The Call of the Shrike: Stormclouds, #2

By Jane Wiseman

ALL IN THIS TOGETHER  John and his brothers are The Rising, guerilla fighters against the usurper of the throne. Out-manned, out-spent, hunted down, they're about to lose. But they are united.

NEVER STEP ASIDE  John only seems to be a shy and unassuming minstrel. But his music comes from a place deep inside, a magic he will need.

TELL ME WHAT IS KEENER THAN THE AXE  The repulsive and indolent usurper-prince is only a tool in the hands of  one of the most powerful mages ever to stalk realms and ages, and one of the most wicked, a sorcerer who, vampire-like, sucks the life-force from his victims.

YOUR HEART BELONGS TO ME  How can John and his raw, unexplored powers hope to prevail against such a foe? How can he help his brothers against overwhelming odds?

NOW GILLES THE DESTROYER AND DEVOURER STAKES HIS CLAIM

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shrike Publications
• Release date: Jul 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733299824

Jane Wiseman

Jane Wiseman is a writer who splits her time between urban Minneapolis and the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. She writes fantasy novels and other types of speculative fiction, and other genres as well.

Book preview

A Map of the Known World

The Characters

IN THIS BOOK, YOU WILL hear many voices.

John: Shy and tall, he is a beautiful musician. Most minstrels and bards are harmless entertainers. Some, though, are dangerous, and the ones who communicate directly with the natural world—birds, say—may be the most dangerous of all.

Ailys: Hungry for power, she becomes a willing tool of dark forces.

Keresin: A naïve young serving maid, just on the cusp of womanhood.

Diera: A princess, daughter of the crown prince. Being so highly placed, surely she can’t choose her own lover. But anyway, what does it matter? A woman can’t inherit the realm, can she?

Odelyn: Lyn loves John, and John loves Lyn. If only it were that simple.

Caedon: A man of unusual appetites, capable of the greatest evil. In part because he serves a supremely evil master.

Rafe: Every night, a different woman is on his arm, until he spots the woman he yearns for. He is beholden to Caedon and Caedon’s master, Gilles, and they tell him he’ll only be safe if he does what they say. Then he throws in his lot with The Rising.

Avery: A prince of the blood, but only fourth in the succession. Why should he care what treason his older brother gets up to? He has it all—wealth, prestige, the prowess of a warrior, someone who loves him. But he does care. He’ll never step aside.

Conal: Prince Avery’s lover. The price he has to pay for that forbidden love can go to the Dark Ones. He’ll never step aside.

The Call of the Shrike  A close up of a logo Description automatically generated

The Stormclouds/Harbingers Fantasy Novels

Stormclouds: The Prequel Series

BOOK I, A GYRFALCON for a King

Book II, The Call of the Shrike

Book III, Stormbird

The Harbingers Series

Book I, Blackbird Rising

Book II, Halcyon

Book III, Firebird

Book IV, Ghost Bird

Betwixt and Between: The Companion Series

Book I, The Martlet is a Wanderer

Book II, The Nightingale Holds Up the Sky

Stand-alone novel:

Dark Ones Take It, being the origin story of Caedon and his brother Maeldoi, the Dark Rider

For a lighter read: The urban fantasy Witchmoon shows what can happen when the Stormclouds/Harbingers fantasy world intrudes into ours. A novella in e-book format only.

All novels available in paperback and for e-readers

Western Wind

John

WHEN JOHN woke up that first morning back, he lay sprawled across the furs, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to clear his head. The little group of friends had returned late, too late to do much more than rouse a few servants and strike the bung off a new barrel of ale.

We three. That’s the way the friends had thought of each other when they were lads. John smiled at himself, shaking his head. In the crucible of war, they’d gotten used to thinking differently. No longer the three of us. The four of us now. And then, if you added Rafe, they were five. Five fast friends, all in it together. They’d never step aside.

John began worrying, as he had for the past two years, about Rafe and how he fared. The rest of them hadn’t seen Rafe in all the time they’d been off fighting King Ranulf’s war. They’d received word from Rafe only rarely, and they all knew he was facing a difficult situation, bound in service as he was to a very dangerous man.

John forced himself to put this worry aside. They’d all see Rafe soon, and then they’d know for a certainty how he did. Avery had made it his first task to send a summons to Rafe.

John looked across the room now at Avery and Conal, where they lay entwined in the piled up furs of their low platform of bedding just as they had fallen onto it the night before. Then at Drustan. Dru was awake, propped on an elbow.

Absently John raked the hair out of his eyes. It always insisted on flopping down into his face. He exchanged a wry smile with Dru. Dru clambered out of his own bedding and stumbled from the room in the direction of the jakes, trying to be quiet and doing a piss-poor job of it.

John lay back, his arms crossed behind his head, and watched with amusement as Avery shot up from the furs into a half-crouch, tumbling Conal off him onto the stones of the floor.

Morning, brother, said John.

Nine Spheres, muttered Avery.

Conal lay on his back on the floor, blinking up at Avery. Avery reached a hand down to him and pulled him to his feet. Sorry, Con, he said. For a moment I thought I was back there.

You’re going to undo everything I patched up, Conal said.

Avery felt about his rib cage. Doesn’t feel too bad, he said.

Your voice sounds as thick as my head feels, Aves, said John, trying to make himself sound light-hearted. He glanced at Avery, then quickly away, worried about the slash some kern’s sword had made across his brother’s torso. The wound looked angry, red and still oozing a bit.

Conal chuckled, though. That reassured John. If Conal wasn’t worried, John decided he wouldn’t be, either.

Avery caught Conal around the neck and pulled him close. Morning, Avery whispered into Conal’s ear.

A blush rose into Conal’s stubbled cheeks. John was guessing Conal was having a hard time getting used to it, too, this openness among them after so many secrets.

My lord— Conal began.

Don’t go my-lording me, Con, growled Avery, feinting a punch to Con’s gut.

Conal looked across at John. Tell him, John.

He’s right, Aves, said John, but he couldn’t help grinning at them both. They were so happy. The sun and moon and all the stars shine brighter through the Spheres in Conal’s mere presence. We all see that it does. But brother, now that we’re here at the fort, you’ve got to—

I know, I know, said Avery.

He knows, John thought. He does. He’ll be careful. But then.

He remembered what had happened, the time King Ranulf’s two favorite jousters were caught in the hayloft together. He remembered their heads, rotting and swarming with flies, on the spikes above Tam Fort gates. Would the king act any differently if the malefactor were his own son? Maybe, but Conal was for sure putting himself in terrible danger.

John tried to drive away the other disturbing thoughts that wanted to come crowding in. The strangeness of the battle. And the other thing. The dangerous thing they’d found out, over there across the water.

No, he decided, the morning was too glorious. Time to think those dark thoughts later. John shook his head hard, as if that would drive them away. As if it could. He thought instead of Lyn. He thought of seeing her again. The red-gold of her hair. The way she smelled, warm, like apples and honey and something more mysterious. The way she felt under his hands. . .

Before he could lose himself in thoughts of her and turn himself into an utter ninnyhammer and bondslave to love, Dru staggered back in. What a night. My head.

We’re home, said Avery. We’re alive. Life is good.

The bright morning sun sent glittering shafts filled with dust motes down on them from high slits of windows. John reached for his rebec and began picking a tune out on it. A sense of well-being descended on him, riding those shafts of sunlight. The few notes on the rebec were turning themselves into a song.

Johnny, no, said Dru. It’s too early for that. He squinted up against the light.

Never too early for a little music, Dru, said John. He strummed a phrase, not bothering with his bow. "When wilt thou blow, o western wind," he sang.

Dru groaned and dove for the furs again.

I’m guessing it’s close on noon, said Conal.

We’ve missed breaking our fast, Avery said.

Don’t speak of food to me, villains. Dru’s voice came to them half muffled from underneath the furs.

"The small rain down can rain," John sang.

Someone shut him up. Dru.

Conal, Avery, and John smirked at each other.

"Nine Spheres, if my love were in my arms. . . sang John, moving over to just above Dru. He strummed wildly on his instrument. And I in my bed again." He finished with a flourish as Dru rose from the pallet; neatly skipped aside as Dru charged him.

And ran headlong into the slender young man who had just stepped into the room.

Rafe! they all shouted.

The young man named Rafe made a mock-leg to them all and whipped off his cap with a twirl.

The king your father says, says he, Rafe announced in his lilting Baronies accent, Tell that drunken lad of mine to sober up and present himself to myself, forthwith.

Lady take it, said Avery.

My lord, I’ll get some hot water, said Conal, with a small formal nod.

Shut it, Conal, said Rafe, his gray Sea-Child eyes twinkling. You think I don’t know? Good sweet Lady, it’s written all over the both of you.

Nine Spheres, Conal muttered. Does the whole fort know my private business? He was pulling on his tunic, then his trousers.

Nay, Conal, just us. Just us. Welcome back! said Rafe, and caught up Conal in a bear hug, and then they were all surrounding Rafe and thumping him on the back, and they were all talking at once.

John watched Rafe narrowly. He seemed well, thank the Child. Older, more mature. He didn’t seem in any way damaged. It ate at John, how he hadn’t been able to get to Rafe, when he had come back across the water for that brief time a season or so back, when his mother’s illness had brought him home.

But really, said Rafe, stepping away. Ranulf the Good, may the Children bless his sacred name, really did summon you, he said to Avery. And he really is quite put out that you’re lying abed so late. My lord, Rafe added with a little smile.

Avery. I’m getting you some hot water. I need to do that. I need to be seen doing that, said Conal.

I know, said Avery with a sigh at the pretense Conal had to assume. I don’t have to like it, do I?

Bring me some hot water, too, Conal. I promise to like it, said Dru. At Avery’s look, he raised a placating hand. I’m joking.

Conal had been the Royal Arms Master, when they were lads. Their teacher in the arts of war. Now he no longer held that position. While he was away at war, another man had assumed it. Some in the fort probably considered Conal a glorified servant in the retinue of Prince Avery. The five of them knew that wasn’t true. But Ranulf’s courtiers thought differently.

It would be prudent to let them think so, thought John. It would be very prudent indeed.

Nine Spheres, it’s good to see you all back, said Rafe.

Trying to stand on one leg and pull on his leggings, Avery turned to John. John— he hesitated. He looked back at Rafe. Rafe, he said. We discovered something, Rafe. Something big.

Dru moved over to Avery and steadied him. You’re going to open up that wound, you know, he said.

John wasn’t listening to any of this. He was trying to get Rafe’s attention on an entirely different matter.

Rafe, said John.

Can it wait? said Rafe, turning from Avery.

You know it can’t.

She’s fine. Blooming, said Rafe.

Dru overheard. Odelyn! he moaned, mock-clutching his heart. Odelyn, my love, where art thou?

Stop. Rafe bit the word off.

John gave Rafe a hard look. Rafe’s expression was serious. Something was wrong. John’s mouth went dry.

Tell you later, Rafe murmured, trying and failing to smile. Then he clapped his hands, drawing the attention of the others. Get dressed, knuckleheads. You’re wanted below in the audience hall. Not just Avery. Him especially. But all of you.

Conal was back in with a basin of water and towels. Not me, though. There’s the advantage, right there, in not being a gentle. I don’t have to put up with courts and courtiers.

Yes, you do. You too, said Rafe. All you vermin. His Most High Majesty wants to hear all about it, and from your own lips. In an undertone, he said to Avery, Aves. Our suspicions. Are there grounds? Audemar?

Avery closed his lips in a grim line. He nodded. He yanked his tunic down over his head.

Good sweet Lady’s tits, said Rafe, with a low whistle. I’ve been seeing the same signs over here, the ones we talked about, but—if they’re acting on their plans over there, on the battlefield— He took a deep breath. Then it’s not all boast and braggadocio, is it?

Avery looked around at them all. Their festive mood was gone. They’d all heard. They all knew what he was about to say.

We’re going down there, to the court, he said, his eyes glinting. I’m making my report to my father. But nothing about this. Nothing. Just the usual. Glorious battle. We win, they lose. March of empire. Hurrah, hurrah. Does everyone understand? Too many ears down there, too many tattling mouths.

They all nodded.

Avery said as if to himself. Poor savage kerns. What were they armed with? Scythes and hoes? He looked up at Rafe. But then, out of nowhere— he started to explain. He stopped. Later we’ll figure out what to do, he said. How much we’ll say we saw. What steps we can take next. Agreed?

They all nodded again, although Conal cast a look askance at Avery’s ribcage, where the blood was blooming again into the cloth of his tunic.

Let me see to that, Avery, said Conal.

So not a word. Especially you, John, said Avery over his shoulder as Conal led him off and sat him down on a joint-stool. You know how he is. He meant Ranulf. Their father the king. Ranulf the Fourth. Ranulf the Good.

John grinned, but it was a mirthless grin. "I know. Divide and conquer. What’s your brother up to? Tell me everything, boy," he mimicked.

He really does listen to you, Johnny, Rafe said.

Who, me? The bastard? But John smiled inwardly, fondly, at Rafe and his familiar ways, his Baronies accent. Yanny.

He does, said Rafe.

Now Children, stand up for bastards, said John. He knew his tone was caustic. He tried to turn the remark with a laugh. He saw Rafe was not fooled.

It had not always been so. In his boyhood, he’d been pretty much ignored by his father the king. But that had changed during the time he’d had to come back across the water to see to his mother.

Somehow, while they were over there fighting, Ranulf had conceived a distrust of his third son, the legitimate third son Avery. Avery had always been—not his favorite, because he loved and valued all of his three legitimate sons, but the one of his sons most like himself, a strong young warrior. But when John had come home briefly from the fighting, Ranulf had pumped John for information, and John had realized the king thought Avery was opposing him or flouting him somehow. Ranulf was just as unsettled by John as he always was, but his need to find out about Avery seemed to override that.

How was it the king distrusted Avery so much, John wondered. It wasn’t fair. Of all his sons, Avery was the one who deserved his trust most.

Then, as John spent time around court, he saw the likely reason for the king’s suspicions. The king’s second son, Audemar. And Caedon, the sharp-featured ferret of a man who followed Prince Audemar everywhere and did his bidding. The two of them had been spreading rumors about Avery, John was almost sure of it. That had to be it, and if they were doing such an underhanded thing, that must mean they knew Avery was on to them and their plotting.

Before the fighting had concluded, Ranulf had had to come home from the Western front, leaving the conduct of the war in the hands of his commanders. Supposedly he’d needed to deal with some civil conflict or other on his borders. Or maybe, some said, because his healers made him come back. The king was getting old.

That’s when the rumors about Avery had started, and Avery, over the water, couldn’t defend himself.

Avery was rash and pleasure-seeking, the court gossipers whispered. Avery slacked his duty. Avery spoke lightly of the king. Avery was a coward.

John had also begun wondering about the civil unrest that had brought Ranulf back home. Who had provoked it? Might Audemar and Caedon be behind it?

Now a chill settled on John. What if Caedon and Audemar learned of Avery’s feelings for Conal. What they might do with that kind of ammunition made John’s blood run cold. He had no illusions about Audemar’s malice toward his younger brother Avery. None of them had. Not after what they’d all seen over the years of their childhood and youth.

John made himself listen as Avery went over what they’d say during their audience with the king. It was important they all act together, so John knew he needed to pay attention to Avery’s thinking. He needed to be prepared when the king asked them before the entire court for that battle’s details.

It will be fine, Avery was saying, wincing as Conal poked around his wound. The king won’t even go into those other matters too deeply, all that other stuff about the situation over there and how we lost some battles we should have won. You know what he’s going to ask about. He’s going to ask about Johnny. We can distract him with that.

Great, thought John bleakly. The freakish thing that had happened across the water, paraded before the court backbiters and gossip-mongers and muckspouts. He imagined how his father the king would take it. Really, how close were John’s actions to a species of witchcraft? As it was, even without this tale to make things worse, something about him always unsettled his father. Always had.

But it didn’t matter. Not really. Whatever his father had to say, what did it matter? His feelings about his father might be—he stopped, considering. Complicated. That was the word. But his feelings about the five of them, the friends, were as solid as anything he’d ever known in his life.

He thought about it. Feelings about his brother and friends. And then there were the feelings he had for Odelyn. That was different but no less strong. What could Rafe’s look have meant, when Dru began to tease John about her? He began to worry again.

There was no time to worry. The four friends had to put themselves to rights. They had to present themselves to the king, and the king was an impatient man.

Rafe wished them luck and waited behind, to find out, later, the worst of what his friends had discovered over there on the battlefields of the Western Isle. When the other four descended to Ranulf’s great hall in the massive stone pile that was Tam Fort, they went as one.

THEY’D ALWAYS BEEN close, the three of them, and they’d all been close to Conal, too. It used to seem to them that Conal was in a different category. Not a servant, not in any way a servant, although Conal, a yeoman, was neither royal like Avery nor a member of the nobility, like Dru. John couldn’t imagine a man less servile than Conal. He hadn’t been a friend, either, not quite. He was their revered teacher, and older than they.

Now things among them had changed. War had bound them close, and now they all saw—not just Avery—the deep bond they all had with Conal. Their understanding of that bond had been building for some time, and the challenges of battle clarified it.

Of course the bond between Avery and Conal went deeper still, as deep as love, beloved and beloved joined together.

In a strange way, though, John felt himself set apart, even more than Conal. It was not just his illegitimate birth. That, too, although his bastardy had never stood in the way of his profound connection, love of a different species, with Avery and Drustan, one his brother, the other as close as a brother. John had mostly felt their difference in the outer things, seating at board, when decorum dictated he had to sit separate from his friends, or precedence at court, as now, when they dutifully showed themselves before the king.

But these outer demonstrations of his different status mirrored and reinforced what he felt inside, at moments like these. Uncomfortable public moments. As they strode down the broad stairway and toward his reception chamber, yes, they were one.

But when they reached the door together, a tight little group, Avery the prince naturally stepped up to the entrance first, followed closely by Drustan. Now that his father the Earl Brenci was dead, Dru had inherited his father’s lands and title. Dru was an earl in his own right. Some might even say his position with the king as one of Ranulf’s two or three most important vassals came near to out-ranking Avery. Avery was Ranulf’s son, to be sure, but only the youngest and least important, and only fifth in the succession. Still. Avery was indeed in the line of succession, however far back, so he preceded Dru into the room.

As they entered, John took a step aside and waited a discreet beat or two before following them in. John was the king’s son by his concubine, so he was only a bastard, one of three or four at least, including his next-youngest brother Wat, his baby brother Aedan, and also the girl Eris, a bit older than Wat, daughter of the king by one of his bondsmaidens. There might be others. John wasn’t sure.

All of the king’s bastards were a source of a strange combined pride and embarrassment whenever Ranulf encountered them in public settings like this one. The king didn’t run across the little ones very often, in public or in private. But throughout John’s youth, Ranulf had seen John fairly frequently. He would have had a hard time avoiding John, always there with Ranulf’s legitimate youngest son Avery, and with Dru, at tourneys and ceremonies and pastimes of one sort or another, and at board.

John looked uneasily at the king gazing out over the court in his high carved chair. John was ever aware of the king’s discomfort around him. He couldn’t figure out why. It was a natural thing, with kings and other powerful men. The barons across the Narrows all had their concubines and bondswomen, and therefore they all had their bastards. Why did Ranulf find John such a burden, he wondered.

John tried not to think about that now. He just worked on making himself as unobtrusive as possible. The king had not acknowledged any of them yet.

By now the three of them, Avery, Dru, and John, were all kneeling inside the barrier at the throne itself. This barrier separated the rest of the hall, packed with courtiers, from the royal presence. To step inside the barrier, as the three of them had, was a special mark of favor.

Now Conal came quietly in behind the rest and himself knelt off to one side, part of the group but not really of it. John always admired how Conal managed this. He was born to it, of course. His father had been arms master to Ranulf before him, and Conal had served a lengthy apprenticeship under his father, that worthy man, so he’d seen it done since boyhood.

But, John reflected ruefully, he himself had studied the role of bastard all his life, and he still enacted it awkwardly.

Now he snapped to. The royal audience had begun.

They all stayed kneeling before Ranulf until, satisfied by their show of obedience, the king motioned them to rise. They all got to their feet, first Avery, then Dru, then John, then Conal, in a repeat of their entrance a few moments earlier. John stood trying to keep himself still and composed while Avery, and then Dru, went through the proper formulas of greeting and professions of fealty. Then the two of them began answering Ranulf’s long, complex series of questions about the war, and the three major battles they’d fought in.

John saw Ranulf wasn’t glossing over these details, as Avery thought he might. The king was considering them carefully.

After each question and answer, a herald relayed the gist of their accounts in a loud voice to the rest of the court, assembled beyond the barrier. John was glad he just needed to stand there quietly and nod now and then. Avery and Dru were doing all the talking. He did need to pay attention, though.

Somehow, he didn’t. His mind must have wandered as the king’s questions moved to matters of strategy and tactics.

Dru was elbowing him discreetly in the ribs. John realized with horror that the king had asked him a question, and that, off wool-gathering, he had no idea what it was, no idea how to reply.

John is too modest, Your Majesty, said Avery, rushing in to cover for him. He won’t tell it right. Let me.

Ranulf’s gaze had caught John in its intense beam, and John stared back at his father in consternation.

Let the lad speak for himself, said Ranulf in his deceptively soft, careful voice, the one that turned malefactors and enemies to jelly in his presence. So, then, John, said the king. Tell me what really happened on that ridge. During that last battle, he prompted.

John saw Ranulf understood the blank stare John had turned on him. He saw his father wasn’t going to shame him in front of the whole court for his lapse in attention. And now he understood what his father wanted him to say.

John cast his mind desperately back to that moment on the hilltop as they’d faced the enemy, and he struggled now to form some kind of coherent reply. Your Majesty, I don’t know how to describe it to you, what happened.

Try, said the king.

John looked at him dumbly.

We’ll wait, said Ranulf, waving off Avery, who looked to be itching to butt in. The assemblage of courtiers, standing further off, strained forward to hear, too.

Your Majesty, we were gathered on the ridge, waiting for the attack to begin, when. . . John stopped. He tried again. We were all fired up. The leader of our patrol began to yell—

Our battle cry, Father, Avery put in. He shrank back as Ranulf turned his eye in Avery’s direction.

Then Ranulf returned his gaze to John. Go on, he said.

And then. . . John said.

Nine Spheres, he thought. What in the name of all the Dark Ones had happened then? He was fired up, as he’d said. A mixture of fear, exhilaration, savage desire to rend and slash and kill. A blood lust, he guessed. Yes, that might be the way to put it.

On that ridge, John felt it. They all did. They all screamed out Ranulf’s battle cry. And screamed. And screamed. They all drew their swords from their scabbards, waiting their leader’s signal. John remembered how he glanced over at Dru, whose face shone with a fierce exultation, and John knew his own face must be reflecting the same emotion, but he was terrified, too, and he saw Dru was. Then he had glanced to the other side, the right, and that must have been the first time he really understood about Avery and Conal, because they exchanged such a look of naked love that John wanted to catch them both up in a towering embrace and laugh for sheer joy, such friendship and respect the four of them shared, brothers all and now, John saw in an instant, two of them were lovers.

But he also knew the two of them wouldn’t have allowed this look to pass between them if they hadn’t believed they were about to die.

They were all about to die.

The leader gave the signal then, and John charged forward in a mad rush of passion and terror. He didn’t know what he was doing, not really, and then suddenly he realized he’d outstripped the line. He was running headlong at the ragged lines of the enemy, and part of him was saying no, you’re going to die, and part of him was thinking, well, yes, I’m going to die, and part of him was screaming.

Shrieking.

After that, what?

John’s shrieking took on a power of its own. The voice that came out of him did something. Something terrible.

He recalled the shocked faces of the enemy as they went down. The blood poring from noses, ears. Eyes, even. Torrents of blood.

John stood bewildered and horror-struck among the piles of corpses as his fellows surged past him to chase down the second line of enemy kerns, who had turned and had begun running while John’s own side cut them to pieces from behind.

It was a rout.

Soon his friends and the others in his patrol came quietly back through the trees, their arms stained red to the elbows with killing.

Drustan and Avery and Conal found John standing there, his blade untainted, fresh from the scabbard, as shiny and untouched as when he’d used the polishing stones on it that morning.

They’d surrounded him and cradled him while he wept. They’d led him back to the tents. Later, their leader had visited him there. John waited for him numbly, sure he’d be named a coward and sent home.

The leader motioned John to a seat beside him. Young Master John, the leader said. We all saw it, what you did. We heard it, too, and all unharmed because we were not the targets. Those dead men were. Odds were against us, yet we slaughtered them. The Child stood with you, Master John. It were Her doing, and you Her channeling.

The leader went away then. Twilight came on them, and the other three, his friends and brothers, moved to sit by him quietly and let him be.

Later, they heard the stories that spread up and down that field, which was now the king’s. An unearthly shriek. A shright, the defeated kerns called it. And they started a rumor then. It was some ghastly death-bird they’d all heard. The butcher bird. The shrike. No man could have done so. The shrike that impales its prey on thorns of death and leaves its kill shredded and bleeding there. The call of the shrike.

John came to himself and saw his father bending toward him, and realized he hadn’t said a word.

He struggled to speak now. We all screamed, but my scream— He stopped again. It killed them, Your Majesty. His voice had dropped so low he was almost whispering.

Ranulf looked around at the rest of them. This rumor of the Children’s intervention. It’s true, then.

Drustan and Avery both nodded.

Conal? said Ranulf.

Your Majesty, said Conal, bowing low.

Tell me in your words what happened, Conal. Ranulf abruptly stood, his presence massive and intimidating. They all suppressed a flinch. He began pacing.

Conal straightened. It’s as Master John said, sire. We were gathered for the attack, and we were outnumbered. We’d been surprised and surrounded. None of us would have believed it. The enemy were poorly armed, starved, ragged, but by the Lady, they’d outflanked us. Your Majesty, I have to tell you I didn’t like our chances. And then Master John opened his mouth and something uncanny came out of him. We all heard it. It didn’t hurt us, but it hurt the enemy. Those in the front lines closest to it, they died on the spot, sire.

For a long moment, Ranulf regarded the man who had once been his royal arms master, a practical man not given to flights of fancy. Have you ever known the like, Conal?

Nay, never, Your Majesty, nor ever heard the like.

Thank you, Conal. Thank you for your good service. I will think on what duty to give you as a reward. In the meantime, would it suit you to help the newly appointed arms master?

Of course, Your Majesty. I will be honored, said Conal. If he felt insulted to find himself appointed assistant to the man who had taken the job he used to have as his own, Conal did not betray it through tone or expression. As always, Conal’s self-possession, his inner dignity, awed John.

Ranulf nodded to the other two. Anything to add?

Just this, Your Majesty, said Dru, putting his hand out to forestall Avery. As Master Conal said, none of us, loyal to you and the Children, received any hurt, although we all heard it and found it. . . He stopped and looked at his friends with a small smile. Speaking just for myself, Your Majesty, I found it terrifying. You were terrifying, Johnny.

His tone was sober, but John could see he was suppressing a grin. That didn’t make John feel any better about himself. What was he, anyway? Some sort of freakish, monstrous—what? His mind shied away from the vision, or whatever it had been, when he’d first come to the shores of the Western Isle. The dark wings of the gyrfalcon, the screaming in his head. Don’t fear anything, John. All of us, your true kindred, will be with you through everything. A power will pour out of you, and you will prevail.

Dru was going on. As for the enemy, they died in horrible ways. Kind of—

Disemboweled, Avery put in.

Disemboweled, Dru confirmed. Their guts were spilling out, all over. Their heads had kind of—

Exploded, Avery suggested.

Yes, exploded. When we got back to our lines to find John after all the killing, there was a man amongst us that had remained behind. That’s because he too died in the same horrible way as the enemy. One of our own, we thought. And then we discovered he was a spy from the enemy. So the Children knew, my king. They killed your opponents, all of them, but They left your friends untouched. And John was Their instrument.

I see, said the king.

The herald cried out a garbled, much-shortened version of this account to the assembled court. Something about the king’s battle cry terrifying the enemy into flight. John hoped that’s what they all thought. That would be so much easier for him to live with.

Before the throne, the four friends stood silent. Praise to the Children, said Avery after a long pause.

Indeed, said Ranulf. Praise Them. Dismissed. He turned to his courtiers beyond the barrier. His voice boomed out. All of you. Dismissed. The courtiers crowded toward the big doors, and as soon as they reached the corridor, as anyone could hear, the talk began to buzz and swell. With a sinking feeling, John realized what was happening. Gossip was overtaking the herald’s report.

As the four friends bowed low and then turned to go, joining the others thronging from the audience chamber, Ranulf’s voice rang out behind them. You, John. Here by me.

John swiveled around mid-stride and moved to stand by the king his father. He watched, miserable, as the others left the Royal presence, turning for one final bow before backing out of the reception hall. As everyone else left, some of them casting wide-eyed glances over their shoulders at John, Ranulf reseated himself heavily in his massive carved chair, raised on a dais.

He didn’t look at John. John stood looking down at his shoes.

Sit, said the king, nodding to the step beside the throne.

John folded himself up and crouched there.

The king put out a weighty hand and rested it on John’s head.

Good dog, John couldn’t help thinking. He tried to feel grateful for this mark of royal favor. At least the king wasn’t charging him with cowardice. No one was. No one was even implying it with a sidelong skeptical glance, and no one had, back at the battlefield over there on the savage Western Isle.

But he couldn’t get over the uneasy feeling that he was some kind of coward. Hadn’t he just stood there in anguish as the others had all run past him, coming back covered with gore? And coupled with this feeling was the sick memory, his ragged enemies’ look of horror as they died around him. Died in heaps, ill-armed with rakes and mauls and rusty swords their grandfathers had wielded, come out there