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

by Bryce O'Connor

  The scorpion didn’t retreat too far. A few feet away it stopped, pincers raised and snapping at the air menacingly, the venomous tip of its barbed tail curling like a deadly whip above its head. All eight black eyes glistened, reflecting the Sun and sand and Raz, who stood his ground, crouched in Jarden’s favorite defensive position.

  There was a pause. The scorpion seemed to be contemplating what to do next. The wagon ring was barely a dozen yards away, the horse it had already stung convulsing at its edge while a half-dozen men and women tried to calm the poor animal. Only the atherian, with his slender stick, stood in the way of nearly a half ton of fresh meat…

  Without warning the scorpion lunged forward. It rushed Raz so fast he was nearly caught off guard. Jarden’s staff was knocked from his hand when the beast’s barb shot toward his chest, but Raz was just as quick. Dodging to the side, his clawed hand moved in a blur, catching the base of the stinger.

  His own tail swung in a heavy arch.

  Scaled muscle connected with a bony joint, and with a crack that made even Raz flinch, the scorpion’s tail snapped clean off. The beast shrieked again, but before it could retreat once more Raz leapt on its back, his weight almost pinning it to the ground. Drawing the long dagger from his belt, he rode out the beast’s mad turns and bucks, wings high and out of reach. For some time they struggled, the scorpion jerking about, fighting to catch him and pull him off, but to no avail. Eventually the dagger tip found an overlap in the carapace, and the fight ended abruptly as steel slid home.

  For a while Raz lay there, breathing hard but not loosening his grip on the scorpion’s shell. Only when greenish blood began to ooze convincingly from around the hilt of his dagger did he relent. Wrinkling his snout at the stench, he stood up, pulling the weapon loose and wiping the blade against the side of his baggy cloth shorts before turning around.

  The group surrounding the stung horse—now motionless and very clearly dead—had grown. One of the kneeling men looked around when Raz moved toward them, glanced back at the still scorpion, then flashed a grim smile.

  “Took you long enough to handle the roach,” Jarden joked halfheartedly, getting to his feet.

  “There’s just something about inch-thick armor, big claws, and a fist-sized stinger I can’t seem to get around,” Raz responded with a shrug, playing along. Jarden snorted.

  In the thirteen years that had passed since the events along the shores of the Garin, a thousand things had changed. The Arros, once only one of the larger nomadic clans to travel the desert routes, had arguably become the leading trade family in the Cienbal. They were thirty-nine strong now and still growing. If the rumors were true, Agais and Grea’s attempt at a third child would notch them up to a solid forty within the next year. They already had one newcomer—Ahna, their daughter of eight, and Raz’s favorite little companion.

  “The horse can be buried.”

  Agais got to his feet. Still a strong man, the clanmaster was only just starting to show the signs of quickly passing years. He stood tall and looked around, silver chain shining over a thick beard that held only the slightest hints of gray in the bleached white. Squinting—his eyes had been slowly going bad in the last half decade—he frowned at the animal at his feet.

  “I’d say save the meat, but the poison won’t cook out. Have Samso, Ivas, and Ahsabet help you, Jarden. I have to meet with the Grandmother, but I’ll be back to lend a hand.”

  “It wouldn’t bother me!” Raz called out in an amused tone from where he was retrieving his uncle’s staff. “And I’m starving!”

  Agais and Jarden chuckled while the women in the group made a face.

  “Raz i’Syul Arro,” Grea warned sternly, standing up beside her husband and glaring, “if I hear even a whisper that you took so much as a nip out of this poor beast’s hide, I swear by the Twins I’ll add your skin to the Grandmother’s wagon by nightfall.”

  Raz shuffled his feet, ducking his reptilian head, webbed ears flattened.

  “Yes, Mama,” he murmured, abashed. Jarden chuckled again, helpless, until Grea shot him a look too. He snapped to attention, winning a brief smile.

  “I’ll keep an eye on your boy, don’t worry,” he told her, relaxing and looking down at the horse. “Damned shame, though. We’ll have to buy another animal for Tolman’s cart once we get to Karth.”

  “It’s definitely a problem,” Tolman himself agreed sadly from the other side of the circle, patting the dead mare he was kneeling beside. Prida—his wife of six years now—stood next to him, one hand on his shoulder, the other hitching their little boy, Aigos, after Agais and Jarden’s father, higher on her hip.

  “We aren’t far,” the young woman said. “We’ll manage. The least we can do is give the poor creature a proper burial.”

  Jarden, Agais, and Tolman all nodded, and soon everyone was back about their usual business.

  “You’d think a scorpion attack would have flustered them even a little,” Asahbet muttered after Jarden sent one of the boys to get the shovels.

  Jarden shrugged. “Raz can handle himself,” he said, glancing at the atherian behind them now rubbing sand on the stave in an attempt to clean off the greenish blood. “I wasn’t worried.”

  “It was a good fight,” Asahbet agreed with a mischievous smile. The skinny boy had developed into a strong, handsome man, filling out and sprouting until even Jarden was looking up to him. His brothers, too, had grown, especially in the time since their father had remarried to Leda, a shy and kindly woman from the fringe city of Cyro. The two had birthed another girl, Giovi, who was nearly eleven summers old now. Izan, Ishmal’s oldest, had also married, though any talk of children made the poor boy cringe and his wife, Yahna, giggle and blush.

  Still, no matter how big they had gotten, even Asahbet and his brothers had to look up to Raz.

  Jarden watched the boy finish polishing the wood clean and stand up, giving his folded wings a thoughtless shake to clear the sand from their frayed edges. Well over six and a half feet tall and at a thought to be sixteen summers of age, Raz was a beast of a man—or that was the common joke amongst the family. His body was long and strong, rippling with lithe muscle beneath dark scaled skin. When he moved toward them it was on the balls of his feet, like the rest of his species, his tail lifted above the sand behind him. His clawed hands, ringed with the silver bangles and wooden bracelet he’d been given when he’d first come to the Arros, were still slightly too big for his body, foretelling yet more growth in future years.

  Or months, Jarden thought.

  It wasn’t just how much he’d grown, though. Raz had changed in truth, in both body and mind. Not only was it the membrane of his wings, ears, and crest, steadily fading as he got older from aquamarine to sky blue, hinting of a sunset at the edges now. Not only was it the slim iron clan-chain that ran from one nostril at the end of his reptilian snout to the base of his right ear. Raz had learned and developed as a child. A human child. He’d taken to the language like he’d been born to it, though he continued to have some trouble with a few pronunciations. Still, he was getting better with each passing year.

  And the customs? The beliefs? No one cursed or swore to the Sun and Moon more than Raz i’Syul Arro. And—as he slept less than the rest of his family—he could often be found sitting on the roof of Agais and Grea’s hardtop wagon in the earliest hours of the morning, taking in Her Stars, his personal deities.

  He wasn’t perfect, of course. No child ever was. Raz’s imperfections were simply… different. When it came to his responsibilities as a son, Agais could often be overheard boasting proudly that the boy was a gift. He was strong and fast and loyal, always ready to help. As a man, Raz was developing into one of exceptional character, always to be counted on.

  It was just the part of him that was not man, the wedge of his instincts that were animal, that Raz had trouble dealing with on occasion.

  He ate
nothing but meat and fish, preferring it raw when his mother allowed it. More than once in a fight Raz had lost his grip, finding himself with a mouthful of human or animal flesh that was already halfway down his throat. Though he’d never hurt anyone who’d meant him no harm, Raz had killed to protect his family, just as Jarden had killed to protect them before his strange nephew had come along.

  And it hadn’t bothered Jarden half as much as it bothered Raz.

  “Aw, come on! Just one bite!”

  Jarden blinked, turning to watch Raz and Asahbet.

  “No.” Asahbet smiled, punching his cousin’s scaly chest jokingly. “You heard your mother. Grea would have our heads if she found out.”

  “Not all of them,” Jarden cut in, jumping forward and plucking his borrowed staff from Raz’s grip. “Just mine. I’m the responsible adult here, after all.”

  “Right,” Ivas interrupted, returning with Samso, one of the Arro’s younger newcomers, and all five of the camp’s shovels. “And the Grandmother is the Moon herself, while Raz is being named king of the North mountain tribes today.”

  “So long as they don’t tell me I have to be human, that’s fine,” Raz retorted, sticking his forked tongue out. “I could smell you from across the camp, Ivas. Humans reek—or wait, that might just be you.”

  Ivas threw a shovel at him. Raz caught it, making that sharp series of odd throaty sounds they all knew to be laughter. Grinning to a one, they got to work, a little ashamed to be so amused over the sad body of the dead horse.

  ________________________

  Tucked away in her wagon, the Grandmother sat cross-legged on a cushion at the low circular table that took up the center of the cart floor. The years had been kind to her. They always had. But as blessed as she seemed, even the old woman could feel the weight of time start to pull at her thin frame. Her hair, once more bleached than silver, was a pale sheet of silken gray now, tied in the tight bun she’d always preferred. Her eyes were still good, even better than Agais’ in fact, but they strained today to see the bones she tossed across the table for a third time, her frown deepening the wrinkles that lined her aged face.

  Always the bird skulls and lizard jaws had turned out favorable signs for the Arros, promising a good year of trade. It was a quick tell, one that needed usually only be thrown once or twice to make the signs clear. But not this year.

  This year the bones offered nothing.

  Gathering them in her hands once more, the Grandmother tossed for a fourth time, scattering them wide. Sometimes space made the telling clearer, easier to decipher.

  After a full minute of staring, though, the old woman frowned again.

  Nothing.

  She was at a loss. Never before had she thrown the bones and not found a single sign. Always there was something. Not necessarily clear enough to tell her anything distinct, but at least enough to offer her some minor glimpse of what she was looking for…

  Now, though, it was as though the bones had been scattered aimlessly, like toys a child had forgotten to clean up after play.

  The cart was momentarily filled with a flood of bright sunlight. Agais grunted, heaving himself into the narrow space. Replacing the skins carefully behind him, the man stood up, blinking in the sudden shade.

  “Anything interesting?” he asked after his eyes adjusted, noticing the bones and crouching down on the other side of the table.

  “Not in the least,” the old woman replied with a huff, rubbing her temples. “I’ve nothing for you, Agais. I see no signs.”

  To her surprise, the man laughed

  “You don’t find it odd?” she asked. Agais shrugged, looking around at the odd baubles of glass and crystal that hung from the Grandmother’s ceiling.

  “I suppose I find it odd, but what’s the point in concern? We’ve yet to be led astray following our own path.”

  The Grandmother didn’t reply, looking back at the table.

  “Our path… yes…” she said after a moment, frowning. “But our path was always advised…”

  “Well, then the telling will come eventually,” Agais grunted, standing back up. “For now, though, we’re less than four days from Karth, so I doubt the Twins will oppose a visit to the place, even if it is a dump.”

  He made for the front of the wagon and pulled the flaps aside, bathing the hide walls with light once more.

  “Send for me if you find anything,” he told the Grandmother, shading his eyes with a hand. “And stop worrying.” He smiled. “A little hard work will do this family good after the lazy few years we’ve had.”

  As he leapt down and let the flap fall back into place behind him, he heard the Grandmother chuckle.

  Moving across the circled wagons, enjoying the give of the sand beneath his feet, Agais made a mental count of everyone he came across. Ovan had been the only loss the Arros had suffered at the hands of an animal attack in thirty years, but the memories of burying the man’s broken body hadn’t faded in the least over thirteen summers. Agais had formed a habit of making sure everyone was accounted for anytime something similar occurred. Most of the clan had been around the horse while Raz dealt with the scorpion, but the clanmaster knew he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d seen everyone well and whole.

  Achtel and Iriso had been at the scene, but their young son Razi had not. The twelve-year-old boy was childishly sly to a fault, much like his namesake growing up, but Raz had been far too young at the birth to realize the honor Iriso was giving him. Sure enough, Agais found Razi under his father’s cart, filling the pockets of an unfortunate someone’s spare pants with sand.

  Chuckling and leaving the boy to his games, Agais moved on, nodding to Karren and her husband Sios, the pair of them helping Tolman shift the yoke of his now one-horse cart. Karren, like so many before and after her, had come to the Arros looking for some measure of protection. In the years after Raz’s name became known throughout the clans, more than one wanderer had approached Agais in the hopes of joining his family. Almost all of them he’d turned away at once, insulted upon realizing that a majority of them wished only to be backing the strongest party if civil war ever broke out across the South. It was a sad reality that the loosely united governing bodies of the separate cities were only weakening while the underground grew stronger. Slavery, despite being a banned practice, had always had a blind eye turned on it by the authorities. Now, though, the criminal rings were developing quickly, gaining power in the real sense of the word.

  Regardless, Agais wouldn’t hear of turning his family into a war pack, not from anyone. Those that didn’t leave quietly generally didn’t put up much of a fight once Raz and Jarden made themselves known.

  Karren, however, had been one of the few exceptions. When the Grandmother ruled her a good-hearted person, Agais had listened to her story. It was a lie—something about her father beating her—but the badly hidden, poorly healed scars on her wrists and ankles told the clanmaster all he needed to know. She lived with Trina and Kâtyn for some time before marrying Sios, a merchant from another caravan who’d joined with the Arros, cart and all. They’d had a child in the following year, but the poor boy died in a wave of fever that claimed the life of old Kosen as well.

  “Damn you, ya’ blasted, useless, Sun-cursed excuse of a limb.”

  Agais stopped and poked his head around the corner of the oldest and most worn wagon of the lot. A man was kneeling there, struggling to secure a series of boxes to the wall with rope. He had only one hand, the other cut down to a blunt stump just where his wrist might have been, a fact that wasn’t making his task any easier.

  “Want some help?” Agais asked, pulling himself into the cart.

  “Agais,” Sameyl breathed in relief, slumping down and leaning back on his good hand, letting Agais take over the knot tying. “Yes, please. I’m still figurin’ the details of how to work with this thing.” He waved the stump, then smirked a
s he watched the clanmaster’s fingers tie the boxes down in quick succession. “Advice from a friend? Hold onta’ those. They come in mighty handy. Eh? Eh?” He laughed at his own joke .

  Agais laughed along. Sameyl, Jenie, and their three children—Samso, Tessa, and Johva—were the other group of outsiders to have been adopted by the Arros. The family had been on the run from slavers, though they’d never been caught, and the story they told Agais was true the first time around. Sameyl, a stone mason by trade, had lost his hand in a work accident, nearly giving up his life in the process. He’d pulled through in the end, but no sane man hires a crippled laborer, so to survive the family had been forced to borrow crowns and food from the worst kinds of people. Eventually the debt had piled up so high they couldn’t see over it. When men came to collect, carrying chains and shackles, Sameyl and Samso had killed them, and the rest of the story was one of flight.

  “You’re a handsome and bless’d man,” Sameyl joked in thanks once Agais finished the knots, sitting up to examine the work.

  “So my wife tells me often,” Agais responded with a snort, and with that he hopped off the back of the cart, heading for the edge of the wagon ring to help Raz and the others finish burying the horse.

  II

  Karth spread like a faint shadow in the distance, swelling from the rippling line that was the horizon as all fourteen wagons crested the last of the desert’s high dunes. Seeing a city wasn’t a new experience for any of them. Not even seeing Karth specifically. But, regardless, there was always something about spending any amount of time rolling through the hot sands of the Cienbal that made the prospect of mingling with cultured civilization more than a little enticing.

  Especially if it meant you got to mingle in the shade.

  “Finally,” Grea breathed, shielding her eyes with a hand. “We’re late. I doubt we’ll manage to circle in anywhere near the markets.”

  “The walk will do us good,” Agais told her with a smile, the crinkling around his eyes deepening. “And between Raz and Jarden, I’m sure we’ll make it back and forth safely enough.”