Read Online Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) by Court Ellyn - Free Book Online Page B

the inner gate in
height and breadth, and boasted three iron portcullises that could be lowered
in times of trouble. Extending to each side of the Bastion and encircling the
old castle was a new wall so wide at the top that two supply wagons could pass
each other without fighting for space. Seven fat towers studded this outer
curtain. Rickety webs of scaffolding surrounded three of the new towers even
now. Craftsmen scampered up and down the wooden beams as deftly as spiders,
raising barrels of mortar and flats of stone.
    The stone came from all over the
Northwest. Dense red sandstone, torn from the Fieran fortress of Ulmarr,
provided the foundation for Andett’s Bastion. More red stone topped the old
inner towers, increasing their height by three stories, so that sentries could
see over the outer wall. Clashing with the dull yellow-gray of the keep, this
red stone caused the turrets to blaze like flame in the light of the setting
sun.
     Scaffolding hemmed in the marvel
that was to be called Ruthan’s Skybridge. It connected one of the old curtain
towers to the northernmost new tower. Laral’s Skybridge, its twin to the south,
had been declared complete only a month ago. Laral had never seen anything like
these bridges. They were so expansive that a column of cavalry, twenty riders
abreast, could parade between the columns. They allowed the garrison to race
straight from the barracks in the inner gatehouse to the outer curtain without
having to descend one tower and climb another. The soldiers joked that one
might serve Tírandon for years without once touching the ground.
    Beyond the outer wall was not one
moat but two. A drawbridge spanned the first, a permanent bridge the second,
and between the two bodies of water stood the King’s Dike, a steep-sloped mound
from which Tírandon’s defenders could make a stand. Men and women from across
Tírandon’s lands had risen early this morning to resume digging on the outer
moat. Winter rain and snow had filled the first one already, and groundwater
wasn’t too deep here on the plain. Though the people were paid in coin and food
for their labor, they also toiled willingly because the razing of Tírandon remained
fresh in their nightmares.
    Laral’s, too, though he hadn’t
witnessed it.
    After the peace talks when Lander
finally returned home, he decided his oldest son had been mad indeed, going to
these elaborate extremes, and called a halt to the construction. As ever, King
Rhorek disagreed with him. “Let the building continue,” he’d said. “It was
Leshan’s desire to make Tírandon unbreachable. Your fortress will be our
greatest defense should war come again.”
    Free of the crowds of laborers and
craftsmen, Laral, Drys, and Kalla broke across open plain, scattering herds of
sheep. When they were well away from the vast shadow of the walls and Lord
Lander’s scrutiny, they slowed to a trot. “Do you really think your father will
disinherit you?” Kalla asked. Her curls shone like strands of copper in the
sunlight. She wore her hair in a sensible braid down her back. She wasn’t a
vain woman; at least, she made no attempt to hide a heavy rash of freckles and ears
that stuck out. Older than Laral and Drys, she’d been knighted the year before.
She carried her sword easily. Laral had yet to grow accustomed to the weight of
the new sword on his own belt. The training swords he’d practiced with had been
made of wood, and no one wanted to look foolish by wearing a training sword.
The real thing felt as cumbersome as a tail he’d grown in the night. He had
asked his father to permit him to carry Contention as well, but Lander refused
to part with the trophy he had won from the Warlord Goryth. The greatsword hung
in a place of honor above the mantelpiece in the Great Hall, its moonstone
gargoyle glimmering like a sulking ghost. The sword his father had commissioned
for him was fine enough. Rough-cut sapphire onyx, and mother-of-pearl shaped
Tírandon’s double