by Ellyn, Court
Frantic steps. Steel singing.
The avedra hissed something in his native tongue. A swirling disk of fire lit his face in harsh angles and planes. Lasharia wasn’t where she had been. Valryk found her crouching in the doorway of a cell across the corridor. She grinned, a cold predator’s grin unlike any Valryk had seen on her lovely mouth before. Her calculation had been impeccable. Douse her own light, force the avedra to reveal his location in the dark, make himself a target.
The disk of fire spun inches past Valryk’s face. It struck the wall beside Lasharia’s shoulder and burst. Darkness plunged in again. Valryk scrambled blindly for his cell, any cell, and ducked down inside the dank hole. Be still. Become the dark.
Feet whispered past. Sparks of flame flashed and went out, flashed and went out. A man roared. A sound like rain, like glass shattering, clinked and clattered. Lasharia cried out softly, little more than a gasp.
A grunt. A heavy thud.
Then soft steps feeling a path along the corridor. The jangle of keys.
“Don’t!” Valryk pushed his way from the cell. “You won’t lock me up again! You’ll have to kill me first.”
“Sha,” breathed a voice.
Light coalesced. Rivulets of blood spilled down Lasharia’s face. Gashes, some of them surely to the bone, lacerated her forehead, cheek, and chin. She raised a hand to test the pain, to clear the blood dripping into one eye. “Bastard got wise. Decided to use stone instead of fire.” She plucked a splinter of shattered mortar from her cheek.
Her beautiful face, ruined.
Her sword was dark to the hilt. At the edge of the light, a lump lay curled against the wall.
Together, they hefted the avedra’s body and stuffed it into Valryk’s cell and locked the door. The effort left Valryk panting and swaying. Lasharia draped his arm about her neck and helped him climb the spiral stair.
At the top, soft sunlight filtered through a window and kissed his face in greeting. Valryk closed his eyes and breathed it in. He hoped Lasharia would lead him back to the room they had furnished and shared, where he could stretch out on a soft mattress and delight in a bath and fill his belly. But things had become urgent. What if Lothiar began to miss Dashka and sent someone to look for him? What if Dashka wasn’t the only one who knew Lasharia had abandoned her post?
She guided Valryk into the nearest room. A room with dangling chains, a table and ropes, a brazier with cold coals.
Valryk shoved free of her arms. “No! Not here. Please.” His feet! His feet throbbed with the memory of those coals glowing red.
Lasharia glanced over the room quizzically, saw nothing troubling. She hadn’t been here when Paggon had his fun, waiting to see how long he could hold Valryk’s feet over the flame before he screamed.
“Stand still.” She dipped her finger into a flask on her belt and with the single drip of water traced a design on the air. The portal opened with the sound of a watermelon splitting. Static seethed and sizzled, bright jags of lightning gnawing apart the air in the room. On the other side stretched a green country and a white road bathed in the long shadows of late afternoon. A fragrant wind hurtled into the torture chamber, touching Valryk’s face and lifting the matted hair off his forehead. He laughed in sheer delight.
“Where is this place?”
Lasharia shrugged. “No idea. Without an ogre to anchor it on, the portal opens randomly. It’s close though, within ten or fifteen miles of Bramor.”
“You’re casting me in the middle of nowhere?”
“Getting picky?”
“No! No, it’s just … where am I to go?”
Lasharia raised an eyebrow. She didn’t care where he went. The realization stung. “I’d avoid Tírandon if I were you. Your people are there.”
“Kethlyn, too?”
“Your cousin? No. He’s at Windhaven. I did my job well, and he’s a coward. He never met me in battle. He has let my ogres have free run of his lands.”
Kethlyn hadn’t even tried to rescue him? Hadn’t gone so far as to stick his head outside his own door?
“Oh, yes, he abandoned you,” Lasharia said, like dripping poison into his ear. “Go. It’s tiresome holding this thing open.”
“Will I see you again?”
“I’ll make sure you don’t.”
A castoff, that’s all he was to her, as useless as a cracked leather shoe. He had never meant anything to her. He was a means to an end, nothing more.
He cleared his throat to ease the ache strangling it. “Thank you, just the same.” He stepped through the portal, grit his teeth against a heart-stopping bite of cold, and set a foot down in soft tufts of grass. The sun struck the back of his head; fists of light forced his eyes shut.
“I’d wish you a Goddess’ blessing,” Lasharia said, “but I think she’s forsaken us both. Farewell, duínovë. Keep your head down out there.”
By the time Valryk could force open his eyes, the portal was gone, and he was free. Free in a sun-drenched world smelling sweetly of summer. Free and alone.
~~~~
The balls of his feet, several of his toes, and especially his heels throbbed with each step, but he had to find shelter before dark. He hobbled, one agonizing step at a time. The road had to lead somewhere sooner or later. This narrow, rutted lane wasn’t the main highway that led to Lunélion or Ilswythe, or the one that struck off for Tírandon. The cloven prints of sheep and cattle pocked it. To each side, green pastures were dotted with sparse livestock. A wheat field had been torched. Weeds sprang up instead of grain.
Ahead, a wisp of smoke curled from a grove of trees. Valryk ducked behind the hedgerow and eased closer. Was it a house? An ogre scout’s camp? A hot, humid wind rustled the trees, revealing the blackened spines of burned structures and the eaves of a thatched roof.
The farm was a wreck. The barns and grain stores, any building that might be used to store food or livestock had been set ablaze. The charred remains hunched forlornly around the property. Only the cottage remained. As Valryk entered the yard, he saw a curtain shift inside a grime-crusted window. He limped faster, between rows of leggy tomatoes, plucking a few red ones and biting into them. Their sun-warmed juices burst in his mouth. They tasted of light and happiness.
Reaching the house, he beat on the door. “Open up! Open the door for your king! I need food and shelter.”
The door swung wide, making way for a farmer as brawny and shaggy as a bear. In an upraised hand he wielded a flanged mace. The other hand, brutal as a plowshare, struck Valryk in the chest. He staggered back, but his feet screamed a protest, and he collapsed flat on his arse. He curled his feet close and rocked in agony among the vegetable plants. “Ah, damn you!” he cried through clenched teeth. “Assault on the king’s person … ah, Goddess, you swine.”
The farmer loomed over Valryk. The mace waggled, looking eager. “Curse me again, thief, and I’ll stave in your skull.”
“I’m no thief!
“Aye, you’re a liar too. I seen what you done. You owe me for them tomatoes.”
“They’re my tomatoes! I’m the Black Falcon, fool. I own the land you plow and the food you eat.”
The farmer crowed with laughter. “And I’m the bloody Queen Mum.”
Valryk shouldn’t have expected this rube to recognize him. He eased to his feet, but the searing, pounding agony caused him to hiss and brace his hands on his knees.
The farmer glowered at the discolored rags swaddling Valryk’s toes. The mace lowered. “Look, we ain’t got food to spare. We have to send any extra to Bramoran to feed that damn Falcon and his monster army. If we don’t, they’ll come take it, and my kids, too.”
“It isn’t my army! That elf leads the ogres.”
The farmer seized a fistful of velvet and hauled Valryk close. “You better hope you ain’t no king. If I thought you really was the Falcon and not some bloody madman, I’d hang you by your balls and let ravens feast on your eyes. Take your tomatoes, vagrant, and get off my property.”
Valryk backed away, horrified at the man’s malice. “I won’t forget this!” He plucked a tomato and stuffed it inside his shirt.
“You better not forget!” the farmer shouted after him. “I see you again, I’ll not think twice before feeding you to my dogs.”
~~~~
9
Fairy light amassed in the dark, golden and abrupt. Pushing back the shadows, it seemed as bright as the dawn. Carah stopped pacing the length of the rug, and Thorn set aside the notes he was scribbling, both of them eager for news. A single lamp illumined rough drawings of winged machines. By some unspoken consensus they both felt it appropriate to wait in a dimly lit room. They spoke of secrets, of tenuous hope, and they did not wish to expose either to scrutiny.
Hovering before a cold hearth, Saffron looked shaken. The light of her wings quivered; her tiny hands were knotted into fists; her limbs, like sticks, were rigid; her crocus-purple eyes darted between her avedrin.
“Is he lost to us?” Carah asked. She had implored the fairy to return to Windhaven, and at last, even Uncle Thorn had urged his guardian to speak with Kethlyn. They had to know: on which side of the field did he stand?
Saffron had not been gone long, but to Carah her absence had lasted an intolerable count of hours.
“I waited until he was alone,” she said, “when I knew I would be safe. By then he was very drunk. Insensible. He could barely stand, and he held onto that bottle like it was a life-preserver. When he saw me he … he said the most horrible things. He said everything was his fault, that he hadn’t wanted to see the truth. That if he had been brave enough to see, everyone murdered at Valryk’s banquet would still be alive.”
Hope flared like a star inside Carah’s chest.
“And then he accused me,” Saffron went on. “He thought I had come to kill him. Me! Why should he think this of me?”
“He’s afraid,” Uncle Thorn said. “As he should be.”
Saffron shivered with a long agonized sigh. “Oh, yes, there was such fear in him. So much fear that it cascaded off him like rain. He began to laugh and weep at the same time. Almost as if he were relieved that his torment was over. He said nothing else, only curled up on the floor and passed out.”
Heart aching, Carah started for the door, stride militant. Saffron’s news settled everything. Her brother wasn’t standing on either side of the battlefield. He had been taken out completely. He was waiting to die, and either army would serve. “We must go to him.” It wouldn’t take her long to pack; she hadn’t much left that the ogres didn’t destroy.
Thorn grabbed her arm and hauled her back. “Get that idea out of your head.”
Carah glared in disbelief. “You really do despise him, don’t you? Have you ever loved him?”
“That has nothing to do with it. It’s for Kethlyn’s sake that—”
“If it were me?” She argued over him as if words were the hooves of stampeding horses. “Rhian is lost to us, so you say, but I will go to my brother. We know where he is, what state he’s in. Maybe we can convince him to return with us.”
“He’d be a fool to come. Carah, listen! Do you know how many people here would fight for the chance to put a dagger in him? If Kethlyn owns the smallest measure of wisdom, he will board a ship and sail to Heret and never return.”
“Like a coward?”
“He is a coward. Else he would have come long ago. And before that, he would have told his family what Valryk was planning.”
“You’re wrong. He’s dutiful to a fault, and look what it’s cost him.”
“Dutiful?” Thorn bellowed, incredulous. “What of his duty to his mother? He is a traitor, Carah.”
“But he is not malicious. He is not a vile schemer. He is not a murderer. And if he is, if he is so altered from the brother I know, I will see it in his face, Uncle Thorn.”
“Would you expose yourself to capture on the open road? You heard Saffron. Evaronna is overrun with ogres.”
“You will go with me.” Before the words left her mouth, she knew she was on her own.
“I am needed here! So are you.” He stopped shouting and breathed and took her gently by the shoulders. “It’s an impossible dream, love. You cannot save him. If you are determined to try, we can send Saffron back to Windhaven. Write a letter. Plead with Kethlyn however you will, but I forbid you to leave these walls.” His fingers grew hard as iron. “Do you hear me? If you try it, I will lock you in a dungeon, and that is no idle threat. I will not lose you.”
Even as he kissed her forehead and bid her goodnight, Carah determined to defy him. She only had to find the means.
~~~~
By the light of a stained-glass lamp, Arryk drafted a lengthy letter to his chancellor. Against all hope, Uncle Raed still held Brynduvh against the ogres besieging the city’s gates. Thorn Kingshield had reported that the gates were bruised but not broken, and that droves of children and the elderly were being smuggled out and sped to the sea where they waited for the tides to settle and for ships to carry them to safer shores.
Weeks had passed since Arryk had bothered writing a letter home. Likely Raed needed to hear that his king was still in one piece. He might have sent correspondence before now, but he hadn’t wished to endanger a courier. Only now, a courier had presented himself.
He was blotting the ink on the letter’s final copy when a knock sounded on the door. It was a tentative knock, one that attempted a show of bravery and failed.
“Enter.”
Captain Moray strode across the plush rug with a heavy, determined step. Arryk did not look up from the writing desk, but heard the rustle of the captain’s deep, prolonged bow.
Careful, Arryk thought, Lest I think you are begging. He let the man stand at attention while he melted a stick of Aralorri-blue wax over the lamp’s wick and sealed the envelope with the ring on his finger. The spread-winged falcon clutched an iron scepter. He scribbled “Lord Éndaran” on the flap. While the ink dried he said, “I am placing you on leave and sending you back to Brynduvh.” He stacked a second letter with the first, one he’d written earlier in the evening, as soon as he’d made up his mind.
Moray blinked rapidly, his mouth open a little, as he tried to absorb the words filling his ears. His hands failed to rise and accept the letters, as if the bones had been plucked from his arms. “His Majesty is sending me away?”
Arryk slapped the parcels against the spotless breastplate. Moray’s hand darted up reflexively and pinned the letters. “This one is for the Lord Chancellor. This one is for you. It will allow you to collect your back-pay from the treasury. I expect you to make yourself useful to the city’s defense until I return.”
“B-b-but the roads, sire, the ogres…”
“If Lord Haezeldale could get out, you can get back in. And citizens of the city are fleeing safely enough. You will manage.” Arryk turned in dismissal. He was tired and sweaty and sick of the smell of blood in his pores. A hot bath would whisk it all away. As he tugged the bell rope to send for water, he realized he had not heard the door closing on Moray’s departure. “Don’t make this difficult, Captain.”
The man’s rage thundered toward him: “His Majesty would keep that Aralorri … that … that tramp about him instead?”
Astonishment drove any response from Arryk’s head.
Moray shook the letters at him like a schoolmaster berating a student. “You think she can protect you better than I? What better assassin than one who can hear our thoughts?”
Perhaps Moray figured he had nothing left to lose. How wrong he was.
Arryk smoothed the bafflement from his face and permitted Moray to see a miniscule grin. The man knew he was in trouble. He lowered the fist that was clenched around the letters, and his irate flush drained, leaving him as pale as his cloak.
“All you had to do was salute and leave, Moray, and everything would’ve been forgiven. You seem to have forgotten. You don’t own an opinion, and any topic concerning the Lady Carah is closed for discussion.” Ar
ryk stalked, relishing the sight of Moray easing back a step.
In that instant he remembered Nathryk stalking him with the same cat-like grace. You are not a monster, he told himself and stopped behind a breakfast chair and squeezed the lacquered finials until the wood creaked. It was a poor shield restraining him, but a necessary one. “Before you go, Moray, I have a confession. I have always harbored a spark of resentment toward you. You served under my father, and you abandoned him.”
“Sire, he ordered us—”
“Shut your mouth!” The chair flew before Arryk knew he meant to throw it.
Moray fended off the blow with his forearms, then dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the rug.
“Get up, damn you! I will not talk at the back of a man’s head, and you better look me in the eye.”
Moray scrambled to his feet among the ruins of the chair. His eyes, however, had trouble settling.
Arryk helped by hooking his fingers at the throat of the man’s breastplate and tugging him close. “Even under orders you should have stayed and defended him.” His voice rose barely louder than a hiss. “You should have let Thorn Kingshield incinerate you to ash before you left my father’s side. But you ran. Why have I let you stay? It was never because I trusted you. It was because you were closer to my father every day than I was. That’s all.”
He dealt Moray a shove backward, and the man stumbled for the door. How careful he was not to break with etiquette and turn his back on the king.
The White Falcon’s pronouncement was a hammer blow. “Leave your cloak and your armor. I never want to see you again.”
~~~~
10
In the middle of the night, Laral forced himself from the armchair. He had sat unmoving for so many hours that he seemed to have melded with the cushion. It was an arduous task, climbing to his feet. Harder still, forcing himself to care. The complaining of his empty belly reminded him that he still had a family to live for.