The Gold Falcon (7 page)

“What’s wrong with you, Captain?” Pedrys said abruptly. “You look as grim as the Lord of Hell himself!”

“My apologies, my lord,” Gerran said. “I was just thinking about the raiders.”

“That’s enough to make any man grim, truly,” Cadryc said, then yawned. “We’d best get some sleep. I want to be up at dawn and riding as soon as we can.”

“Very well, Your Grace.” Gerran stood up. “I’ll just take a last look around the camp.”

Scattered across the meadow, most of the men were asleep in their blankets by dying campfires. The warm night was so achingly clear that the stars hung close like a ceiling of silver. Nearby, guarded by a pair of sentries, the horses stood head-down and drowsy in their hobbles. Gerran was starting out to have a word with the sentries when he saw someone coming toward him. He laid his hand on his sword hilt, but it was only the gerthddyn, his pale hair strikingly visible in the dark.

“Lovely night, isn’t it?” Salamander said.

Although Gerran had been thinking just that, hearing this unmanly sentiment voiced annoyed him.

“Warm enough, I suppose,” Gerran said. “Tell me somewhat. What made you ride with us?”

“I’m not truly sure,” Salamander said.

“You told our lord that you wanted vengeance.”

“Well, that’s true enough. The Horsekin killed a good friend of mine some years ago. And I’m looking for my brother, of course. You may remember that when I last passed your way, I told you—”

“—about your brother the silver dagger. What is this? Do you think you’re going to find him just wandering around the countryside?”

“Imph, well, you never quite know where he’ll turn up.”

Gerran waited, then realized that Salamander was going to tell him no more unless he pried.

“Well, now that you’re here, you’re riding under my orders,” Gerran said instead. “I want you to stay well back out of the way if it comes to battle.”

“Fair enough.” Salamander bowed, took a few steps away, then suddenly stooped down and picked something up from the grass. “One of the lads is getting careless. I wonder whose bridle this belongs on?”

When he held up a brass buckle, Gerran could barely see it. Salamander pressed it into his hand, then walked on with a cheery good night. Gerran rubbed the buckle between his fingers as he watched him go.
So,
he told himself,
that’s why he’s so cursed odd! There’s Westfolk blood in his veins.

Around noon on the morrow, the combined warbands reached a stone marker beside the road. The tieryn called a halt to rest the horses and let the men eat a scant meal from their saddlebags. Although the cairn, a mere heap of gray stones, carried no inscriptions, those who had been let in on its secret knew that a shallow canyon nearby led straight south. The road itself ended at the marker, because extending it south would have given their enemies an easy path to the tieryn’s lands.

At the head of the canyon, a small waterfall trickled down over ragged shelves of dark rock, fringed at the edges with long streamers of ferns. The men dismounted and led their horses down a narrow path to the reasonably flat floor of the canyon, where a faint trail led along the edge of a stream through pine forest. After a mile or so of this difficult traveling, the canyon walls grew lower and began to splay out. The trail widened just enough to allow the men to mount up and ride single file. They could see bright sunlight and open space ahead through the trees where the trail widened once again. Gerran yelled at his men to fall into their regular riding order, two abreast and ready for trouble, as he remarked to Lord Pedrys.

“Do you think the Horsekin would lay an ambuscade?” Pedrys said.

“I don’t know, my lord, but I wouldn’t put it past them.”

In dappled sunlight the men rode through the last of the pines. No one spoke; everyone kept one hand on his sword hilt and the reins of his horse in the other. Cut stumps appeared among the grasses and weeds of second growth. One last bend in the trail brought them to the long broad valley, green with ripening wheat and meadowland. A couple of miles off to the west the Melyn ran, a thin sparkling line at their distance. Gerran could just make out a patch of black beside it—Neb’s farm, he assumed.

“I don’t see any Horsekin,” Cadryc remarked. “Don’t see much of anything but grass.”

“True spoken, Your Grace,” Gerran said. “Most likely the bastards are long gone.”

“We’ve got to get more fighting men down here. All there is to it!”

“Or else stop these cursed raids once and for all, Your Grace,” Gerran said. “If the king would lend us an army—”

“That’s in the laps of the gods,” Cadryc said. “We’ll worry about the grand schemes later. We’ve got a hard job to do right now.”

With a wave of his arm the tieryn led them forward. They rode on down to the smoking tangle of wood and ashes that had once been Brwn’s farm. The fire had leaped to the apple tree outside the earthen wall and left it as black and gaunt as a dead sentry, but the damp grass still grew green beyond. Nearby lay the corpse of a tall, burly man, his head torn half off his shoulders. In the hot sun he lay swollen and stinking. Birds and foxes had eaten a good bit of him. Salamander rode up to join Gerran and the noble-born.

“Neb’s uncle,” Salamander said. “What’s left fits the description anyway.”

“Let’s get him buried,” Cadryc said. “There’s naught else to do for him.”

“We might as well wait and dig one long ditch,” Pedrys said. “I’ll wager there’s more dead men ahead of us.”

Unfortunately, Pedrys had spoken the truth. When they rode up to the ruins of the village, they found the first corpses about three hundred yards from the bridge. Four men lay in a straggling line, cut down as they tried to flee. Another twelve lay in the village square, either rotting and spongy or half-burned. The latter had most likely been killed in their houses, then caught under burning beams and walls.

“But who pulled them free?” Pedrys said. “What is this? Did the raiders want to count their kills?”

“Most likely they just wanted to make sure they’d slaughtered the lot,” Gerran said.

“If so, they did a bad job of it,” Salamander said. “Neb told me how many men and lads were in the village, you see. The women and children are long gone by now, of course, prize booty, all of them. So there should be twenty dead, not counting Neb’s uncle.”

“Then that leaves four men missing,” Pedrys said. “Maybe they got away in time.”

But three of the men turned up lying dead, clustered together by the village well where, apparently, they’d tried to make a stand. One corpse still clutched a hay rake.

“Why didn’t the raiders put these men with the others?” Salamander said. “I wonder if someone interrupted them?” He looked up as if he were studying the sky.

“I doubt me if the gods came down to help,” Gerran said. “Come along. There’s one villager still missing.”

Although the men searched the village thoroughly, they never found that last corpse. By the time they’d finished, the younger men in the warband had turned white-faced and shaky; a few had rushed off to vomit. It was the pity of it more than the stench and rot that troubled Gerran: peaceful farmers, slaughtered like their own hogs as they tried to defend themselves and their women with sticks and axes against swords and spears.

Yet even though they’d lost the fight in the end, the farmers had gained one small victory. Pinned under a half-burned roof beam lay the charred corpse of a Horsekin warrior. Gerran found him as he searched the ruins of the village smithy. At his shout Daumyr strode over with Warryc trotting after. The three of them fell silent, staring at the corpse.

Like most of his kind, he was well over six feet tall, broad in the shoulders, long in the arms. What was left of his skin was milk white, but heavily decorated with blue-and-black tattoos. Some designs portrayed animals; others seemed to be letters of some sort. He sported a huge mane of dark hair, braided into many strands, tied off with amulets and studded with charms, but the magicks had failed to protect him. Daumyr picked up a nearby plank and used it as a lever to turn him over. He’d been killed by the thrust of three sharp prongs—a pitchfork, Gerran assumed—into the middle of his back.

“Haul him out,” Gerran said. “We’ll leave him for the ravens.”

“Good idea!” Daumyr tossed the plank back down. “May he freeze to the marrow in the deepest hell.”

Warryc stooped, brushed away cinders with one hand, grabbed something from the rubble, then stood back up, clutching his prize. “This must have fallen off the bastard’s jerkin.” Warryc opened his hand to show a golden arrow, about four inches long and backed with a heavy pin. “I’ve seen somewhat like it before, somewhere.”

“A clan marker?” Gerran said. “Maybe a troop badge?”

Warryc shook his head and studied the arrow; his narrow dark eyes narrowed further, nearly to slits. “Somewhat to do with their religion,” he said at last. “The cursed Horsekin, I mean.”

“Well, hand it over,” Gerran said. “The tieryn might know.”

Gerran set the warband to digging a long mass grave outside the earthwork, then rejoined the tieryn, who was standing by the line of corpses and talking with Salamander. Gerran was honestly surprised to see the gerthddyn so calm in the midst of so much death. His opinion of Salamander rose.

“We never found that last man,” Cadryc said. “Well, we’ll be riding downriver to Lord Samyc’s dun. If he’s hiding somewhere, perhaps he’ll hear or see us and come running.”

“We can hope, your Grace,” Salamander said. “I’m more afraid of what else might appear along the way.”

“Naught good or so I’d wager.” Gerran fished the gold arrow out of his pocket and held it out. “One of the men found this. He was thinking it had somewhat to do with the Horsekin’s wretched gods.”

Cadryc held out empty hands to show his ignorance, but the gerthddyn took the arrow and weighed it in his palm.

“It most assuredly does,” Salamander said. “It’s the token of a goddess, actually, Alshandra, Huntress of Souls, the archer who dwells beyond the stars, the hidden one.”

“I’ve heard of her before,” Cadryc said. “It’s a pity she’s not a fair bit more hidden than she is.”

“Oh, absolutely. Her worshipers, alas, are both conspicuous and near to hand.” Salamander glanced at Gerran. “Does the fellow who found this want it?”

“Probably. For the gold, most likely.”

“I think I’ll ask him to sell it to me. Somewhat tells me that I should keep it. Might be useful, like.”

“Useful for what?” Cadryc snorted.

“I know not, but I have a feeling, a deep hunch, hint, or portent that I should own this little bauble. Which man was it, Captain, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all.” Gerran pointed to the men digging the trench. “It’s Warryc, the skinny short fellow with the brown hair down at the very end. Next to the tall blond fellow, Daumyr his name is.”

Salamander trotted off, and Gerran and the tieryn followed more slowly. The warband swung the remains of the villagers into the trench, then covered it over with earth, a brown scar in the green meadow. They finished just at sunset, and off to the cloudy west the light blazed red like a funeral fire. For lack of a priest, the tieryn tried to say a few reverent words. For a long moment he stood at the head of the trench and struggled with this unfamiliar activity while the men watched in silence.

“Ah, horseshit,” Cadryc said at last. “There’s only one thing to say: vengeance!”

The warband shouted back the word. “Vengeance!” rolled across the farmlands to echo back from the distant cliffs.

As they walked back to their horses, they passed the corpse of the Horsekin warrior, left sprawled in the open air for the ravens as a final insult. Salamander paused for a moment to contemplate him, and Gerran stopped to see what the gerthddyn was up to.

“Doesn’t this strike you as odd, Captain?” Salamander said. “The Horsekin never leave their dead behind.”

“So I’ve heard, truly,” Gerran said. “He was killed by a farmer, though. Maybe they see that as a dishonor.”

“Maybe, but I have my doubts. And then they didn’t finish searching the village. I wonder, I truly do.”

“Searching?”

“Why else line up the dead? Were they trying to make sure they’d killed everyone or was it mayhap a certain person they wanted dead? I don’t know, mind. I’m merely considering possibilities.”

The warband camped that evening a spare mile downriver from the ruins, just far enough to leave the smell of the dead village behind. The missing villager never appeared, even though they built campfires in the hopes of drawing his attention should he be hiding nearby. On the chance that the raiders were lingering out to the west, Gerran doubled the usual number of sentries. He also had his men hobble their horses as well as tethering them, a precaution that proved wise on the morrow.

Toward dawn Gerran woke abruptly. He could have sworn that he’d heard someone calling his name. He sat up in his blankets and looked around, but in the cold gray light of first dawn he saw nothing but the sleeping camp. He pulled on his boots and got up, buckling on his sword belt. He was planning on relieving the sentries out by the tethered horses, but when he glanced at the river, he saw Salamander standing on the bank. He picked his way through the sleeping men and walked down to join the gerthddyn.

“You’re up early,” Gerran said.

“I am, and so are you.” Salamander glanced at him and smiled, then returned to staring out across the river.

“Someone out there?”

“Not a Horsekin in sight, but look, there’s some odd thing in the sky. A flock of ravens perhaps, most deeply grieved with us for burying their gruesome feast.”

Gerran looked up to see, far off to the west, a flock of birds flying toward them in the brightening dawn. Or was it a flock? He heard a distant sound, a thwack and slap like a hand hitting a slack leather drum. The supposed flock looked remarkably like one bird, one enormous bird, flying steadily on huge silver wings. The sound swelled into a boom as the enormous wings carried the creature straight for them. He could see its long neck, its massive head with flaring nostrils and deep-set eyes, the silver scales touched about the head and spiked tail with iridescent blue, glimmering in the rising sun.