Culling of the Blood

Chapter 3-Wicked Men, Wicked Schemes

Falcons did not build nests like other birds of prey, who used sticks to build their eyries. Falcons built scrapes, which they dug out of rock with their talons, usually in some cliffside overlooking a valley, where their speed and accuracy gave them advantage over their prey.

    Quadir's knowledge of the noble birds came from Vernon Jacks, a falconer who had come to the Thaddeus Stevens Home for Boys to give a demonstration with his prized falcon, Atticus. While the other boys joked about killing the bird and frying it for dinner, Quadir's fascination led to a chance encounter where he got to actually handle the animal and even feed it.

    A professional vagabond actor, Vernon saw the tragedy of Quadir's life. Determined to give the fifth act a happy ending, he went through the motions to become a foster parent, a difficult feat for a man with no permanent address and no bank account. But after much petitioning in the courts, the curtain fell, and fifteen turbulent years of physical and sexual abuse ended with Quadir leaving the courthouse in Vernon's custody.

    He smiled. Ten years ago, the only man he considered to be his father brought him home to the Mt. Hope Estate and Winery, the site of the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire and gave him an eccentric, extended family of actors, jugglers, and mud beggars, as well as a love of medieval combat and bawdy drinking songs in Gaelic. That reality was another world, another lifetime away.

    Sitting in knee-high grass near a ruined watchtower, Quadir stared into the vast expanse of lowlands beyond him. It was the perfect place for a falcon to build its scrape in the deteriorating stone. Some centuries old, the structure was barely recognizable, save for the remnants of the tower walls themselves. Its strategic advantage, however, was evident, offering a true bird's eye view of the valley.

    In a last act, Darach had put this sight in Quadir's mind so that his gift could bring them to this specific location. The place where the old man wanted to be buried.

    Shirtless, Quadir was still sweating from his efforts to dig a grave by hand and then cover the mound with stone from the fallen tower. A wind blew across him from the direction of the forest. It smelled of earth and pine, and he shivered. Shrugging the padded gambeson over his shoulders, Quadir pressed his hands against his face in exhaustion.

    His hands were stained with the old man's blood. It was stale and smelled of rust. Lurching to his feet, he ran to the precipice and puked over the side. Overcome by a sense of vertigo and abject terror, he fell to his knees. As often as he had dreamed of going to sleep and waking up in a fantasy world, he never believed it would actually happen.

    Merlin grazed nearby, content in the high grass, tail swishing at the occasional fly. Quadir wished that he could find such peace of mind. He retrieved his baldric and unsheathed the longsword. Ith'nael—steel infused with silver. In the waning sunlight, he could see the peculiar contrast of textures in the metal as he ran his thumb along the polished edge. This blade was his only connection to a mother he never knew and never would know. With a heavy sigh, he returned to the grave to pay his final respects.

    Beneath a solitary oak tree that had matured in the ruins, a testament to the passage of time, Darach's sword stood sentinel over the swordsman's grave as a tombstone. With the medallion broken, according to the old man, the sword was useless, despite any value it held to collectors. He doubted anyone would look for the blade in so remote a location, and trusted that if it had become as brittle as the old man said, it might break if anyone tried to remove it.

    "Daol sidh fanil," Quadir whispered, wondering at the meaning of the words when a distant scream pierced the silence.

    Whistling through pursed lips, Quadir threw the baldric over his shoulder and scrambled up a collapsed stonewall. Merlin cantered to him, still in motion as Quadir leaped to his back.