Fury of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga 5)

by Ellyn, Court

  Emerging from the cavern’s shadow, Carah found they stood on a stone shelf from which descended a winding footpath. The slopes to each side were littered with bones, coated with sewage, splashed with blood. Battle surged across the valley below. Brigades of horses, Elaran blacks all, charged into walls of ogre shields. Arrows like clouds of locusts climbed into the twilight.

  A circular motion of Thorn’s arms transformed the blue firewall into a cyclone. It churned down the footpath. He followed close behind it, quickening his pace. A long stretch of battleground lay between the avedrin and safety. Hurrying along behind him, the avedrin spread out in single file. The Regs hemmed them in, tight to each side.

  At the bottom of the footpath, Thorn paused to choose a way through the melee. “Lyrienn is there.” He pointed to a rise on the north side of the battlefield.

  The column of blue fire provided an apt signal for her. A horn blared; a reserve of cavalry cut through the melee. A narrow, shifting avenue opened.

  Thorn nudged his niece. “To Lyrienn. Quick and straight as you can.”

  She darted ahead, calling fire over her palm.

  Screams erupted behind her. A wedge of ogres barreled through the dranithion. Laniel shoved Rhian groundward and rolled under the arch of an axe.

  Their leader lunged into the midst of the avedrin. Rodent bones knotted into long tangled locks rattled. His empty hand seized an avedra’s skull and crushed it like an egg. His great spiked mace crunched the spine of another.

  Doc cried out. Oily, sizzling snakes struck from both his hands. An ogre’s heel knocked him in the chest. He tumbled breathless and boneless. Carah scuttled on hands and knees, under sword edges and crushing feet, of Elarion and ogre both.

  “No, Carah!” Thorn bellowed somewhere behind her. “Just run.”

  But she couldn’t leave Doc. She shook him. He sat up, gasping for air, clutching his chest. “Kid! Where’s the kid?”

  Jaedren scuttled between the legs of friend and foe. “Doc!” he cried, searching.

  “Here, kid! Over here!”

  The boy picked himself up and ran.

  It happened too fast to see. A flash of steel. Elari or ogre, Carah couldn’t say. Jaedren spun to the ground, curled into a tight ball, and screamed, screamed to shatter the moons. His hands smashed over the left half of his face. Blood spurted between his fingers.

  Doc scrambled back up the footpath, scooped the boy into his arms and fled with him. Carah ran ahead of them, hands open and ready. Behind, thunder tore at the sky. This time she did not turn to observe the unleashing of her uncle’s rage.

  Amid the avenue between flailing columns of horse and ogre, Saffron’s golden light hovered. Like a wisp in the dark, the fay guided them into the night-clad hills.

  ~~~~

  35

  Kelyn slumped in the dark beside his son’s body. For all the clatter and shouts knocking about camp, there was silence here. He had ordered Alyster moved into his own pavilion and laid out on his cot. A muslin sheet swaddled him head to toe. The day would be hot and flies would swarm.

  It might be anyone wrapped in that cloth. But it wasn’t. Hour after hour, Kelyn’s mind wrestled. Too stunning to swallow. Alyster. Not Kethlyn.

  Dawn approached. Kelyn heard it in the stirring of men, in the quickening breeze that tugged the silk walls. A breeze that was heavy with the scent of ash.

  “No mass pyre for him, I won’t stand for it,” Kelyn had told Rhoslyn earlier in the night. “A lord’s pyre. He’s not here to tell me no.”

  One kindness. One demonstration of esteem. At a time when it mattered only to himself.

  He’d been leaving the battlefield near sunset yesterday, determined to follow Alyster and find Kethlyn, alive or dead, but the messenger found him first. “My lord?” the youth said. “Her Grace wishes me to inform you that your son is dead. Not her son. The other one.”

  Kelyn had looked to those leaving the field with him, Tullyk and Daryon, as if they could explain the messenger’s meaning. But they were as confounded as he. “Alyster?” he’d asked the messenger. “That’s not possible. I just sent him…”

  Kelyn ran the last hundred yards to camp, certain there was some mistake.

  The orderlies had laid Alyster in a row with the rest of the common dead, near a shallow pit dug into the unforgiving soil. Who had told them to put him there? Rhoslyn? Was she so heartless?

  Kelyn had flown into a rage, grabbing some hapless orderly by the scruff. “That man is my son! Take him to my pavilion!”

  There wasn’t a scratch on him. Alyster had been healthy, whole, boldly invulnerable. How, then…?

  Word spread. About the time food smells rose from campfires, the pavilion’s flap had softly parted and Kethlyn stood in the lamplight. Battered, bloodied, gray-faced and feverish. “It’s my fault, Da,” he’d said. “The Goddess took him instead. I don’t deserve reprieve. Alyster didn’t deserve to die. Nothing makes sense.” In broken, confused phrases, Kethlyn explained what happened. Drowned in light.

  Kelyn needed Thorn to explain how this was possible. Maybe Daryon would understand what it meant.

  Late into the evening, the two of them kept vigil over the body. Kelyn’s eyes burned with exhaustion and regret. Kethlyn slept at the foot of the cot, twitching with nightmares.

  Whispers at the flap. Laral setting the night-watch in order. Tullyk barking that His Lordship was not to be disturbed. Confirmation that a proper pyre was being built. The thunderous wail of Haim, son of Fenn son of Kall Stonearm. A solemn parade of cousins. The scent of hot tea. The flapping of moths against the lampshade. The miserable shuffle of Kethlyn slinking out.

  The dawn chorus rose from the heather, and gray light seeped under the silk. Golden light flashed like the sun breaking through a pane of glass. “War Commander!” The fairy’s cry chirped in Kelyn’s ear, startling him from his chair. “It worked! The avedrin are out.”

  The announcement came so suddenly that it took a moment to sink in. “Carah?”

  “Safe. For now.”

  His little girl, alive, free. Relief welled, as if chains sloughed off his body. “Inform my son. It may bring him comfort.”

  Saffron’s gaze fell upon the shrouded body. “Oh…”

  “Don’t tell Carah. She doesn’t need—”

  “I understand.” Her light and her tiny face slowly faded.

  “M’ lord?” Tullyk hovered at the flap, uncomfortably watching the place where Saffron had been. “M’ lord, the ogres advance. Battle awaits. And Lady Athmar has arrived.”

  “Good news at last,” Kelyn said. His head was spinning. He splashed his face at the basin, then let Tullyk buckle him into his armor. “Send orders to the surgeons to begin carting the wounded back to Tírandon. Kethlyn’s plan was a success. We won’t be here much longer.”

  By the time he emerged from the pavilion into the paling light of morning, his host was mobilizing. A few hundred Aralorris under the banners of Blue Mountain and Zeldanor followed Lady Kalla and Lady Maeret into the bloodstained hills.

  The ravens veered away from their passing. The birds had awoken long ago and were busy with breakfast. There were not enough orderlies to clear the dead from the field in a timely fashion. Soldiers who drew poor lots dug pits where the bodies lay and tossed in whatever the ravens had left. Smoke belched from the ground like steam from fumaroles. Helmets, mail, shoes, weapons taken from the casualties were doled out among soldiers who needed new equipment.

  The dead ogres were ignored. Their bones would bleach under many a sun.

  Beyond the awning, Kelyn’s commanders consulted in terse tones. Eliad gestured adamantly, as if Laral were too daft to understand his meaning. Laral shook the map in his hand and jabbed a finger toward a horizon hidden beyond the hills. They had held things together during the night, no easy feat. Now they neared the end of their tolerance for one another.

  Nearby, King Arryk was resplendent in full regalia. His hutza scale-mail gleamed with colors of bronze
and purple in the growing light. A cloak of white silk streamed to his ankles. The rising wind might’ve carried it aloft like a banner were it not for the ermine weighting the hem. His horse and guard stood on hand. One of his mastiffs lazed at his feet. The other two were chained to the awning outside the green pavilion. It appeared he would not be kept to his pavilion today. He whispered with Lady Drona. Mud spattered her breastplate and clung to her cropped iron-gray hair. Despite the two or three days she’d spent riding from Midguard, she looked strong and alert.

  As soon as the commanders noticed Kelyn, their discussions fizzled.

  “The situation?” he asked, sliding hands into gloves.

  Laral shoved the map into Eliad’s arms and ducked under the awning. “Same as yesterday. The ogres approach in two divisions, one from the north, the other from the west. I’ve sent the Miraji ahead. Their heatwave, whatever you call it, is visible across the ogres’ path. Should intimidate them. The dwarves are positioned behind them.” He indicated Drona who relived the battle for Athmar Bridge in animated gestures for Arryk’s benefit. “Can we expect Johf to arrive as well?”

  “Aye,” Eliad budged in. “Would be nice of him to bring us a few thousand Leanians from Graynor.”

  “We can’t afford to anticipate any such luck,” Kelyn said. “We’ll make do with what we have until we learn otherwise.”

  “Are my highlanders to hold the camp again?”

  No one mentioned the dead man lying in the pavilion, though Eliad’s glance darted that direction a couple times. The hour to extend condolences had not yet come.

  “They are. Keep them awake this time.”

  “I did! I will. Those two sentries won’t sleep again for a while, I assure you.” They had been found drooling into their beards on the edge of camp, two nights and twenty miles back. Kelyn suspected most of the highlanders had secreted away their flasks under the furry flaps of their tents and imbibed when no one was looking. No matter. If it kept them brave under these odds, so be it.

  “Daryon?” he asked.

  “He led his Elarion with the Miraji,” Laral said. “He occupies the center of their line.”

  “Did he take the crates with him?”

  “His crates, and then some.”

  Kelyn didn’t know what that meant, though he’d soon find out. He stepped from under the awning to greet Lady Athmar. “Drona, welcome. A hard journey?”

  She gripped Kelyn’s hand, then brushed hers together, as if Kelyn’s gloves and not her own were caked in dirt. “Damned ogres harassed us half the way. We outran them. Or they gave up. Though part of me suspects they’ll show up yet.”

  “Hear that, Eliad?”

  “Yessir. Eyes to the south.”

  Kelyn shifted feet, uneasy. “Did, er … did Daxon find you?”

  “He did,” Drona said, nodding proudly. “Though I wanted to tan his hide for riding all the way to Midguard alone.”

  “He with you now?”

  Drona cocked an eyebrow, hearing a note in Kelyn’s voice she didn’t like. “No. I left a company at the fort. He commands them. Before you argue about his competency—”

  “No, that’s fine.” Midguard Tower was the best place for the vile little weasel. Kelyn decided it best not to explain his suspicions to Drona. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Without proof of Daxon’s treachery, suspicion would only serve to rupture the rift that had closed between them. “You bring nine companies with you?”

  All around Arryk’s green pavilion, new tents sprang up like worshippers at the foot of a shrine.

  “Eight,” Drona said. “Battle for the bridge was bloody. The rest are footsore. Sick of being chased.”

  Kelyn caught her meaning. “They can rest this morning and join us in the afternoon. If all goes well, maybe they’ll get to do a little chasing of their own.” He hoped Thorn’s concoction worked so well—that it bought his people time to extricate themselves from this mess.

  “Ride with us,” he suggested. “You’ve arrived in time for a treat.”

  Tullyk brought Kelyn’s horse; little Bryden handed reins to Eliad and Laral. The warhorses snapped at each other, at their riders. Their hooves detected what human feet could not. The trembling of the earth unsettled them. They knew what it meant.

  Kelyn kept his mount on a tight rein as he rode north from camp. Laral and Drona, King Arryk and the full contingent of White Mantles followed him onto the high ridge that overlooked yesterday’s battleground, then across a valley smelling of blood and iron and fear. Among broken heather and trodden gorse, the unlucky dug. One soldier ran shouting and waving his spade at a flock of ravens. The birds circled, shrieking in mockery.

  Ahead, a shivering wall extended left and right. It cast the hilltops in double, reflected the brightening sky, turned the heather upside down. Sickening to gaze upon. Kelyn hesitated half a moment before spurring his warhorse through it. His ears rang, his skin prickled, and at last he could see the soldiers hiding inside the vast stretch of the veil.

  A double line of Regulars pulled bows taut. Sha’hadýn strode behind them, bellowing a single word. Arrows slashed the morning sky. To each side of the archers, three thousand Miraji festooned the hillsides in fierce golden splendor. The dwarves ranged out in staunch rows behind the Regulars, and the humans behind them. A glance at faces showed Kelyn wide eyes and tight-pressed mouths. Fear.

  To the north and west, the hills writhed with the ogres’ advance. They had claimed high ground of their own and planted banners on far hilltops. A few hundred ogres charged the heatwave, testing the defenses of those hiding inside it.

  The War Commander’s arrival made the soldiers brave again. “Huzzah!” cried young Maeret. Foreman Dagni echoed her, fist punching at air. Soon the rest of their troops cheered too. The thunderous uproar, the unity in it, the strength heard in so many voices, snapped the spell of fear. For a while anyway.

  Kelyn called to the Miraji commander. Sha’hadýn approached with Nyria in tow. “Two Miraji regiments,” Kelyn ordered. “Deploy one to the rear of the ogres beneath the dragon claw banner. The other behind the ogres under the mountain banner. Surprise and harass. A measured assault, keep the ogres off balance.”

  Nyria translated in a rush.

  “The third regiment?” Sha’hadýn asked.

  “They stay and guard our center.”

  Sha’hadýn gestured at two Miraji heralds and sent them running with the orders.

  Satisfied, Kelyn rode through the lines until he reached Lord Daryon’s position. Several hundred Drakhan elves in gray surrounded him and loosed arrows. The iron dragon and the copper wolf sat on their haunches, eyes aglow. At his feet lay a crate banded in iron and lined with wool padding. Thorn’s ceramic globes nestled inside like eggs. Too bad he wasn’t here to deploy them himself.

  “Where are the whirligigs?” Kelyn asked.

  With his toe, Daryon nudged a crate branded with foreign writing. His acid-yellow eyes harbored a far-away look. Kelyn had learned what it meant. He glanced skyward. High overhead, the egg-shaped sentinel whirled, giving the avedra a falcon’s view of the battlefield.

  Kelyn dismounted and passed the reins to Tullyk. His commanders dismounted too. Only Arryk and his Mantles remained in the saddle. The three mastiffs strained at the ends of short chains.

  Kelyn inspected a second pile of crates taller than he was. “What’s in these others?”

  “Was arrows. Mostly. Now nothing.” Large piles of ammunition lay between groupings of archers.

  “Why empty crates?”

  Daryon’s eyes focused hard on Kelyn. “A bluff. I want the ogres to think I have an endless supply of whirligigs. I don’t, you know. Thorn and I had time to build only a couple dozen. They can’t be refilled without work at a forge. Once they’re spent, we’ll be throwing the globes by hand. Correction. Someone will be throwing them, because I won’t.”

  Kelyn pried open the crate of whirligigs. “How many can you deploy at once?”

  “Five or six, bu
t that’s taxing. Though this place is full of untapped power.” He gestured vaguely at the stones atop Slaenhyll. “So who knows?”

  “How far?”

  “As far as I can see them.”

  Now, where to plant the bizarre devices?

  Sha’hadýn’s heralds had delivered her orders. To each side of the command hill, Miraji companies split. They marched east and west and disappeared inside thickening ripples of sun-glare. Kelyn breathed easier. Once the ogres were in disarray, he could begin withdrawing troops back to Tírandon.

  He snapped open his brass spyglass and panned it across the ranks of ogres, back and back to the rear, then along the panoply of banners. Where are you, you relentless bastard? He spotted an awning of unadorned canvas. There! Among the shadow-green and bulky bodies of the ogres, a brightness. The lithe figure of an Elari. White-blond hair like a halo. Lothiar. His armor was dark hutza plate and mail. Heavy. Cumbersome. But he wore it gracefully. Did he look so much like Laniel? Over such a distance, Kelyn couldn’t tell.

  Lothiar panned his own spyglass, apparently watching the rippling glide of the Miraji heatwaves maneuvering across the hills. His mouth moved. A horn bellowed. Then a second horn. Companies of ogres about-faced east and west to counter the threat. With a bored sweep of his hand, Lothiar indicated Kelyn’s command hill. A third horn responded. Testing the human defenses was over. The ogres’ center regiment, under the banner of the burning spear, broke into a headlong charge.

  Along the front line of Kelyn’s host, the archers tensed, nocked arrows and waited for the ogres to come within range.

  “Daryon, get those things flying. Two rows of three. Spread them out. Hit as much of the regiment as you can.”

  The avedra closed his eyes. The crate juddered. One by one, the whirligigs floated free. His hands started shaking. He clenched them into fists. Upon each of the devices, flaps like wings flicked open. They began to spin, powered by wind and avë. As if linked by an invisible chain, they formed a row and paraded around their master. Then with a gesture from Daryon’s hands, the whirligigs raced over the heads of the archers and out over the oncoming enemy.