Fury of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga 5)

by Ellyn, Court

  That had mollified the king, but only a fraction.

  Arryk had collapsed onto a settee, his three dogs arrayed on the rug about him, his anger ebbing. Laral had begun to set up the chessboard, which was their evening practice, but the king’s mind was elsewhere. “Do you think some people are destined to be alone?”

  A long while Laral was silent, an alabaster queen pinched in his fingers, then he nodded. “Perhaps, sire.”

  For once, Arryk hadn’t wanted to hear the truth. “Then leave.”

  Laral hadn’t seen the king since. According to Rance, he sat in the dark, the dogs his only company. Just like old times. “I never thought he’d love anyone after my sister,” the captain of the Mantles had said.

  “I guess we both underestimated his regard for Carah.”

  Hooves rumbled across the drawbridge, drawing Laral out of his reverie.

  Záradel carried Thorn through the Miraji camp at a gallop. Desert Elarion scrambled to get out of his way. When he raced past the last tent, he disappeared, lost inside a heatwave of his own making.

  Excitement over, Laral turned from the wall. “Well, nothing for it. Hal has a sword-arm with my name on it.”

  Ruthan appeared not to hear him.

  Laral leaned over her shoulder and added, “Get some sleep.” To which she always promised she would, but this time her fingers caught him by the hand, like a child fearing to be left alone in the dark. She raised rabbit-scared eyes.

  Realization jolted along Laral’s spine. “What did you See?”

  A whimper rose from her throat as she wilted, boneless, against the crenels. “Kelyn. I Saw Kelyn. On the ground. In agony, though he did not bleed. A fire among standing stones. So hot I sweated.”

  Laral raised her up, held her close. She was sweating.

  “Should I tell him?” she asked.

  Honesty had won Laral the friendship of a king, many an enemy, and a reputation for dauntless integrity. This time, he shook his head. “Under no circumstance whatsoever.”

  ~~~~

  28

  The hour was late, but Kelyn’s council had yet to break for supper. Spare morsels had been sent up, and the trays were picked clean over the course of the evening. The War Commander permitted neither wine nor brandy, which made Eliad cross. Other things entirely brought out the foul side of Lord Daryon.

  “I don’t appreciate your brother leaving those things for me to handle,” the avedra was saying. “One drop of that substance leaks onto me and…” He shrugged emphatically.

  Under the desk at which he sat, Kelyn’s toes tapped irritably. “And what? You’ll be reduced to a normal man?”

  “Or killed outright.” The avedra shuddered with repressed disgust. “I prefer the latter.”

  The avedra’s whining had become intolerable. He had been roped into a task he despised and made sure everyone knew it. As soon as he learned Thorn had ridden out again, he’d thrown a howling fit, accusing the Goddess herself of foisting the most abominable and dangerous of grunt work onto him. Him!

  Kelyn laced his fingers under his chin in a show of longsuffering. “Do you think the devices will work?”

  “Brilliantly.” The greater question was when to deploy the whirligigs for maximum effect.

  “Then recruit a soldier to carry the crates for you. End of discussion.”

  “No, it’s not! What about that Goblin creature? Does Thorn expect me to feed it? There’s a reason I consort with metal creatures, you know.”

  Kelyn had never liked the idea of that grotesque thing living down the corridor. What if it got loose? “End its misery if you like. Happy?”

  Daryon raised his nose, every bit the maneuvering courtier, the pouting child. In the end he nodded, pacified.

  The more important business had been addressed earlier in the evening. Laral had agreed to inform the White Falcon of Lord Haezeldale’s arrival in Graynor, but hadn’t promised Arryk would grant him an audience. Eliad enthusiastically tallied off the names of highland warriors who’d be willing to lead foraging parties. And Commander Sha’hadýn had recovered from her wounds enough to deliver a dispatch in person.

  The report, written in Kethlyn’s own hand, informed Kelyn that his son had safely set up camp for the night eighteen miles west of Tírandon. “We got away clean,” the dispatch said. “We expected skirmishes but have seen neither hide nor hair of the ogres, not even a scout. Uncle Thorn warns me not to become overconfident…”

  Kelyn was about to turn the discussion to the reinforcements Drona needed at the Athmar Bridge when a knock shook the door. One of the Drakhan Elarion entered, shrouded in a gray cloak. A hood framed a face as severe and humorless as a blade’s edge. Kelyn recognized Daryon’s lieutenant.

  “Brionyth?” the avedra asked. “Is there trouble?”

  Her glance darted between Daryon and the War Commander, finally settling on Kelyn. “Sir, we have a … situation.” Her accent was so heavy that he had to close his eyes and concentrate to puzzle her meaning.

  “Ogres?”

  “No, sir. I’m not sure what it is. You must judge.”

  Kelyn followed her from the keep and across the southern skybridge that stretched over the jumbled, smoke-stained roofs of South Town. Her stride was brisk, her glance honed straight ahead. She uttered not a word.

  At the end of the bridge, a cluster of sentries had gathered inside a flicker of torches. Kelyn recognized Foreman Dagni, squat and strong as a brick, her fists propped on her hips. Nearby, Laniel’s second-in-command had notched an arrow to her bowstring. They surrounded a figure seated on the stone. At Kelyn’s approach, Nyria nudged the figure to his feet.

  A cap of pale curls topped a square-jawed face. The light of the moons shone on naked shoulders. In fact, he wore not one stitch of clothes.

  “Daxon?” asked Kelyn. “What is going on?”

  One of the Drakhan Elarion tossed him a gray cloak. Daxon bundled it about his waist. He glanced at the moons-bright sky, at the wall below his bare feet, at the gulfs of choked air congealing over South Town, anywhere but at Kelyn.

  Dagni huffed contempt. “This genius was found scaling the wall.” A nod of the dwarf’s head indicated the nearby crenels.

  Kelyn peered through the gap in the battlements and down at the moat lapping against the wall some seventy feet below. A rope swayed against the blocks of stone like an indolent cat’s tail. The upper end was knotted securely about a single crenel, obscured in the dark. But Elaran eyes and ears were sharp.

  “To climb up?” Kelyn asked, befuddled. “But where had he…?”

  Dagni aimed her contempt at him. “To climb down.”

  Nyria’s arrow pricked a bundle wrapped in oil cloth. Presumably the clothes Daxon preferred not ruin in the rancid waters of the moats. Aye, he would be dripping sewage if was sneaking back into the castle.

  “Need a swim, did you?” Kelyn asked.

  Daxon let out a slow, heated breath. If he’d been a dragon, flame might’ve spurted with it. “I was trying to reach my aunt.”

  “You’d scale a wall in the dark and swim through two cesspools, when you might’ve used the gate?” Ludicrous. What was this fool up to?

  “I thought you had no interest in letting me go. War Commander. I’ve been healed up for days.” He slapped his thigh, hard, to prove his point. “I sent you several petitions, but you refused to see me.”

  Kelyn grit his teeth. “If you hadn’t noticed, I was in the middle of a family crisis.”

  Was that a smirk on Dax’s face? “Pity, isn’t it.” Shrug of a naked shoulder. “So I figured I’ll do as I like, and I’d like to join my aunt at the Athmar Bridge.”

  All at once, Kelyn remembered Alyster’s warning. He tried to recruit me… Perhaps Kelyn had overlooked a viper underfoot; perhaps he merely dealt with an overgrown child throwing a tantrum. Either way, it was probably best to pass him off to Drona. “Did you think on walking?”

  Downward aversion of the eyes. Either Dax realized he’d act
ed prematurely, or he was concealing the fact that he’d meant to steal a horse.

  Kelyn pinched the bridge of his nose. He was running out of patience. Daryon’s nonsense, now this. “Listen, I mean to send a company of dwarves to your aunt. In two days I can have them ready. Stay until then and you’d have—”

  “No, sir. I’ll leave now.”

  No end of foolishness. “On your own head be it. Give him a horse. And his clothes.”

  ~~~~

  The dragon sang nightmares into Lothiar’s sleep. Eyes dripped acid. No, those eyes were acid. Yellow-green burning acid eyes that seared Lothiar’s skin. His body began to shift, crack, to shrink in on itself. Goddess, the agony in his bones! His blood was boiling! The scorching of those eyes transformed him, one bone, one sinew at a time, shaping him into one of those things squirming on the battlefield.

  He surged up from sleep, slapping at his own skin. The eyes remained before him. But, no, they weren’t acid-green. Silver. The silver eyes of the dragon.

  “Goddess damn you, I hate you.” Lothiar’s breath clawed inside his throat.

  Rashén sat at the foot of the bed, legs crossed, swinging a luminous silver foot. “Yes, yes, he’s so endearing, my brother.”

  “Your what?” Lothiar used the silk sheet to dry sweat beading on his chest, trickling down his neck. A glance at the hour candle showed him he had slept for one hour exactly. How diligent the dragon had been lately. Every hour, upon the hour. In retaliation, Lothiar had instructed himself not to sleep at all. Bramor’s apothecary shops had provided elixirs to keep him awake. For days at a time, his brain whirred with alertness, his eyes seeing everything afresh. And then he would feel Rashén’s ubiquitous voice grow distant. Tonight when the taunts fell silent, Lothiar had run to his chambers to collapse into blessed sleep. But the stimulants sang still in his blood. Two hours he’d stared at the ceiling before sleep took him.

  The silence had been a ruse. Lothiar’s sleep was Rashén’s favorite playground.

  “My brother,” the youth said. “Well, he’s more a cousin, actually. He’s arrived at Tírandon. Seems he’s been there for some time. Of course, I only just learned about it tonight. Had to tell you. Well, show you. Was it pleasant?” A murderous grin slid over the youth’s face.

  The Sons of Ilswythe had received yet another ally? “Who the hell are you talking about?”

  “Daryon, of course.”

  Lothiar scrambled free of the sheets. Lohg of the Sky Rock clan had assured him Daryon had been slain among the ruins of Tánysmar.

  “Seems the old ogre failed,” Rashén said with a shrug. “And lied. To you. Now why would he do that?”

  Lothiar grabbed his pants and turned for the door. He refused to share the soft, intimate space of his sleeping quarters with this damnable creature. Where was his fucking sword? He turned the doorknob, found it locked. The key plugging the keyhole didn’t respond to his fingers.

  Rashén rambled blithely on, like a matron gossiping over tea. “I contacted him months ago. Thought he meant to ignore me. He’s angry with me, you see. Well, with my kind. He’s disappointed we don’t come around more often. Feels a bit slighted. But you know how duty goes. Keeps you away from those you cherish most. Anyway, appears he listened after all.”

  The continuous flood of inane chatter was as torturous as teeth sinking into Lothiar’s skin. He faced the door, fingers applying pressure to the key until Rashén saw fit to let him turn it. “If Daryon really is your brother, that makes him blasphemy incarnate.” Could dragon-kind mate with mortals? Unheard of. “He’s flesh nonetheless, and he chose the wrong side of the field. I shall flay him and wear his skin as a dragon hide.”

  Rashén breathed against his neck. “Do try.”

  Lothiar tensed as the sensation of a raspy tongue lapped along his spine. Aye, this dragon would like to gobble him up. Why didn’t the Mother-Father let her servant have his way?

  Every muscle yearned to flee that repulsive touch, but Lothiar willed his feet to stand their ground. “All I need is another pair of baernavë chains. I know where many chains wait for the likes of Daryon. And you.”

  The dragon’s snickering turned into a hiss. The weight of his presence bearing down on Lothiar’s shoulders slithered away.

  “Don’t like the word baernavë, do you?” Lothiar grinned as the key turned between his fingers.

  He danced with the sword, slicing a training dummy to pieces so small and clean that the burlap didn’t realize it had been cut until the weight of its sandy guts began to sift out in thin streams.

  The night sifted away with it. Dawn bled beyond the confines of the training yard. Grunts rose from the camps in the Green as ogres began to stir. They slept and woke according to Lothiar’s hour candle, not by their own nocturnal instincts. Either Paggon or Fogrim shouted rhythmically, directing one clan or another through marching drills. The ogres of Storm Mount and Dragon Claw couldn’t drill simultaneously. The exercise became one of competition, and before long, brawls broke out.

  Since fleeing the trenches near Tírandon, the ogres were particularly foul-tempered. Flogging kept instigators in line, but only barely. Rewarding order with human prisoners backfired as each clan fought to claim the morsels, resulting in pulp of human and ogre both strung across the Green.

  A fresh dose of wake-root powder galloped through Lothiar’s veins. The longing for sleep became a laughable memory. A thousand years he had honed his skills using this particular dance. Each step, each jab, each feigned parry and riposte was second nature; none required much conscious thought.

  Somersaulting beneath the dummy’s outstretched arm, he pondered instead his recent victory at Lunélion. It left him unsettled. When the human regiments retreated back to Tírandon, they had abandoned several siege engines. Only two of the catapults had been in working order; the rest, nearly a dozen, were decoys.

  The War Commander risked sending his people to lay siege to a castle of Lunélion’s eminent size and defensibility with fake siege engines? What was the purpose of this illusion?

  The ruse had coincided with the duke’s arrival at Tírandon. Perhaps the War Commander had hoped to secure a path for his son?

  The dummy’s outstretched arm separated in a spray of sand and splinters.

  Much else troubled Lothiar as well. Iryan Wingfleet’s capture was more than an inconvenience. With Lasharia and Dashka dead, he was left with a dwindling number of commanders. If only his sister had been receptive—

  A foot shuffled softly behind him. Lothiar flicked open the small blade strapped to his palm and whirled out of the dance, stopping an inch short of impaling Ruvion’s throat.

  The lieutenant gasped and eased back.

  “You know better than to sneak up on me.”

  “Captain, I was just walking.” Ruvion’s fingers kneaded phantom pain from an imaginary wound.

  Lothiar snapped the blade away, snug against the heel of his hand. “What’s happened?”

  “Sir, we have a … situation.”

  Beyond Bramor’s outer gate, well within range of the ballistae that were mounted on the battlements, a human sat a horse. He wore no armor, only leather, like a courier or hunter. In his hand, braced against his thigh, was a slender pole from which flew a strip of white cloth.

  Atop the gatehouse turret, Lothiar cocked his head, pondering the absurdity of the sight. “Is he drunk?” he asked. No, this fool wasn’t acting on a dare. The War Commander had some scheme up his sleeve. Had to be…

  The sun had barely risen above Bramor’s jagged roof-line, but already the rays weighed hot on Lothiar’s shoulders. Or was that the dragon’s breath puffing down his collar?

  “Give me the word, Captain,” said Da’ith, fingering the pommel of his sword. “He won’t have time to sober up.” The lieutenant had been especially grouchy since his ogres fled the trenches with their tails tucked.

  Ruvion huffed, half laughter, half argument. “Maybe the humans want to negotiate.”

 
“You don’t believe that, and neither do I.” Lothiar patted a ballista’s taut frame, then pulled the release.

  The four-foot-long bolt hissed as the wooden fletching caught the wind and spun the shaft. It skewered deep into the soil, an arm’s length from the horse’s hooves. The animal reared and tried to flee, but the man reined it in and jerked the bolt from the ground. Nerves of steel? Or just plain stupid? “I am Daxon, Lord Ulmarr!” he shouted. “I have information for the Elaran commander.”

  “My oh my,” Lothiar crooned. So Kelyn hadn’t sent this messenger after all? “Ruvion, open the gate for our guest.”

  The drawbridge lowered, the portcullis raised, granting the interloper a view of the ogres drilling on the Green. Lothiar watched the man hesitate and wondered if his audacity would turn to water. “Don’t like what you see?” Lothiar muttered to himself. “Run back to Momma.”

  As if the man heard, he touched heel to flank and charged over the bridge and into Bramor’s confines, wielding the ballista’s bolt like a lance. The white flag flapped feebly.

  “More mettle than sense,” said Lothiar with a decisive nod, then descended the tower. By the time he emerged onto the Green, hundreds of ogres roared in outrage, in hunger. The drills had been forgotten. Only Paggon Ironfist’s outstretched arms prevented his denmates from swarming over horse and man alike.

  The man poised the bolt at his shoulder as if it were a javelin while his horse spun, terrorized by the smell of ogre. The poor creature wasn’t as dauntless as a warhorse, alas, and finally spilled its rider on the roadside.

  Ogres surged past Paggon, braying, snarling, intent on claiming an early breakfast.

  Lothiar raised a hand. “Stop!” They ran on. His heart leapt into his throat. Had his word had lost all authority? If that happened, he might as well sheathe his sword in his own ribs. “Stop, curse you!”