Blood of the Falcon, Volume 1 (The Falcons Saga) Read online

  BLOOD OF THE FALCON

  The Falcons Saga, Book 1

  Volume 1

  By Court Ellyn

  Blood of the Falcon, Volume 1 © 2012 by Court Ellyn

  Book design and cover design by Court Ellyn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To my siblings, because this story is about family

  To my mother, who read tirelessly

  To my husband, who encouraged me endlessly

  To Virginia, who finally gets to read the rest

  Table of Contents

  Part One: ASSEMBLY

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  Part Two: JOURNEY

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Part Three: MAGICS

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  Pronunciation Guide

  Maps and Elaran Glossary are available at www.courtellyn.com to enhance your reading experience.

  Part One:

  ASSEMBLY

  1

  Preparations were nearly complete. Ilswythe Castle rested fitfully, anticipating the arrival of hundreds of guests. Kieryn dreaded it. He dreaded the coming of spring every year. The crowds and the noise, the politics and the smiling façade he was expected to wear, made him wish he were an ant, so he could crawl into a hole in the ground. But because the lord of the house was his father, Kieryn had to play along.

  Trying to forget the chaos bearing down on him, he resorted to his usual distraction. Flipping through a dog-eared copy of Tales From the Green, he settled on “The Dark Witch of Adreddán.” The cracked shade of his bedside lamp emitted black smoke like ghosts of the past. His mother warned him he would ruin his eyes reading into the wee hours of the night. His father said he shouldn’t read these books at all. They were for children, nonsense, harmful. A couple of Kieryn’s favorites had even been outlawed, because they made heroes of elves and wielders of magic. Some books, he had learned, should not be read in the daylight.

  Outside his window, a storm raged. Reports of thunder might be the lightning crackling from the Witch’s fingertips or the roar of fire spewing from her mouth, as she devastated the hosts of Áshelon. At eighteen, Kieryn should’ve outgrown his fascination for these childish fancies, but legends of elven ladies and sorcerous foes drew him as light draws moths. He wondered how much truth lay behind a legend’s veil, truths he was not supposed to see.

  The raising of the portcullis rattled him out of the story. What was the hour, for the Goddess’ sake? He slid the book under his bed and peered out into the storm. The moonless dark and the sheets of rain played tricks on his eyes. Windblown torches in each of the towers illumined sentries running along the ramparts. They gathered at the gatehouse, where Captain Maegeth barked orders, then hurried into the courtyard, slinging her sword belt around her waist. The rain plastered her black hair to her forehead, and in a spark of lightning, Kieryn read the bewilderment on her face. She ran up the steps of the keep and hauled open the bronze doors. The floor under Kieryn’s feet shuddered as she shut them again.

  Three riders galloped through the gate and reined in among the stable-hands who emerged reluctantly from the livery and their warm beds of hay. Soldiers of the garrison ran to aid them, torches in hand, but one of the riders bellowed an order and every torch was tamped out in the standing puddles.

  Kieryn’s smoky lamp suddenly seemed as bright as the sun. He blew it out and hurried back to the window. The riders had dismounted; two of them helped the third up the steps and into the keep. When Kieryn needed the lightning most, it failed him; he couldn’t distinguish the riders’ faces, but he would’ve bet his entire library that before the torches had guttered out, he recognized a black horse among the three.

  Why would the king ride to Ilswythe two nights before he was expected?

  The castle no longer slept. Voices slithered into Kieryn’s suite. Doors closed nearby, more underfoot. Kieryn pressed an ear to his door. Servants’ bare feet pattered quickly past. Confusion and questions colored the sounds of their voices. Peering from his vestibule, Kieryn found the head steward conferring with the Lord Keth. Kieryn’s father was tying on a heavy robe. Behind his snow-flecked beard, his face creased with worry and sudden wakefulness.

  The servants flocked to the steward for orders. Kieryn slid into the corridor behind them, trying to be inconspicuous. Lord Keth told them, “Everything is in hand. Go back to your rooms and stay there.” Baffled, the servants bowed a hesitant departure and pattered back the way they’d come, murmuring uneasily.

  Their flight left Kieryn exposed. He straightened his shoulders. “Da?”

  A rumpled linen shirt and worn riding leathers announced to Keth which of his twin sons addressed him from the dark. His frown deepened. “Go back to bed, Kieryn.”

  “But—”

  “For once, do as I tell you. Yorin,” he called to the steward, “turn up your lamp, I’ll follow you. Hurry now and say nothing . . .” Keth’s whisper echoed away between the gray stone walls. Though he had ordered Yorin to take the lead, Keth’s longer stride hastened him ahead of the steward before they reached the stairwell.

  Kieryn remained in the corridor, swallowing his father's disregard as though it were shards of glass, a food all too common in his mouth. How could he return to bed with his questions unanswered?

  If Da hesitated to share his secret with Kieryn, perhaps he would share it with Kelyn.

  Though the night was half gone, a fire blazed in Kelyn’s hearth as if newly made. The bedchamber sweltered, and Kelyn had thrown aside his blankets. Two wine glasses winked from the bedside table, but Kelyn slept alone. His infatuation with the household maids never failed to bring a blush to Kieryn’s face. He gave his twin’s shoulder a shake. Kelyn groaned, rolled over onto his belly and burrowed his head under a pillow. No time for this. Kieryn reared back the flat of his hand and cracked it over Kelyn’s naked arse. He surged from under the pillow, cursing to bring down the moons. He recognized his twin looming over him, and struck by something resembling conscience, he glanced across the bed and over at the hearth.

  “Don’t worry, she’s gone,” Kieryn said. “And don’t tell me who she was this time, I don’t want to know.”

  Kelyn chuckled. “Whoever she was, she can make a hell of a fire.”

  “I don’t want to know that either.” Kieryn made for the window. The portcullis had been lowered again, and twice the usual number of sentries walked the parapets.

  Kelyn came to his senses and shouted, “You Mother-loving—! It’s the middle of the night. What are you—?”

  “Something’s wrong.” Kieryn found his brother’s robe slung over a chair and tossed it to him. “C’mon!”

&nbs
p; Kelyn glared desultorily at the robe wadded up at his feet. He reached for the wine glass instead.

  “Goddess, Kelyn! There were riders. One rode a black horse.”

  Kelyn took his time savoring the red wine like a jeweler admires the fire deep inside a ruby. “You’ve lost your wits,” he said at last. “Rhorek isn’t due till the day after tomorrow. Why would he leave his entourage behind? And on a soggy cold night like this?”

  “The boy can use adjectives,” Kieryn groused. “Get up!”

  Kelyn finished off the wine. “It was probably crofters bringing the last of the supplies for the Assembly.”

  “I’d like to know what crofter can afford a horse like that—or would dare ride a black one. Besides, they didn’t bring anything with them.”

  “Messengers, then.”

  “Willing to bet your manhood on it?”

  Kelyn threw the wine glass at him and reached for the robe.

  Long northern winters infected the keep’s lower floors with a clammy chill, and Kelyn complained of his bare toes. Though he had forgotten footwear, he had wasted precious time washing his face and combing his hair. Kieryn knew better than to rush him, though his teeth had ached with the waiting; Kelyn never left his rooms looking mussed from sleep or whatever else he’d been doing in bed. The twins crept down the back way, through the library, down to the ledger vaults, past Etivva’s rooms and her shrine to the Mother-Father, and into the corridor lined with spare suites. In preparation for the annual Assembly, the household had scrubbed and aired each of the chambers, and the doors stood open to welcome the influx of highborns who were scheduled to arrive with the king.

  The door to the suite customarily reserved for His Majesty, however, was shut. A knight in black velvet and shiny shoulder-plates stood before the door. A young squire hovered nearby, awaiting his next order.

  Kieryn elbowed his brother. “You see, I told you. That’s one of the Falcon Guard.”

  Kelyn couldn’t argue with the silver falcon blazoned across the knight’s surcoat, nor the mud caked on the tall black boots. “What in the Abyss do you expect me to do?” Though they had hidden themselves in the vestibule of a distant suite, their whispers ricocheted down the corridor like ill-aimed arrows. The Falcon’s helmet turned their direction. A gloved hand reached for a sword hilt.

  Kieryn nudged his brother. “Go find out what’s going on before we’re cut to pieces in our own house.”

  “Poor Kieryn, afraid of a little sword.”

  The knight’s voice took the wind out of Kelyn’s mockery: “You there! Come out of the shadows.”

  Kelyn squinted at the shiny black helmet, the narrow knees below the surcoat, the sword belt cinched around a small waist. “Damned if that isn’t a woman.” He started into the light that spilled from the row of stained-glass lamps, but his approach might’ve appeared the bolder had he not dragged Kieryn alongside him. “We mean no harm,” he announced, smiling with easy charm. “We come with the property, like the rats. Right, Laral?”

  The squire crushed a laugh behind his hand. “You said that, m’ lord.”

  The woman in the Falcon helmet came up short in good humor. Eyes like hard black stones pelted the twins, settled on Kelyn’s grin which was becoming a bit smug, and her hand released the hilt of her sword.

  “Got the king in there?” he asked.

  The woman said nothing. She was no more than twenty-five, her mouth a stern angry line. Somehow that made her mouth all the prettier. Kieryn thought so, and Kelyn was wise not to say so. He redirected his strategy instead. “I heard Captain Jareg named a woman his ranking lieutenant. I suppose you’re her.”

  “She,” Kieryn whispered.

  “I suppose you’re she, then,” Kelyn amended.

  The woman’s face barely flinched, and Kieryn suspected that inside that helmet she was contemplating their tasteful disposal. “Never mind, Kelyn, we’re wasting our time—,” he began, but Kelyn hadn’t been dragged out of his sweet dreams for nothing.

  “Laral,” he said, “how about you be the lieutenant’s mouth since she’s forgotten how to use hers.”

  The squire was fourteen and small for his age, but he had big gray eyes that darted uneasily between his foster-brothers and the Falcon with the blade. “I don’t know anything,” he implored, voice starting to crack. “Honest, I don’t. They won’t tell me either. Lady Alovi told me to stay close in case she needed anything and that’s all.” He glanced sidelong at the lieutenant and added, “Master Odran’s in there though.”

  The lieutenant grit her teeth and took a half-step toward the boy. Laral retreated, declaring, “Well, he is!”

  If the household physician tended to the king … hmm. No wonder Da had looked worried. “Listen, um,” Kieryn said to the woman, “we’re going now.”

  But Kelyn would have none of it. He leaned around the lieutenant and raised a fist to the door. The woman reacted as fast as a whiplash, barring his path; Kelyn went still so abruptly that Kieryn feared she had turned him to stone. But that kind of thing happened only in stories.

  Kelyn lowered an astonished sort of half-smile on her. The woman’s jaw worked as she ground her teeth in a fury; high color fanned into her cheeks. Kelyn emitted a high-pitched grunt and stepped gingerly away from the door. Collecting every measure of his dignity, he readjusted the front of his robe and cast the woman a winning smile. Kieryn marveled at his brother’s self-control, even his extraordinarily kind manners in the face of this woman’s assault. Kelyn would call that grace. The epitome of fine, cultured behavior. He pressed his hand to his heart and bowed his head. “Yes, lieutenant, we are going, my brother and I. Be so good as to give our regards to His Majesty.”

  Kieryn shoved him back the way they’d come. Stacks of yellow parchment and disintegrating leather binding lent the ledger room the stink of dust and centuries.

  Kelyn started up the spiral stair with a chuckle. “Fond of a handful, that one.”

  Kieryn groaned and followed. When his brother’s brain high-centered on the matter of woman flesh, he could be downright unbearable.

  The next morning, Kieryn descended to the kitchens rather than wait for his breakfast to be brought up to him. As he’d expected, rumor had swept through the scullery like the Gloamwater Fever. While he washed down honeyed scones with buttermilk, he listened to Nelda, the head cook, bubble over with the latest information. In the space of a few hours, it seemed, King Rhorek had been poisoned, taken by a pox, thrown from his black Roreshan racer, stabbed in the back, and assailed by highwaymen who had managed to cut off his arm or disembowel him—Nelda wasn’t sure which version she liked best. But two elements remained consistent with every telling: the king had been one of the riders who had arrived amid the storm, and his soul was about to make a beeline for the Light of the Mother-Father.

  After breakfast, Kieryn crept into the corridor lined with guest quarters but found the door to the king’s suite open, the chambers empty, clean, and well-ordered, neither Falcon Guard nor king to be had. Last night’s excitement might have been naught but a frenzied dream.

  He tracked down Kelyn in the bailey and reported his findings. Blunt practice sword in hand, Kelyn sparred with young Laral and seemed disinterested in rumor and empty rooms. Though Kelyn was yet to be knighted, he had swung a sword nearly every day of his life and long ago had mastered the lessons his father could teach him. At Lord Keth’s request, Kelyn reinforced his skill by prenticing the household squires.

  Laral handled the practice sword well, using both blade and pommel to try for the advantage. His arms, however, were still too short and scrawny to get past Kelyn’s guard.

  “Did you see anything after we left, Laral?” asked Kieryn.

  “Nothing,” the boy panted, face scrunched and red with effort. “Your mother sent me for linens … you know, the kind you wrap a broken arm in.” His concentration suffered from Kieryn’s intrusion; Kelyn hooked his blade and sent it flying.

  “Tsk, tsk,” said Kelyn.


  Laral sucked a bruised knuckle and plucked his weapon out of the grass.

  “What must a knight never do?”

  “Lose his sword,” recited Laral, abashed.

  “What else must a knight never do?”

  “Drop his guard.” Laral dove to the attack, perhaps expecting Kelyn to have sacrificed readiness for instruction, but Kelyn parried his blade and dealt him a kick in the pants.

  Around the sparring match, the castle grounds swarmed with servants and soldiers wrapping up preparations for the Assembly. Kieryn watched them with a highborn’s detachment and a scholar’s sensitivity. Master Yorin supervised nimble youths on tall ladders as they swiped the stained-glass windows of the Great Hall for the second time. How Da had cursed Ana-Forah when the storm swept in last night to sully the spotless windows. Outside the stables, grooms sponged Lord Keth’s horses and those of his garrison. Stableboys shoveled straw and manure and hauled it away in two-wheeled carts, as if Rhorek didn’t know, and shouldn’t be told, that horses shat. The falconer swept out the mews’ collection of feathers and droppings, and scattered fresh sawdust. Nelda’s assistants chased hissing white geese who seemed wise to the fact that the goose who straggled would be the goose who graced a king’s table. Captain Maegeth rode through the gate with spotted snow elk slung over a pair of mules. A fat farmer from Ilswythe Village delivered a crate of fat squealing piglets; another a wagon of sloshing ale barrels. Washer women at the well talked conspiratorially as they scrubbed spare sheets and tablecloths, likely embellishing the rumors Kieryn had heard at breakfast.

  “We could speak to Master Odran,” he suggested.

  “Done that,” Kelyn said and shunted aside Laral’s thrust. “He was as closed-mouthed as Lieutenant Lissah. I learned her name,” he added, casting a wink in Kieryn’s direction. Laral’s pommel jabbed home and Kelyn doubled over with a whoof.