The Brush of Black Wings

by Grace Draven

  THE BRUSH

  OF

  BLACK WINGS

  by

  Grace Draven

  The Brush of Black Wings - Copyright © 2014 by Grace Draven.

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Dedicated to Lora Gasway:

  My editor and friend.

  Thank you.

  CHAPTER ONE

  On a snowy winter morning, Martise of Neith—once of Asher—opened a gate and awakened darkness.

  Such hadn’t been her intent when she rose in the pre-dawn hours from the warm bed she shared with her husband. The coals in the brazier had long gone cold, and Martise’s breath drifted from her mouth and nose in ghostly pants as she threw on clothing as fast as her shaking hands allowed.

  Silhara lay still in their bed facing her, half covered. Martise made out the silhouette of an arm and shoulder and the lock of long white hair that draped across his throat. She leaned over and twitched the blankets up to cover him. His eyes snapped open, and she fancied she glimpsed a tinge of red in the black irises as he stared at her.

  He blinked slowly. “What are you doing up so early?” He captured her wrist and tugged. “Come back to bed. I’ll warm you.”

  Martise smiled and resisted his gentle but relentless tugging. For Silhara, warming her meant making love to her until the sun’s first rays bled through the closed shutters. She enjoyed his methods for chasing away the cold, but this morning she couldn’t indulge.

  She pulled her hand free. “You can warm me later. The snows have come, and I promised Gurn I’d hunt the blue parasol.”

  Silhara rolled onto his back and flung an arm across his eyes. “Why can’t Gurn gather his precious mushrooms himself?”

  Martise sat on the edge of the bed to roll on her stockings. She lightly slapped Silhara’s hand as it wandered over her leg toward the juncture of her thighs. “Because he’ll be preparing a nice hash for your breakfast while I get the mushrooms. Besides, it’s bitter out there right now, and his bones hurt when the cold settles in like this.”

  “My bones hurt too, woman—one in particular. You should stay here and ease the ache.” Silhara rolled towards her, pressing an impressive erection against her back. He clasped her to him.

  Martise laughed and looked over her shoulder. Silhara’s face was obscured in shadow, though she caught the wiggle of his eyebrows as he tried to coax her back to bed. “I’ll make it up to you this afternoon.”

  Silhara growled, removed his arm and gave her a light push off the bed. “Go find your fungus and tell Gurn I’ll rip his entrails out after breakfast for ruining my morning.” He turned on his side away from her and yanked the covers over his head.

  Martise slipped on her shoes and heavy cloak and left Silhara to his sullen pout. The third floor corridor was sepulchre-black, but she walked it without benefit of lamp or witchlight. In the nearly five years she’d lived at Neith, she’d grown accustomed to its pitched floors, creaking floor boards and occasional holes through which the careless might fall to the lower floors. Silhara and Gurn had repaired the worst of them, but anyone unfamiliar with the Master of Crows’ ramshackle fortress took their life in their hands trying to traverse the halls in the dark.

  She found Gurn already in the kitchen. Dressed and busily chopping potatoes and a cut of mutton at one of the weather-beaten tables, the giant servant greeted her with a wave of his knife. A fire burned in the corner hearth, bathing the room in yellow light that reflected off Gurn’s bald pate. A skillet nestled in the heating coals alongside a kettle.

  Cael lay stretched out in his usual place half under the main table. The scruffy magefinder’s tail thumped a dull tattoo on the floor when he saw her. He raised his head to give her a whuffled greeting but didn’t leave his spot. Martise took her place on the bench and rubbed her foot along the length of his side, sending up puffs of dust from his coarse gray fur.

  She spotted the cup of hot tea Gurn had poured for her and toasted him in thanks. “This will go far to warm me up, Gurn.” She glanced at the basket on the table. “If there’s enough to pick, do you want me to fill the basket?”

  He nodded and set the knife down so he could sign to her with both hands. Martise’s aptitude with languages had served her and Gurn well. She’d been able to translate his sign language during her first few weeks at Neith, and Gurn’s wordless commentary remained a source of amusement, often at his master’s expense. His latest remarks about his Holy Laziness still lolling about in bed made her grin.

  She finished her tea and grabbed the basket. “You might want to hang onto that knife. He’s promised to disembowel you for destroying his morning.” She didn’t have to elaborate on how or why Gurn had accomplished such a feat. The servant knew him well.

  Martise laughed as Gurn’s hands sketched symbols rapid-fire in the air. She had no doubt the servant would later repeat to his master what he just told her—that if Lord Horse’s Ass was that hard up for a swiving, he’d just have to make do with his hand this morning.

  Her laughter ceased abruptly when she opened the door to the bailey and breathed the open air. A shudder racked her from head to toe. She froze her lungs with that inhalation. The sky was the color of lead, canopied by a low ceiling of clouds fat with snow. The bailey sparkled in the wan light, transformed from its usual muddy pit to a pristine white landscape.

  Gurn predicted the previous day they’d have snow by evening. He’d rubbed his elbows and knees, wincing. His aches and pains proved prophetic. Snow began falling by mid afternoon and continued through the night—perfect weather for the sprouting of parasol mushrooms. Martise volunteered to gather the short-blooming delicacy, and Gurn eagerly accepted her offer.

  She looked down at the warm weight suddenly pressed against her side. Cael emitted a soft bark before trotting into the bailey. He stopped, gazed at her and barked again as if to tell her to move it along. Martise pulled gloves over her chilly hands. “Looks like I’ll have company.” She waved to Gurn and joined Cael.

  Woman and dog left the bailey and tromped through the snow blanketing the property. They passed the skeleton of the west wing with its shattered bones of stone blocks littering the ground. The broken bits of masonry lay hidden under powdery white drifts. The rusted gates separating the main grounds from Neith’s woodland screeched a protest as Martise nudged them open and slipped through with Cael beside her.

  A wide boulevard bisected the forest that shielded Neith’s entrance. Beyond the dark trees, the vast plain of grassland, brittle and brown during the winter months, stretched toward the far coast. The wood itself, steeped in Silhara’s curse magic, kept out any wayward travelers looking for shelter. Towering oaks loomed dark and threatening along Neith’s northern border, their gnarled branches gripping each other in silent struggle.

  The forest had frightened her when she’d first come here—a slave with a purpose, a spy with a mission. Everything about Neith did, most especially its master. Much had changed since then. Neith’s heretic mage was her husband, and the cursed wood a part of her home. She feared ne
ither now.

  She abandoned the broad avenue, choosing a narrow path leading into the forest. An arcade of colossal trees stretched into the gloom, fading to obscurity in the gray haze that filtered through the clerestory gaps in the branch canopy.

  Cael bounded ahead, sending sprays of snow into the air. Martise caught a twitch of movement in the corner of her eye. The magefinder bolted after it, his dusky coat rendering him invisible as he disappeared into the leafless oaks’ shadows. Martise guessed he chased rabbit or fox. She hoped that whatever he ran to ground, he wouldn’t bring it back to share.

  She strolled after him. The anemic morning light faded. Though bare during winter, the tree branches twined together so tightly in their grappling embrace, they left the ground below them in a perpetual gloaming, home to nocturnal hunters and things that thrived in half light.

  Something swooped past her, lifting Martise’s hair with a brush of wings. An indignant caw followed, and she sighted a crow as it landed on a high branch above her. The bird shook vigorously, wings ruffling, and sent a shower of snow down on her.

  Martise gave a small shriek, wiped at the snow dusting her hair and shoulders and raised a fist at the crow. “Stupid bird.” It stared at her from its perch, head cocked to one side. She fancied it laughed at her predicament.

  She marched deeper into the wood, keeping an eye out for the parasol mushrooms growing on piles of snow-covered deadfall. The crow followed, hopping from branch to branch, tree to tree.

  Her first cluster of mushrooms hugged the remains of a fallen oak. They looked like bouquets of luminescent flowers or tiny parasols from afar. Painted in shades of indigo and lavender dotted with red spores on their gills, the mushrooms glowed softly in a colorful cluster. Martise knelt before them and fished her shears out of the basket. The mushrooms’ spongy stipes stood tall and easy to pick by hand, but the caps were delicate and popped off if tugged too hard.

  Gurn had been specific in his instructions. He wanted the mushrooms whole and intact, so Martise carefully snipped at the base of the stipes until she’d cleared her first patch. She had a lot more to pick before the basket was full, but she was resolved to return to a Gurn happy with her harvest.

  She continued her hunt, stopping thrice more to pick mushrooms. An azure incandescence surrounded her basket and lit the dark trunks of sleeping trees as she passed. Cael rejoined her, tongue lolling, fangs glistening with blood.

  She flinched. Cael considered her part of his pack—would kill and die for her if necessary. But he was a magefinder, and she’d once been a Gifted. In the ancient days, when the Gifted were persecuted, magefinders hunted them like prey. Centuries had passed since those days of slaughter, and now the Gifted used the dogs for their own purposes. Still, any who wielded a Gift knew of the savage history between mage and magefinder and wondered when the long-ago hunter might hunt them once more.

  Cael leaned into, smacking her skirts with his whip-like tail as she carded her fingers through his wiry coat. “Good dog,” she murmured. “Welcome back.” He stayed beside her, pausing once to stare at the crow that cawed and trailed them through the trees.

  They reached the innermost sanctum of the wood and the carcass of a stone structure nestled in a natural clearing. A ring of mushrooms encircled the ruin, more than enough to fill her basket to overflowing. Gurn would be delighted, and Silhara, who loved the delicacy despite his earlier protestations of her abandoning him for them, might be pacified with her offering.

  She stepped into the clearing, her curiosity piqued by the crumbling ruin. Once some kind of peristyle or open temple, the architecture was old—like Neith itself—and built by those whose veins didn’t course with human blood. It stood in the middle of a spoked-wheel design half obscured by snowfall. That she could see some of the wheel hinted at sorcery once strong, alive and possibly dark. Grass still didn’t grow along the spokes’ outlines.

  Brittle vines clung to broken colonnades carved with abstract symbols. Literate in several ancient languages, Martise couldn’t decipher the cryptic marks—swirls and lines set in haphazard patterns, abstract animals and what looked like faces blunted and weathered by time and the elements. A set of steps elevated the interior room with its partially collapsed roof. The same stone used to build the colonnades paved the raised floor and bore similar carvings. The chiseled outline of a smaller circle—possible remnants of an altar—decorated a center paver.

  Ruins like these littered this patch of woodland. Silhara had told her most were nothing more than decrepit hulks, like the fortress itself. “A few,” he warned, “still carry the ghost of their power. I’ve marked those.” His black eyes had frozen her in place. “Stay away from them, Martise. They can be dangerous.”

  Martise saw no markers for this one but hung back. As if he knew what she hunted, Cael avoided the mushrooms while he reconnoitered the ruin’s perimeter, sniffing the ground and snorting. She watched him, looking for any bristling of fur or the reddening of his eyes that signaled unfamiliar magic lingered here. The magefinder completed his circuit, gave her a soft “woof” as if to say things had passed his inspection and loped away in pursuit of some other creature unfortunate enough to capture his attention.

  Reassured by the dog’s actions, she approached the temple’s perimeter and set to work filling her basket. The woods remained silent, even as the morning aged and sunlight snaked through the twisted canopy above her. No birds whistled or chirped. Even the crow that perched sentinel in a nearby tree stayed quiet. Neith’s woodland bent to the will of its master, watchful and waiting for any who might trespass.

  The shears grew heavy in her hands. Even with her gloves on, her fingers were stiff with cold. Martise traveled a quarter of the distance around the ruin when she tripped on a hidden root. She caught herself, bracing a hand on the ruin’s lowest step. An odd resonance, like the clanging of a funeral bell, thrummed the earth under her knees, and invisible fire surged up her arm.

  She yelped and jerked her hand off the stone. A mournful sigh breathed through the trees in response. Martise leapt to her feet, fingers realigning until she gripped the shears like a dagger. The urge to call for Cael battled with the instinctive command to remain quiet and listen. A heaviness saturated the air, similar to that feeling before a rainstorm. But there was no dampness beyond the snow that turned her hem sodden and no thunder in the distance.

  She scanned the wood, peering into its undulating shadows. Her arm still tingled, and her little finger twitched in involuntary spasms before going still. The crow watched her from its branch. No other sound followed the sigh, and she began to wonder if she’d simply imagined it or mistook the muted keening of the wind for something else. She hadn’t imagined the bolt of power.

  Green sparks danced at the corner of her vision, and Martise turned to stare at the temple. Within its raised circle, witchlight danced like frantic fireflies, bouncing off the columns and back to the center as if caged by invisible bars.

  The lights multiplied until thousands swirled in a shimmering veil that grew tighter and tighter, coalescing into a coruscating pillar of radiance that pulsed from the center of the circle carved into the floor.

  Martise recoiled and dropped her basket. Memories flooded her mind. A muddied tor, and at its crown a similar column that pulsed poisonous light, trapping Silhara in its grip as he dueled a corrupt god for his life and soul.

  The residual tingle in her arm strengthened and spread, sliding across her chest and shoulders, down her hips and into her legs. It pooled at the base of her spine, pushing and shoving until she was physically forced to take a step toward the ruin. She dug in her heels in a futile attempt to resist. Her feet slid across the snow in an involuntary stumble.

  “No you don’t,” she snapped. She dropped to her backside, shears forgotten beside her. While her feet stretched toward the stone, she was able to stay in place away from the steps.

  The pulsing light flickered from the palest viridescent to the deepest emerald. Where
it thinned, she caught shadows of things that cavorted and wriggled. Some were sinuous, as long and serpentine as vipers. Others were squat and scurried rat-like along the column’s spangled walls. A tall shadow took form within its confines, a blacker shape amongst the green.

  It solidified for a moment, revealing a man with princely features and the mad eyes of a demon. Martise gasped and scuttled back on her elbows, resisting the hard pull on her spine. The man wore dark, flowing robes that coiled around him with a life of their own, their edges caressing his legs with phantasmic fingers. He watched her, an icy smile curving his mouth.

  He raised a hand as if in greeting or recognition. “Kashaptu,” he said in a voice funereal and thick with the echoes of ghosts.

  Magic—once familiar—shot through her. She cried out as the Gift she thought shattered in a battle for her husband’s life resurrected inside her in a burst of heat and pain. It bled out of her skin in a flash of white light, ricocheted off the ruin’s invisible barrier and struck a nearby oak. Wood cracked, and the tree split cleanly in half as if sliced through with a sword. Branches fell into other trees, snapping limbs like desiccated bones until both halves of the trunk hit the ground with a thunderous boom and a shower of snow. The crow took flight, along with a host of other heretofore camouflaged birds.

  Martise clutched her midriff, gasping for breath. The column of light pulsed, and the figure within watched her with eyes like sword blades caught in sunlight-bright, hard, utterly inhuman.

  An elegant hand pressed against the light, spraying green sparks from his fingertips. “Kashaptu, mi peti babka.” The nonsensical words spilled from the specter’s mouth, no less commanding for being whispered.

  Unseen hands pulled on unseen strings, and Martise was yanked up like a puppet. She growled and planted her feet, furrowing tracks in the snow as an ancient power dragged her closer to the light. Her terror gave rise to her rage, and that she poured into her Gift, awake and aware inside her. Her magic had once attacked and destroyed a lich to save itself. She prayed it would do the same now to the creature battling her for control.