Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (7 page)

That afternoon, they rode out of
the trees and gazed upon the glistering silver expanse of the Brenlach. Those
vast waters funneled through narrowing shores until they entered the banks of
the River Bryna. On the opposite side of the wide, lazy current rose the
imposing towers of Nathrachan. A green-and-white-striped banner flew over the
roof of the keep.

“Somebody’s home,” Kalla said. Lord
Nathrachan had died in the first engagement of the war, on Kelyn’s sword, no
less. Whoever had inherited his domain was currently in residence. “We’re
riding straight through, right?”

“Hell, yes, we’re not stopping
here,” Drys said. “I hope to never see the inside of that place again.”

One of the stipulations for peace
was that King Rhorek’s massive stone bridge remain unmolested. Gatehouses now
studded both ends, each manned by twenty soldiers. In the center, where the
Brother Realms officially divided, rose an arch without a door or portcullis.

The Aralorri guards greeted the
young travelers with salutes and a warning: “Careful, if you mean to cross.
It’s a bit cold at the other end today.” The guardhouse commander looked them
over closely, noted their weapons, and nodded.

“You actually talk to the Fieran
guards?” asked Kalla.

“Hurl insults mostly,” the
commander replied with a dry grin. “Though on occasion, when we’re feeling
friendly, we might trade a bottle of wine. Not today, though. Something crawled
up their butts, and it’s likely orders from higher-ups to be less friendly to
the enemy. Genius, I tell you. Way to incite another war, in my opinion, but
you didn’t ask, did you? So who do we write in the books as crossed today?”

Laral told the commander who he and
his friends were and the commander’s eyebrows jumped toward a receding
hairline. “Right. Very well, m’ lords, m’ lady, another warning. If they attack
you, we’re authorized to fight only if you’re wounded. And it will take mounds
of paperwork to retrieve any bodies. Fine travels, then. G’day.”

“Mother’s tits, this girl better be
worth it,” Drys said and clucked his horse onto the bridge and through the gate.
Horseshoes echoed dully on the wooden planks. The stink of dead fish rose from
the churning waters below. At the halfway point, they rode under the arch and the
white falcon carved in the stone. Laral would feel happier when they passed back
under the black falcon on the other side.

“Keep your hands away from your
weapons,” Kalla said as they approached the Fieran gatehouse. A pair of guards
in green livery crossed eight-foot-long pikes.

“Dismount,” one called.

The Aralorris obeyed and led their
horses cautiously closer.

“You will pay the toll.” Noting
their fine clothes, horses, and weapons, the guard added, “For you? Ten silvers
a piece.”

Glowering, Laral asked, “And how
much if we change into homespun and hide the horses back in the trees so you
can’t see them?”

“Just pay him,” Kalla snapped.

Drys tossed Laral a clinking
leather bag.

“That’s right,” said the sentry. “Listen
to your little friends now.”

Biting his tongue, Laral counted
out the thirty silvers, which left only seven in the bag. Damn, they would be
camping the rest of the journey as well. Still, better to reach Brengarra stiff
and sore from sleeping on the ground than itching with fleas.

The sentry’s fingers beckoned the
highborn to come to him and deliver. Laral locked eyes with the man, stood his
ground, held out the coins, and grinned. Like yowling tomcats, neither moved,
both determined to force the other to defer.

Kalla nudged Laral in the ribs.
Guileless, he told the sentry, “If you don’t want the silver, we can always
swim across.”

“And drown,” the man sneered.

“We got across once before.”

The sentry bristled and leveled his
pike. His companion did the same.

“What’s the trouble?” From the shadow
under the gatehouse emerged the Fieran commander. He eyed the Aralorris’
weapons, found them sheathed, and ordered the two sentries to stand down. The
butts of the pikes struck the planks, and the sentries snapped to attention.

With a shrug, Laral explained, “These
fine fellas name their price, then decide they don’t want the silver after all.”

The commander eyed the pile of
silver mounded in Laral’s palm. His mouth pursed. A glare slid toward the
sentry. “We’ll talk about this later.” He took six coins off the top of the
pile, fisted them, and said, “Follow me.” He led Laral and his companions
between the disgruntled sentries, under the portcullis, and into the gatehouse
tower. A sergeant lounged at a table, his feet propped up, boot heels resting
on an open ledger.

His commander knocked him in the
shins with his knuckles; the sergeant swore but straightened up in the chair.
“What’s your business in Fiera?” the commander asked, handing a quill to Laral.

“I’m here to court a lady.” He
wrote his name in the ledger.

The commander snorted. “That’s a
new one.”

“Our ladies don’t want nothing to
do with you, Aralorri,” said the sergeant.

Laral passed the quill to Drys.
“You’re hardly one to speak for her.”

The sergeant opened his mouth for a
retort, but the commander cleared his throat in a manner that suggested
retribution if he dared speak again. When the Aralorris’ names were on the
ledger and their toll in the lockbox, the commander waved them out. “Move along
and stay out of trouble.”

Riding under Nathrachan’s walls,
Drys glanced back at the bridge. “I was sorta hoping for a fight.”

Kalla slugged him in the shoulder,
whirled and caught Laral in the ribs. “Curses on you both! We’ll be lucky if
they let us back across.”

“What did
I
do?” Drys demanded,
rubbing his arm. “Damn.”

“If Bethyn doesn’t want me,” Laral
said, “I don’t want back across.”

Kalla snarled, but Laral snatched her
fist before it found another target. “If you risk
my
neck again,” she
shouted, “it won’t be Fieran steel that ends your torment!” She put spurs to
flanks and galloped off, leaving the boys behind in a contemptuous cloud of
dust.

The highway led them southwest from
Nathrachan. Miles of wild, tangled brambles stretched between them and the
Bryna. Broad swaths of the thorn trees had been killed out by Dragon fire as
part of Kelyn’s plan to distract the Fieran armies. Scorched, barren branches
clawed at the sky, but among them, young briar bushes flowered white. Nothing
had changed, not really. Not for a thousand years. It would be the same war all
over again, in Laral’s time, or that of his sons.

They reached Ulmarr Town well after
dark. “I don’t miss this stinking place either,” Drys complained. How many
weeks had they camped among these streets, enduring one assault after another
before Leshan arrived and encouraged Kelyn’s armies to surge on toward Brynduvh?
Walls and towers of a new fortress reared up against an overcast sky. The
entire construction appeared to be tangled in scaffolding. Slivers of moonlight
revealed mounds of raw uncut stone laying at the castle’s feet like offerings, ready
to be shaped and added to gate, keep, and turret. Something about the regenerating
fortress was unspeakably menacing. Perhaps it would look less so in the
morning.

A couple of Ulmarr’s abandoned inns
had been reopened. Music and light poured from the windows as if war happened
only on the history pages. Merchants’ carts and travelers’ carriages crowded
the yards. Laral and his companions chose the least suspect and, thanks to the
gatehouse commander, they had enough coin for two rooms, three baths, and three
hot meals. Gathering around a table in the common room, they tried not to draw
attention to themselves. A serving wench brought them trenchers of mutton stew
and tankards of ale and asked no questions. Too many spring travelers, too many
refugees still seeking places to settle for her to care about three more new
faces.

Drys shoveled the stew into his
mouth with the manners of a swineherd. Kalla watched Laral keenly over the rim
of her tankard. “Are you nervous?”

“I’m too uncertain to be nervous.
If I knew she was waiting for me,
then
I’d be nervous. But I don’t know even
that much.”

“I admit, I never expected you to
remain this dedicated.”

“Maybe that’s what Bethyn thought,
too.” Laral pushed his trencher away, suddenly too queasy to eat. Drys took
that as an invitation to help himself and swiped up Laral’s stew with a slice
of black bread.

Kalla sighed wistfully. “Bethyn
would be a fool to turn you away.”

Drys glanced up from his feast.
“Hey, Kalla? Why don’t you ever sigh over me?”

She rested her chin in the palm of
her hand in a manner that screamed of longsuffering. “Because you have stew on
your chin, Drys.”

~~~~

T
wo days later, they arrived
at the copse of dead ash trees where the demon fell. Below the hill, the silver
ripples of the Thunderwater scythed a path through field and vineyard. The
hillsides grew green again, and none could tell that armies had camped there
and trampled the pastures to dust. Brengarra Town stretched out along the riverbanks.
The slate roofs gleamed in the afternoon sun, and the steady, quiet clamor of
the villagers passing along the cobbled streets bespoke a return to normality.
At the northern end of town, sheltered in the lea of the Shadow Mounds, the
castle reared up above the river crossing. The  thick basalt walls and heavy,
spiraling towers brooded over their domain. Beyond rose Tor Roth, that fist of
black granite ever ringed by rumbling storm clouds. The sun cast the tor’s
shadow long across the meadows, like a god’s sundial.

“Well, let’s get this over with,”
Drys said, starting down the hill.

“Wait,” Laral cried. “We can’t see
her like this, covered in dust and smelling of horse.”

“You mean, she’s this close and
you’re gonna put it off till you’ve had a bath?” Drys’s face registered no
comprehension.

For once, Kalla agreed with him. “She
won’t care, Laral.”

He stared at those spiraling towers
and felt his stomach turn. “
Now
I’m nervous, all right?”

Kalla chuckled. “You won’t be less
nervous tomorrow.”

How hard to cluck his horse into
motion and descend that hill. All too soon he rode into the shadow of the
gatehouse. Laral dismounted on legs of lead and banged the knocker on the
postern door. The thick curtains of ivy that shrouded the towers provided
plenty of cover for the watchmen on the turrets. A voice, flat with boredom,
called down, “State your name and business.”

“Lie,” Drys hissed.

“Why?”

“You’re asking for admittance into
an enemy stronghold, idiot. Let Bethyn decide if we ride out again, not some bastard
in the tower.”

Maybe Laral was an idiot, but he
didn’t want to play games. He called toward the battlements, “I am Laral of
Tírandon, and I beg an audience with Lady Brengarra.”

“Tírandon?” snapped the reply, all
trace of boredom gone. “Wait there.”

Drys swore, and Kalla’s fingers
tightened about the haft of her sword. A painfully long stretch of time slipped
past. Unsettling quiet gripped the battlements. “They’re measuring us for our
pyres, I’ll warrant,” Drys said.

“Stay calm,” Laral warned.

The postern door opened abruptly. A
sentry in a battered helm waved them in. “Leave your horses. His Lordship has
been expecting you.”

“Lordship?” Laral’s heart plummeted.

“Ah, shit,” said Drys.

“Too late, Laral.” Kalla squeezed
his shoulder. “You came all this way, so speak with her anyway.” She nudged him
through the postern before he could decide what to do. He and his companions
followed the sentry through the mossy, cool darkness under the gatehouse and
into the sunny courtyard.

Two men stood on the steps to the
keep. The shapes of their faces and set of their eyes marked them father and
son. The older man was round in the belly, and an elaborately waxed beard made
up for the lack of hair on his head. He waved the sentry away. “To your posts,
as you rehearsed.” The sentry saluted, then hurried to the barracks.

Acknowledging his guests, the man
on the steps offered a smile as wooden and jagged as a barricade. “I bid you welcome
to Brengarra, son of Lander, and to these, your companions. I am Fe’olan, Lord Downford,
and this is my son, Falyr. I’m brother to Lord Jaeron, whom I believe you
knew.”

Bethyn’s uncle? In one of her last
letters, she made passing mention of him. Laral had read each letter until the
parchment was soiled and wrinkled. “He arrived from Downford with all his
family yesterday,” she had written. “At first I was grateful to have them,
thinking that my uncle looked, oh, so much like my father, but now I cannot
find the resemblance. He is charming in a disarming sort of way. The royal
court is full of duplicitous men such as he, but I cannot turn him away. He
mourns my father as I do. They are set to depart next week. Then I shall have
more time to compose my music for you …” Was this yet another visit? Or had this
uncle and his family conveniently forgotten to leave?

Disarming, indeed. Laral heeded the
warning and did not take his eyes off the man. “Knew him? Not really. He and my
brother died on the same day.”

“I cannot say I’m sorry to hear
that. You do have more than your share of audacity, returning.” Fe’olan propped
his fists on his hips. He was unarmed, but his son was not. Falyr’s hands hung loose
and open near the hilt of a longsword. He wore the same arrogant half-grin that
Kelyn had often worn when he knew he couldn’t be beaten. That was before life thrashed
him about a wee bit.

“Will you announce me to Lady
Brengarra or not? We wrote to one another—”

“Yes, I am aware of this,” Fe’olan
interrupted. “Understandably, my niece decided it was best that she no longer
receive your letters. You see, she has accepted my son’s hand. They are to be
married at midsummer. It was no easy task convincing her. I blame you for that,
Aralorri.”