened to pull his men out of Fiera.

  “I did not agree to this!” he’d claimed more than once. “One year in your miserable wet country is dangerous enough to a man’s health. We cannot stay another.” He’d wanted Shadryk to beg him to stay. Shadryk had done all but. Provided him women, horses, robes, and more silver and enough flattery to make him nauseous. But beg? Never. Saj’nal stayed and fought as he was told, but once the cool winds of autumn gusted in, he’d ridden back from Stonebrydge and said, “Two years is too much. We will not stay three.” Shadryk had sent him more women and horses, because he could not spare more silver. Too many ships to replace. Too many fronts to fund.

  When the new bribes were delivered to the Zhiani barracks, however, they were found the empty. Saj’nal was halfway to the coast with the majority of his men when Shadryk’s letter convinced him to stop and come back. “Where is this gold?” the prince demand
ed, sauntering into the throne room. “I have seen no gold here. If you had gold, you would make for yourself a crown and not bother stealing one from another king.”

  “It’s on its way,” Shadryk said, though at the time he’d not been certain the gold existed. Quite the gamble.

  Saj’nal hadn’t believed him but agreed to stay the winter. “Half my mother’s ships would be lost to those serpents patrolling the Bay anyway. When the gold arrives, I want half.”

  “You’ll have half.” Shadryk lied about that, of course. The insufferable princeling never needed to know how large the chest was.

  “Are you sure the dwarves won’t come looking for it?” asked Ki’eva. She might as well be gazing at a chest full of scorpions.

  “They won’t leave their mountains,” Shadryk assured her. “Captain Wess reported that none of the dwarves escorting the gold survived. They may not even know who took it.”

  “Shad …” She fidgeted with the seams in the upholstery, uncharacteristically hesitant. “I don’t like the way this war has turned you to base thievery.”

  Shadryk laughed. “Assassinating a king didn’t bother you, but stealing from dwarves does? You’re losing your nerve.” He shoved a gold ingot into her palm. “I’m going to have the most gaudy necklace made for you. Emeralds large as—”

  “That pompous Zhiani was right. You could make yourself a crown and be done with it. You don’t need Rhorek’s. Cast-offs and hand-me-downs aren’t for you, brother.”

  Shadryk took a step back, studied her. She was genuinely scared. “If you fail to believe in my vision, how can anyone else believe?”

  “It’s a beautiful vision, Shad, but—”

  “We must finish what we started. To stop now? Do you realize what that would mean? Surrender, Ki’eva.”

  “You can always come to terms with Rhorek. Maybe things can go back to the way they were. No land gained, but none lost.”