Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (21 page)

He opened the window and a frigid wind
gusted into the room. Heavy clouds blanketed the sky. Neither star nor moon
shined this night. It would likely snow before dawn. Valryk traced the design
anyway. Nothing happened.

He crawled back into bed, feeling sick
and lonely and angry.

~~~~

A
blizzard buried the bottom floor of the
lodge. Valryk spent the next three days wandering from room to room while snow
swirled past the windows. ‘Lodge’ was a humble name for the sprawling,
luxurious villa that Eliad had built for himself. The suites to the rear looked
out upon the Drakhan Mountains and Mount Drenéleth’s lower tree-shrouded slope.
The front suites boasted sweeping vistas of the Avidan River valley. There was
not a single room without a stunning view, and the windows were no arrow loops
or milky diamonds of stained glass. Valryk had never seen such large panes of
glass, and these so well-crafted that they barely distorted the view at all.

Views failed to entertain a boy for
long. He tried playing chess with Kelyn, but one does not win against the
strategic mind of the War Commander. Eliad tried distracting him with tales of
past hunts with Lord Whosit and Lady Whatsit. During the day, the king
disappeared behind the stack of papers he’d trundled north; at night, he
disappeared behind locked doors with a bottle and the next servant girl who
pleased his eye.

Eliad was more discreet with his
mistresses. They were merely rumor; Valryk never saw them. This piqued his
suspicion. The mere thought that Lasharia might belong to his bastard
half-brother brought a raging fire into his face.

He feared he’d go crazy waiting for the
sky to clear again. First thing every morning and last thing before turning in,
he stood at his window hoping for the smallest glimpse of sun or moons. At long
last, he woke to voices outside his window and sunlight glaring through his
drapes. He sprang out of bed, shoved aside the pane. Three stories below, Eliad
and his stable hands shoveled snow from the veranda.

His half-brother heard the windowpane
bang open, looked up, and waved. “There’ll be fresh tracks, Highness. We’re
riding out in an hour.”

The snow was too deep now even for ponies.
Big drays with wide, tufted hooves could manage it though, so Valryk and Eliad
took a sleigh as far as the elk valley and after making the animals comfortable
with a bale of hay, they strapped snowshoes to their boots and trekked into the
foothills, following the same path as before. Valryk looked for Dragon Eyes and
forgot to look for elk. When they reached the place where he’d seen the darting
Eye, he used the excuse that he had to piss and slipped away. Eliad waited on
the trail for him, so he had to hurry. Would she be there?

Silence pervaded the trees, cloaked the
snow, beat inside his ears. High drifts surrounded the circle of evergreens. He
beat a path into the clearing, knowing before he saw it that Lasharia wasn’t
there.

An elk bugled. The ululating cry echoed
across the treetops. Valryk ran back and found Eliad with the curled horn in
hand. “Was that you?”

Eliad shook his head, motioned Valryk to
follow him and stay quiet. The trail led them to the head of the elk valley, and
there they were. A herd of thirty cows labored to scrape aside the snow to find
the streambed or nibbled at tufts of yellow grass sticking out of the drifts.
Two bulls fought over them. The clash of their antlers sounded like dead
branches smashing together. The tines locked, and the bulls pushed against each
other, muscles knotted tight under their shimmering white coats.

It was too late to set up a blind
without being seen; Eliad led Valryk to a pile of deadfall at the head of the
valley and they crouched down and peered through the twigs. “Will they see us?”

“They’re too busy with each other,”
Eliad said, moving slowly, watching the elk as he strung Valryk’s bow for him.
“It’s the cows we need to worry about.”

The females were vigilant, raising their
heads to inspect the fight. Snow coated their noses; their ears perked toward
the display.

Eliad extended the bow. Valryk freed an
arrow from the quiver on his hip. He put it back again. “Can I just watch
them?” Truth was, he was afraid he was skilled enough only to injure such a
great beast, and he didn’t want to spoil the fight.

“Whatever you want, Highness.”

The bulls struggled for half an hour
before one gave up and fled across the valley and over the far ridge. The
victor strode around in slow, majestic circles, bugling and rounding up his
harem.

“Next year,” Valryk said. “Next year
I’ll be ready, and he’s mine. And I’m not inviting my father.”

A
s soon as the sleigh returned them to
the lodge, Valryk ordered supper to be brought to his suite. “I’m tired, and
I’m not to be disturbed until morning.” There was no sneaking downstairs
tonight. He had his own secrets now. He waited until the corridors grew quiet,
then he opened his window to let in the icy night air and the ruddy moonlight.
Forath reigned alone. Nearly full, his scar-streaked face frowned grimly. Seven
times Valryk traced the four-pronged star. Bloody light gathered to his finger
and stained the air.

“Lasharia,” he whispered. The name and
the breath upon which it rode seemed to tumble into some dark void. He heard
the word echo, and then it was gone.

How long did he have to wait? She didn’t
dare come in by the front door. How would she know his suite was safe from
intruders? What if she decided it wasn’t safe and declined to come at all?

He paced before the hearth, added logs
to the fire, poked the embers to make ashes fly, and all the while kept watch
on the door, listened for footsteps in the corridor. Had she really heard his
call, or was this a vast joke?

Dank, moist air ruffled his hair against
his face. The dead-mouse stink wafted through the suite, and he heard, “It’s
late, Highness.”

He whirled. Lasharia stood in the middle
of the rug. Neither the door nor the window had opened to admit her. Valryk
glimpsed a hewn-stone wall flickering with torchlight behind her, but some kind
of curtain closed and the vision vanished, and there was only Lasharia. She
wore a simple woolen gown the same blush color as the moonlight. Her
silver-gold hair was braided heavily over one shoulder, and her skin shimmered
like a pearl in the firelight. She looked neither pleased nor displeased that
he’d summoned her, but she had come! She was here, somehow, and that’s all that
mattered.

“I know. I’m sorry,” he said, scrambling
up from the hearthrug.

“Princes apologize?” Her imposing
stance, raised chin, and peaked eyebrow demanded deference. She was queenly,
indeed, and for a moment Valryk feared she was just another grown-up come to
mother him and order him to get back in bed and leave her be.

“I was practicing,” he said, justifying
the hour. “And I … I had to see you. I was going mad trying to decide if I’d
dreamed you up.”

She sighed, and the resentment ebbed
from her. Her shoulders relaxed, and her face softened. She stooped toward him
and her fingers cupped his cheek, brushed that tender place behind his ear. He
slipped, heart and soul, into those attentive lilac eyes. “I had begun to miss
you, too, Highness. Now, tell me your troubles.”

So he did.

~~~~

Carry your heart-ripper
close,

My son, my son,

For darkness rises, my
son,

From Stone’s deep veins.

—
Songs
of Stone

E
arly in the year 995, the two
dwarves disappeared. The sentry who reported the incident was stationed at the
tower that stood like a lone eye where Ilswythe’s lands abutted those of
Thyrvael. Once, the tower had kept the peace between the two families, for
Ilswythe and Thyrvael hadn’t always agreed to be friendly, but during the last
two hundred years, the soldiers stationed there had seen little action other
than highwaymen and stranded travelers.

Excitement over the change of pace
brightened the young sentry’s face. Spattered with mud, he stepped carefully over
Lord Ilswythe’s fine rug. “I came to you, m’ lord, because, well, technically,
it happened on your side of the hill.”

“Tell me everything you know.”
Kelyn beckoned the youth to follow him from the keep and into the stable yard,
where he set the grooms to saddling his horse.

“Well, sir, we saw the dwarves pass
the tower about a week ago. They were headed east with a cartload of iron ore.”

“Bound for the Drakhans like the
others?”

“We assumed so, sir. That’s why we
gave the dwarves no more thought, until two days ago. A rider from Drenéleth
brought a message from Lord Eliad asking if the dwarves had passed our way yet.
Captain Haest sent out a search party immediately.”

“Damned highwaymen. It’s been a
while, I’ll give them that, and my dungeon has an empty belly.” Which was
usually the state of things when harvest had been bountiful and winter mild.
Men had less compulsion to rob merchant caravans and wealthy travelers when
they had food on the table. Turning toward the gatehouse he called, “Captain
Maegeth! Choose six men and saddle up.” Of the sentry, he asked, “You found no
sign of the dwarves?”

The soldier hesitated. “Signs, yes,
but … we found their cart and, well, the captain wanted you to see for
yourself.”

Kelyn led his party from Ilswythe’s
gates at a canter. Until late afternoon, they stayed on the broad, smooth path
of the King’s Highway. When the stone turret of the watchtower rose into view,
the sentry took the lead and guided Kelyn and the garrison soldiers onto a
narrow, rutted cart lane that cut a path between sheep pastures and fallow
fields. In a forested hollow among the gentle hills curled plumes of chimney
smoke.

“Did the dwarves make it as far as
that village?” asked Captain Maegeth.

“No, ma’am.”

“Or maybe they did and no one’s
talking,” she persisted. “Did your captain question the cottars?”

“Yes, ma’am. No one saw nothing.
Only thing reported was a dog that wouldn’t stop barking one night.”

Kelyn grinned, wondering if Thorn
could read a dog’s mind as well as a man’s.

The cart lane brought them to the east-west
road that stretched between the watchtower and the village and meandered on to
Drenéleth. At the intersection the sentry dismounted. “Just this way, m’ lord.”

Ravens clustered on the stone rail
of a bridge. Beneath their irritated cackling rumbled a man’s voice. Creative
profanities wafted up from the streambed. Kelyn waved his arms to scatter the
birds and peered over the rail. A two-wheeled cart laid on its side in the
middle of the stream. A red-faced dwarf hopped down from it and scrambled over
the river stones, kicking debris, flinging canvas tarp, and stacking empty
crates while cursing the sun and everything it shone upon.

A nauseating reek came from two
dead mules laying head down on the bank. Dark splashes of dried blood stained
both animals, muzzle to chest.

On the opposite bank, three more
dwarves spoke with a man in a cerulean surcoat and polished helm. Captain Haest
tossed up his hands and called, “Master Brugge, you’re trampling evidence.”

“Evidence?” snapped the irate
dwarf. “You wouldn’t know evidence if it reared up and bit your balls off.”
Taking the opportunity to glance up from his rampage, he noticed the new
arrivals. “Commander, lad, is that you? Damn it, you shouldn’t be here neither.
This is none of your concern.”

“When did he get here?” Kelyn asked
the young sentry. He received only a shrug in reply, then started down the
embankment to try and calm his friend. “You knew them well?”

“Knew them?” Brugge snarled. “Helsi
and Hammer were cousins on my wife’s side. O’ course, I bloody well knew them.
I sent them off with the ore in the first place.”

Captain Haest cast Kelyn a sidelong
glance as if wondering if he’d stand for such tactless treatment, but Kelyn
knew the temperamental dwarf too well to take offense. “No bodies?” he asked
the watch captain.

“No, sir.”

“And the ore?”

“Gone.”

“Highwaymen don’t steal iron ore,
Captain.”

“I’m aware of that, sir. Maybe the
highwaymen thought they’d happened upon a gold wagon instead. Attacked before
they realized and took it anyway.”

“Then where are the bodies?”

Haest stared at the ground between
them, shifted feet, cleared his throat. “Honestly, m’ lord, there’s all kinds
of things that don’t add up here.”

“Such as?”

“Tracks for one. Before this idiot
dwarf come along, they were plain enough on the road and here along the
stream.”

“What about them?”

“There wasn’t a single dwarf print
to be found, sir. Dwarves wear those small, wide hob-nailed boots.” True,
Master Brugge, who had finally sunk down on his haunches to mourn in quiet, and
the three dwarves who accompanied him, wore the very kind of shoe the captain
described. “Most of the tracks we did see were human-sized. Soft soles.”

“Most?”

“Right. Then there’s the bear
tracks. Over here.” He hopped the stream, and Kelyn followed. Haest pointed at
the ground near the two dead mules. Their throats had been opened in strong,
clean strokes. The ravens had been at their eyes and bellies.

Kelyn set his foot alongside a
print that engulfed his own. Though the shape of the foot resembled that of a
human, it was turned inward at the arch, much like a bear’s, and past each toe
the earth was pricked and scored, as if by hooked claws.

“Worse,” Haest added, “we can’t
track where the bears or the men came from or where they went. The tracks …
well, they just vanish, sir.”

Brugge raised his face from his
hands, bellowed, and splashed downstream toward them. He elbowed Kelyn aside and
stomped out the bear print.

“Damn it, dwarf!” cried Haest.
Glaring at Kelyn, he added, “Lastly, this hotheaded little shit seems to know
what happened but won’t spill it.”

“It’s none of your concern!” Brugge
retorted.

Kelyn sighed at the dwarf’s stubbornness
and made his way back up the embankment. Deep gouges and slide marks marred the
muddy surface of the road and slicked the winter-brown reeds flat to the
ground. “The mules were dragged? That would take a team of men.”

“Or just a couple of bears,” said
Haest dryly. Why not lead the mules off the road and then slit their throats?
Why bother tossing the cart into the stream?

Brugge stomped after Kelyn and
pleaded, “Commander, lad, this is baerdwin business. Go home. We’ll take care
of it.”

“These are
my
lands, Brugge.
I have every right to be here and look into the matter.”

The dwarf gritted his teeth. His
face was cherry red behind his salt-and-pepper beard. “You don’t want to find
the answer. Let it be.”

Kelyn leaned close and whispered, “Bears,
Brugge? Down in the farm country? Bears are supposedly what killed Lord
Zeldanor years ago.”

“It
coulda
been bears, damn
it!”

“Invisible bears, Brugge? I asked
you about the matter then, and you were just as vague and hostile. Listen, I
know you dwarves have been at war for years. And I know what ‘bogginai’ means.
Is that what we’re dealing with here? Are my people in danger?”

Brugge’s jasper
brown eyes
widened a fraction, but he said nothing.

“Fine. The official report will
state ‘unidentified highwaymen.’ Good enough?”

The dwarf replied with a brusque
nod.

Kelyn’s skin prickled with unease
as he made his way back onto the bridge. Maegeth and her soldiers had surveyed
the whole picture from above. They poked around the brown grass for more
tracks, but looked just as puzzled as Haest. “There’s nothing we can do here,” Kelyn
told his garrison captain.

Maegeth had trained hundreds of men
and women in the way of the pike, sword, and crossbow, had apprehended her
share of highwaymen and felt little qualm in applying pain to win information
from a criminal’s mouth, but what she saw here left her more than a little
disturbed. She swallowed hard and said, “I don’t understand it, m’ lord. It’s
like they crawled out of the Abyss and left the same way.”

“Aye.” Kelyn couldn’t help thinking
of the green stripes on his brother’s forearms. “Mount up. We need to get back
to the watchtower before dark.”

~~~~

W
hen Thorn returned to
Ilswythe at midsummer for Carah’s fourteenth birthday, Kelyn told him about the
missing dwarves.
Not dwarves, too
, he thought, keeping the matter of the
missing Elarion to himself. He’d taken an oath, after all, and refrained from
discussing Elaran affairs even with his brother. Kelyn’s news only added
another enigma to the puzzle. If it weren’t for the detail of footprints
leading nowhere, Thorn would have thought the abduction of the dwarves was unrelated
to the Elaran problem. What troubled him most was mention of the “bear” prints.
Ogres could have smelled the rotting mules from miles away and arrived at any
time to feast. Perhaps that’s why the prints had been found around the mules.
Perhaps not.

In the end, what could he do but
wait and watch and enjoy his time at home? He presented a carefree smile to his
niece, along with a bolt of exquisite silver silk and another of lush silver
velvet.

Carah caressed the fabric. With a
sigh she said, “Not Vonmora silk, I’d guess.”

“Straight from Elaran looms,” Thorn
told her, marveling at how she had grown up over the last year. She stood three
inches taller than her mother, and her gestures and poise weren’t those of a
little girl anymore.

Rhoslyn had to feel the fabric for
herself. “Like water,” she sighed, then frowned up at Thorn. “I was under the
impression that Vonmora silk was the best. How dare you come here and tell me
I’m wrong.”

“Oh, Mum. You’re a sour flirt.”
Edging the duchess aside, she sidled up to Thorn. Her Elaran blue eyes played coy
while those dark lashes went to work, as if she would show her mother how to
really lay on the charm. “You know, Uncle, you could begin my training next
year instead. Or even this year.”

He was hardly taken in. “Haven’t
you learned to count yet? I said sixteen. I meant sixteen.”

Snatching up the bolts of fabric,
one under each arm, she stalked off.

By evening she had forgiven him.
After a sumptuous birthday dinner, the family retired to a parlor cooled by the
night wind. Carah perched on the arm of Thorn’s chair and kissed his cheek in
apology. “I guess sixteen will do—if you come back
this
winter and see
my new silver gown.”

“Ha! Your parents both spoiled you
and taught you how to negotiate. A dangerous combination.”

She shrugged, unruffled. “Knowing
how to negotiate being a necessary skill when one is going to be the Duke of
Ilswythe someday.”

Kelyn, sitting across the chess
table from a moody Kethlyn, rolled his eyes.

Carah paid her father no mind, but
leapt up, spun, and belled out her arms as if shaping wide skirts. “I’ll wear
my new gown at Assembly next year. It will be the most beautiful gown at the
dances. Stuffy little Maeret of Lunélion will be so jealous. Why don’t you ever
come to Assembly, Uncle Thorn? You could dance with
me
. It would be a
glorious time.”

“The Assembly? Glorious?” Leave it
to Kelyn’s daughter to think so. “You don’t know me as well as you think you
do.”

Carah threw a fist to her hip.
“Well, that’s your fault. You don’t visit nearly enough.”

“I’ll come for the Turning
Festival. How does that suit the Duke of Ilswythe?”

He kept his word and rode back to
Ilswythe despite the fresh-fallen snow, just so he could approve the damn
dress. The thatched cottages and shops of the town were festooned in bright
ribbons, and a bonfire burned in the square, symbolic of the return of
lengthening days. The snow had been shoveled from the streets so the townsfolk
could dance and imbibe large quantities of ale in the sunshine. Thorn rode
through the throngs unseen and up the hill to the fortress where he greeted his
family before a blazing hearth. Kelyn handed him a goblet of hot mead, and Carah
ran upstairs to change while he thawed out.

“King Bano’en died, did you know?”
Kelyn said. He looked astonished at the news, as if he had expected the man to
live forever. “Forty years on the throne. And twice held off the Fierans. Not
bad.”

Thorn’s teeth finally stopped
chattering. “Cousin Ha’el is king at last. Remarkable. Is it good fortune to
have family on the throne, or worrisome?”

“I can’t decide myself.”

Carah returned half an hour later,
shining like a star in the heavens. The layers of silver silk and silver velvet
made the ivory skin of her shoulders luminous. For an instant, Thorn recognized
hints of Aerdria in her features. His belly twisted uncomfortably.

She made a slow turn; the silk
shimmered in the firelight. “My first real ball gown, Uncle Thorn. Did it come
out all right?”