War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  “How?” Eleinel demanded. “There are no trees for miles.”

  “This here is cow and auroch country, they rub up on the trees and kill them.” Raine replied, holding up a dried out chip of manure. “We can burn this, though. You stack them right and the fire will be good and hot for quite a while. It doesn’t smell nice, though, kind of like burning grass.”

  Kaelen made a burbling noise from Eleinel’s chest, and Raine looked up quickly. “I figured out already what that was.” He bragged. “Seen the little fellow wiggling his foot a moment ago. I didn’t know you king’s eyes could have babies.”

  Eleinel said nothing, just looked at the man uncomfortably. Lanae spoke up. “We aren’t supposed to, Raine.” She offered. “We’re taking this one to a safe home.”

  Raine nodded knowingly. “Ah, I see. Got yourself into a little trouble. Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, you ask me. ‘Course there’s them that feel otherwise, but people are going to live, no matter what rules you make against it. You figure that baby’s hungry?”

  Eleinel shook her head. “He’s all right, but his mother’s famished.”

  “I can fix that.” Raine offered. “Got half a dozen cows with calves on the tit right now. Why, if I had me a tub, you lot could take a bath in warm milk and wash your hair with butter.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “You go ahead, Eleinel, and take the baby with you.” Lanae said. “I’ll mind the eagles. I’m sure there’s no danger Sentinel can’t manage.” Her hint was a subtle as she dared make it, but Raine got the message. He took one look at the gigantic eagle and shook his head.

  “Nothing to worry about, Madame King’s Eye.” He said to Eleinel. “You don’t need to come no place. We’ll make a fire first, then I’ll fetch a bucket of milk and cream for you both, and bring it right back here. Hope you don’t mind it still being warm.”

  “We don’t mind.” The girls spoke simultaneously, and Lanae shivered with the cold.

  Lanae leaned forward over the fire, soaking up the warmth. The dried cow droppings burned quickly and gave off a great deal of heat, but the wind was cold, and it took time to gather enough of the manure to keep the fire going.

  “The news will have reached Walcox by now.” The queen said quietly. She was holding the baby while Lanae gathered the chips. “I don’t think we can go there now.”

  “Not yet.” Lanae replied. “There is no eagle’s landing at Walcox. Northcraven City is under siege and none of the other Northcraven landings are safe except for the one in Nevermind. Annika will have to fly there and they will carry the message by horse. We have a few days yet.”

  “I don’t know. This Lord Aelfric, if he sides with Maldiver, we could be in just as much danger there. But I have thought of a place that might be safer.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yes, it’s a place that most people don’t remember is there. An old castle and a village from the time of the hundred kingdoms. It’s called the Green Hills.”

  “My mother used to tell stories about the Kingdom of the Green Hills. She said they used to be an ally of Valkaz.” Lanae thought back on the childhood stories she’d had from Jannae Brookhouse. Her mother had always had a treasure box of stories. “She said it was a forgotten kingdom, whatever that means. Do you think you could find it?”

  “I think he could.” The queen answered, nodding at Sentinel. “I don’t think anyone else can. But we’ll give Walcox a chance first.” Just then Raine appeared, lugging a heavy bucket full of milk with both hands. He had three small wooden bowls in a bag around his waist.

  “Used to be my favorite supper.” He opined. “Until I had so much of it I got tired of it. When you’re done you can wipe the butter out of the bowls with your finger. It’s happy eating.”

  They stayed with Raine for the rest of that day, gathering chips for the fire, drinking milk and heavy cream. Lanae’s hunger left her, and the cold was beaten back for the moment. The eagles sat close by the fire and the women sheltered from the ever-present biting wind in the space before their bodies, huddling up into their downy breasts and holding the prince tightly. They relaxed, and the little prince seemed to catch their mood. His fussing ceased altogether and he took milk from his mother and seemed content.

  During the night, they burned through all of the dung they had accumulated during the day, great stacks of it painstakingly gathered and then piled in heaps into the greedy fire. They rose to a gray morning with overcast skies, but no rain came. Lanae’s eyes felt sticky and raw from lack of sleep and smoke, and her legs and arms seemed reluctant to obey her will. They thanked Raine for his kindness and he left them with several meals’ worth of dried meat and cheese.

  The eagles had taken a calf from an unbranded herd, but not Raine’s herd, and they were sated and ready to fly. Lanae strapped the queen onto Sentinel, who looked at her reproachfully. He did not like this inexperienced and puky rider, that was plain. Nevertheless, when Lanae guided Darkwing into the air with her knees, Sentinel followed, and they flew all the way to the Whitewood forest without stopping, a flight of four hours. Lanae found an isolated hilltop and they took their lunch, watching the clouds slowly march across the gray sky like a thick parade of ghosts.

  “How far is it to Walcox now?” The queen asked, sounding to Lanae for all the world like a child in the back of a wagon on the way to market. She was suckling the prince.

  “Four more hours.” Lanae replied. “Depending on the wind, of course. If the wind is against us it could be more, but usually the wind is westward here, so it could be a bit less.”

  Eleinel arched her back and grimaced. “I should like to sleep in a real bed again. My back feels like it’s been stepped on by a giant.”

  Lanae nodded. “It takes getting used to, riding for so long without moving. But at least you didn’t throw up this time. Neither did the prince, for that matter. I’ll make fliers out of you yet.”

  “Ugh. I don’t think so, Lanae. If it wasn’t so far, I’d rather walk.”

  In the afternoon, the day warmed considerably, and the ache in Eleinel’s back grew less. The milk had done wonders for her, and her calves no longer threatened to bunch up and go rigid with cramps. She looked ahead from Sentinel’s back and watched Lanae, marveling at the girl’s ability to control Darkwing with just her knees while at the same time holding Kaelen tightly with both arms. The queen’s hands and knuckles ached with the strain of holding tightly to Sentinel’s riding straps, and her thighs trembled with fatigue. Riding an eagle was so much harder than riding a horse that there was no comparison between the two.

  She had not dared to look down from the eagle’s back for the first two days of flying, not since the first time she had done so and seen the tops of buildings and faces of the people of the King’s Town looking impossibly small as they looked up at her. Terror had forced bile from her stomach before she’d even felt sick, and she’d ruined her too small riding jacket forever, she feared.

  She could look down now, but only because what lay beneath her was an endless and unvarying carpet of green. She knew rationally that they were the tops of enormous trees in the Whitewood Forest, and that a fall from this height would be unthinkable, but their sameness made the tree tops look as if they were merely a few feet below. Still, even raising her head was taxing after a few minutes, and she lay her cheek down on the backs of her hands and closed her eyes, thinking of her magical three years in the palace and her poor dead husband. The warmth from the great eagle’s back flowed into her body and made the cold almost bearable.

  Falante had shown to her aspects of his personality that no one else could see in their king. His childlike gloating over outwitting the merchants, his boyish enthusiasm for all things martial and his strong dislike for holding court were all things he kept hidden from the world, but she had seen these things and she loved him for who he was. When he’d looked into Kaelen’s tiny face with a new father’s wonder he had become to her the epitome of what a man should be, and she
missed him terribly. The tears that ran across the bridge of her nose seemed shockingly cold when the wind hit them.

  The cacophony in the farmyard wasn’t necessary to let Jannae Brookhouse know that Lanae was back on that ridiculous giant bird of hers, for she’d seen the girl coming, and seen the other eagle, too, from the time they were just dots hanging over the rim of the Whitewood. It surprised her that the fool girl had come straight to the farm, rather than stopping in Walcox proper like her duty demanded, but she figured there was a reason behind it. By the time Karl got the barn door closed and Bully shut up in the house, and he’d better not shit the kitchen floor by damn, she had a pretty good idea what the reason was, and she was none too happy about it.

  She walked up to the two eagles when they landed, and she recognized Sentinel from before, but not the woman riding him. Not that it mattered, for her eyes were all on Lanae, and the bundle that she carried, the way she was carrying it told her all she needed to know.

  “Sweet Srari, girl. Who done that to you?” She demanded, trying with all of her might to figure out how the girl could have visited her just a month and a half ago and not been showing, skinny as she was. “And what do you mean, flying around in the cold with a baby?”

  Lanae dismounted without answering, adroitly kicking loose from the rigging on this new eagle and dropping to the ground, and holding the baby close the whole time, despite the fact that the eagle seemed pretty spooky, jumping and flinching at every little noise. She hadn’t realized her daughter was so athletic, but she guessed it sort of went with being a king’s eye.

  When Lanae was loose she walked over to Jannae and handed her the baby. She’d forgotten how nice that felt, a little bitty life next to her chest, and she held the baby expertly. “He’s not mine, mama.” She said simply. “And we don’t have much choice about the flying. Come on over here and meet the queen.”

  It was a disappointment to see her normally sensible younger daughter taking to fancies like Ambarae did, but Jannae merely sighed and walked over to Sentinel’s side. Karl was looking on warily from the side of the cow pen, but he didn’t look like getting any closer to the big birds. He could be a big baby about so many things, her husband.

  Lanae was undoing a series of hitches and belts and buckles and things, unstrapping the king’s eye with her, a woman who looked a mite too old and a mite too heavy to go for eagle riding. Jannae wondered why the woman couldn’t unstrap herself, and she also wondered if Lanae shouldn’t be buckled in all tight and safe the same way.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Madam Brookhouse.” The woman said with her chin up and a very controlled but pleasant smile. “Lanae has told me many good things about you.”

  “Well, I never did get to meet any of her friends.” Jannae replied pointedly, looking at Lanae. “I guess you all can come in and I’ll fix you a mite to eat.”

  “I need to see to my son first.” The woman replied, walking over and taking the baby out of Jannae’s reluctant arms. She stroked the baby’s hair and looked into his eyes and they were more or less cut off the same block, so she figured the woman was definitely the mama, which was a relief. The little one was making chuckly noises and taking on wind like me might start to fuss, and the woman looked at Jannae hopefully. “He’s hungry. Do you have a place I might feed him?”

  Jannae blinked and then nodded, pointing to the house. “I guess you can set in the kitchen if you like.” Most of the women Jannae knew weren’t too shy about putting a baby to the tit when it needed doing, and she found the request for privacy touching. She must be a new mama and this must be her first, she thought. She led the way to the house, looking pointedly at Lanae, who was following them both.

  “Would you please introduce me to your friend?” She finally asked, when Lanae didn’t get the hint.

  “Mama, I already did.” Lanae replied, smiling slightly. “This is Eleinel D’Cadmouth, the Queen of Mortentia. The baby is Prince Kaelen.” When the woman merely nodded confirmation of what Lanae said, you could have fit a fence post in Jannae’s open mouth. Karl had been following along like a heeling dog, and he made an absurd bow.

  “Welcome to our house, Your Highness.” The fool man said.

  Chapter 73: West Torth, Torth Island, Mid-Leath

  Gold can do what the law forbids, and this was an ancient law that had perhaps always been true. Derbas-Al-Dhulma was thankful that it was so, for otherwise he could conceive of no way that he and his cousin Rashad could have crossed the great bridge and entered West Torth with their bodyguards.

  The two men with them were blademasters, selected carefully from among the chaos that had been Telderin, two men of that particular complexion who could have been of nearly any race. Yarom D’uta and Gheros D’telderin could have been brothers, although they were not, brothers who shared the same barber perhaps, with their almost black hair cut short and thick moustaches plastered onto weathered faces. Neither tall nor short, neither thin nor fat, and neither young nor old, the two bodyguards would have looked equally at home in Araquesh, Hulmin, Draakar or even Thimenia. Tolrissa was their motherland, and also that of many Mortentians, so naturally they would blend in here, and the final qualification that had distinguished them was a fluency in Mortentian. They negotiated the bribery of the customs officials with a practiced aplomb that was both useful and enviable, and Derbas decided that they were worth every ounce of gold they were being paid.

  For his part Derbas had taken on the role of a traveling merchant to get into Mortentia, and his bushy black beard and strong Araqueshi features he could have explained away in perfect Mortentian, for he had concocted a reasonable cover story as a former sailing man, and he knew enough of boats and of the sea to get away with it. With the assistance of Yarom and Gheris it had not been necessary, and he was glad of that, for Rashad’s story was as weak as his accent was strong. The priest of Hidor had never been particularly good at subterfuge.

  Nevertheless they stood now side by side on the harbor road of West Torth City, with their luggage properly stamped and sealed although it had not, in truth, been inspected. Rashad picked at the collar of his unfamiliar blue tunic as if it itched, but Rashad knew it was fine linen and that this was Rashad missing his priestly habit. “Where do we go now, Joth?”

  Rashad had taken the name for an alias and it took him a moment to reply. “I think to Zoric. We will adopt different guises there and travel north by horse.”

  “Do you think the pox is there, cousin?” Derbas had been to Zoric only once, and many years ago, but it seemed a place where the pox would thrive, a swampy fetid land with dirty and dishonest inhabitants.

  “I think the pox will most certainly have affected the northern provinces.” Derbas replied. “They have been at war for the entire summer, and people from many places fighting there. I cannot see how they would have avoided it. As for Zoric? Who can say?”

  “I cannot imagine what the pox would do to such a place as Mortentia.” Rashad replied. “I know that I cannot protect us from it once we reach the mainland, nor can any man living, at least not by the Art. It would spread through that land like a sandstorm in the Sea of Sand. We must be very careful not to contract it. My arts will be almost useless.”

  “As will many of mine.” Derbas replied. “But we are soldiers in a war, and soldiers must take risks. We can avoid sharing food and boil any water we drink. So long as we remain cautious and clean, we should be able to avoid it.”

  It had been a fine summer day in the seventh moon when the two men had left the land of Araquesh on a dhow bound for Telderin, but untimely storms in the Araqueshi Sea had forced them far off course, and they had been forced to spend two weeks beating against the wind just to return to their original course. They had arrived in Telderin to find Tolrissa wracked by the plague, some new variety of pestilence that people were calling the black pox. At Derbas’ insistence, bolstered by a handsome fee, the captain had been persuaded to remain in the harbor for nearly a month while the pox ran its cou
rse in the city, and Rashad had used his arts to keep captain and crew free of the disease. Telderin had many skilled practitioners of the healing arts, and the pox had not done the damage it might have elsewhere. A few people had died, but they were the ones too poor to pay for physics or too old or weak to survive waiting. Only when the High Cavalier declared Telderin plague free had they entered the city, and there they had hired the two bodyguards after an exhaustive search.

  Derbas and Rashad had been to Mortentia before, and they knew the kind of men they were looking for. They refused to settle for less, so the hiring process had taken another three weeks. Those were Araqueshi weeks, of course, seven days long. In Mortentia the week was six days long, and their months were fixed year after year in a ridiculous manner that permitted the same calendar day to have a different moon every year. It was a system of tracking the days that would have driven any astromancer in Rammas mad.

  Of course, everyone in the world outside of Mortentia knew how insane the people inside of it were, so such a thing should not have surprised anyone.

  At any rate, with the plague raging across the known world, it had taken another three Araqueshi weeks for the cousins to find a ship bound for Mortentia, and more gold than they had reckoned on, of course. Not that the gold mattered. Derbas had brought along several heavy gemstones, and at a pinch he could sell one for half a golden talent, assuming that the purchaser was not as dishonest as the moneychangers in East Torth had been. By weight he should be carrying probably five gilders more in his purse than he had, but such was the way of the world all over. He was in no position to protest.

  In Mortentia his arts were forbidden, and members of Rashad’s priesthood were classed as heretics, two things to keep in mind when dealing with the authorities. Winning a court case for fraud would be little consolation when he was burned at the stake in this primitive land.