Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (69 page)

On the steps, Arvold and Aylburn
were pointing toward the ford, and Mum was craning her neck to see. Andy
scrambled onto a window ledge for a clearer view. This wasn’t a brawl at all.
The militia, camped to each side of the Thunderwater, appeared to be in a
panic. A few stabbed pikes at thin air. Most ran in any direction that provided
a clear path. The noontime sun shone on sprays of blood. The invisible blades!

Pandemonium spread fast. It started
along the riverside as distant screams, then surged up the streets, a
heightening wail of terrified people.

“Andy! Lesha!” cried Mum, reaching
for him. “To the castle. Forget the horses, run! Sedrik!”

Hundreds of others had the same
idea. The streets jammed up fast. People spilled onto the highway, only to
crush each other trying to get through the castle gate.

“Make way for Her Ladyship!” Sed
cried, but this time no one heeded him. An oaf of a man with a goat flung
across his shoulders barreled past and knocked Lesha to the ground. Sedrik
hauled her up again before someone trampled her. Andryn kept an eye on the ford.
Corpses lined the highway, clogged the flow of the river. The militiamen were
all gone. Dead or fled. The air shimmered above the highway, like a heat wave,
and the ugliest giants Andy could imagine walked out of it. One with a face
painted as white as a skull charged the crowds of townsfolk, slashing left and
right with a double-bladed axe. Screams scored Andy’s ears. Townsfolk tumbled
to the ground in pieces. The highway was slick and red all the way down the
hill to the ford.

A second giant flung a helmet with
a human head still in it and struck the painted giant in the back. “Screamface!
Hold dis axe!” His voice reminded Andy of the thunder cracking atop Tor Roth.

The painted giant stood snarling
amid the carnage, but lowered his axe. “Dese eats, Lohg.”

“No! Cap need breakers. Eat dem
soldiers.”

Andy barely made sense of their
babble. The people kept pushing toward the gate. He was soon sandwiched between
his mother and a stranger that smelled of onions and sweat.

Clash of fighting came from overhead
now. In the towers, on the battlements.

“They found the tunnels,” Mum said.
“Not this way.” She grabbed Andy by the collar and dragged him against the
press of the crowd. Lesha and Sedrik clung close. Where was Master Arvold? Behind
them, the portcullis rattled and slammed shut. People scattered, screaming, seeking
another haven, but the giants were everywhere now, closing in around them. Mum
saw an opening and made for it. The air shimmered and a giant appeared in their
path. He grabbed Mum and Lesha by the hair and dragged them back toward the
crowd. Sedrik snarled, unsheathed his own dagger, and ran after them. With a
leap, he planted the blade between the giant’s shoulders.

The monster grunted, dropped Mum
and Lesha, and whirled with a knotted fist. Bones cracked, and Sedrik struck
the ground bleeding from his nose and mouth, and didn’t get up again. The giant
tried to reach for the blade in his back, tilted sideways, stumbled, and
finally collapsed amid the crowd.

The one called Screamface ran to
investigate, scattering people like chickens, and nudged the great corpse with
a clawed foot. “Worms!” he bellowed and reared back his axe. One swipe might
slay half a dozen people.

Andy whipped the diamond dagger
free and let loose a war cry. Mum dived after him, but he had learned swiftness
of foot.

The giant named Lohg grabbed the
haft of Screamface’s axe and pelted him aside. Andy’s dagger scraped Lohg
across the ribs. Damn it, it was Screamface he wanted!

A massive hand wrapped around
Andy’s face, circling his skull and stifling his battle cry.

In terror, he dropped the dagger. Lohg
shoved him into the dirt and laid fingers to his bleeding side. When he spotted
the weapon that had stung him, his small red eyes brightened. The diamonds winked
in the sun. Lohg stooped to one knee and swept it up. Andy scrambled up from
the dirt and barraged that ugly face with his fists. “It’s mine! Give it back.”

Lohg caught Andy’s wrist and stood,
lifting him off the ground as if he weighed no more than a twig. Andy’s free hand
clawed at the monster’s arm while those red eyes measured him head to toe. Lohg’s
tusks seemed to grow as his muzzle drew back in a rumble of laughter. He slid Guardian
into a broad baldric across his chest and ordered, “Bind dese breakers.” He
tossed Andy aside. The breath thudded from his chest as another giant snatched him
from the air and knotted a leather strap about his wrists.

~~~~

A
s soon as the White Falcon
was strong enough to venture downstairs, Thorn gathered Drenéleth’s guests into
the cozy surroundings of the bear lounge. He closed the shutters against the
sun and spying eyes, lit the lamps with a thought, and poured a round of
brandy. Anything to make the lords and ladies comfortable, for the answers to
their questions were like to unsettle them.

“This doesn’t bode well,” Kelyn
said, taking a snifter from his brother.

“You’ve heard worse. Just back me
up.”

The highborns settled themselves in
the deep chairs and settees. Daxon preferred to sit on one of the brindled bear
rugs. Carah offered a blanket to Arryk, which he refused, then she discreetly
slid into a warden’s role at the door with Rhian. Of the Mantles, only
Lieutenant Rance was present. The others were stationed on the grounds. This
little meeting was not to be disturbed, Thorn told them. The highlanders had a
habit of seeking Eliad’s opinion on every detail of the fortifications they
constructed. The voices of mallet and saw sang off key beyond the shutters.

The lounge with its south-facing
windows was too warm for a fire, so Thorn stood before a cold hearth. The
weight of eyes and expectations made his palms sweaty and his mouth dry. His
face still grew uncomfortably warm at the attention. The brandy worked too
slowly to suit him, so he dived in without its aid. “To tell you what you need
to know, I must break an oath that is very dear to me. I see now that keeping
that oath all these years may have been a mistake. While it protects those I
love, it also keeps you in ignorance. The world is not as it seems, and in the
past couple of weeks, you have experienced a painful awakening. Things you
consider myth are in fact real, and at this point ignorance will mean your
demise. Undoubtedly our enemies mean to use that ignorance to their advantage,
therefore we must dispel it.” He cleared his throat. “You saw the ogres at the
lakeside.”

“Only the one,” Rance said.

Arryk raised his hand like a boy in
a classroom. “I didn’t.”

Rance, Drona, and Rorin scrambled
over each other to give the king a recapitulation on what they witnessed during
the flight from the lake. Green eyes pinned Thorn with a heavy dose of
incredulity.

“Believe it, sire,” Thorn said. “As
children, we study the three points of the Triangle of Being, yet how many of
us take it seriously? My father called it mysticism, which was a polite way of
calling it nonsense. Many of us even discount the existence of the
Mother-Father, though we all swear by her. My brother and I were blessed to
receive tutoring by one of the Shaddra’hin, a once common occurrence, I’m
told.” He dipped his chin toward a dark, secluded corner near the back of the
room. There, Etivva permitted a small smile of forbidden pride. “As a result, I
firmly believe that it is a terrible mistake for us to discount certain things
as myth or old-fashioned and call it progress. Humanity has chosen to forget
what it knows to be true, because it makes us uncomfortable. These truths are
finally resurfacing to haunt us. Know this, my lords and ladies:  this attack
has been centuries in the coming.”

“
Centuries
… Then what is Valryk’s
part?” asked Rhoslyn.

“The king is a pawn, and the board
is upside down, Your Grace. There’s no way Valryk was able to contact the ogre
clans in the first place, much less organize them. Nor was he able to shroud
the minds of the soldiers and servants at Bramoran.”

“What about that other avedra?”
Drona asked.

“A foreigner and a nobody. I
suspect he wouldn’t be here at all if he had a choice.”

“You’re hedging, brother.”

Kelyn was right. How hard it was
for Thorn to break his word, even to expose his enemies.

Tactfully Kelyn prompted, “This
individual who led the attack at the lakeside, the one you said you recognized.
He wasn’t ogre or human, I assume.”

Thorn raised his chin. “No. He was
Elari. Or as you would call him, an elf.”

Murmurs made their rounds.

“I visit Ilswythe but once a year.
The rest of the time I live among the Elarion. I will not disclose where, but
it’s no great mystery if one puts a thought to it.” He let out a breath.
“There, now. They will do what they will with me, but it’s past time you knew
who shares the world with you.”

Arryk cleared his throat. “You’re
saying that elves are behind this bloodshed.” His chuckle was nervous, brittle.

“Yes, sire. Ogres may be a little
more intelligent than dogs, but Elarion are as clever as you and I. And what
happened at Bramoran took many years’ worth of foresight and planning.”

“But what is their
purpose
,
these Elarion?” asked Eliad.

“Given my best deduction? Revenge.
The Elarion themselves may say it’s more complicated than that, but it amounts
to the same thing.”

“Revenge for what?” demanded Drona.

“Pushing them to the brink of
annihilation, for starters.”

“But the Elf War is ancient
memory,” said Arryk.

“Not to them. Many alive now were
there. Many witnessed the defeat of their people, and some still hold a
grudge.”

“Some, but not all?” Rhoslyn seemed
to cling to that notion with thin hope.

“Correct, Your Grace. Rhian and I
would not be welcome in the Lady’s city if that were the case. The Lady herself
and those who support her are concerned by what they see. They have been trying
desperately to help us discover the answers we need. Had we been successful,
Bramoran would never have happened.”

“Those murders were not your
fault,” Kelyn said.

No, but the moment he stepped into
Avidan Wood twenty years ago, he stirred a hornet’s nest. There was no
mistaking that.

Drona pushed herself from her
armchair and paced. “Surely these clever elves of yours understand that none of
us
were alive then. They have no cause to feel ill-will toward
us
.”

“M’ lady, when you marched against
Aralorris, was it because you held a personal grudge toward each and every one?
Or was it because they were simply and collectively Aralorri? And you, War
Commander.”

Kelyn waved his hands. “Leave me
out of this.”

Thorn pressed on. “Did you send
your armies into Fiera because they dealt you a personal insult, or because
they wore white falcons on their chests?”

Kelyn squirmed uncomfortably in his
chair, swirled his brandy a measure faster.

“The Elarion leading these armies
of ogres hate humanity collectively, generally. They believe you to be sordid,
inferior, short-lived dogs who dwell in squalor and stupidity. And if humans
are dogs, we avedrin are the curs, aberrations and perversions. For what Elari
would lower himself to mate with a human?”

“But, Kingshield,” asked Rhogan of
Mithlan, “why seek revenge now, after so long?”

“Why, this is the year one
thousand. One thousand, After Elves. What more fitting year to right a great
wrong.”

Drona huffed. “Don’t you dare imply
that the massacre at Bramoran was our fault!”

Thorn offered her a sardonic grin.
“All things have their consequences.”

Rorin shook his head vehemently. “My
Barrin was an innocent boy. Bramoran was murder, not justice.”

“Oh, I agree. But to these Elarion,
Bramoran was part of a cleansing. I might’ve thought otherwise had the attacks not
continued from the Drakhans to the sea.” Over the past couple of days, one
highborn after another came to him and asked if their holding, too, burned like
Longmead and Lunélion. Too often he replied with a nod and a word of
condolence. He kept Saffron and Zephyr busy searching for survivors, and he
kept his eyes on the skies for the return of the messenger falcons. The birds
probably had short memories, but he might be able to glean helpful information
from their thoughts. If nothing else, knowing that Kethlyn and Laral were alive
would provide a measure of comfort.

Drona’s nephew rose to a knee amid
the brindled rug. “Why are we being kept here if the trouble is out there?”

“Kept?”
exclaimed Eliad.

Thorn raised a hand to quell the
argument before it became one. “You’re free to leave, Daxon. What will you do?
Try and oust the ogres from Athmar all by yourself?”

“Just sit down and shut up, Dax,”
snapped his aunt. Daxon shut his mouth, but he rose to his feet and poured more
brandy into his glass, then turned his back to her.

“Thorn,” said Kelyn hesitantly, as
if he didn’t know how to voice his concern, “how do we fight them at all? We
can’t see them. Are we to sit here and let them slaughter us in their own good
time?”

“This is my question as well,” he
admitted. “As soon as I have seen to … other business … I mean to take a short
journey and speak with a relative of ours.” He raised his eyebrows, hoping his
brother would discern the meaning behind the vagaries.

Kelyn frowned, then light dawned in
his face. “Ah. You think they will have answers?”

“If nothing else, I might be able
to dig up an ally for us.”

“Ah, no,” Drona said, catching on.
“I will not ally with an elf, not when they hate me for being born.”

Rhoslyn’s mouth pinched tight. “You
didn’t know they existed half a moment ago. Are all your prejudices so easily
come by? You heard Thorn.
Some
hold a grudge. And after everything that
has happened, refusing an ally would be utter foolishness.” She turned to
Thorn. “Do you really think they will help us?”

Her willingness to believe him, to
trust him, made his heart rise into his throat. “I dare not make promises, Your
Grace. All I know is that we stand no chance of survival if we are first
divided among ourselves. We will face this scourge, with or without the help of
the Elarion. But we must stand together. Evaronnan with Leanian, Aralorri with
Fieran.”

Arryk bowed his head and pressed a
smile from his face before it broke free. “I see no enemy in this room,” he
said. “We became allies the moment we were attacked. We fought for our lives
standing side by side, and we will do so again. Lord Ilswythe, my army, such as
it is, is yours to command.”

Drona gasped and stared at him,
sputtering.

Arryk lifted a hand of invitation.
“Please. Speak your protests to the War Commander. Let your doubts be resolved
now, rather than at a more critical time.”

“Sire, he … well, he … you can’t be
serious.”

“Never more.”

“But he will send
us
to the front
to die first, I’ll warrant it.”

Kelyn howled with laughter. “How
ungracious of you. You’ll warrant it, will you? Ask Eliad, ask Lord Rhogan here,
ask anyone who has followed my orders on the field. I would not risk victory
nor waste resources for so petty a reason as personal revenge. Mother’s mercy,
what tales do they tell south of the Bryna? No, Lady Athmar, I send soldiers
where they are most needed. And I know how you fight. The front line may be
exactly where I put you.”

 However hard she might try, even
Drona couldn’t miss the compliment in that. “I have your word, before all these
witnesses?”

Kelyn stood and held out his hand.
Drona stared at it a long while, then clasped it briefly but firmly.

“It’s an honor—and a relief—,” he
said, “to have you at my back. Thorn, come teach us how to kick ogre tail.”

~~~~

D
renéleth was barely
recognizable. The quiet, majestic lodge that welcomed Laral and his family last
autumn was now hidden behind wooden palisades and watchtowers. A gate opened
long enough to permit a cart to enter the grounds, then closed tight again.
Highlanders in baggy woolen trousers and tangled, plaited hair patrolled the
grounds. Hundreds more camped along the banks of the Avidan, entire families
with their flocks and herds. The green hillsides were trampled to mud, and the place
reeked like an army entrenched. Laral rode beside Captain Moray, ahead of fifty
Mantles, twenty-five soldiers of his garrison and more than two hundred
pikemen. They approached the lodge at a cautious pace.

Their arrival did not go unnoticed.
Long before they crossed the valley and climbed the last winding stretch of
road, highlanders stationed in the spruce trees alerted one another with bird
calls. The whistles soon turned to shouts, and a scout broke from cover and
raced up the hill to the gate.

Laral raised a fist. The column
halted. When the trod of hooves and boots grew still, he heard the clash of
arms inside the palisade.

“If this was some grand ruse,”
Moray said, “I’ll cut you to pieces before any Aralorri can.”

“A long way to ask us to come, just
to kill us, Captain.”

“So was Bramoran.”

Laral sighed. He was saddle-sore,
muddy, and tired. The men following him more so. Eight days hasty march along
rutted, narrow cart lanes, through dense woods and across fallow fields, all to
avoid attention, had worn the company ragged. During the first couple of days
out from Brengarra, Laral pushed his militia so hard that many a man collapsed
on the roadside to heave their breakfast into the ditch. They complained and
whined, bickered and resisted orders. But after crossing the Bryna, they
settled down and got serious. They were in enemy territory now. Laral had had a
hell of a time convincing Moray to bypass Bramoran. The Mantles’ captain longed
to sneak in and investigate the Black Falcon’s dungeons, where he felt sure Arryk
was being held. In the end, it was the locked city gates and strange guttural
bellows coming from inside that changed his mind.

When the highland scout returned,
he brought two more men with him. One wore a red-brown robe; the other riding
leathers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. They inspected Laral’s
company briefly, then the robed one ducked away inside the gate again. The
other raised an arm and waved.