Child of the Daystar (The Wings of War Book 1)

by Bryce O'Connor

  Another day passed, then the next, and with every rising Sun Agais’ nervousness redoubled. Sleeping had become next to impossible for Grea, despite being confined to her bed, propped up by pillows against the wheel of the wagon. Her pain had subsided somewhat, her anxiety the only cause of restless nights now, but Agais couldn’t help but feel that it was the calm before the storm. Sure enough, after the clan’s tenth day at the edge of the Garin, the Grandmother appeared from their tent looking haggard, approaching the edgy husband who’d waited outside during her inspection.

  “Tomorrow,” she told him quietly, placing a hand on his arm. “The day after at the latest. Agais, I know we agreed not to tell her, but please—”

  “You can’t be sure,” he said flatly, not looking away from the tent. He pictured his child again, holding his son or daughter in his arms, and the light held. The Grandmother’s words barely grated him. “At this point I doubt I would tell her even if you could be. She’s too fragile.”

  The woman sighed, unhooking a lock of silvery hair that had gotten caught in her tribal chain and looping it behind her ear. “Fine. But if you aren’t going to tell her, at least prepare yourself. The vision was clear, Agais, the girl won’t—”

  “You. Can’t. Be. Sure,” he hissed, closing his mind to the words he imagined she would finish with. Moving around her, he nearly ripped off the leathered hides stepping inside.

  Grea was sitting up again, her sweet face bright and enlivened. Reaching out to take his hand, the woman pulled her husband down suddenly, wrapping her free arm around his neck to kiss him.

  “Tomorrow,” she breathed after she released his lips from her own, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on his. “Agais, tomorrow you will be a father.”

  “She said maybe the day after,” he whispered, hoping silently, not moving her arm from around his shoulders as he kneeled beside her. Before his knees even hit the mats, the man felt something sharp and cold wrench into his stomach and twist.

  Her Stars, he cursed silently. He was hoping for a delay of the moment he’d been anticipating for the past seven months of his life, ever since Grea had told him she was pregnant. He could feel his candle dimming and scrambled to hold onto it, trying to conjure his happy images.

  They wouldn’t come.

  Instead, all he could do was look into his wife’s face—his beautiful, loving wife—and imagine it twisted with pain, confusion, and immeasurable grief.

  What if? What if the Grandmother was right? What if the child didn’t survive? Could Grea, who so wanted to be the mother of the baby she bore in her womb, live past that tragedy? The idea of losing a daughter hurt Agais enough, but at the thought of losing his wife as well…

  “Grea…”

  But she wouldn’t let him speak. Instead she kissed him again, misunderstanding the building tears in his eyes for tears of joy. By the time she was done wordlessly telling her husband of her love for him, Agais’ strength was gone completely. He sat in silence for the next hour, holding his wife and rocking her gently until she mercifully dozed off.

  Morning dawned faster than any Agais could remember. The night had seemed fleeting, despite his own lack of sleep this time, and to the clanmaster the Sun rose so quickly he swore the day would pass like an hour. He stood outside the caravan, toeing the shallows of the Garin and watching morning come. Soon Grea would wake from her rare moment of rest, and then he wouldn’t leave her side again. He’d forgotten all about Raz for once, his entire being revolving around his wife, trying to feed the dying ember that was all that was left of his hope.

  The Grandmother had never been wrong before…

  From somewhere off to his left, amidst the palm grove, quiet music played on the wind, whispering its way into camp. Jarden was having an early morning as well, apparently, and Agais stood at the edge of the lake listening to his brother play a melody on his panpipes, praising the new day.

  And hopefully praying to the Moon that she would not have need to visit them tonight.

  ________________________

  By noon her water had broken, and within a few hours Grea’s labor was in full swing. The Grandmother and Agais hadn’t left the tent since late in the morning, and every other member of the clan knew better than to go in unless called. Even then only Delfry—with her own two daughters and her experience assisting in the birth of a half-dozen others—was asked to fetch water and aid with the tasks.

  Everyone else, for their part, went about their business as best they could, ignoring Grea’s pained keens. Kosen, the oldest member of the clan apart from the Grandmother, took over Agais’ responsibilities, delegating tasks to the rest of the family. When the Sun began to dip toward the western hills, Trina, Iriso, and Hannas started on making dinner as the rest of the women set up fishing lines baited with bits of meat. Izan and his brothers were sent with a few copper barons to buy dried fruit from the other clans along the lake border, then to fetch wood from the grove. Jarden took it upon himself to watch over Raz, distracting the confused boy by letting him play with the panpipes, amused as the infant tried to imitate him, blowing awkwardly down the wrong end of the tubes.

  Even so, eventually the birth became impossible to ignore, and some of the smaller children grew increasingly frightened by Grea’s building groans and cries. In an attempt to occupy them, Ovan shepherded the group out of the wagon rings and into the oasis shallows. Tolman, armed with a staff and the long dagger he’d always worn before joining the Arros, stood guard, watching the waters for dark shapes. Stripped naked, the little ones shouted and played, splashing left and right.

  It wasn’t long before Delfry appeared once again, looking drained and weighed down with a heavy pan filled to the brim. Tolman got up to help her, wrinkling his nose at the mix of water and sick inside.

  “Any news?” he asked quietly. Together they carried the heavy basin away from the playing children, pouring its putrid contents out deep in the trees and kicking sand over the spot. The Garin fed off an underground river, but it was common agreement that waste and other such things be given over to the desert rather than the lake. “How is she?”

  The exhausted woman glanced around quickly, making sure the happy exclamations were still a ways away before speaking.

  “She’s a good bit paler than we’d like, but the Grandmother isn’t worried about Grea,” Delfry told him, bending down to scrub the pan with sand. “The baby though… It hasn’t tried to emerge fully yet, but we saw its feet. She had to turn it around so that it will come out headfirst.”

  Tolman looked at her blankly in response. Getting to her feet, Delfry explained.

  “The baby has to come out head first or there’s a chance its neck will get caught. From there, freeing it can be… difficult.”

  “Ah,” Tolman said simply, nodding, and together the pair made their way back to the water’s edge.

  “There shouldn’t be a problem, though,” Delfry continued hopefully, filling the pan with clean water. “The Grandmother managed to turn the child around. Now all we can do is wait for it to come. Grea is doing her best to coax it, but it’s a stubborn thing. She’s exhausted, and the Grandmother’s already gotten her permission to trigger the delivery if it hasn’t started by nightfall. She has the plants necessary.”

  Tolman nodded, watching her go. Then, turning west, he grimaced, seeing the Sun’s lowest tip sink below the dunes in the distance. Returning to his place by the water, he sat down, hard pressed to watch the tiring children as the day came to a close.

  From the trees, though, another pair of eyes gazed hungrily across the shore. Attracted by the sounds and the scent of the birth, four clawed paws padded silently over the sand to crouch beneath the lowest brush that clung to the base of the palms.

  IX

  The child started to come just as night reached its fullness, Her Stars appearing one by one like bright witnesses in a dark sky. Tolman
could tell. Just as he and Ovan were gathering up the worn-out, dried and dressed children to return them to their parents, the distant groans of discomfort and pain reached a new level. Before long, Grea’s suffering howls pierced the quickly cooling air.

  “Hush,” Ovan told the youngest children clinging to him, patting Foeli’s head reassuringly. “You are hearing a miracle. There is nothing to be frightened of.”

  Tolman nodded in encouragement, and together the two men shepherded the group back into the wagon ring. The children huddled together on the far end of the circle from Agais and Grea’s tent, not much comforted. The women, too, seemed nervous. Understandable, considering almost half of them had young ones of their own. No doubt their day’s conversation had revolved around their own experiences, and how they thought Grea was doing.

  Tolman sat with his back to the space between his wagon and the one shared by Prida, Trina, and Kâtyn. The colorful fire in the center of the circle cast waves of steady heat across the camp, banishing the cold, but it did little to block out the sounds coming from the clanmaster’s tent. Tolman had hung up his dagger, but he kept his staff on hand instinctively. Maybe he was jumpy, his nerves set on edge by Grea’s continued labor, but the weight of the wood felt comforting in his callused palms.

  After a while Jarden reappeared from the Grandmother’s canvas hut, checking to see the progress on the night’s meal before coming to sit beside Tolman. For several minutes both men sat in silence, feeling out of their element.

  “How’s the boy?” Tolman asked eventually, more to spark conversation than anything. Forced exchange was preferable to whatever else they might hear tonight.

  “I left him to his own devices.” Jarden jumped on the opportunity. “The birth was making him nervous. I think he could smell it, oddly enough. Combine that with what he could hear, and I guess it’s understandable. He’s playing with that copper circlet he likes so much.”

  “You think it was best to leave him alone?”

  Jarden shrugged. “I tried bringing him outside at one point, but he didn’t seem keen on the idea. Maybe it’s best we give him some space. Between the lot of us, he hasn’t had any time to himself in the last month.”

  “I don’t think time means much when you’re out cold for two weeks,” Tolman chuckled. “And outside of that, I don’t really know how much space a toddler needs on his own.”

  Jarden smirked, kicking sand out from between his bare toes. “Young he might be, but I swear the boy has an old mind between those spiny ears. You were already with us when Hannas’ and Iriso’s whelps were young.” He jerked his head at the group of children Ovan was now distracting with exuberant storytelling, his arms swinging upward to hold an invisible sword aloft, depicting some heroic moment. “Slobbering little things, you know what I mean. And the Grandmother says that Raz hasn’t yet reached three summers. We think the atherian are beneath us, but that boy does a lot to make me question it. I’ve never known a human child of two capable of making himself understood as well as him, and that’s without speaking a word of the common tongue.”

  “True enough,” Tolman acknowledged, “but what if he isn’t actually as young as the Grandmother says? What if he’s just stunted, or a runt?”

  “Ha!” Jarden snorted, grinning. “A winged male, the runt of the atherian breed. Sounds like the start of a bad joke… But I guess it could explain much. Still, I think I’ll trust the Grandmother, as should you.”

  Tolman nodded. Although he sometimes found the rest of the Arros’ generally one-sided opinion of the old woman tiresome, he couldn’t deny her wisdom. She was never wrong.

  “I’d rather put my trust in her being able to get that poor girl through her labor,” Tolman muttered, listening to Grea’s moans pick up again from across the fire. “How long do you think…?”

  But he stopped midsentence. His eyes were fixed on the dark space between Agais’ tent and the Grandmother’s, open to the desert beyond. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but he’d thought he’d seen something glimmer and blink through the night, catching the light of the cooking fire. Only black stared back now, but nomadic life rarely led a man to brush such things aside so easily.

  “What is it?” Jarden asked, dropping his voice, following Tolman’s eyes into the dark. Ever the fighter.

  “Something’s moving out there,” the man said steadily, trying to peer into the space from where he sat.

  Jarden tensed beside him. “Yes,” he hissed. “I see it.”

  Tolman traced the champion’s gaze just in time to see an unnatural shadow flick through the next opening in the caravan ring. As one the two men got up casually, not wanting to alarm the others, and split around the fire. Jarden made for the place he’d seen the motion, Tolman for the space beside it in the direction the shape had been moving. They passed the tents and carts quietly. Ovan’s loud storytelling faded as they stepped out, one after the other, into the cool desert night. Their outlines danced across the sand before them, towering figures cast by the flames. Tolman kneeled to look under the closest wagon—Ishmal’s—but found nothing. He got to his feet, searching the oasis around him again before glancing back at Jarden, who shook his head, motioning Tolman to circle to the left. He would do the right. Nodding, Tolman made his way around the ring, careful to stay low and quiet.

  The Garin was still, the lake a pristine sheet of liquid glass that reflected the Moon above almost perfectly. Crickets sang from the palms as he searched, orchestrating their evening chorus. Reaching the third wagon, Tolman peered beneath it as well.

  Still nothing.

  Jarden seemed to have taken more time, so Tolman moved on to the fourth cart, his anxiety fading. Likely it had just been a child from a new-come clan, curious to see other families. Or perhaps one of the dogs that some of the nomads kept. He knelt down one last time to examine the three-foot space between the wagon’s worn under-bed and the sand. Only darkness looked back at him.

  Jarden appeared at that moment, coming from around the ring. He shook his head to indicate he’d found nothing out of the ordinary, and Tolman was about to return the gesture when he froze.

  Beneath the cart the shadows twitched.

  The man didn’t budge, hardly even breathing. Despite the precautions, Jarden saw his body language change and so, it seemed, did the thing under the cart.

  There was a faint growl, building throatily as two points of glinting light cut through the black. The sound climaxed in a feral yowl, and the sandcat pounced. Tolman felt wide-set claws dig into his chest, and he was bowled backwards, his staff flying from his grasp. For a brief instant he could see the end of his life sitting atop him as the three-hundred pounds of muscle, bone, and teeth weighed him down. Then the pressure was gone, and he felt the cat spring away, its attention fixed elsewhere.

  The camp.

  “NO!” he yelled, scrambling to stand. Jarden cursed, already chasing after the animal, sand spraying from beneath his feet. He followed it between the wagons and into the caravan ring. Swearing to himself, Tolman followed, snatching his staff from the ground.

  The first thing he heard was the women scream.

  The scene was one of instant chaos, the fact that a birth was happening completely forgotten. The great cauldron lay abandoned over the fire, the makeshift cooks scattered. Jarden was pulling a flaming branch from the blaze, sending sparks jetting into the air in a thousand twisting directions. Ovan had somehow managed to get between the sandcat and the children, spreading his arms in an attempt to shield them.

  Unsurprisingly, the animal did not seem to take this too kindly.

  It was a massive thing, bigger than any Tolman had ever seen. Nearly eight feet long from nose to tail, sinewy muscle bunched under a light-brown coat. It circled the group on flat paws that let it move across even loose sand without leaving tracks. A hand-span of white fur, marking it as a fully matured female, encircled its
neck. Tufts of longer white hairs protruded at the tip of each ear, like the smaller wildcats that prowled the North’s wild ranges. Yellowish fangs the size and breadth of a man’s thumb bared as Ovan kicked sand in its face and yelled, trying to scare it off. The cat snarled, black eyes glinting.

  Then, before anyone could so much as yell a warning, it pounced.

  Ovan went down, a paw catching him in the side of the head, claws extended. There was a snap and the man collapsed, his neck at an odd angle, falling into a heap in the sand. Without pausing the cat twisted, going for the closest child within reach. Mychal—Achtel and Iriso’s oldest—screamed as the beast’s jaws clamped around his left knee. At once it began shuffling backwards, dragging him kicking and shrieking out toward the edge of camp.

  “NO!” Jarden screamed this time, leaping after the animal. It pulled the thrashing boy into the night, circling back around the wagons, heading for the trees. Jarden wielded his flaming branch like a sword, swinging it left and right before Tolman joined him, leaping over Ovan’s body in his haste to help. Behind him he heard a woman—Iriso, it must have been—screaming through her sobs.

  Together the two men chased after the sandcat as it dragged the boy away, moving quickly despite Mychal’s added weight. It was nearly in the darkness of the palms when they finally caught it, and Jarden swung his fiery weapon at the animal’s head, intent on freeing the child. He missed, but the threatening blaze and showering sparks were enough to make the cat release its prey and snarl, baring teeth again.