She drew her dagger and ran to the alarum bell, pulling the chain furiously, alerting the whole eyrie tower. She was waiting for the guards from the lower chamber to come up when she heard an eagle screaming.
“Sentinel!” She cried, and she threw herself through the heavy door with the new grill and pelted up the stairs, as fast as her legs could carry her. There were five landings, each of which allowed access to five eyries, and the screams of the eagle were coming from somewhere far above her head. She passed the first level and saw nothing amiss. The torches were where they were supposed to be, and the individual eyries were all empty. The second level was the same, and the third level was, too, much to her relief. She went to Sentinel’s nest and glanced in, making sure he was unhurt. He looked agitated, straining his head upward and crying in response to the screams coming from above.
Only Darkfeather shared the eyrie tower with Sentinel tonight, for Skywolf, Crimson, Birdie and Whitecrest were all on missions and Wetwing was laying over in Arker. Darkfeather was chained, Lanae remembered, and could not defend himself. Where was Bansher?
She found him at the center of the fourth level, lying on his side hard by the spiral staircase at the eyrie tower’s center and breathing hoarsely. A dead man in the livery of the eyrie tower lay beside him. He had a deep cut in his arm and a bleeding hole in his chest. “Darkfeather!” He gasped. “Corrie. Save them.” His hand was bloody as he reached out in Lanae’s direction. The eagle’s cry seemed right above her head.
If someone had been able to overcome Bansher, Lanae knew it was someone she should fear, but she was a king’s eye, and she had her duty. She went up the stairs as quietly and as quickly as she could, and she cautiously raised her head above the floor from the upper stair. She saw three men, all of them armed with swords and one with a spear, and they were in Darkfeather’s nest. The eagle was screaming, flying in desperate circles at the end of its chain, while two of the men attempted to reel it in out of the night, pulling the chain hand over hand while the third man tried to stab the eagle with a long spear. Poor Corrie from Flana lay on the floor in a bloody heap beside the nest, and one glimpse told Lanae that the men had broken her neck and pierced her in many places with their weapons. Their eyes were turned away from her, but at any moment they might turn and see her.
She emerged from the stairwell in a daggerman’s crouch, with Levin’s dagger held point down in her right hand. The spearman was the immediate danger, and moving silently in her slippered feet, she ran behind him and leaped upward, landing both feet in the small of the man’s back. He was standing at the very edge of the nest, and her kick sent him over. His spear clattered to the floor. He did not scream as he fell, but a crash told her his body had come down through the tiled roof and into the kitchens below. Both of the other men abandoned their efforts to haul Darkfeather in, and they started to draw their swords, turning toward her. She screamed wordlessly and launched her feet at the center of the man closest to the edge of the nest, and he fell outward, but his hands caught him at the edge, and he did not fall.
The other man now had his sword out, and he advanced on Lanae with murder in his soul-dead and pale-green eyes. She backed away, holding the dagger before her, moving quickly into the center of the nests where she would have more room to defend herself. He stalked her relentlessly, positioning himself so that she could not escape down the stairwell, which lay between them and in easy reach of his bloody blade.
She recognized him as Limnit, one of Bansher’s trusted guards, a man who had served the eyrie tower for many years. “Limnit.” She said, desperately. “You aren’t yourself. Put your sword away.”
But Limnit did not seem to hear. Instead he leaped agilely across the stairwell, forcing her into the empty nest behind her. Now the deadly fall lay behind her, and he was a broad man with a long blade. The walls of the nest were close, and she could not hope to evade him as he backed her relentlessly toward the edge and a four hundred foot fall behind. “Guards!” She screamed, but none were in evidence, nor did she hear them coming up the stairs. It was the night shift, and all of the guards but these four traitors were likely home in their beds.
Closer to the edge he drove her, until she must either come under his blade or tumble into the void behind. “Guards!” She shouted again desperately, and again there was no answer, but a large brown shape came out of the night behind her and knocked her sprawling to the floor. Sentinel had come.
Limnit faced the eagle squarely, his sword in hand, but Sentinel was having none of it. The great eagle bulled forward, ignoring the little iron stick the man tried to poke him with, and smashed the man backward. Now it was the eagle’s turn to stalk, and he was no Darkfeather. He was no Shroud or Goldwing to obey and submit to the will of men. The man was twisted and broken inside in some way, and the eagle sensed it. There was poison in the man. Sentinel screamed his challenge and met the man’s clumsy iron stick with his great beak, fending off the attacks like he would the desperate last clawing of some wild prey.
The poison man turned and ran into the nest of Darkfeather, dropped his sword and picked up the spear that the other guard had dropped. Now the man had a longer and more deadly stick, but still just a stick. Sentinel shouldered his way into the central chamber and prepared to fight the poison man, screaming challenge. Another poison man was climbing up from the edge of the nest, hauling himself into it with pale and bloody hands.
The first poison man grabbed the spear in two hands and prepared to run the great eagle through, but he had forgotten Sentinel’s nestmate. Darkfeather clawed his way into his own nest where the poison man stood, caught the man by the collar and pulled, drawing him out into the wind. Sentinel knocked the other poison man backward, and he fell also.
The men did not know the way of wind. They could not fly, no matter how they flapped the featherless and useless things at their shoulders, and these men were no exception. Poisoned or not, they fell into the night almost together, crashing into the building below. Sentinel drew back into the empty nest of Sky, there to comfort his rider, for the girl was quite upset.
“You saved me again.” Lanae said to Sentinel, and she threw her arms about the great eagle’s neck. But then she remembered Bansher. “Oh no.” She said.
She ran to the spiral staircase and down it, then across the floor to where her teacher and friend lay dying. And he was dying, she could see that clearly. His arm hung uselessly at his side and he lay in a wide and spreading pool of blood, black in the dim light of the torches. She took his head and placed it in her lap, heedless of the sticky sap feeling of the blood on her pants.
“You’re hurt.” She said to him, for lack of anything else.
“Dying.” He whispered weakly. “I’ve killed enough men to know when it’s done.”
“What can I do?”
“You’re the best of them, Lanae. My best rider.” He replied. “You need to hold them together. I don’t have a man to take my place.”
“I’m just a rider, Bansher. They will find someone …”
He nodded weakly, shivering with a cold that Lanae did not feel. “You need to teach them …” But then his voice changed, and he looked at the ceiling, not seeing her at all.
“Bess, you remember me, don’t you? Sweet Bess. I’m so very sorry. You can’t know. I should have never …”
But his apology went unfinished, and his eyes went still and empty. The Master of Eagles was dead. Lanae pushed his eyes closed. It was five minutes before the first of the guards arrived, and he found Lanae weeping, cradling the dead man’s head in her lap.
Chapter 60: Limme: Hrulthan’s Steading, the North Sea
“Listen, little thrall, and hear me well.”
Limme was cornered in the hall beside her room above the mead hall, and a gigantic blonde woman was looming over her. It was Yset, and Limme was scared.
“Levin is mine until he leaves with Jarlben, little thrall. His eyes and his looks are mine. His kind words and kisses are mine. His
hands and his cock are mine. When he sings, he sings for me. When he dances, he dances with me. That is the way of it.”
Limme looked up into the grim face of the woman from Khumenov. Her back was against the wall in the narrow wooden hallway, and Yset seemed to take up all the rest of it, for she was as tall as a man, despite being fully and completely shaped like a woman. She was like any beautiful woman, but half again as large, and Limme felt as tiny as a child beside her. “I assure you, I have no intentions toward Levin.” She said.
“Then you lie like a Mortentian or you are a little fool. His face is beautiful. His shoulders are strong. He dances well. He sings and speaks poetry. He kills like a king fish and fucks like an angel. How can you not have intention toward him?”
“If he is so wonderful, why don’t you keep him?” Limme replied pertly. “I promise you can have him.”
“If I wanted him, I would keep him, as you say. And today I want him, and he is mine. I am from Khumenov, and what I want, I take. What I want to keep, I keep. But he is not tall enough to give me the sons I want, so when Jarlben takes him away you can have him. Until then, all of the things I have said are mine, I will keep. If you take them from me, it is to the knife. Do you understand, little rabbitkin?” She put a hand to her scabbarded dagger as she spoke.
“I understand, Yset.” Then she smiled ruefully, admiring the woman’s forthrightness despite herself. There was something elemental and powerful in these Thimenians. “You and I could be friends, you know.”
Yset grinned back and shook her long and golden braids. “If you think that is true, you are truly a fool, little thrall. I saw him take you in battle, and so long as he lives, you and I can never be friends. If he dies, come and see me. We will then talk of friendship.”
They stood like that for a long moment, and it was just getting uncomfortable when the sound of Levin’s boots on the stairs pulled them apart. “Hello girls.” He said, making his way toward them down the hall and looking as if had not a care in the world.
Yset looked at him fiercely for a moment, then she smiled, and her gorgeous face was like the sun, and Limme was instantly jealous of the woman’s spectacular beauty. “Hello pretty man.” Yset said. “Do you have a song for me? I want to hear one where no man dies.”
Levin smiled and chuckled. Yes, Limme admitted to herself. He was handsome, even if he was an arrogant blockhead half the time. “I’ve been thinking of the right song all day, Yset.”
“Come into your room and sing it to me, Ghoulslayer. I do not want to wait.” The brazen tavern maid began removing her tunic before she was even halfway through the door! Scandalized but curious, Limme remained in the hall listening for much longer than she should have, until the song was nearly over and her face was bright red from the other sounds she was hearing. Limme shook her head and went into her own room, for despite his dark promise that she would share his furs, he had bought a separate room for her anyway.
She knew Levin didn’t think of her that way. She knew that even though she was nearly fifteen, she looked barely thirteen, which was wonderful if you wanted to fly on the back of an eagle, but not so great if you wanted to be loved by a man. Lio’s breath! Did she want to be loved by Levin? The thought was madness, especially after the things he had said on the night he won her from the Borni, but the things Yset had said. He did sing and dance wonderfully, and she’d heard him speaking poetry, even if it was only to Yset. She had seen him fight, and he was brave and skilled, if cruel. As to the rest of it? Well, she would never know, and that was that.
She pulled a pillow over her head and tried not hear the sounds coming through the thin walls from the adjacent room. She heard them just the same.
Yset had not exaggerated the Ghoulslayer’s charms to the little thrall. She had perhaps neglected to mention a few things, like his thick and pretty hair, the softness of his lips or the strength in his legs, but she was neither poet nor panderer, and there were a few things the little rabbitkin would have to learn for herself. She did not doubt that the little rabbitkin would get him eventually, for Yset did not want to keep him. She only wanted the use of him for a few long nights and wonderful days. The way the rabbitkin looked at the Ghoulslayer, though… Yset knew how that would go.
Into the small hours of the night she listened to his singing and his poetry, and she danced him in the bed, taking from him what he wanted to give her and then taking more, until he was exhausted and slept deeply. She was not completely sated, but she would be. She gazed at the ceiling in the darkness, as happy and content as any wild thing that has found a mate, even if only for a little while.
She was lying on her back, as splendidly naked as she had ever been, when she heard the rattling of the door to the little thrall’s room. Of course, she wasn’t really a thrall anymore, for Levin had cut off her collar, not that either of the stupid Mortentians knew it yet. Did the little rabbitkin imagine that she could sneak out and try to poach from Yset what was hers? But no, the door was locked, and the rattling stopped. It was not the girl trying to get out, it was someone else, trying to get in.
Yset knew instantly who it was. Those rude and black-haired Borni were trying to take by theft what the Ghoulslayer had refused to sell them. She jumped from the bed and grabbed her knife. Levin came awake when she moved. “What is it, Yset?”
“The Borni steal your thrall.” She said simply. She could have let them take the little rabbitkin, but she belonged to the Ghoulslayer, and theft was theft and could not be allowed. Besides, she rather liked the little Mortentian girl. She had been brave to speak to Yset as she had, especially for a Mortentian.
“Seven hells.” The Ghoulslayer said, falling from the bed clumsily and groping for his sword in the dark. He was still half-asleep, and that was Yset’s doing. She hoped she hadn’t worn the poor man out entirely. A muffled crack sounded in the hall, and Yset knew the Borni had broken the lock on the little thrall’s door.
She heard the little thrall’s voice. “Who are you? What do you want?” Silly questions, those. There was probably not a person in all of the steading who could not have guessed. The Borni’s strange obsession with the little thrall had been the backhanded talk of half of the steading. Yset’s claiming of the Ghoulslayer had been the talk of the other half. Heavy sounds came from the thrall’s room, the sound of several men moving.
“Limme?” The Ghoulslayer called out. “Hold on, I’m coming.” He should not address his thrall so, but he was a Mortentian and knew no better.
After he called out, as if in answer, the door to the Ghoulslayer’s room burst open, and in stepped a Borni, wearing a full helmet and heavy armor beneath a black leather jerkin. Yset’s knife took him in the space between helmet and breastplate, severing the life vein before the man had even finished looking into the room. Always slow and stupid, these Borni. The dead man’s sword clattered to the floor and he staggered about a bit, his body taking almost a minute to discover that it was dead.
Still naked, she stepped into the hall, armed with only her knife. From the sounds in the darkness she thought four more Borni were there, and all of them in armor. Then the Ghoulslayer stood beside her, and his blade was in his hand. She stepped back and allowed him the honor, wanting to admire his swordwork.
When the Borni first rattled her door, Limme had been deeply asleep, and it was not until the lock broke that she truly woke. She called out, but then rude hands grabbed her and she was bundled into her blanket by a large and very strong man. She could hear several more men moving in her room, and she knew from their all too familiar smell that they were the Borni. She thought she heard Levin call out. Her terror of being taken thrall again stilled her voice, and she did not answer, but she began to struggle wildly.
She heard the clash of steel on steel somewhere close by, and then Levin’s voice, calm and harsh.
“Well, you bought yourself a fight, Borni dogs. Now you must either hand over my property or die. You’ve broken the peace of the steading as well.”
The man holding her dropped her to the wooden floor, and she scraped her elbow against something as she fell. The bare bit of moonlight coming through her tiny and grime frosted window gave her barely enough light to see by, but there was a lamp burning dimly in the hallway, and she could see the outlines of three men in her room, armored men standing with drawn swords between her and the door. There was an empty clay bottle on the floor.
The Borni did not speak, but they stepped out into the hall, leaving her alone in her room. She struggled to find the flint and light the room’s lamp.
The hallway was narrow, and the Borni could only come at the Ghoulslayer one at a time. He was calm and his beautiful shoulders moved confidently, and Yset had to resist the urge to touch him while he held the armored men at bay with his longsword. Instead she grabbed an unlit torch, lit it with the flame from the single lamp, throwing the hallway into sharp, if flickering relief.
“We are not the fool you fought before, Mortentian.” Said the first Borni facing her lover, and Yset smiled to herself. They might not be the same fool, but they were fools nonetheless, and doubtless they had hoped to spirit away the girl while the Ghoulslayer shared her bed in town. Her need to take him right there in the mead hall probably had saved the little thrall. “Stand aside or we will kill you.”
The Ghoulslayer did not speak, but in the brighter light of the torch he could see the Borni man’s armor, and he could see the places the armor did not protect. He stepped forward suddenly, taking the man in the throat and then stepping back just as swiftly. Yset stepped back to give him room. By now the noise had awakened all of the guests in the mead hall, and several armed men now stood behind Yset in the hall. She thought nothing of her nakedness, and was only eager to watch her lover slay. The first Borni fell gasping to the floor, his blood spreading in a dark pool.
“Who breaks the peace of Hrulthan’s Steading?” A loud voice called up from the great hall below. These were Hrulthan’s men, and now the Borni knew they were truly undone. Some indistinguishable shape came flying out of the little thrall’s room and clattered against the helmet of one of the Borni, breaking into clay fragments. It was good that the little thrall had some fight in her. When the man turned to see what it was, the Ghoulslayer’s blade flicked out, and he was hamstrung. He tumbled to the floor with an oath, his struggling body a further obstacle to the two remaining Borni behind him. With a scream, one of them leaped over the bodies of his fallen comrades, trying to reach the Ghoulslayer with an axe.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 71