Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (2 page)

Nanny climbed the hill last,
reluctant to let Nathryk and Bhodryk go off by themselves. True, the Leanian
guards followed their hostage, but would they intercede fast enough to prevent
Bhodryk a black eye? Didn’t make sense, Nathryk’s sudden wish to accommodate
the baby brother he’d always despised. Arryk suspected that Nathryk meant it as
another blow in the face. One no one else would notice.

“You have a birthday in a couple of
weeks, don’t you?” asked Istra.

If she was trying to distract him,
it wasn’t working. Arryk kept an eye on his brothers.

“How old will you be?”

“Nine.” He set the basket down
under the twisted trees and watched Bhodryk drop onto his belly as Istra had
shown him. He squirmed toward the cliffs, infantry-style, and pointed over the
edge. Nathryk walked right up to the cliffs, bold as you please, and peered
down at the nests. “I hope he’s gone by then,” Arryk added. “Or he’ll ruin it,
like he ruins everything.”

Istra had no comment for that. Very
diplomatic of her. She helped Nanny fling out a quilted blanket. “Grandmother
hopes to get you something nice. Thought about what gifts you want?”

“My father back,” he muttered into
the wind. For a couple of weeks after fleeing Brynduvh, he kept watching the
gates for his father’s arrival. No one had the courage or courtesy to tell him the
truth. Then everyone started calling Aunt Ki’eva the Princess Regent. In a
cloud of urgency and anger, she had departed the safety of Éndaran to attend
the peace talks. Arryk remembered sitting in Lady Eritha’s dark moldy library,
hunched over a math lesson when the certainty overcame him. Istra sat across
the table, tutoring him while Master Graidyn, in solemn black robes, helped
Bhodryk learn to spell in a sunny corner. The numbers on Arryk’s slate blurred
under sudden tears and he tried to swallow his sorrow, afraid of what the
Éndaran household might think of a sobbing prince. Istra saw anyway and asked
him what was wrong. “He’s dead, isn’t he? The Aralorris killed him.” Istra
glanced at Master Graidyn, but the tutor was absorbed with his younger pupil.
When she turned back, tears clouded her own eyes. She nodded. Arryk was
grateful for the honesty, even while he sobbed, math lessons spoiled for the
day.

Salt-scented wind battered the hilltop,
swirling Nanny’s skirts and tangling the curls about Istra’s scarred face. After
an awkward silence, she suggested, “You’re ready for your own pony, don’t you
think?”

“Sure.” He sat down on the blanket
to keep the gusts from whipping it away, and hugged his knees close to his
chest. Nanny pulled jars of butter, fruit, and custard from the wicker basket,
along with smoked chicken wrapped in wax paper.

“My father said he would take you
on as squire, too, if you’re interested.” Istra unsheathed her dagger and grabbed
the loaf of bread. “That’s a nice present, eh?”

Lord Raed frightened Arryk as much
as Lady Eritha did. The man had eyes of steel, and he never smiled.

“Da refused to train Nathryk,”
Istra went on, encouraging him with a subtle wink. “He must think better of
you. I’d take the chance, if I were you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Arryk said.

After Nathryk became bored with the
shulla nest, he continued along the cliff-side, so close to the edge that Arryk
felt his heart in his throat just watching. Bhodryk danced after him, trying to
catch the wheeling birds, his golden head shining. His laughter carried far and
clear on the gusts.

“Do you want butter on your bread,
Highness?” asked Nanny.

Arryk turned his attention from the
cliffs and took the thick slice she held out for him.

“Getting left behind with us isn’t
so bad, is it?” she asked, smiling.

Arryk wanted to tell her, “It’s worse
than bad. Everyone thinks I’m a coward now,” but he kept it to himself. Too
ashamed to eat, he stuck a finger in the butter and swiped an M in it, like a
shulla flying.

Nanny didn’t scold him. If princes
wanted to draw in their food, who was she to correct them? “If you want, I’ll
finish the story about the kidnapped Valroi princes.”

“No, Bhodryk will want to hear.”

Istra set a heavy-bottomed mug
beside him. Purple juice, pink bubbles.

“I don’t like grape juice,” he said,
nose wrinkled.

Istra laughed. “That’s appropriate
in a land known for its vineyards.” She snuck a furtive glance at Nanny, and
when she wasn’t looking, Istra switched her own mug with Arryk’s. “Sweetberry
cordial,” she whispered. “But don’t tell your brothers.”

Arryk smiled, feeling better, and
took a big bite of his bread and butter. Istra contented herself with a cold
chicken leg and idly tucked a windblown strand of hair behind her ear, baring
the shiny pink scar that slashed across her forehead. It split her left eyebrow
in two. Another crossed the bridge of her nose. He’d noticed them the moment
they met, but never asked about them. She caught him staring, and a reflexive
hand darted to her face.

“I didn’t think you’d been to
battle,” he said, broaching the subject as politely as he knew how. “Did you
fight in the war?”

She shook her head. Eyes
rabbit-like, she glanced toward the cliffs and the shrinking figures walking
there. “It was my fault. I lost my temper.”

“Nathryk did that to you?” Arryk
scrambled to his knees, outraged but not surprised. “Oh, I hate him!” As soon
as he said it, he clamped his teeth on his bottom lip. If Nathryk heard him, he
would deal Arryk more than a bloody nose.

Istra offered a tentative smile. “One
doesn’t cross royalty.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you!” No,
because I’m too cowardly to lift a finger against so much as a fly, he accused
himself. He caught the flies trapped in the windows, examined their shiny
blue-black carapaces and translucent wings, then let them go. Finishing his
bread with a lump in his throat, he resolved to smash the next fly he found and
not feel sorry about it.

Voice flat and soft, Istra
admitted, “It was bad enough that I was out of bed for only a couple of weeks
when you came to live here.” She pressed at her side again. Earlier, when she
asked him to help with the basket, she hadn’t been faking the pain after all.

Nanny’s mouth opened a fraction, but
she refrained from voicing her concern. She laid down the butter knife instead
and watched the boys walking along the cliffs.

“Broken ribs can lead to pneumonia
because you can’t breathe right,” Istra went on. “That’s what my brother died
of, so Da and Grandmother wouldn’t let me do a thing all spring. It was so
boring. No sword fighting or archery or riding or anything. Doctors won’t let
me resume training until winter. I’ll be completely out of condition. We can
start together, Highness! Would you like that? Captain Bartran barks louder
than he bites, and Da? Well, he squired both my brothers and has plenty of war
stories to tell you about. He fought at Stonebrydge, you know.”

When he said nothing, she added,
“In any case, it will make your brother jealous. And you’ll learn all kinds of
ways to defend yourself.”

Yes, Arryk liked that idea.
Fistfights were one thing, but what frightened him most was the knowledge that
one day Nathryk would carry a sword—and command thousands. “Is it true what
I’ve heard? Is it his fault we lost the war?”

Istra and Nanny exchanged
stone-faced glances. Arryk had heard Rance and Lord Raed talking. Apparently, Nathryk
had run away from Éndaran, snuck aboard a ship and gotten himself captured by
Leanians. The enemy presented him on the battlefield, but the White Falcon had
refused to surrender the fight in order to reclaim his son. Arryk also heard
that Father had been so upset that he fled the field, and that’s when the enemy
won. Talk of an avedra cropped up in most of the rumors, too, but Arryk
couldn’t figure out where that detail fit in.

“I don’t think wars are won or lost
by one person alone, Highness,” Istra answered. Her fingers brushed the back of
his hand. “And we must never speak of this again. Do you understand?”

Only too well. Arryk doubted
Nathryk would be the kind of king who ignored rumors that his foolishness had
led to Fiera’s greatest shame.

His brothers drifted around a deep
curve in the fluted cliff. Shullas shrieked at the intruders, veered in great
circles, then dived close to scare them away. “I wish they would come back and
eat.” The Leanian guards had fallen back a bit, unwilling or unable to keep up
with two tireless boys. Arryk climbed to his feet. “I should’ve gone with
them.”

“Eat up, Highness,” said Nanny,
more snappish than usual, and started down the hill to fetch them.

Istra sighed. “You won’t be able to
relax until they’re back, will you? All right, then. Let’s go with her.”
Descending the hill side by side, Istra tried talking of small things like the
book she’d finished reading (she had discovered he liked books), or her
brother’s new wolfhound puppy, or how Arryk liked Master Graidyn as a tutor. But
Arryk’s attention belonged to the orange coats in the distance and his
brother’s golden head shining almost as brightly as the guards’ helmets. Fear clawed
at his belly worse than vinegar. He broke into a trot and passed Nanny.

“Highness, slow down,” Istra
called.

He ran faster, trying to keep his
eyes on Bhodryk while hopping stones and avoiding a broken ankle. Istra caught
up to him, holding her side, and didn’t try to stop him. She watched the
figures ahead, too. “Bhodryk!” he called, but the wind whipped his voice in the
other direction.

“The guards are keeping watch,” Istra
said, short of breath now. “There’s no need—”

He called for Bhodryk again.
Whether or not he heard, this time he raised a skinny arm to wave and started
back along the cliffs. For an instant, Arryk heard Bhodryk’s laughter swirling among
the cries of the gulls. Then he was falling.

Bhodryk screamed like the birds, plummeting
toward the sea.

“Catch him!” Istra cried and her
long legs carried her ahead. The Leanian guards ran too, boot heels kicking
high.

Bhodryk collided with a jutting
rock, and the screaming stopped. Limp as a rag doll, he tumbled in a cartwheel,
falling, falling, then vanished in an explosion of sea-spray.

Arryk had never run so fast, or so
slow. When he caught up, the guards tried to hold him back, but he squirmed
free of grasping hands and dropped to his belly at the edge of the world. Far
below, Bhodryk lay on a ledge of black rock. Waves exploded in white foam, and
the tide pulled at his little body so that he seemed to move. “Get up!” Arryk
screamed, but Bhodryk didn’t get up.

“Highness,” he heard. A guard’s strong
hand gripped his shoulder and tried to pull him away.

Arryk kicked at the man until he
left him alone, and all the while he heard his own voice wailing. He couldn’t
make it stop. He was crying and screaming and he couldn’t stop and Bhodryk
didn’t get up.

A pair of skinny arms latched onto
him and dragged him back from the edge. Istra’s yellow hair blew into his face.
“What happened?” she demanded.

The guards looked at each other, none
wanting to be the first to speak, then one by one, their gaze settled on
Nathryk. When he felt them staring he stopped looking at his brother’s broken
body and turned to face them. His black eyes glared them down, and that glare
promised poison, arson, and skulls broken in the night.

“Prince Bhodryk was running,” one
of the Leanians answered. “He tripped … that’s all.”

Nathryk broke the stare and exhaled
an exaggerated sigh of sorrow. “One of you dolts better decide how you’re going
to get his body back. What will you tell my aunt? The regent will hang your
heads on pikes. But don’t worry. If you take me out hunting tomorrow, I’ll lie for
you. No one will ever know that you stood by while my little brother fell.”

Arryk roared, voice raw in his
throat, and he struggled against Istra’s grip. He would shove Nathryk over the
edge! That would show him. But Istra held him close and whispered, “Shh, shh,”
into his ear until he stopped fighting. Through the flaxen cloud of her blowing
hair, he saw Nathryk gazing at the body. A grin ghosted across his lips.

~~~~

Hammer and chisel

A careful stroke,

A mountain falls.

—Songs
of Stone

“C
old is the road that leads
to nowhere,” Lord Degany grumbled to himself. In the shadow of the mountain the
wind blew frigid, shaking loose a dry dusting of snow that perched on the
branches of the spruce trees. It sifted down onto the rocky road and settled on
the back of his neck. He tugged a fur collar tight under his bearded jaw.
Behind him, a line of men struggled up the road. The clatter of their hobnailed
boots striking the stones echoed across the gulf between mountain slopes. Gray
clouds hid the peeks as if they were faces weeping behind a veil. Ragged tails
of mist rolled over the mountains’ shoulders to fill the valleys. Winter had
come to the Drakhan Mountains, a month earlier than expected.

Degany cursed the change in
weather, as did the men marching along behind him. They had sweated in
shirtsleeves on the day they left Zeldanor. A good thing Truva had thought to
pack his warmest cloak for him. Never failed, though. Embark upon a mission of
unprecedented importance and complications quickly mounted.

“What was that, m’ lord?” asked his
squire. “Did you need something?” Wolf, a younger son of Lord Whitewood,
trotted up beside Degany. Though his cheeks were blotched red, he seemed
untroubled by the cold. Youthful resilience. “Are you warm enough, sir?”

“Don’t make me sorry I brought you
along, boy.”

Wolf kept pace but shut his mouth
for another mile or so, while the party maneuvered along a narrow stretch of
road barely clinging to the mountain’s shoulder. Then he asked, “What do the
dwarves mean when they call you ‘stone-son’?”

“That means I have a hard head and
I’m true to my word.” A lie, but it satisfied the boy’s curiosity. He also avoided
telling his squire that his legs ached and not only from the cold. They were
too short to straddle the sturdy, broad-backed mountain horse properly. He took
a pull from a flask to ease the pain.

Surely Wolf had heard the rumors
and hoped to trick his foster-lord into revealing the truth, but the boy was not
clever, and Degany, as his father before him, was a well-practiced liar. If the
dwarves preferred to deal with him over many another lord, it was because they
knew his ancestry, even if Degany himself denied it.

His past negotiations with the
clans had mostly revolved around bargaining for lower tolls on trade roads. His
present assignment was inexplicably more delicate. Gold was a touchy subject on
the best of days, but after the White Falcon’s stunt in robbing the Drakhan
dwarves of their new-found treasure, the matter, if not handled with extreme
care, might put an end to his long-standing friendship with the clans.

“Now is the time,” King Rhorek had
told him. Newly returned from the peace talks at Nathrachan, the Black Falcon
had looked worn and sick with exhaustion. Still, His Majesty reminded Degany
how formal and well-groomed life was at court compared to that at Zeldanor. Standing
in the Audience Chamber, Degany smelled horse on his trousers, hounds on his
gloves, and he hadn’t considered polishing his boots or trimming his beard
until the meeting was upon him. If the king had taken note of his uncouth
appearance, he had the grace not to mention it. “Fiera is in upheaval, and the
Princess Regent is not as discreet as her brother was. She let it be known that
she wants nothing to do with the gold that, she believes, led to Shadryk’s death.
When her temper cools, she may feel differently. Therefore, we must act now.
Before she realizes her error in judgment and sends a delegation into the
mountains.”

Degany had urged the king to wait
until the temper of the
dwarves
ebbed, but Rhorek wouldn’t hear of it.
“I do not expect them to give us their treasury, Lord Zeldanor,” he’d said.
“Just make inroads. Get them talking. Find out what they mean to do with this
gold and what they want in trade. One must start with a single cut to whittle
down a mountain, am I correct?”

This first cut might take Degany
all winter, or a single day. So he sharpened his chisel and headed into the
Drakhans with his two brothers and his brother-by-marriage, along with twenty
men of Zeldanor’s garrison, four squires, and two supply wagons.

The dwarven city of Ristencort lay
on the far side of the first range of mountains in the canyons of the
Ristbrooke, a three day journey from home. Would the stone-fathers there turn
him away? Or would they escort him to the hidden City of Elders where surely
the gold was hoarded? Degany forbade himself to hope for an easy negotiation
but prepared himself to set in for a winter-long siege and much bootlicking.

“Drys might like to go,” Truva had
said when she learned of his mission. “He’s old enough now and has been to war
besides.”

“This isn’t a journey for
high-spirited boys, Truva. I take Wolf only because it’s his duty. But to Drys,
this business will likely be dull and disappointing. Until I know what to
expect, I won’t send for him.” Truva’s cocked eyebrow told him what he already
knew. The words were empty excuses and Degany himself was full of shit. The
straw-haired boy that Degany had carried on his shoulders had grown into a
stranger. In the service of Blue Mountain, Drys had ridden off to war while his
father stayed home with orders to guard the hinterlands from any Fierans trying
to sneak into Aralorr by the back door. None did. And when his son rode home
with tales of valor and conquest, what had Degany to offer? Nothing. Besides,
he wasn’t any good around strangers. Learning to speak each other’s language
was a painful, tedious business and caused all sorts of trouble. Best to do the
job yourself and get acquainted with strangers over something less crucial than
a king’s errand.

More excuses still. Degany decided
his horse wasn’t as full of shit as he was.

A horn bellowed ahead. Gehart, his
brother-by-marriage, and three men of the garrison had ridden ahead more than
an hour ago to find a suitable camp and possibly elk for their spits. The horn’s
echo sounded and resounded, deep in the gullies, high in the clefts. Degany
reined in and waited. Wolf and the rest of the party did the same. One blast
meant danger. Two, company. Three, campsite established.

The clouds swallowed the echo. None
followed it.

“Trouble,” Wolf said.

Degany tugged his sword haft to
make sure the blade hadn’t frozen to the scabbard, then dug in his spurs. His
brothers thundered after him. The garrison slipped into double-time.

The clearing, sheltered between wooded
slopes, had become a killing ground. Blood had melted the snow, and fresh snow
had fallen on top of the dark pools, reminding Degany of those sugary
confections that Truva was fond of. He dismounted, grunting and grateful when
the ache in his legs waned, and stepped carefully around the bodies. Dwarves,
forty or fifty of them, lay torn and broken and turning gray in the icy air.
Most still held
khorzai
in frozen fists, and many of the points on those
pick-axes were stained with blood. Or something like blood. Many of the pools,
too, were a brighter color than they ought to have been.

“Are the clans at war?” Wolf asked.
He stood amid the slaughter, turning slowly.

Degany’s brothers spread out,
hunting for valuables, or the lack of them, that might attest to why these
dwarves had been slain. The column of soldiers caught up, and Gehart motioned
them to stay out of the clearing.

“These dwarves are of a single clan,”
Degany replied.

“How can you tell?”

“Same mark on their picks. Same
beading in their beards.” He should have brought Drys. It was Drys who needed
to know the dwarven culture, not this lowlander’s son.

“Oh, yes, I see now,” Wolf said,
bending close to one of the bodies. He straightened again as if someone had
lashed him in the backside. “What was that?”

The boy’s ears were sharp; Degany
heard nothing, but two of his brothers had come to attention at the same time. At
the edge of the clearing, a gray-green bough near the ground shivered contrary
to the wind.

“Wolves, likely,” Degany said.
“Come to investigate the stink of blood. Relax, will you? They’ll take a body
before they attack able-bodied men.”

“Do you think wolves killed them in
the first place? I mean, look!” The boy pointed, disgust twisting his mouth.
Neither his eyes nor his instincts failed him. Degany couldn’t deny that many
of the wounds looked like ragged teeth marks, but others were certainly dealt
by blades.

“Diggs!” called Dastyr from across
the clearing. Degany hated that nickname, but he couldn’t remember a day he
hadn’t owned it. “What do you make of this?”

Joining his younger brother, Degany
examined the snow. Deep drifts under the trees had been disturbed, pressed flat
in places, and that bright blood, curdled to ice, left a clear trail deep into
the forest.

“See? Wolves,” said Wolf smugly.
“They dragged some of the bodies away already. They got a den up there, I bet.
Should we hunt ‘em down?”

Degany ignored the assessment. So
did Dastyr and Gehart who gathered close. “Trail’s twice as broad as a dwarf,”
he observed softly. “Could be litters. But why drag the wounded into the forest
when Ristencort lies in the other direction?”

“Outpost?” Gehart suggested.

The dwarves stuck to their fortified
cities. Too traditional for their own good, they had no desire or ambition to
strike out and establish outposts farther afield. “I don’t know this mark.”
Degany nudged a
khorzai
with his boot. “These dwarves are not native.
They might have come from hundreds of miles away. Traders, or an escort. Maybe
they’re wanting a share of the gold, too.”

“And the Ristencort clan wanted to
keep it from them,” Dastyr said.

“Maybe.” The solution didn’t sit
well with him. This wasn’t dwarven warfare, attacking a trading party taking
their ease, then leaving the bodies for the elements and the animals to devour.
The dwarves were obsessive about their honor, and nothing about this scene hinted
at honor.

A shimmer under the trees caught
his eye, but turning, he saw nothing. Just a wisp of sunlight maybe, from a
break in the clouds.

“Diggs,” said Daelryn. Something in
his voice turned Degany’s head immediately. His youngest brother was looking
down at his own foot. He had placed it inside another print in the snow. All of
Degany’s brothers had outgrown him, and Daelryn was tallest of all. His foot
was half again the length of Degany’s, and the print they stared at swallowed it.
“Bear?”

The claw marks at the end of each
toe supported his guess; the rest did not. The ball of the foot, the shape of
the heel were almost human-like.

“Only a bear walking upright,”
Gehart said, pointing at more tracks leading away into the trees. “And the
biggest bear under the sun, at that.”

“Then what is it?” Fear peaked
Daelryn’s question.

“Boggin,” Degany muttered, his glance
raking the shadows under the trees. He had heard one dwarf or another mention
the word on several occasions. Boogiemen or some such. Until now, he’d thought
the dwarves simpleminded or superstitious for believing they were real.

“A what?”

“Nothing. Back away, everyone, stay
calm, mount up. We’ll ride double-time to Ristencort, be there by dawn. We’ll
eat in the saddle.”

The horses must’ve felt their
urgency; they laid their ears back and stamped nervously as the men tried to mount
up. Degany’s stirrups had to be so high that he needed Wolf’s help. The
mountain horse shied at precisely the wrong moment, and Degany found himself
tipped sideways and trying to straddle air. He and Wolf both tumbled. Degany
cursed the blasted animal, and Dastyr snorted against a fit of laughter. Before
Degany spat out a curse upon his brother, too, Dastyr’s eye caught something farther
up the road and the humor turned stale on his face. “What the hell?”

Degany turned to see for himself. A
shimmer, like sunrise on breeze-rippled water, occupied the top of the next
hill, spanning the width of the road. It advanced, a slow shimmering snake. Snow-powdered
wind swirled, carrying the stench of rotten flesh. The horses whinnied, and the
source of their nerves became clear.

“What is it? What do you see?” Wolf
asked, with hardly any breath at all.

“Are you blind, lad?”

“I don’t see anything!”

“Dwarven magic,” said Daelryn from
the saddle.

“Dwarves don’t use magic, dolt.
Only in making their
hutza
. Don’t you know that?” Degany regretted
snapping at his brother, but he had the sinking certainty that he and his men
had stumbled into a trap. Was it meant for them, or for someone else? In either
case, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Complications. Always
complications. “We’re turning around, men. We’ll find another road.” It might
have looked undignified, but he grabbed the saddle horn and hoisted himself
onto the flighty horse’s back. He hadn’t so much as found both stirrups when a shout
erupted from the shimmering snake. With the thunder of a hundred horses and the
roar of a hundred lions, that snake surged down into the valley.

The men of the garrison panicked,
turned tail and fled back down the road, trampling each other in their fury to
escape. Degany did not stop them. If it turned out to be nothing, he could
scold them later, but if it didn’t …

He wheeled his horse and galloped
after the garrison. His brothers followed. Wolf, lighter in the saddle, raced
ahead, terror blanching his face.

The roaring shimmer gained fast.
The closer it came, the more the snake appeared to be made of individual
shimmering columns. And the columns continued to roll over the hill behind
them. What kind of monster
was
this?